Failures of centralized metropolitanism: Inter‐war Moscow and New York

Abstract

This comparative study portrays New York and Moscow during a period of dramatic growth and transformation for both — from “mere” national centres to international capitals of competing world systems. Stalin and his architects imposed a grand, imperial face on the “calico” Moscow that had survived the upheavals of the earlier part of the century in Russia; in New York, Robert Moses, the Rockefellers, Al Smith, Fiorello La Guardia, Franklin D. Roosevelt and scores of others created a new “capital of capitalism” that leapt across bays, rivers and even small mountain ranges to encompass a region of over 5,000 sq. miles and 11 million souls. While the planners in both communities participated in the era's international debate over the optimal course of urban development, in the end both groups favoured rather traditional 19th century notions of the centralized city: both metropolitan areas came to follow a decentralized path into the future, and by the end of World War II, Centralized Metropolitanism had clear...