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FEATURE Ten Events That Shaped the 20th American City 1850 resulted in drastic reduction in the 1 1847: THE BEGINNING by Laurence Gerckens, AICP OF MASSIVE IMMIGRATIONS need for farm labor. Later immigrants, finding little security in farming, congre- Between 1865 and 1917 more than gated in cities, where the factory system 25 million people immigrated to the Editor’s Note: Over the I’ve found that many citizen planners are quite interest- had created a demand for a large mass of United States. Starting in 1846-47, ed in broader issues concerning America’s relatively unskilled labor. By 1900, New American immigration increased land use and development pattern. I thought York City tenements housed 1,500,000 sharply, driven first by the Irish potato it might be beneficial to provide PCJ readers people. blight and subsequently by failed democ- with some historical perspective — to help racy movements in Europe. In the , see how we’ve gotten to where we are. Plan- 2,598,000 immigrated to America; the ning historian Larry Gerckens (who has pre- and ‘70s brought 5,127,000 more, viously contributed several articles to the while the and the ‘90s would bring PCJ) generously accepted the challenge of another 8,935,000. Even higher rates of trying to provide an overview of some of the immigration — over 8,000,000 new resi- key historical events that have shaped our dents per — followed until the cities. Obviously, it’s no easy task to sum up First . complex events in a few sentences. Neverthe- Early immigrants found homes on less, I think you’ll find that Gerckens ably met the farms, but the mechanization of the challenge. agriculture initiated by the mass manu- As a follow-up to this article, Gerckens is facture of the mechanical -drawn preparing two additional short articles for the Massive immigration, mechanization reaper by Cyrus Hall McCormick in PCJ: one examining the most significant fail- ures in American urbanism, the of the farms, and the factory system cre- other looking at key planning success stories. ated an urban complex consisting of I hope that by looking back, this series of arti- dense multi-storied factories in the city cles will help us better understand the center intermingled with rapidly and that have shaped — and in many ways con- often poorly constructed multi-storied tinue to shape — our cities and towns. tenements, the homes of millions of recently arrived Americans that became the focus of 20th century slum clearance and urban redevelopment programs. Above and below. Tenement interior layout and exterior view. From: Jacob Riis’ famous exposé, NATIONAL PARK SERVICES STATUE OF LIBERTY MONUMENT How the Other Half . Immigrants being given a mental test at Ellis Island and a 1905 view of the Main Building of Ellis Island where millions of immigrants were processed before their entrance. into America. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

PLANNING COMMISSIONERS JOURNAL / NUMBER 30 / SPRING 1998

12 3 1886: OF THE ELECTRIC TROLLEY In 1886, J. Van Depoele put the first successful electric trolley car into operation in Montgomery, Ala- bama. It did for the upper-middle class what the earlier steam locomotive did for the wealthy: it gave them ready access to the perimeter of the city, per- mitting them to remove themselves from the urban poor and the filth and ugliness of the urban-industrial environ- ment. The electric trolley car allowed for A yard water closet, photographed by the New Drawing of Clinton J. Warren’s Unity Building, the creation of higher income-class cor- York City Tenement Housing Department. Chicago, 1891, showing the iron and steel frame construction. From: Industrial Chicago (Good- ridors extending outward from the city Tenement Housing speed Publishing Co., 1891). center, removing from the city center all “The cleansing of the Augean stables but the lower-middle- and the lower- was a small task compared to the cleans- 2 1885: INTRODUCTION income. With this came development of ing of New York’s 82,000 tenement hous- OF THE STEEL-FRAMED new retail centers and services at trolley es, occupied by nearly three millions of stops beyond the city center — such as people, representing every nationality and “SKYSCRAPER” Shaker Square outside of Cleveland. every degree in the social scale.… With the construction of a - Finer homes and apartments lined trol- Some of the conditions which are found wide system of railroads focused on ley routes, which provided prestigious in these buildings surpass imagination. It Chicago as a central distribution locations that were both convenient to does not seem possible that human beings can actually live under them and transportation and highly visible. point and creation of an immense retain the least vestige of health. Many Land in the quadrants between the internal market for goods through cases have been found where the plumb- immigration, land prices in downtown branches of the trolley system (beyond a ing fixtures have been removed and the Chicago skyrocketed. In order to prof- four-to-eight block walking distance pipes left open, permitting sewer gas to itably utilize such expensive land, from the trolley lines) commonly find its way into the apartments and per- income from multi-floor rentals was remained undeveloped for residential meate the building. In some of the hous- needed. Architect William Le Baron use and was often used for foundries, es, where the owner has not employed a Jenny’s ten-story Home Insurance Build- slaughter houses, garbage dumps, and, responsible janitor or housekeeper, the ing, built in Chicago in 1885, was the in the , the first close-in airports. tenants have used the dumbwaiter shaft as a chute for the disposal of rubbish, first tall building constructed utilizing Many of the residential trolley corridors fecal matter, and garbage… In some of the principles of modern “skyscraper” of the early became strip commer- cial corridors when the private automo- these houses the water closets have been construction. The building had cast iron stopped up for weeks, the bowls over- bile replaced the station-stop focused and steel beams and girders supporting flowing and the floors covered.” trolley car. each floor that were fastened together continued on page 14 From: First Report of the Tenement House Depart- and bolted to cast iron and steel ment of the City of New columns, creating a cage-like metal York (New York: 1903) frame that acted as the main load-bear- 5-7. ing members of the building. This system of construction com- bined with a safe passenger elevator (a steam-driven elevator with a safety brake had been patented by Elisha Graves Otis in 1861) made the modern high-rise structure possible, resulting in Trolleys like this one from Rock Island, the familiar densely built cluster of busi- Illinois, could be found ness towers that constituted the skyline in cities across the of the American city throughout the U.S. at the turn of

