Citizen's Bookshelf . . .
CITY PLANNING
The following comments and suggestedreadings have been prepared by H. Wentworth Eldredge '31, Professor of Sociology,whose courses include Community andCity Planning and National Patterns ofCulture.
All American cities over 250,000 population, 73% over 25,000, have official planning commissions. Here is a new and challenging professional field for the improvement of a democratic way of life now approximately 60% urbanized. Some dozen post-World War II Dartmouth graduates have gone on or are going on to city planning careers after taking higher degrees elsewhere. In addition to the "pros" there are increasingly large numbers of citizens who cooperate in their local communities in the systematic plans for redeveloping our modern cities. Enormous possibilities stretch ahead for rebuilding central cities under Title I, Redevelopment, of the Housing Act of 1949, under which some 250 cities in 40 states have inaugurated projects. In redevelopment, the city tears down and levels a slum or blighted area which is then sold or rented for new approved uses under a comprehensive city plan. The Federal Government picks up the tab for twothirds of the loss in the preparation of the site for new uses. A golden opportunity for municipalities!
THE CULTURE OF CITIES. Lewis Mumford (Harcourt Brace, 1938). Social scientist and social philosopher, the author has brilliantly depicted urban patterns since the late medieval period. He is intensely critical of the planless, gridiron cities of western industrial civilization and charts possible courses to re-humanize the sprawling metropolitan areas. Mumford is a semantic thinker and from him has come much of modern western planning thought.
CITY DEVELOPMENT. Lewis Mumford (Harcourt Brace, 1945). A series of sharp little essays on various phases of city planning originally collected for English readers in the immediate post-World War II period. See especially the lost opportunities in Honolulu and "The Social Foundations of Post-War Building." It is impossible to plan without goals; in this latter essay Mumford attempts to set up tentative planning objectives.
THE URBAN PATTERN. Arthur B. Gallion (Van Nostrand, 1950). While text-bookish in form, herein is contained practically everything the conscientious amateur planner should know. A handy reference book for the citizens' advisory committee to any local planning organization.
COMMUNITIES FOR BETTER LIVING. James Dahir (Harper, 1950). The modern planner is experimenting with neighborhood units consciously planned and built into our old formless urban areas. There is no guarantee that a livelier community life will result from this scheme seeking to recapture the humanity of the past. This book is perhaps the best recent summary of this new planning "gimmick" which can be seen all the way from Berkeley, California, and Chicago, to Amsterdam and Stockholm.
TOWARD NEW TOWNS FOR AMERICA. Clarence Stein (Public Administration Service, Chicago, 1951). Stein is America's foremost experimental planner. He has played a part in practically all forward looking housing and city planning during the past three decades. The optimum planning goal of his group is to cut down central urban density and create new cities of approximately 50,000 to collect the overflow. The British New Towns, of which 14 are in various stages of construction, are probably the best known examples of this in the world today. Levittown, Pa., will not quite qualify.
TWO THIRDS OF A NATION. Nathan Straus (Knopf, 195 a). The basic planning problem is housing. The former head of the New York City Housing Authority charges head on into this problem and concludes that public housing must become as normal a municipal service as public education. Many will not like this conclusion but here is a clear exposition of the housers' position.
ROBERT MOSES. Cleveland Rodgers (Henry Holt, 1952). This biography of the most controversial figure in American municipal life gives some idea of the practical problems faced in rebuilding the gigantic New York metropolitan area. Moses, in a most high-handed manner, seemingly spurning all the professional planners of our century, has accomplished miracles in parkway bypasses, recreation facilities and mass public housing for Gothamites. One critic has remarked that it was a shame that such democratic things were accomplished so undemocratically.
