With so much attention focused on planning for the "new South," the sense of a historical perspective is often lost. Carolina Planning is grateful to two of our readers for bringing the following article by Lewis Mumford to our attention, suggesting that after forty years it "may still be worth reading." Mumford, best known for his pioneering works such as The Culture of Cities (1938), wrote "A Thought for the Growing South" in 1949 after spending a year teaching in North Carolina universities. The article was commissioned by George Myers Stephens, publisher of The Southern Packet (who was also the father of two graduates of the Department of City and Regional Planning at UNC-Chapel Hill). We reprint the article here with great pleasure, along with commentary by DCRP professor David R. Godschalk, who explores the relevance of Mumford 's thoughts to the state of the "growing South" of today. We hope that renewed examination of this piece will be thought-provoking to current planning students and practitioners, now in a position to guide the course of development in our region