20th century. AUGUSTANA COLLEGE LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS the century.

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13 Ten Events… continued from page 13

4 1893: THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION Over 27 million people attended Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, the great world’s fair of 1893. Visi- tors to the “The White City,” as the fair was often called, were stirred by the majestic grouping of public buildings and their associated open spaces and plazas — designed as a unity and planned both functionally and esthetical- ly for the benefit of the citizen-visitor. Brilliantly lit by Edison’s electric lights and kept immaculately clean, the all- white composition stood in marked con- trast to the sooty blackness and disorder

of Chicago and other large American CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY cities. View across the west end of the Main Basin, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893. Architect Daniel Hudson Burnham, soul-elevating public environment His Ford Motor Company, organized in of Burnham and Root, coordinated the embellished with reflecting pools, ter- 1903, focused on producing a simple and design and construction of the fair. He races, and sculpture. Millions came to inexpensive automobile. Following lim- provided for generous and attractive the fair and for the first time experienced ited success with his “Model N,” he public parks and plazas between the what an American city could be: beauti- introduced the “Model T” in 1908. This exhibit buildings, baby changing stations ful, clean, healthful, functional, efficient, sturdy black vehicle, with its 4-cylinder and other amenities to meet the needs of cultured, and people-centered. 20-horsepower gasoline engine, sold for visitors, efficient transportation both to Millions left the fair determined to $825. More than 10,000 were sold in its and within the fair, and an inspiring and realize some part of that potential in their first of production. With sales own home town. Businessmen returned approaching 200,000 a year, Ford intro- to their commercial clubs to promote duced the moving mass Columbian Exposition “city plans” for the improvement of their system at his plant in Highland Park, communities and to promote state legis- Michigan in 1914. “It was indeed worth a journey of a lation that would permit their cities to thousand miles to stand on the north plan for the future. Based on this enthu- bridge of the great lagoon… here is such siasm for public improvement, Burnham, accord between the parts and the whole design that every column, every section, the “Father of American City Planning,” every angle is an object of grace and dig- would: guide the re-planning of Wash- nity… If any fault is to be found with this ington, D.C.; chair the development of a Columbian Exposition, it will be on civic-center plan for Cleveland; draft full account of the inability of the human city plans for Manila and San Francisco; mind to compass and appreciate it.” and prepare the first American metropol- — C.C. Buel, writing for The Century magazine, itan regional plan, the Chicago Plan of 1893. 1909, which would set the stage for long- “The fair! The fair! A city of palaces set range community planning in America. in spaces of emerald, reflected in shining lengths of water which stretch in undulat- 5 1908: DEVELOPMENT ing lines under the arches of marble OF THE INEXPENSIVE bridges… The results stand to-day… AUTOMOBILE a vision and foretaste of how the world will one day build in earnest.” Henry Ford, chief engineer for the — Candace Wheeler, writing for Harper’s New Edison Electric Company in Detroit,

