Planning history in the USA

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Planning history in the USA
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THE STATE
Enviro-nment
Private sector/ Market forces
Community interest groups
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US IMMIGRATION by fiscal year, 1820-1900. U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1990
Statistical Yearbook. Washington, D.C. U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1991
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Urban Reform in the 19th Century

• Characteristics of the 19C city in
• - Early stages of capitalist development
• Development concentrated in small gateway
  cities
• (Atlantic seaboard and along rivers and the
  Great Lakes
• region)
• Private sector control
• Raison detre economic growth
• Weak government/limited intervention in market
  place
• No planning for orderly development
• Great waves of immigration
• Overcrowded cities
• Housing shortage
• Unsanitary conditions
• Public health hazards
• Disease epidemics (e. g. yellow fever, malaria,
  cholera)

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19 Century Planning Activities1. Sanitary
Reform

• Technological innovations
• European influences, and
• Incipient planning actions to improve cleanliness
  of city and public health conditions
• introduction of water carriage sewerage systems
  (sewers)
• Inventory of sanitary conditions
• Provision of public open space
• Importance of adequate ventilation and sunlight
  and urban vegetation

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This set of photos, taken on Fifth Street in New
York City before and after Warings campaign,
illustrates the dramatic effects of environmental
sanitation at the end of the nineteenth century.
(Museum of the City of New York)
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II. CITY BEAUTIFUL Movement

• - Involved actions intended to improve the
  appearance of the city as well as improvement in
  public design.
• CB movement included 4 main elements or themes
• Municipal art
• Civic improvement
• Outdoor art
• Classical design

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Municipal Art

• promotion of decoration in the city
• addition of sculpture, statues
• public art display arches, murals, fountains
• tree planting
• use of color in public spaces
• anti billboards and anti smoke campaigns

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Civic Improvement

• Sought to temper the effect of industrialization
  in the domestic (home and neighborhood)
  environment
• Often led by women who promoted
• Cleanup and beautification of communities
• improvement in appearance of front yards
• Promotion of decorative home gardens
• By 1905 there were 2,426 affiliated civic
  improvement societies supporting the American
  Planning Movement.

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Outdoor Art

• - Led by American Park and Outdoor Art
  Association (APOAA)
• - Frederick Law Olmsted a major figure of APOAA
  and - American Civic Association joined APOAA.
  Together they pushed for
• a National Park System
• city parks for enjoyment working people
• planned urban development
• better housing, civic art, sanitation and traffic
  safety.

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Classical design

• - Led by Architects
• Objective to integrate European classicism and
  grand design in American city, including
• traditional Grecian-Roman design themes, into
  city plans.
• See for Example Daniel Burnhams Plan of
  Chicago
• But preceded by other examples like Pierre
  LEnfants street plan of Washington , D.C. in
  1790

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European Architectural Influences

• Doric style Corinthian style

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III. Neighborhood building and housing reform

• Individuals and settlement workers introduced
  humanitarian concerns for women and children
• Sound housing
• Home improvement
• Schools
• Playground
• Spirit of community life
• Overcoming crowding and unsanitary conditions
  inside residences

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NYC Upper Middle Class Parlor NYC
Tenement Room
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The Settlement House Movement

• European examples
• Englands first - Toynbee Hall 1884
• American imitation
• New Yorks Stanton Hall 1886
• Chicagos Hull House and many others

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19 Century The culminating experience
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The 1893 Columbian Exposition

• In this White city of almost 700 acres
  Chicagoans and millions of visitors, accustomed
  to urban ugliness, saw for the first time a
  splendid example of civic design and beauty in
  the classic pattern and on a grand scale, and
  they liked it. Indeed it marked the beginning in
  this country of orderly arrangement of extensive
  buildings and grounds.
• Robert Wrigley, Jr. In Kreukeberg, p.58

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Creating a vision of the cityAnd they came to
experience the White City
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IV. Comprehensive Planning The Plan of Chicago
(1901-1905)

• Dream no small dreams.

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Then and now Dynamic aspects of spatial images.
Where in the world are these structures located?
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Discussion?

• 19th Century urban planning actions.