Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T07:16:52.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Meliorist versus Insurgent Planners and the Problems of New York, 1921–1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Michael Simpson
Michael Simpson
Affiliation:
Michael Simpson lectures in History and American Studies at the University College of Swansea. He wishes to acknowledge the assistance given to him in the preparation of this essay by the Awards Scheme of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

American planning in the twentieth century has been dominated by a meliorist approach to environmental problems. This dominance has been challenged, more or less ineffectively, by a more radical tradition. The sharpest exchange between the two took place in the interwar years in the city and state of New York, respectively the nation's largest metropolis and then its most populous state. The problems of city and state were the problems of the new industrial-urban nation in microcosm. They attracted the attention of the leading figures in each camp and led to an abortive proposal for a state plan on the part of the radicals or insurgents and, in terms of its implementation, a much more successful Regional Plan of New York and its Environs (1921–30), the work of meliorist planners. This essay explores the problems of the metropolitan region in the interwar years, the alternative strategies put forward, the controversies between the opposing schools of thought and their relative successes and failures.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , August 1982 , pp. 207 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Simpson, M. A., “Two Traditions of American Planning: Olmsted and Burnham,” Town Planning Review, 47 (1976), 174–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Adams, T. et al. , Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, Vol. 1, The Graphic Regional Plan (New York: Regional Plan of New York, 1929), 126–28Google Scholar; Vol. 2, The Building of the City (New York: Regional Plan of New York, 1931), 585Google Scholar. (Hereafter abbreviated to RPNY.) Johnson, D. A., The Emergence of Metropolitan Regionalism: An Analysis of the 1929 Regional Plan of New York (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1974), pp. 26–27Google Scholar.

3 RPNY, 2, 50.

4 RPNY, 1, 126–28.

5 RPNY, 1, 163; 2, 75, 108–16.

6 See, for example, the comment of James, Henry in 1907: “The city is, of all great cities, the least endowed with any blest item of stately square or goodly garden.” The American Scene (New York: Scribners, 1946), p. 101Google Scholar.

7 Regional Survey of New York and its Environs, Vol. 3, Highway Traffic (New York: Regional Plan of New York, 1927), 61Google Scholar. (Hereafter RSNY.)

8 RPNY, 1, 388.

9 RSNY, 2, Population, Land Values and Government (New York, 1929), 26, 64Google Scholar; F. L. Olmsted Jr, to Henry James Jr, “The Definition of the Region,” 27 05 1924, Box 11, Regional Plan of New York Papers, Cornell UniversityGoogle Scholar. (Hereafter RPNY Papers.)

10 RSNY, 3, passim.

11 RPNY, 2, 42.

12 RPNY, 2, 38–41.

13 Fein, Albert, ed., Landscape into Cityscape: Frederick Law Olmsted's Plan for a Greater New York City (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press), 1968Google Scholar; Roper, Laura Wood, FLO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), pp. 353–56Google Scholar; Johnson, , The Emergence of Metropolitan Regionalism, pp. 54–56, 58Google Scholar.

14 Roper, pp. 143–55. 329–31. 344–62. 434–35.

15 Johnson, pp. 61–67, 114–31. Among the numerous independent agencies founded in New York at this time, the most notable was the Committee on the Congestion of Population (1907), which led directly to the National Conference on City Planning (1909), the fount of modern American planning organization. See National Conference on City Planning, annual conference reports (Boston, Mass.: NCCP, 1910 onwards)Google Scholar; Scott, M. C., American City Planning since 1890 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: California University Press, 1969), pp. 82–100Google Scholar; Kantor, H. A., “Benjamin C. Marsh and the Fight over Population Congestion,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 40 (1974), 422–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birch, E. L., “Advancing the Art and Science of Planning: Planners and their Organizations, 1909–1980,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 46 (1980), 22–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 RSNY, 2, 160.

17 Adams, Thomas, Outline of Town and City Planning (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1935), pp. 242–44, 300–04Google Scholar; American Mercury, pp. 147–48, in Box 93, RPNY Papers; Logan, T. H., “The Americanization of German Zoning,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 42 (1976), 377–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Newark City Planning Commission, City Planning for Newark (Newark, New Jersey: City Planning Commission, 1913)Google Scholar; Johnson, pp. 68–75.