Monthly Magazine, May 1893. built his first automobile in 1896. J.C. NICHOLS COMPANY ARCHIVES

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14 In response to the influx of the auto- The Model-T When I got to the outskirts of Mt. mobile onto the American scene, and Clemens, there was a railroad track with a recognizing the need for better roads HENRY FORD very slow moving train. I brought the connecting the cities of America, Con- “It wasn’t until 1909, after years of argu- throttle up as far as I could to slow it gress passed the first Federal High- ing with his partners, that Ford put out his down, but no, the caboose was still in way Act in 1916. The Act provided for first Model T.… That season he sold more front of me and I had to put the breaks on. It stalled. I got out and started cranking two-lane concrete roads connecting than ten thousand tin lizzies, ten years and the brakeman who was standing there all of the urban centers of America, later he was selling almost a million a said “Why did you stall it?” I told him replacing the rutted mud-paths of an year.… In 1913 they established the every time I put the brakes on, it stalls. He earlier era while creating an assemblyline at Ford’s. That season the profits were something like twen- said “Lift up that emergency brake and alternative to the railroad for tyfive million dollars, but they had then it won’t stall.” I said “Thank you!” inter-city transportation. trouble in keeping the men on the I headed out of town to 23 Mile Road, a By 1927, when production job, machinists didn’t seem to like it country road, and after a short distance I of the “Model T” ended, at Ford’s.… had a flat tire. I looked and found that I America had become an auto- Henry Ford as an old man… didn’t have a jack or a pump so I hailed a mobile society — and the bought the Wayside Inn near Sud- farmer coming by who stopped and loaned landscape was rapidly starting to bury, Massachusetts, he had the new me a jack and a pump. He waited patiently change. The auto-oriented suburban highway where the newmodel roared while I repaired the tube. I went on to shopping center, exemplified by the J.C. and slithered and hissed oilily past (the Algonac on the St. Clair River. I blew both Nichols Company’s Country Club Plaza new noise of the automobile), the tire and the tube as I reached town. I in Kansas City, Missouri, had become a moved away from the door, didn’t have a spare, so I drove on the rim reality. The first American new put back the old bad road, up to Robert’s Landing on the river, put town accessible only by automobile, so that everything might be the sign down signaling the car ferry to Mariemont, Ohio, was under construc- the way it used to be, cross the river and pick me up. … in the days of and buggies.” tion. More significantly, suburban devel- I started on my way to Wallaceburg, Ontario. I soon picked up a hitchhiker. opment, freed from the geographic From: John Dos Passos, The Big Money (1933) When I arrived in constraints of trolley line location, Wallaceburg, I stopped, began to spread cities to previously rural pulled up the emer- hinterlands. This residential expansion, gency brake and put the characterized by small homes on narrow brake on. The hitchhik- lots, located side-by-side along a grid- er said, “What are you iron of streets, seemedcontinued to marchon page 16 to the doing that for?” and horizon. I said I do that because I didn’t want to stall it. Below: View of the Country Club Plaza in Kansas He said, “You don’t have City, Missouri. to do that. Put your clutch in halfway, with your brake on, and you IOWA DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION Navigating the Lincoln Highway in Iowa. won’t stall it. When you want to back up, you do the same thing, HOW I LEARNED TO put your clutch in halfway and put your DRIVE A MODEL “T” FORD reverse in.” I said, “Thank you!” by Percy T. Newman I went in to Wallaceburg and I pulled “In August, 1924, I was seventeen years into a tire shop, told them that I needed a old. My uncle had bought a new Model T tire but I didn’t have any money. He said Ford and wanted to sell me his 1916 Model “Do you know anyone around here?” and T for $40.00. I bought it, providing he I said, “Yes, the farm right outside of town would teach me how to drive it. He said are relatives of mine.” So he called them “Pull back the emergency brake, push the up and the kinfolk said, “Yes, that’s o.k., first pedal in, feed the gas to it and then give him a tire.” So the dealer installed it and there I was, hell bent for Mitchells Bay, when you release-away you go. The middle running on all four tires, with 75 cents in pedal is to back up and the third pedal is my pocket and the best part… I knew how the brake.” I left Detroit, Michigan, heading to drive a Model T.” for Mitchells Bay, Ontario, a distance of about 70 miles. His parting words were Reprinted by Permission , MODEL T TIMES Model T Ford Club International “Bon Voyage.”…

