Planned Obsolescence? The Role of the Town Common in the Making of Savannah’s Urban Plan

Abstract

The colonial town common of Savannah, Georgia, played a vital role in the city’s history. It enabled public surveyors in the late 18th and early 19th century to expand the celebrated urban plan of streets and public squares that had been initiated by the city’s founder, James Oglethorpe. Its fortuitous role as an expansion zone, however, does not appear to have been intended from start as some have supposed. Instead, Savannah’s town common, like others of its time, was an unscripted, liminal space serving multiple, undesignated functions. This paper investigates its intended and actual use and its gradual disappearance