The Multivillage-Metropolis Baton Rouge A Neopragmatic Landscape Approach

The capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, has been the scene of fundamental changes in recent decades. In the context of the tripole of petrochemistry, Louisiana State University (LSU) and public administration (especially of the state of Louisiana), which has been fully developed since the end of the 1920s, general processes (such as the transition from modern to post-modern spatial development) mix with specific local and regional characteristics and logics, also in dealing with spaces (such as the eccentric location of the downtown area, the limited influence of spatial planning). The result is a social-spatial formation of a 'multivillage metropolis'. The investigation of this 'multivillage metropolis' follows a neopragmatic approach that triangulates different theories, methods, data and researcher perspectives.

Complex Impacts on Baton Rouge: supraregional development contexts and impulses.- The Regional Contextualization: Main Features of Louisiana's Development.- Historical Aspects of the Urban-rural Hybrid Landscape Biography of Baton Rouge.- Compartments of Development in the Spatial Pastiche of Baton Rouge.- Baton Rouge and Mass Media: of descriptions, interpretations and stagings.- Baton Rouge as a Living Environment.- Conclusions - of Developments, Reflections, and Perspectives on the 'Multivillage-Metropolis'.- Post Scriptum: The Baton Rouge Style.

Dr. Dr. Olaf Kühne is professor for urban and regional development at the University of Tübingen.
Dr. Corinna Jenal is a research assistant in the research area of urban and regional development at the University of Tübingen.