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15 in the Asch Building. On our floor alone Ten Events… were two hundred and thirty. Most of us continued from page 15 were crazy with fear and there was great confusion. Some one broke out the glass 6 1916: ADOPTION OF part of the door with something hard and THE heavy, I suppose the head of a machine ONING ODE and I climbed or was pulled thru… and Z C ran downstairs to the sixth floor, where With the automobile permitting some one took me down to the street. access everywhere around the city, … Altogether 145 were killed and of and with the introduction of inex- these 120 belonged on the ninth floor. pensive electric motors in light When firemen broke open the door on the Washington place side they found fifty manufacturing facilitating the use of bodies piled up there. I, who worked on multi-story warehouse lofts and busi- the eighth floor, was unhurt, except for ness spaces for production industry, the shock, and will go to work again at the land use conflicts intensified. The public same business as soon as I can get a job in danger created by the invasion of light

BROWN BROTHERS a fireproof factory.” industry into a district built for storage The Triangle Fire was made tragically clear by the 1911 “I AM APPALLED” “Triangle Fire” in New York. Scores died FIRE! New York Governor Dix as a result of the lack of fire escapes in a This first-hand account by Rosey Safran, one The Police Commissioner building designed and constructed for of the Triangle Waist Company workers, ran points to the Mayor who gripes at an entirely different use. in the April 20, 1911 edition of the New York the Governor, “I am appalled,” The Triangle Fire, coupled with pub- newspaper, The Independent: who sets on the State Labor Commissioner lic furor over the construction of the who blames the National Fire Underwriters “I, with a number of other girls, was in Equitable Building — an immense bulk who turn on the Fire Commissioner the dressing room on the eighth floor of that cut off all light from the lower floors who cites the “City Beautiful” the Asch Building, in Washington place, at of buildings for blocks around — (for finding fire escapes ugly) 4.40 o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday, emboldened New York City to under- who then faults the Architects March 25, when I heard somebody cry who place it on Tenement Housing take the control of private land develop- “Fire!” I left everything and ran for the who says failure of the Health Department ment and use through comprehensive door on the Washington place side. The who then proclaim conspiracy zoning. The legal basis for the New York door was locked and immediately there between the Utility Companies and City Zoning Code had it roots in the was a great jam of girls before it. The fire the Police Commissioner. U.S. Supreme Court’s 1876 decision in was on the other side, driving us away from the only door that the bosses had left From: Chris Llewellyn, Fragments From the Fire Munn v. Illinois, in which the Court first (Huron, OH: Bottom Dog Press, 1997) expounded on the power of states to open for us to use in going in or out. They © reprinted with permission. had the doors locked all the time for fear regulate private industry. Moreover, the Editor’s Note: You can get a copy of Llewellyn’s Supreme Court had approved local regu- that some of the girls might steal some- excellent collection of poems about the Triangle thing.… Fire, winner of the 1986 Walt Whitman Award, lation of the height of buildings in Welch The fire had started on our floor and from Bottom Dog Press, c/o Firelands College, v. Swasey (in 1909) and building set- quick as I had been in getting to the Wash- Huron, OH 44839 for $10.00. backs and yards in Eubank v. Richmond ington place door the flames (in 1912), and implied the constitution- were already blazing fiercely ality of land use zoning in Hadacheck v. and spreading fast. If we couldn’t get out we would Sebastian (in 1915). all be roasted alive. The The New York City Zoning Code set locked door that blocked us the stage for Cincinnati to become, in was half of wood; the upper 1925, the first major American city to half was thick glass. Some officially adopt a long-range compre- girls were screaming, some hensive plan. The Cincinnati plan inte- were beating the door with grated future land uses (both public and their fists, some were trying private), transportation systems, and to tear it open. There were plans for utilities and public facilities in seven hundred of us girls at the Triangle Waist Compa- a policy document to be enforced through zoning laws. The U.S. Supreme

ny, which had three floors, BROWN BROTHERS the eighth, ninth and tenth, Photos from the Triangle Fire. Court validated the approaches taken by