19 Johnson, ibid., pp. 85–95.

20 Wright, Henry, “To Plan or Not to Plan,” Survey Graphics, 68, 1 10 1932, 468Google Scholar.

21 “Statement concerning publications of the Russell Sage Foundation,” in front end-papers of Adams, Outline of Town and City Planning.

22 Biographical notes on Trustees, members of the Regional Plan Committee and its staff, Box 30, RPNY Papers.

23 Obituary notice of Norton, C. D., New York Herald, 7 03 1923Google Scholar, and other obituaries, Box 43, RPNY Papers; Burnham, D. H. and Bennett, E. H., The Plan of Chicago (1909; rept. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

24 C. D. Norton to F. A. Delano, “The Plan of New York with references to the Plan of Chicago,” 24 11 1921 (printed New York, 1923), Box 43, RPNY PapersGoogle Scholar.

25 Norton, C. D., “Proposal for the Creation of a Plan of New York,” 31 01 1921, Box 43, RPNY PapersGoogle Scholar.

26 Norton to Delano, 24 November 1921. Kantor, H. A., “Charles Dyer Norton and the Origins of the Regional Plan of New York,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 39 (1973), 35–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Norton to Delano, 21 August 1922. Correspondence between Delano, John M. Glenn (Secretary of the Russell Sage Foundation) and Adams, 1923; Minutes of the Regional Plan Committee, 1923. All in Box 43, RPNY Papers.

28 Simpson, M. A., “Thomas Adams in Canada, 1914–1930,” Urban History Review (Canada), forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

29 Simpson, M. A., “Thomas Adams,” in Cherry, G. E., ed., Pioneers in British Planning (London: Architectural Press, 1981), pp. 19–45Google Scholar.

30 The plan overran its schedule by two years and between 1921 and 1930, the Regional Plan Committee spent over one million dollars on it. F. A. Delano, “Memorandum in Connection with Organizing the Work of the Plan of New York,” 6 June 1923; Delano to Adams, 9 June 1923; Conference between Adams, Glenn and Frederick P. Keppel (Secretary of the Regional Plan Committee), 15 June 1923; Minutes of the Regional Plan Committee, 31 March 1928. All in Box 43, RPNY Papers.

31 Adams, Thomas, Regional Planning in Relation to Public Health," American Journal of Public Health, 11 1926, p. ii 14Google Scholar; Committee Staff Minutes, 9 April 1922; “Basic General Assumptions Underlying the Regional Plan,” 30 December 1926, Box 43; Adams, “Draft Regional Plan,” 10 November 1924, Box 28, RPNY Papers; RPNY, 2, 99–104.

32 RPNY, 1, 131, 408; 2, 575–76; Thomas Adams, “Regional Planning in New York,” 14 (1925), 621–28; “Regional Planning in Relation to Public Administration,” 15 (1926), 35–42; “The Social objective in Regional Planning,” 15 (1926), 83. All in National Municipal Review.

33 RPNY, 1, 312. RSNY, 2, 108–14.

34 Adams, “Regional Planning in Relation to Public Health,” 1120. RPNY, 1, 149–52, 310; 2, 142–44, 339–41.

35 Ibid., 2, 142–44, 568–70.

36 Ibid., 341.

37 Ibid., 1, 175–307.

38 Ibid., 269–72, 300–02, 336–95.

39 Ibid., 131, 140, 309, 314; 2, 549–73. Adams, Thomas, “Proper Directions for Public Efforts in Housing,” The American City, 44 (1931), 118Google Scholar.

40 RPNY, 1, 309; 2, 178–84. Adams, Thomas, “The Regional Community of the Future,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 92 (1928), 1180Google Scholar.

41 RPNY, 2, 109, 112, 113, 116, 177–89.

42 Ibid., 195–96, 201–04, 214–19.

43 Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, Vol. 1, The Graphic Regional Plan (1929); Vol. 2, The Building of the City (1931); Regional Survey of New York and its Environs, 8 vols. (1927–1931). All published in New York by the Regional Plan of New York and its Environs.

