Twentieth-century American City Research Articles

The Value of Exclusion: Chasing Scarcity through Social Exclusion in Early Twentieth Century Atlanta

In recent decades, a powerful narrative has taken shape which explores the impact of federal housing policies in shaping the highly racialized geography of poverty and privilege which forms the landscape of today's American city. Called the “New Suburban History,” it documents the racial discrimination written into the subsidized home loan policies of the federal government after WWII, based upon the assumption that property values depended upon the maintenance of neighborhood homogeneity on the basis of race and class. The discussion launched by the New Suburban History has focused almost exclusively on the effects of such policies: by lavishing neighborhoods comprised exclusively of white homeowners with federal subsidies, while targeting the neighborhoods of non-whites and renters for red-lining, these programs, it is argued, became self-fulfilling prophecies of neighborhood growth and decline. Neglected in this discussion, however, is a rigorous examination of the roots of the assumption that the value of the single-family residential home depended upon practices of social exclusion designed to “protect” it from physical proximity to non-whites and renters. The guiding assumption, occasionally made explicit, is that racism precluded a more rational approach to the assessment of property values. This paper argues that there was nothing irrational about the regulations developed to protect urban property values in the first decades of the twentieth century. These regulations explicitly sought to boost and maintain real estate values by means of artificial limitations placed on the supply of urban land, an approach which ensured that segments of the population would benefit from the scarcity-induced rise in prices, while others faced exclusion in the process of effecting it. The development of these regulations, and the crisis narratives employed to justify them, is traced here from the municipal zoning framework developed at the National Conference on City Planning to its implementation in New York City in 1916 and Atlanta in 1922. The paper concludes with an analysis of the 1938 Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) “residential security map” of Atlanta, which assigned grades to the city's neighborhoods on the basis of their place in the 1922 zoning scheme, which essentially knew two categories, “exclusive” and “excluded.” Against the standard narrative, which holds that racism distorted conceptions of property values in the twentieth century American city, what is argued here is that the institution of value, and the social categories of privilege and exclusion which it requires, has fundamentally shaped our categories of race.

Review: Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990

Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990 Getty Center Exhibitions Pavilion, Los Angeles 9 April–21 July 2013 National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. 20 October 2013–10 March 2014 Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990 was an ambitious exhibition that drew on an earlier initiative by the Getty Research Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum, chronicling the transformation of Los Angeles from a “fledgling pueblo in the mid-1800s to a vibrant urban center” in the mid-twentieth century. There has not been any major exhibition on Southern California’s architecture and urbanism since Architecture in California, 1868–1968 , the groundbreaking retrospective curated by David Gebhard and Harriette Von Breton in 1968. Thus, Overdrive shouldered a huge burden of expectation. Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city, has not been as lucky as the Big Apple. When we think of a quintessential twentieth-century American city that embodies exuberant architectural visions for the future and provides a dynamic urban theater for Horatio Alger–type “rags-to-riches” stories, we unconsciously conjure up images of New York. Despite L.A.’s claim of being “one of the most populous and influential industrial, economic, and creative capitals in the world” and its iconic image popularized by the celluloid glamour of Hollywood, the city’s architectural and urban histories have remained relatively understudied, compared to other global cities such as London, Paris, and New York. This, of course, does not mean that there has been a dearth of worthwhile architectural and urban happenings in L.A. Among other books, David Gebhard and Robert Winter’s A Guide to Architecture in Southern California (1965); Reyner Banham’s Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971); Charles Moore, Peter Becker, and Regula Campbell’s The City Observed, Los Angeles: A Guide to Its Architecture and Landscapes (1984); and Mike Davis’s City of Quartz: Excavating …

Athens or Anarchy? Soapbox Oratory and the Early Twentieth-Century American City

Athens or Anarchy? Soapbox Oratory and the Early Twentieth-Century American City

Fear of the city 1882-1967: Edward Hopper and the discourse of anti-urbanism

This paper traces the extent to which some of the major cityscape representations of the American 'Realist' painter, Edward Hopper, have contributed to the production and articulation of the discourse of anti-urbanism in American culture. Following an introductory background to this discourse, the paper discusses the development of Realism in American art, and how the urban representations that emerged were a response to the rapidly changing, early twentieth-century American city. A brief biographical account of Edward Hopper is presented to explore the intertextual influences behind his anti-urban sentiments, and how these translated into the unique form of Realism for which Hopper is renowned. This sets the stage for a reading of four key Hopper works that are suggestive of the anti-urban discourse: Night Shadows, Nighthawks, Approaching a City and Sunday . The powers of representation and the artist's popularity have fed into the discourse of anti-urbanism - a discourse that has a material effect on urban life in America.

