Journal of Planning History recent issues

Planning and Ideology

Guttenberg, A. Z. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:19:38 PDT

This article identifies some of the major themes or ideologies that dominate American planning as they are reflected in the variable meanings of some of its key terms, especially, the word "planning," itself. It avers that these ideologies refer not only to the planning of cities and regions, but to the nation as a whole. It traces their origins to the societal crises such as culture conflict, war, and depression that have shaken American society in the course of the last century, or to periods of recovery from such crises. It shows how they have succeeded each other in time, so as to constitute more or less distinct eras of planning thought and practice. It also notes how the same ideologies confront each other in space resulting in severe land-use conflicts, especially at the edges of metropolitan areas. In the light of these ideologies, the article raises questions about the nature and future of the contemporary American planning profession.

Whither the Region? Periods and Periodicity in Planning History

Hise, G. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:19:38 PDT

The principal argument of this article is that for a century and more the region has been a significant scale for planning practice, for the provision of basic services, and more recently for citizen activism. Yet within planning history, attention to regions and regionalism has waxed and waned. When practitioners, historians, and social scientists have considered regions retrospectively, they have tended to view events and endeavors as episodic; they have assigned the region to particular moments or movements (a City Beautiful, the New Deal, a "new regionalism"), to discrete eras or decades (ecological regionalism, regional science), and to particular localities. Often those who study practice have seen regions when those they write about organized their efforts, framed their plans, implemented policies, and constituted these explicitly as regional in scale and scope. Because the attention of those who write planning history has been more periodic than comprehensive, scholars and practitioners who seek to understand the development over time of region as a concept, an ideal, and a space of analysis and intervention have turned to geography and allied disciplines for theory and empirics.

Marginal Lands and Suburban Nature: Open Space Planning and the Case of the 1893 Boston Metropolitan Parks Plan

Moga, S. T. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:19:38 PDT

Soon after publication, the 1893 Boston Metropolitan Parks Report came to be regarded as a model plan for American cities. Little known to the public today, it is frequently cited by landscape and planning historians as a testament to the vision of "pioneer" landscape architect Charles Eliot and metropolitan planning advocate Sylvester Baxter. However, planning historians have overlooked key aspects of the plan and omitted significant details about the authors’ redevelopment and planning goals. I argue that Eliot and Baxter viewed open space planning as a means of combating slums and establishing a regionwide land use template for future growth.

Review Essay: Familiar Competitors on a New Playing Field: Sports Venues and Urban Development in Contemporary America: LARRY BENNETT and COSTAS SPIROU. It's Hardly Sportin': Stadiums, Neighborhoods, and the New Chicago. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003. KEVIN J. DELANEY and RICK ECKSTEIN. Public Dollars, Private Stadiums: The Battle over Building Sports Stadiums. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003. TIMOTHY JON CURRY, KENT SCHWIRIAN, and RACHEL WOLDOFF. High Stakes: Big Time Sports and Downtown Redevelopment. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004

McCarthy, J. M. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:19:38 PDT

Commemoration Amid Criticism: The Mixed Legacy of Urban Renewal in Southwest Washington, D.C

Russello Ammon, F. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:44:21 PDT

This case study of the postwar rebuilding of Southwest Washington, D.C., examines the long-term experience of one urban renewal project, from conception, planning, and design, through the construction and occupation of its new built environment. Southwest was one of the earliest, largest, and most comprehensive and varied Title I redevelopment projects in the country. A close look at its built environment demonstrates significant outcomes in terms of building and landscape design, overall neighborhood planning, and accompanying demographic changes. Existing work on Southwest and its postwar peers duly illustrates the racial injustice and physical and social loss that urban renewal produced. This article expands and supplements these narratives with parallel stories of enduring residential structures amid commercial failures, and new community formation where another had been torn apart. The result is a mixed physical and social legacy for urban renewal that has attracted both criticism and commemoration.

"Planning with People": Urban Renewal in Boston's Washington Park, 1950-1970

Spiers, J. H. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:44:21 PDT

This article examines urban renewal in Washington Park, a 502-acre area in the Roxbury section of Boston, the heart of the Black community, that the city made the center of its residential urban renewal program in the 1960s. It analyzes the way Washington Park, in contrast to earlier projects, emphasized rehabilitation, offered a "planning with people" approach that solicited community input, and witnessed the growth of social service programming for "people renewal." The article discusses how instead of planning with the community, leaders of local community organization Freedom House worked with the Boston Redevelopment Authority to develop a project that privileged middle-class values of home ownership and community design over the needs and interests of the predominantly working-class residents.

Premodern, Modern, Postmodern? Placing New Urbanism into a Historical Perspective

Hirt, S. A. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:44:21 PDT

This study explores New Urbanism as part of a contemporary cultural paradigm referred to as postmodernism. By highlighting the complex relationship between New Urbanist design prescriptions and earlier urban development approaches from the premodern and modern periods, I reflect on some seemingly paradoxical aspects of both New Urbanism and postmodernism. Specifically, I argue that whereas New Urbanism rejects the key design tenets of modernist planning and strives to revive premodern urban forms (and in this sense qualifies as "postmodern"), it contradicts one of the foundational premises of postmodern thought—the commitment to pluralism. I further argue that this contradiction relates to a fundamental challenge facing New Urbanists planners: how to achieve premodern urban design ideals within the economic and technological conditions of contemporary society. I illustrate these themes and contradictions with examples of historic and recent planning in the Cleveland region.