44 Hines, T. S., Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1974)Google Scholar.

45 Burnham, and Bennett, , Plan of Chicago, p. 4Google Scholar.

46 RPNY, 2, 214.

47 Thomas Adams, discussion of papers by Whitten, Robert and Williams, Frank Backus, National Conference on City Planning: Detroit, 1915 (Boston, Mass.: NCCP, 1916), p. 160Google Scholar.

48 Adams to Mumford, 9 January 1930, Box 44, RPNY Papers.

49 RPNY, 2, 35; Adams, Thomas, “Regional Planning and Garden Cities,” Conference on the Third Garden City,Glasgow,3 June 1926, Box 33, RPNY PapersGoogle Scholar.

50 Adams, Thomas, “Ideals of the New York Regional Plan,” City Planning, 1 (1925), 5–6Google Scholar.

51 RPNY, 1, 132.

52 Adams, Thomas, “A Communication in Defense of the Regional Plan,” New Republic, 71 (6 07 1932), 208Google Scholar.

53 The most prominent spokesmen for the technocratic philosophy were Herbert Hoover and Thorstein Veblen. On Hoover, see Wilson, Joan Hoff, Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1975), pp. 36–7, 41, 49–50, 89–90, 111–12, 118, 120Google Scholar; Warren, Harris Gaylord, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967), pp. 32–37Google Scholar. On Veblen, see Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. 1, The Crisis of the Old Order (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), pp. 138–9, 461Google Scholar. On the Veblen-Hoover connection, see Burner, David, Herbert Hoover (New York: Knopf, 1979), 64, 157–58, 210Google Scholar.

54 Adams, Thomas, “A Statement of City Planning Principles,” Community Builder, 2 (1928), 23–24Google Scholar.

55 RPNY, 2, 577–78.

56 Ibid., 104–05; RSNY, 1, Major Economic Factors in Metropolitan Growth and Arrangement (New York: RPNY, 1927), iiiGoogle Scholar; Reviews of RPNY, 1 and 2, and congratulations from Hoover, etc., Box 15; press reactions, Box 43; Franklin D. Roosevelt to Delano, 14 May 1929; Lawrence Veiller to Adams, 28 May 1929, Box 44. All in RPNY Papers. John Nolen to Adams, 27 May 1929, Box 31, John Nolen Papers, Cornell University.

57 Fein, , Landscape into Cityscape, p. 25Google Scholar.

58 Lubove, Roy, Community Planning in the Nineteen-Twenties: The Contribution of the Regional Planning Association of America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

59 Whitaker, C. H. et al. , The Housing Problem in War and Peace (Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Architects, 1918)Google Scholar; National Housing Association, A Symposium on War Housing (Philadelphia: NHA, 1918)Google Scholar.

60 Survey Graphic, 54 (1925), 129Google Scholar; Sussman, C., ed., Planning the Fourth Migration: The Neglected Vision of the Regional Planning Association of America (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Hulchanski, J. D., review of Sussman, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 3 (1979), 298–301Google Scholar.

61 Stein, Clarence S., “Dinosaur Cities,” Survey Graphic, 54 (1925), 134–38Google Scholar; State of New York, Bureau of Housing and Regional Planning, News Bulletin, No. 8, April-May 1925, Box II, RPNY Papers.

62 State of New York, Report of the Commission of Housing and Regional Planning to Governor Alfred E. Smith (Albany, New York: State of New York, 1926)Google Scholar; Lewis Mumford, “Regional Planning,” Lecture at the University of Virginia, July 1931, reprinted in Sussman, pp. 201, 203–07; Mumford, Lewis, The City in History (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966), pp. 595–96Google Scholar.

63 Caro, R. A., The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), pp. 166–67, 240, 256–57, 273–74Google Scholar; Sussman, pp. 143–44.