The spaces between buildings

Gates and fences, sidewalks and driveways, alleys and parking lots--these ordinary features have an important architectural impact, influencing how a building relates to the spaces around it. As geographer Larry R. Ford argues, architectural histories and guidebooks tell us surprisingly little about the character of American cities because they concentrate on buildings taken out of context, buildings divorced from space. In The Spaces between Buildings , Ford focuses on the neglected nooks and crannies between structures, supplementing his analysis with three photographic essays. Long before Ford knew anything about geography or architecture, he was a connoisseur of front porches, alleys, and loading docks. As a kid in Columbus, Ohio, he knew where to find coal chutes to play in, which rooftops and fire escapes were ideally suited for watching parades, and which stoops were perfect for waiting for a bus. To him the spaces between buildings seemed wonderfully integrated and connected. The Spaces between Buildings is the result of Ford's preoccupation with the relationship of buildings to one another and how their means of access and boundaries organize the areas around us. As Ford observes, a city with friendly, permeable facades and a great variety of street-level doors is more conducive to civic life than a city characterized by fortresslike structures with blank walls and invisible doors. Life on the street is defined and guided by the nature of the surrounding buildings. Similarly, a residential neighborhood with front porches, small lawns or gardens, and houses with lots of windows and architectural details presents a more walkable and gregarious setting than a neighborhood where public space is surrounded by walls, three-car garage doors, blank facades, and concrete driveways. Ford begins by looking at the growth of four urban places, each representing a historical era as much as a geographic location: the Islamic medina; the city shaped by the Spanish renaissance; the nineteenth-century North American city; and the twentieth-century American city. His first essay also discusses the evolution of the free-standing structure as a basic urban building type and the problems encountered in beautifying the often work-a-day back and side yards that have helped to create the image of the untidy American city. The second essay examines the urban trend toward viewing lawns, gardens, hedges, and trees as an essential adjunct to architecture. The final essay focuses on pedestrian and vehicular spaces. Here the author includes the landscape of the garage, sidewalks, streets, and alleys. In its exploration of how spaces become places, The Spaces between Buildings invites readers to see anew the spaces they encounter every day and often take for granted.

Reviews: World Cities in a World-System, The Rural Economy: An Evolutionary Perspective, the Changing Geography of Agricultural Land Use in England and Wales 1975–90, Weaving the Seamless Web: A Consideration of Network Analysis and its Potential Application to the Study of the Rural Economy, the Household as a Focus for Comparative Research, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City, Housing,

Reviews: World Cities in a World-System, The Rural Economy: An Evolutionary Perspective, the Changing Geography of Agricultural Land Use in England and Wales 1975–90, Weaving the Seamless Web: A Consideration of Network Analysis and its Potential Application to the Study of the Rural Economy, the Household as a Focus for Comparative Research, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City, Housing,

Book reviews : Teaford, J.C., 1986: The twentieth-century American city. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. x and 177 pp. £15.70 cloth, £7.05 paper

Book reviews : Teaford, J.C., 1986: The twentieth-century American city. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. x and 177 pp. £15.70 cloth, £7.05 paper

The City We Have Lost

Book Review| July 01 1989 The City We Have Lost Pastoral Cities: Urban Ideals and the Symbolic Landscape of AmericaJames L. MachorThe Modern LandscapeEdward RelphThe New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth-Century AmericaDavid SchuylerThe Twentieth-Century American City: Problem, Promise, and RealityJon C. Teaford Deryck W. Holdsworth Deryck W. Holdsworth Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The Public Historian (1989) 11 (3): 113–117. https://doi.org/10.2307/3378620 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Deryck W. Holdsworth; The City We Have Lost. The Public Historian 1 July 1989; 11 (3): 113–117. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3378620 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentThe Public Historian Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1989 Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

PAINTING THE BIG PICTURE: SYNTHESES OF URBAN HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT

Kenneth Fox. Metropolitan America: Urban Life and Urban Policy in the Unites States, 1940-1980. Jackson: The University Press of Mississippi, 1986. xiii + 264 pp. Michael A. Goldberg and John Mercer. The Myth of the North American City: Continentalism Challenged. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986. xx + 308 pp. Jon C. Teaford. The Twentieth-Century American City: Problem, Promise and Reality. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. x + 177 pp. Cotton Mather, George Bancroft and Francis Parkman betrayed no intellectual diffidence when painting their versions of the big picture of American history. With an eye for both detail and panorama, they filled their canvases with unhesitant brush-strokes and created strong, clear portraits. Mather left us a picture of the New Israel, Bancroft of the flowering of democracy, and Parkman of the struggle among European nations to control North America. All three pictures have faded with time, but in their own times they were bright enough to command the attention of all who chose to look. Some viewed them with awe, some with anger: the contempt of their critics attests to their influence as much as the praise of their admirers.

Who's in Charge? Some Recent Works on the Historical Evolution of Power Structure in Urban America

San Francisco, 1865-1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development by WILLIAM ISSEL and ROBERT CHERNY. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1986; xiii + 294 pp., tables, photographs, bibliography, index; clothbound, $35.00. Cleveland: A Tradition of Reform, DAVID D. VAN TASSEL and JOHN J. GRABOWSKI, eds. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1986; viii + 218 pp., photographs, index; clothbound, $27.50. The Twentieth Century American City: Problem, Promise, and Reality by JON C. TEAFORD. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986; x + 177 pp., bibliographical essay, index; clothbound, $20.00; paperbound, $8.95. Metropolitan America: Urban Life and Urban Policy in the United States, 1940-1980 by KENNETH FOX. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1986; xiii + 274 pp., tables, photographs, index; clothbound, $27.50.