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16 New York, Cincinnati, and a number and more armaments for of other pioneering communities, in purposes of war, we in its landmark 1926 Euclid v. Ambler America are wiser in using decision. our wealth on projects like this which will give us 7 1929: THE STOCK more wealth, better living and greater happiness for MARKET CRASH our children.” With the collapse of the American ROLL ON COLUMBIA economy at the end of the 1920s, by Woody Guthrie massive unemployment led the federal government to undertake Roll on, Columbia, roll on Roll on, Columbia, roll on scores of public works projects — many Your power is turning our of which still benefit the nation more BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION darkness to dawn Bonneville Dam complex, along the Columbia River, as it looks today. than a half-century later. The Civilian So roll on, Columbia, roll on Conservation Corps engaged in large- Dams Green Douglas firs where the waters scale reforestation and construction of cut through FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: metropolitan, regional, and national Down her wild mountains and canyons ADDRESS AT BONNEVILLE DAM park facilities. The federal government she flew built major dams (such as Boulder and September 28, 1937 Canadian Northwest to the oceans so blue Grand Coulee) which provided the “Truly, in the construction of this dam Roll on Columbia, roll on… cheap electricity that powered the we have had our eyes on the future of the At Bonneville now there are ships Nation. Its cost will be returned to the arrival of great city status of Phoenix, in the locks people of the United States many times Los Angeles, Seattle, Tacoma, and other The waters have risen and cleared over in the improvement of navigation and cities of the Southwest and Pacific all the rocks transportation, the cheapening of electric Northwest. Similarly, the great dams and Shiploads of plenty will steam past the docks power, and the distribution of this power electrification projects of the Tennessee So roll on, Columbia, roll on to hundreds of small communities within a Valley Authority provided the low-cost great radius. And on up the river is Grand Coulee Dam power that made the New South a reali- As I look upon Bonneville Dam today, I The mightiest thing ever built by a man ty during and after the Second World cannot help the thought that instead of To run the great factories and water the land War. spending, as some do, half their So roll on, Columbia, roll on… In response to massive home mort- national income in piling up armaments gage defaults during the Great Depres- sion, Congress, in 1934, created the Federal Housing Administration. Con- gress mandated that the FHA “encour- age improvement in housing standards and conditions” and “provide a system of mutual mortgage insurance to pro- mote small home construction as a means of creating jobs for the unem- ployed.” The minimum standards estab- lished for an FHA-insured home mortgage facilitated quick resale of defaulted dwelling units by assuring that units would be of a size and quality desired by those of above average means. FHA policies through the post- World War II years led to the emergence of the single family home on a suburban lot as the dominant American dwelling — a dwelling type to which Americans TVA of below-average means would generally The Norris Dam on the Clinch River in northeast Tennessee was one of a number of Tennessee Valley not have access. continued on page 18 Authority projects initiated during the Depression years.

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17 Ten Events… permanent new towns for defense indus- housing but lacked the broader commu- continued from page 17 try workers. Those federally constructed nity planning and design principles new towns provided well-built economi- reflected in many post 8 1940-45: HE ECOND T S cal housing and public facilities in a total developments. WORLD WAR planned community environment — and During the Second World War, new Faced with the prospect of Ameri- became the models for the best projects industries typically located at the subur- can involvement in the expanding undertaken by private enterprise in the ban perimeter of cities, building single- European war — and the immedi- 1920s and ‘30s. floor production facilities on cheap land. ate need for large-scale defense Under the Lanham Act the results This set the pattern for a post-war disper- industry housing — Congress, in 1940, were quite different. Kaiser, on the West sal of production industry away from city passed the Lanham Act. The Act autho- Coast, built Vanport, Oregon, consisting centers. rized the federal government to contract of 600 identical, bleak apartment build- The war left the continental United out to private industry to build tempo- ings housing 40,000 residents. On the States virtually unscathed and with a rary wartime housing, providing $150 East Coast, Levitt learned how to mass booming industrial economy, while vir- million for that purpose, and granted use produce single-family detached housing tually all of America’s pre-war competi- of the federal government’s power of units at low cost. Carrying these systems tors had suffered the destruction of their eminent domain to acquire the sites. In over to the peacetime economy at the industrial capacity. This put the United contrast, during the First World War the end of the war resulted in creation of a States in command of the world econo- federal government created government- number of Levittowns and their emula- my, ushering in a half century of Ameri- owned nonprofit corporations to build tors — projects which provided needed can prosperity.

