AN ANVIL ORIGINAL
THE AUTHOR
CHRISTOPHER TUNNARD is Professor of City
Planning and Chairman of the Department at Yale
University. He is the author of Gardens in the Modern
Landscape, City of Man, American Skyline, and ManMade America (which won the coveted National Book
Award).
Professor Tunnard received his early education in
Canada and his professional training in England. He
has an M.A. from Yale University and an honorary
doctorate in Fine Arts from Union College. He is a
city planning consultant and critic, a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Arts, and a member of the American
Institute of Planners. Currently he is serving on the
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and conducting research on the Highway as Environment at
Yale.
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N. INVENT...........SJ.4.'L.....
AN ANVIL ORIGINAL
Under the general editorship of Louis L. Snyder
THE MODERN
AMERICAN CITY
CHRISTOPHER TUNNARD
Professor of City Planning, Yale University
VAN NOSTRAND REINHOLD COMPANY
NEW YORK, CINCINNATI
TORONTO · LONDON · MELBOURNE
Table of Contents
PREFACE
3
PART I-THE MODERN AMERICAN CITY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
The Modern American City
A City Built Foursquare
The Picturesque City
The City Beautiful I, 1880-1893
The City Beautiful II, 1893-1910
Plans and Planners, 1910-1930
The American City in Trouble
"Twenty and Thirty and Forty Years On"
9
16
22
36
46
67
80
93
PART II-READINGS
The Modern American City
1. The Urban Agglomeration
107
A City Built Foursquare
2 and 3. Founding of the Capital and Speculation in
the 1830's
4 and 5. Transportation in the 1840's
109
112
The Picturesque City
6
8.
9.
10,
13.
and 7. The Picturesque City: 1864 and 1884
Architectural "Rationalism" in the United States
Hunt the Innovator I
11, and 12. The Municipal Park Movement, 1850-1900
William Wetmore Story, 1819-1895
5
114
117
119
120
125
6
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The City Beautiful I, 1880-1893
14.
15.
16.
17
Hunt the Innovator II
The Tenement House Death Rate
Birth Pains of the World's Columbian Exposition
and 18. Speculation, Urban and Rural
127
129
133
135
The City Beautiful II, 1893-1910
19.
20.
21
23
25
27
Hunt the Innovator III
What Architecture Is "American"?
and 22. Private Enterprise and Public Control
and 24. The Later Utopias
and 26. Return to Splendor: 1903-1905
and 28. Coping with the Slum Problem
137
145
146
149
152
155
Plans and Planners, 1910-1930
29 and 30. Charles Mulford Robinson: Reports on Honolulu (1906) and San Jose, California (1909)
31. The Zoning Power
32. The Neighborhood Unit
33. The Metropolitan "T"
158
161
163
164
The American City in Trouble
34.
35.
36
38.
39.
State Planning
Recognition of the Need for National Planning
and 37. Civic Art and Adornment
Escape to the Suburbs
The Coming of Urban Redevelopment
167
168
170
172
175
"Twenty and Thirty and Forty Years On"
40. The City as Part of the National Patrimony
41 and 42. Hopes and Fears for the Future
177
179
FURTHER READING
185
INDEX
187
LIST OF ANVIL BOOKS
192
AN ANVIL ORIGINAL
ANVIL BOOKS, under the general editorship of Louis L. Snyder,
make a unique and valuable contribution to the fields of
history and the social sciences. In each title a distinguished
scholar offers an original analysis of a major problem area,
incorporating the rnost recent research. For ready reference
to source materials, each book includes a selection of perti·
nent documents, many from neglected or hard-to-find sources.
Modestly priced, each is brief, handy, and readable. A com·
plete listing of the ANVIL BOOKS now available appears on
the final pages of this book.
LOUIS L SNYDER, general editor of ANVIL BOOKS, is Professor of History at The City College of The City University of
New York. A graduate of St. John's College (Maryland), he
received his doctorate from the University of Frankfurt am
Main, Germany. During this time he was a German-American
Exchange Fellow, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Fellow, appointed by the government of the Weimar Republic.
He has held the Schiff Fellowship at Columbia University,
1931-32, a Ford Foundation Faculty Fellowship, 1952·53, and
in 1965-66 was a Rockefeller Foundation grantee. Among his
numerous books are the Van Nostrand Reinhold publications
The Dynamics of Nationalism, The Making of Modern Man,
and The Blood and Iron Chancellor. He was co-editor (with
Richard B. Morris) of the best-seller A Treasury of Great
Reporting. His The War: A Concise History, 1939-1945 has
been translated into Japanese, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Urdu. His most recent book, The New
Nationalism (Cornell University Press), is appearing in Italian
translation by Aldo Martello Editore, Milan.
VAN NOSTRAND REINHOLD COMPANY
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