Journal of Urban History. Vol. 14, no. 1: The City and Technology ed. by Mark H. Rose, Joel A. Tarr

Abstract

1070 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE New in Los Angeles and the Automobile is the assertion that policy toward the auto was “political” in the same sense as was transit policy because it “involved extensive political maneuvering” (p. 172). New too, to many readers, will be a useful distinction between decentrali­ zation and dispersion. On the whole, this book is valuable chiefly because it places Los Angeles in context. The core of the book, however, is the resuscitated thesis that the auto’s role in urban change was “democratic.” Finding that, in 1939, auto ownership in Los Angeles was fairly evenly distributed geographically (while 500,000 still rode streetcars daily), Bottles seems satisfied that this undefined “democracy” was served in the accommodation of the private car. The question, of course, is whether payment of road building costs by motorists means that the car has covered the full social and environmental costs of its effect on the American city. Paul Barrett Dr. Barrett is associate professor of history at Illinois Institute of Technology. His publications include The Automobile and Urban Transit (Philadelphia, 1983). He is currently at work on a history of airport planning policy and its effects on urban and suburban change. Journal of Urban History. Vol. 14, no. 1: The City and Technology. Edited by Mark H. Rose and Joel A. Tarr. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1987. Pp. 139; illustrations, notes. Paper. In 1979, the editor of the firstJournal of Urban History issue on The City and Technology, Joel Tarr, articulated a new agenda for urban historians—one that would examine the “intersection between urban processes and the forces of technological change” (5:275). Tarr urged that historians begin not only to examine previously ignored technol­ ogies like streetlighting but also to probe more deeply into issues of technological innovation, design choice, decision making, behavioral reaction to technological change, and institutional and regulatory response. Less than ten years later, a new special issue on the subject has been published, edited by Mark Rose and Joel Tarr. They take well-deserved pride in pointing out how far work in this area has come. Not only is the study of such formerly arcane subjects as streetlighting, sewerage, and telegraph services an accepted part of the field of urban history, it is a mainstream part of the history of technology. The second special issue consists of four articles. The first, by Mark J. Bouman, concerns streetlighting in cities. On the basis of an examination of the development of streetlighting in cities in the United States, England, and Germany, Bouman argues that cultural conditions peculiar to modern cities created the context in which TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1071 streetlighting arose. These conditions included such things as night­ time economic activity, leisured elites, and a social order regulated by manners as well as police. The second article, by Tarr, with Thomas Finholt and David Goodman, concerns the development of intracity telegraph services. The authors describe the development of early private-line telegraph networks as well as their effect on business activity and their use by police and fire departments in 19th-century cities. Mary Corbin Sies surveys the process by which an elite group of architects, real estate developers, housing reformers, domestic scien­ tists, and others involved in community planning began to debate and experiment with the design ideas that ultimately became known as the “suburban ideal.” Sies argues that her group of professionalmanagerial -level urban developers, planners, and reformers shared a value system that not only dictated that suburbs be designed as refuges from the factories, saloons, overcrowding, and filth of inner cities, but also demanded that experts be consulted on every step of the design process to assure that this goal be incorporated into the final product. The last article, by Paul Barrett, examines the history of airport planning, location, and design in the United States between 1926 and 1952. Barrett argues that a public policy tradition that treated airports purely as transportation facilities and not as an integral part of city planning as a whole accounts for present problematic patterns of airport location and the lack of effective planning for land use around airports. The essays testify to the progress...