Review Essay: Sprawl: The View from Toronto

White, R. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:44:21 PDT

The Neighborhood Ideal: Local Planning Practices in Progressive-era Women's Clubs

Belanger, E. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:53:27 PDT

In the years between 1883 and 1914, women of the Wednesday Club of St. Louis and the Chicago Woman's Club embarked on a series of neighborhood planning initiatives. Their initiatives encouraged the formation of cross-class coalitions of residents, reformers, and city officials; the cultivation of neighborhood identity; and the formation of democratic public spaces. Club women's vision of the city as a conglomeration of smaller neighborhood units challenged the dominant practices of urban development and contributed to citywide debates over urban planning. By identifying the voice of women's collective activism in discussions of municipal responsibility, citizenship, and urban design, this article provides insight into women's local planning efforts and their relationship to urban development.

The Neighborhood Unit: Physical Design or Physical Determinism?

Lloyd Lawhon, L. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:53:27 PDT

This paper traces the institutional, social, and physical design forces that shaped the ideology of Clarence A. Perry and influenced his development of the "neighborhood unit" concept. Officially introduced in 1929 as a part of the published Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, the neighborhood unit, as conceived by Perry, has strongly influenced local planning and subdivision design since its inception. In addition, this paper investigates controversy surrounding attitudes toward the neighborhood unit and the purported "determinism" and reformist intents of the concept. It investigates the wide-spread influence of the model on residential design, investigates current attitudes of usefulness of the model, and considers New Urbanism as an opportune tweaking of the design elements of the neighborhood unit. It concludes that the neighborhood unit, while having social influences in residential life, is more accurately termed a physical design model that weaves neighborhood layout and opportunities for interaction.

Stent (or Dagger?) in the Heart of Town: Urban Freeways in Syracuse, 1944--1967

DiMento, J. F. C. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:53:27 PDT

This is a case study of decision making on urban freeways in American cities using Syracuse, New York. Although many transportation decisions have affected this central New York city, among the most important are those surrounding the state and interstate highways through Syracuse (New York State Thruway and Interstates 81 and 690). The author traces important steps and events in the city's decisions to allow major highways to traverse the city center, decisions that had important effects on patterns of urban formation, growth, and decline. The case is another illustration of the importance of urban freeways in city history. Information sources are historical archives and secondary data. The case suggests that Syracuse falls into a class of cities whose fates are dependent to a great extent on major forces linked to the transportation sector but whose urban infrastructure decisions and growth patterns are not alike. These patterns are related to a set of interacting phenomena— from timing of transportation decisions within an environment of changing state and federal funding opportunities and environmental law to governmental philosophy. Central to the city outcome was the convergence, before and relatively early in the evolution of environmental and preservation law and policy, of the city planning goals of "slum clearance" and redevelopment (later, urban renewal), on the one hand, and the transportation goals of eliminating congestion and improving vehicle mobility, on the other. Also important was the availability of nonlocal funding to a fiscally conservative city administration, one that was also deferential, often legally obligated to be, to state highway planning directions.

Review Essay: The Car and the City: Rethinking the Automobile and Its Impact

Avila, E. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:53:27 PDT

Layer upon Layer: Public Authorities and Airport Ownership and Management in St. Louis, 1947-1980

Daly Bednarek, J. R. — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:29:23 PST

Although the ownership and management of the nation's air carrier airports continues under a variety of models, the public authority became a popular option following World War II. Beginning in 1947, the St. Louis region witnessed repeated attempts to place the area's air carrier and general aviation airports under a single metropolitan airport authority, one that would operate not only in Missouri but Illinois as well. A number of potential models for action existed. After many attempts, however, the ownership and management of the airports in the St. Louis region remained fragmented, with many overlapping layers.

Urban Growth of a City Under Siege: Tulkarm, Palestine Over the Past Century

Thawaba, S. A. — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:29:23 PST

Tulkarm city experienced planning and regulation of its development under five different regimes during the past century. These regimes left their footprints on the city's physical structure, affected its growth pattern, and affected its quality of life. Ottoman rule, the British Mandate, Jordanian rule, Israeli Occupation and the Palestinian National Authority each ruled the area and contributed to the recent shape and physical spatial structure of Tulkarm City. This study highlights the major changes and influences on the city's growth pattern and physical spatial structure during the past century.

Identity and Urban Development in the New South

Michney, T. M. — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:29:23 PST

Captain Blake versus the Highwaymen: Or, How San Francisco Won the Freeway Revolt

Johnson, K. M. — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:29:23 PST

The San Francisco freeway revolt was not just the first but the longest 1960s protest against superhighway construction in urban areas. Most accounts attribute this to the city's dramatic natural setting, which fostered an early and insistent aesthetic critique. This article identifies the critical condition in not the city but the state. In 1947, the California legislature reoriented its entire highway program from multipurpose roads to limited-access freeways designed to go directly into cities. Resituating the revolt in this context explains not just its precocity but its duration and intensity. What began as a reasonable assertion of local jurisdiction was transformed into a protracted standoff with the state by the vast new funding of the Interstate and Defense Highway Act of 1956. It also reveals how close the city came to losing the revolt, despite the legitimacy of its claims, and identifies a direct impact of this narrow victory on the emerging environmental movement.