The American Planning Tradition: Culture and Policy

At its best, urban history incorporates a wide range of historical subdisciplines, mining diverse strata of intellectual and social history, the politics of conservative financiers and progressive reformers, the visions of engineers and novelists, the experiences of immigrants and the elite, and the effects of ideas and institutions. Likewise the scale is broadly encompassing, extending from that of a city block to a larger regional ecology and the national political arena. The term “metropolitan” captures this interplay, connoting at once an expansive environmental region, politically interconnected districts, and a socially diverse, culturally cosmopolitan population. Such metropol-itanism long flourished in the United States, especially between 1890–1930, after which a “corporate regionalism” seriously undercut cooperation in all those domains. The American Planning Tradition explores various aspects of this rich legacy, especially the long-standing tensions between regionalism and modern cities. Robert Fishman, one of the country's most insightful urban historians, edited the volume and produced two excellent synthetic essays. Other contributors include political historians, urban planners, sociologists, geographers, and landscape architects, an admixture that further demonstrates the potential for both fruitful intellectual exchange and policy alternatives offered by a broadly metropolitan focus.