On-Line Comments was the creation of systems to provide clean, potable water to large numbers of people. This “The only event missing is our issue of clean drinking water was a huge prob- entrance to the lem for towns until the mid to late 1800’s. By and the invention of the /personal the 1920’s, with George Spalding’s invention of computer. These machines have shaped our the activated carbon method of filtration at the lives in the past 40-50 years. Because they can Hackensack Water Company site here in do so much in such a short period of time, we Oradell, New Jersey, the issue of safe, drink- have become dependent on them to take care able water became a non-issue for most major of almost everything. They have also condi- cities.” tioned us into thinking that anything can be — Maggie Harrer, Oradell, New Jersey done in an instant. As we know, planning and implementation take time.” “I agree the ten ‘events’ are pivotal ones. — Barbara Sweet, Hyde Park, New York However, I think the elevator was as important FANNIE MAE FOUNDATION Levittown under construction. as any, and more important than many of the “This is a very interesting article — events mentioned. In addition to enabling the Levittown I enjoyed reading it and thinking about other skyscraper, the elevator enabled vertical indus- trends or events to consider. Among them trial development that was critical to the mul- “I’ll never forget those years. The fifties. would be the change in household structure tilevel spatial geometry of the The early sixties. We were all going the including the entrance of women in the work- industrial city and subsequently to the same direction… thanks to Big Bill Levitt place and the movement of household activi- achievement of the spatial density that makes we all had a chance. You talk about ties such as sewing, cooking, etc. to the a modern central city possible.” dreams. Hell, we had ours. We had ours market place; the replacement of small locally — Jerald Powell, AICP, Portland, Oregon like nobody before or since ever had owned retail with large chain style stores; the theirs. SEVEN THOUSAND BUCKS! increase in time and resources devoted to edu- "The made quick, instant busi- cation and delayed entry of young people into ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS DOWN! ness communication possible, which simulta- the workforce; , and — We were cowboys out there. neously led to dispersion and concentration. just to name a few.” We were the pioneers.” It was now possible to do business in many — Lucie Vogel, Charlottesville, Virginia different cities which broke from the one-capi- From: W. D. Wetherell, The Man Who Loved tal-city model of Europe. But with quick, Levittown (: The University of Pitts- “I read with interest Mr. Gercken’s 10 hour-to-hour and minute-to-minute interac- burgh Press, 1985). Reprinted by permission. events that influenced the development of our tive transactions possible, it made people want ©1985 W. D. Wetherell. cities. Although I’m sure everyone has events to be physically close to each other to actually to add, there is one omission which you might deliver on the plans they'd make by phone." consider. The single most important develop- — Wayne A. Lemmon, Silver Spring, Maryland ment for the creation of towns and large cities

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18 Ike Looks Back “On June 26, 1956 I signed [the Federal Aid Highway Act] into law. It was not only the most gigantic federal undertaking in road-building in the century and a half since the federal government got into this field by improving the National Pike between Cumberland, Maryland, and Wheeling, West Virginia — it was the biggest peacetime construction project of any description ever undertaken by the United States or any other country.… the big feature of the act was the amount it earmarked for the widening and improv- ing of our interstate and defense highway system, a forty-one thousand-mile net- work of roads linking nearly all major

