Awards

• Commended for Lewis Mumford Prize 2009 (United States)
• Commended for SACRPH Mumford Book Prize 2009 (United States)
• Commended for Society for American City and Regional Planning History Lewis Mumford Prize 2009 (United States)
• Commended for Society for American City and Regional Planning History Lewis Mumford Prize 2009.

Overview

In the early twentieth century, America was transformed from a predominantly agricultural nation to one whose population resided mostly in cities. Yet rural areas continued to hold favored status in the country's political life. For prominent figures in the social sciences, city planning, and real estate who were anxious about the future of cities, this obsession with the agrarian past inspired a new campaign for urban reform. They called for ongoing programs of natural resource management to be extended to maintain and improve cities. Jennifer S. Light finds a new understanding of the history of urban renewal in the United States in the rise and fall of the American conservation movement. The professionals Light examines came to view America's urban landscapes as ecological communities requiring scientific management on par with forests and farms. The Nature of Cities brings together environmental and urban history to reveal how, over four decades, this ecological vision shaped the development of cities around the nation.

Full Product Details

9781421413846

Table of Contents

Reviews

Of interest to scholars and students of urban history, planning, geography, and sociology, as well as urban studies more generally... Highly recommended. Choice A fascinating and suggestive account of the influence of ecology and natural-resource management on academic urbanists, city planners, and real-estate professionals. -- Adam Rome Technology and Culture Light's excavation of the intellectual terrain, on which so much of mid-20th-century urban policy rested, significantly contributes to our understanding of planning's evolution in this critical period following the profession's foundational years. -- Edward K. Muller Journal of the American Planning Association An outstanding history of how ecological concerns have shaped urban development around the country. -- James A. Cox Midwest Book Review Light does a wonderful job of tracking the migration of people and ideas to the nation's capital, demonstrating how these shaped the National Resources Planning Board's agenda and actions, and detailing how urban management became national policy from FDR to LBJ. -- Char Miller American Historical Review This engaging and well-written work challenges the notion that cities were seen as 'unnatural' places during the early years of the twentieth century, when the United States was transitioning from an agrarian to an urban society and the professions of social science, urban planning, and real estate were being developed... To understand that policies that led to the bulldozing of neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s had their origins in theories first espoused in the opening decades of the twentieth century relating to forest and field resource management reminds us that there may well be unintended consequences for seemingly benign theories, models, and approaches promoted today. -- Dean Sinclair Historical Geography Light explores how ecological ideas such as 'climax,' 'blight,' and 'conservation' transferred from the natural sciences to the emerging fields of urban sociology, geography, and economics during the 1920s and were eventually adopted by urban professionals during the 1930s and 1940s. Most importantly, she argues that these ideas-which saw cities as closed ecological communities that, like farms and forests, could be managed scientifically-significantly shaped local and national urban-renewal policy in postwar America... This book makes an important contribution to the study of twentieth century American cities. -- Robert Gioielli Register of the Kentucky Historical Society A model for anyone looking to reveal the complex ways that scientific thinking plays into the emergence of an entire field of social planning. -- Chris Young Journal of the History of Biology

Of interest to scholars and students of urban history, planning, geography, and sociology, as well as urban studies more generally... Highly recommended. * Choice * A fascinating and suggestive account of the influence of ecology and natural-resource management on academic urbanists, city planners, and real-estate professionals. -- Adam Rome * Technology and Culture * Light's excavation of the intellectual terrain, on which so much of mid-20th-century urban policy rested, significantly contributes to our understanding of planning's evolution in this critical period following the profession's foundational years. -- Edward K. Muller * Journal of the American Planning Association * An outstanding history of how ecological concerns have shaped urban development around the country. -- James A. Cox * Midwest Book Review * Light does a wonderful job of tracking the migration of people and ideas to the nation's capital, demonstrating how these shaped the National Resources Planning Board's agenda and actions, and detailing how urban management became national policy from FDR to LBJ. -- Char Miller * American Historical Review * This engaging and well-written work challenges the notion that cities were seen as 'unnatural' places during the early years of the twentieth century, when the United States was transitioning from an agrarian to an urban society and the professions of social science, urban planning, and real estate were being developed... To understand that policies that led to the bulldozing of neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s had their origins in theories first espoused in the opening decades of the twentieth century relating to forest and field resource management reminds us that there may well be unintended consequences for seemingly benign theories, models, and approaches promoted today. -- Dean Sinclair * Historical Geography * Light explores how ecological ideas such as 'climax,' 'blight,' and 'conservation' transferred from the natural sciences to the emerging fields of urban sociology, geography, and economics during the 1920s and were eventually adopted by urban professionals during the 1930s and 1940s. Most importantly, she argues that these ideas-which saw cities as closed ecological communities that, like farms and forests, could be managed scientifically-significantly shaped local and national urban-renewal policy in postwar America... This book makes an important contribution to the study of twentieth century American cities. -- Robert Gioielli * Register of the Kentucky Historical Society * A model for anyone looking to reveal the complex ways that scientific thinking plays into the emergence of an entire field of social planning. -- Chris Young * Journal of the History of Biology *

Of interest to scholars and students of urban history, planning, geography, and sociology, as well as urban studies more generally... Highly recommended. Choice 2010 An outstanding history of how ecological concerns have shaped urban development around the country. -- James A. Cox Midwest Book Review 2009 A fascinating and suggestive account of the influence of ecology and natural-resource management on academic urbanists, city planners, and real-estate professionals. -- Adam Rome Technology and Culture 2010 Light explores how ecological ideas such as 'climax,' 'blight,' and 'conservation' transferred from the natural sciences to the emerging fields of urban sociology, geography, and economics during the 1920s and were eventually adopted by urban professionals during the 1930s and 1940s. Most importantly, she argues that these ideas-which saw cities as closed ecological communities that, like farms and forests, could be managed scientifically-significantly shaped local and national urban-renewal policy in postwar America... This book makes an important contribution to the study of twentieth century American cities. -- Robert Gioielli Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 2010 Light does a wonderful job of tracking the migration of people and ideas to the nation's capital, demonstrating how these shaped the National Resources Planning Board's agenda and actions, and detailing how urban management became national policy from FDR to LBJ. -- Char Miller American Historical Review 2011 This engaging and well-written work challenges the notion that cities were seen as 'unnatural' places during the early years of the twentieth century, when the United States was transitioning from an agrarian to an urban society and the professions of social science, urban planning, and real estate were being developed... To understand that policies that led to the bulldozing of neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s had their origins in theories first espoused in the opening decades of the twentieth century relating to forest and field resource management reminds us that there may well be unintended consequences for seemingly benign theories, models, and approaches promoted today. -- Dean Sinclair Historical Geography 2011 A model for anyone looking to reveal the complex ways that scientific thinking plays into the emergence of an entire field of social planning. -- Chris Young Journal of the History of Biology 2010 Light's excavation of the intellectual terrain, on which so much of mid-20th-century urban policy rested, significantly contributes to our understanding of planning's evolution in this critical period following the profession's foundational years. -- Edward K. Muller Journal of the American Planning Association 2010

Author Information

Jennifer S. Light is a professor at the School of Communication and the Departments of History and Sociology at Northwestern University and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research. She is the author of From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America, also published by Johns Hopkins.

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