64 City Housing Corporation, A Town for the Motor Age (New York: c.1930)Google Scholar, Birch, E. L., “Radburn and the American Planning Movement: The Persistence of an Idea,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 46 (1980), pp. 424–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stein, Clarence S., Toward New Towns for America (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966), pp. 37–73Google Scholar; Mumford, City in History, Graphic Section Four, Plate 51 and notes.

65 Smith, Geddes, “ ‘Friction of Space’ Among Twenty Million,” The Survey, 15 03 1927, pp. 797–99Google Scholar. (The name is almost certainly a pseudonym for Lewis Mumford.)

66 Wright, Henry, Survey Graphic, 68 (1 10 1932), 468–69Google Scholar.

67 Clarence Stein, Bureau of Housing and Regional Planning, News Bulletin, No. 8, April-May 1925.

68 Mumford, Lewis, “The Intolerable City,” Harpers, 02 1926, p. 288Google Scholar.

69 Mumford, , “Botched Cities,” undated cutting from American Mercury, p. 144Google Scholar, in Box 93, RPNY Papers.

70 Mumford, “The Intolerable City,” p. 293. Mumford, Lewis, “Realities vs. Dreams,” Journal of the American Institute of Architects, 13 (1925), 199Google Scholar; Sussman, pp. 122– 23.

71 Mumford, Lewis, “The Plan of New York,” New Republic, 71, 15 06 1932, 121–26Google Scholar; 22 June 1932, 146–54; Adams, Thomas, “A Communication in Defense of the Regional Plan,” New Republic, 71, 6 07 1932, 207–10Google Scholar; Scott, M. C., American City Planning, pp. 289–94Google Scholar.

72 Mumford, , New Republic, 71, 15 06 1932, 122Google Scholar; 62, 29 January 1930; 71, 22 June 1932, 154.

73 Editorial, “Wilt Thou Play with Leviathan?” New Republic, 34, 24 01 1923Google Scholar. (This was almost certainly by Mumford.) Mumford, , “The Plan of New York,” New Republic, 71, 22 06 1932Google Scholar.

74 Adams, , New Republic, 71, 6 07 1932, 208Google Scholar.

75 Adams, Thomas, “The American Community in Fifty Years,” National Conference on City Planning: Pittsburgh, 1932 (New York: NCCP, 1933), p. 3Google Scholar.

76 Johnson, , The Emergence of Metropolitan Regionalism, p. 383Google Scholar.

77 Lewis Mumford to the author, 23rd June 1977; Correspondence between Adams and Mumford, January 1930, Box 44, RPNY Papers.

78 Adams, , New Republic, 71, 6 07 1932, 208Google Scholar; Adams, Thomas, “The Planning of the New York Region,” Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 36 (1929), 706Google Scholar.

79 Johnson, p. 542.

80 Johnson, pp. 450, 481, 543; Caro, , The Power Broker, pp. 5–9, 339–46Google Scholar.

81 Regional Plan Association, From Plan to Reality, 1 (1933)Google Scholar; 2 (1938); 3 (1942). All published by Regional Plan Association in New York. Thomas Adams, address at RPA luncheon, 2 June 1938, Box 45, RPNY Papers; Thomas Adams, “Synopsis of Lectures,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 1938 (mimeographed copy, School of Design Library, Harvard University).

82 Johnson, pp. 556–57, 559, 561–65.

83 Johnson, pp. 503, 505.

84 Regional Plan Association, The Second Regional Plan: A Draft for Discussion (New York: RPA. 1968)Google Scholar.

85 Mumford, Lewis, “Foreword,” in Stein, Clarence, Toward New Towns for America, p. 15Google Scholar.

86 Myhra, D., “Rexford G. Tugwell: Initiator of America's Greenbelt New Towns, 1935–36,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 40 (1974), 176–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Conkin, P. K., Tomorrow a New World (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Arnold, J. L., The New Deal in the Suburbs (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Stein, Toward New Towns for America; Sussman, , Planning the Fourth Migration, pp. 38–42Google Scholar.

87 Goist, P. D., “Seeing Things Whole: A Consideration of Lewis Mumford,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 38 (1972), 379–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.