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN cities with a population of fifty thousand Dedication of Wisconsin’s first interstate: a seven mile stretch of I-94 in Waukesha County. or more.… urban poor shifted from providing “a The amount of concrete poured to form 9 1950+: THE these roadways would build eighty Hoover decent home for every American” to With the Soviet political confronta- Dams or six sidewalks to the . To “warehousing the poor” in projects like build them, bulldozers and shovels would tions that followed the end of the Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and Cabrini Second World War and initiation move enough dirt and rock to bury all of Green in Chicago. Connecticut two feet deep. of the “Korean Police Action” in The Interstate High- More than 1950, the United States experienced the way System, begun in any single creation of a permanent military estab- 1956 as a defense high- action by the lishment for the first time in its . way system, knit togeth- government Large scale military expenditures result- er auto-mobile America since the end ed in virtually every American city gain- and stimulated the of the war, this ing from employment and expenditures peripheral expansion one would at nearby military bases, defense indus- of metropolitan areas. change the face tries, or supply depots. Wartime invest- The Interstate system of America with straightaways, ments made in the South and the West also fed the growth of cloverleaf turns, were continued and expanded, at the huge over-the-road bridges, and expense of reinvestment in the older trucking fleets. At the elongated park- cities of the Northeast. same time, many of ways. Its impact The federal Housing Act of 1954 America’s railroads on the American promised the “renewal” of the city as a slipped into disre- economy — whole, while engaging in wholesale cen- pair, abandonment, the jobs it would tral area demolitions. Federal govern- and bankruptcy. produce in manu- ment policy with regard to housing the continued on page 20 facturing and con- struction, the rural areas it would open up — was beyond calculation.” From: Dwight David Eisenhower, Mandate for Change 1953-1956 (New York: Doubleday, 1963) 548-549. Above: Advertisement for the First National Bank of Boston, appeared in 1962 National Geographic. CALIFORNIA DOT Interstate interchange in South San Francisco

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19 CHICAGO DEPT. OF AVIATION O’Hare InternationalAirport. access primarilytoandfrom theouter- interstate highwaythatprovided easy ties. Theregional airport anditsrelated restaurants, hotels,andconference facili- became aregional centerwithitsown a hundred yearsearlier. Theairport economy thattherailroads hadprovided the samestimulativerole intheU.S. regional airport. road stationandthehighwayto arrival attheAmericancityfrom therail- ments ofjettravelshiftedthepoint strips, taxiing,andterminalrequire- ed toaccommodatethelarger landing departures from newairports construct- travel markets.Large-scale arrivalsand full —leadingtopromotion ofnewmass on long-rangeflights—whentheywere displaced. Thenewjetswere economical piston-driven DouglasDC-7Cwhichit increase incapacityandrangefrom the had arangeof3,000miles—sharp 181passengersand 707-120 couldcarry World in1958.TheBoeing Airways port, a707-120,toPanAmerican first Americancommercial jettrans- The BoeingCompanydelivered the continued frompage19 the 20thCenturyAmericanCity Ten EventsthatShaped 10 10 OMRILJTAIRCRAFT JET COMMERCIAL By 1980,airtransport hadassumed 1958: I PLANNING COMMISSIONERS JOURNAL / NUMBER 30 / SPRING 1998 PLANNING COMMISSIONERS JOURNAL/NUMBER30 TOUTO OF NTRODUCTION terminal, appeared in1962NationalGeographic. ment promoting itsnewLosAngeles“satellite” Fleet ofjetsshowninaUnitedAirlinesadvertise- city wasfueledbytheinterjectionofa American and scaleofthe20thcentury exurban homesofthemore well-to-do. in closeproximity tothesuburbanand offices, andupscaleretail activitylocated and developmentfacilities,corporate cities” —thepreferred siteforresearch way fortheexplosivegrowth of“edge belt perimeterofthecity, helpedpavethe The evolutionoftheform,character, S UMMING 20 U P : of publiccontrol ofprivatedevelopment. confrontation,military andtheinitiation reactions tosocioeconomicadversity, municipal order, andthenmoldedby bya“WhiteCity”visionofgood tury city wasinspired attheturn-of-the-cen- innovations intechnology. TheAmerican fabric setfree ofearlierconstraintsby vast massofimmigrantsintoanurban single-family zoning)inPCJ#23(Summer1996). Family-Only Zones”(alookbackattheoriginsof Commissioners Journal,mostrecently, “Single- tothePlanning has contributedseveralarticles versity, andGoucherCollege,Baltimore. Gerckens at theUniversityofMichigan,KansasStateUni- can urbanplanninghistory asanadjunctprofessor University, teachesAmeri- professor atTheOhioState ning History, andemeritus City andRegionalPlan- The SocietyforAmerican tified Planners,founderof American InstituteofCer- national historianforthe Laurence Gerckens,