front cover of Best-Laid Plans
Best-Laid Plans
The Promises and Pitfalls of the New Deal Greenbelt Towns
Julie D. Turner
University of Cincinnati Press, 2022
A history of the New Deal program intended to improve the living conditions of America’s underclass.

In 1935, under the direction of the Resettlement Administration, the United States government embarked on a New Deal program to construct new suburban towns for the working class. Teams of architects, engineers, and city planners, along with thousands of workers, brought three such communities to life: Greenbelt, Maryland; Greendale, Wisconsin; and Greenhills, Ohio. President Franklin Roosevelt saw this as a way to create jobs. Resettlement Administration head Rexford Tugwell longed to improve the living conditions of the nation’s underclass.

In Best-Laid Plans, Julie Turner identifies where the Greenbelt Towns succeeded and where they failed. The program suffered under the burden of too many competing goals: maximum job creation at minimal cost, exquisite town planning that would provide modest residences for low-income families, progressive innovation that would serve to honor and reinforce traditional American values. Yet the Greenbelt program succeeded in one respect—providing new homes in well-planned communities that continue to welcome residents.

Town planning and suburbanization did not follow the blueprint of the Greenbelt model and instead took a turn toward the suburban sprawl we know today. The Greenbelt towns may represent an unrealistic dream, but they show an imagined way of American life that continues to appeal and hints at what might have been possible.
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front cover of The Humane Metropolis
The Humane Metropolis
People and Nature in the 21st-Century City
Rutherford H. Platt
University of Massachusetts Press, 2006
Four-fifths of Americans now live in the nation's sprawling metropolitan areas, and half of the world's population is now classified as "urban." As cities become the dominant living evironment for humans, there is growing concern about how to make such places more habitable, more healthy and safe, more ecological, and more equitable—in short, more "humane."

This book explores the prospects for a more humane metropolis through a series of essays and case studies that consider why and how urban places can be made greener and more amenable. Its point of departure is the legacy of William H. Whyte (1917-1999), one of America's most admired urban thinkers. From his eyrie high above Manhattan in the offices of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Whyte laid the foundation for today's "smart growth" and "new urbanist" movements with books such as The Last Landscape (1968). His passion for improving the habitability of cities and suburbs is reflected in the diverse grassroots urban design and regreening strategies discussed in this volume.

Topics examined in this book include urban and regional greenspaces, urban ecological restoration, social equity, and green design. Some of the contributors are recognized academic experts, while others offer direct practical knowledge of particular problems and initiatives. The editor's introduction and epilogue set the individual chapters in a broader context and suggest how the strategies described, if widely replicated, may help create more humane urban environments.

In addition to Rutherford H. Platt, contributors to the volume include Carl Anthony, Thomas Balsley, Timothy Beatley, Eugenie L. Birch, Edward J. Blakely, Colin M. Cathcart, Steven E. Clemants, Christopher A. De Sousa, Steven N. Handel, Peter Harnik, Michael C. Houck, Jerold S. Kayden, Albert LaFarge, Andrew Light, Charles E. Little, Anne C. Lusk, Thalya Parilla, Deborah E. Popper, Frank J. Popper, Mary V. Rickel, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Robert L. Ryan, Laurin N. Sievert, Andrew G. Wiley-Schwartz, and Ann Louise Strong.

Included in the back of the book is a DVD of a 22-minute film created by Ted White, which serves as a companion to the text.
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