From Tenements to the Taylor Homes

by Bauman, John F.; Biles, Roger; Szylvian, Kristin M.

• ISBN13: 9780271020129
• ISBN10: 0271020121
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-08-01
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr

Summary

Authored by prominent scholars, the twelve essays in this volume use the historical perspective to explore American urban housing policy as it unfolded from the late nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. Focusing on the enduring quest of policymakers to restore urban community, the essays examine such topics as the war against the slums, planned suburbs for workers, the rise of government-aided and built housing during the Great Depression, the impact of post-World War II renewal policies, and the retreat from public housing in the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan years.

Author Biography

John F. Bauman is a Visiting Research Professor in Community Planning and Development at the Muskie School of Public Affairs at the University of Southern Maine, and Professor Emeritus of History at California University of Pennsylvania Roger Biles is Professor of History at East Carolina University Robert B. Fairbanks is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington John S. Garner is Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Thomas W. Hanchett is staff historian for the Museum of the New South in Charlotte, North Carolina Arnold R. Hirsch is Research Professor of History at the University of New Orleans Janet Hutchison is a Research Associate at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution Eric J. Karolak is currently a policy analyst with the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Budget Office Raymond A. Mohl is Professor of History and Chairman of the Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Gail Radford teaches U.S. history at the State University of New York at Buffalo Kristin M. Szylvian is Associate Professor of History at Western Michigan University Alexander von Hoffman is a Senior Research Fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface and Acknowledgments	ix
Chronology: American Housing in the Twentieth Century	xi
Introduction: The Eternal War on the Slums	1	(20)
John F. Bauman
Part I: The Roots of Federal Housing Policy
From Better Dwellings to Better Neighborhoods: The Rise and Fall of the First National Housing Movement	21	(22)
Robert B. Fairbanks
The Garden City and Planned Industrial Suburbs: Housing and Planning on the Eve of World War I	43	(17)
John S. Garner
``No Idea of Doing Anything Wonderful'': The Labor-Crisis Origins of National Housing Policy and the Reconstruction of the Working-Class Community, 1917-1919	60	(21)
Eric J. Karolak
Shaping Housing and Enhancing Consumption: Hoover's Interwar Housing Policy	81	(21)
Janet Hutchison
The Federal Government and Housing During the Great Depression	102	(19)
Gail Radford
The Federal Housing Program During World War II	121	(22)
Kristin M. Szylvian
Part II: Federal Housing Policy in Postwar America
Public Housing and the Postwar Urban Renaissance, 1949-1973	143	(20)
Roger Biles
The Other ``Subsidized Housing'': Federal Aid to Suburbanization, 1940s-1960s	163	(17)
Thomas W. Hanchett
Why They Built Pruitt-Igoe	180	(26)
Alexander von Hoffman
Choosing Segregation: Federal Housing Policy Between Shelley and Brown	206	(20)
Arnold R. Hirsch
Planned Destruction: The Interstates and Central City Housing	226	(20)
Raymond A. Mohl
Jimmy Carter, Patricia Roberts Harris, and Housing Policy in the Age of Limits	246	(19)
John F. Bauman
Epilogue	265	(6)
Roger Biles
Bibliographic Essay	271	(6)
List of Contributors	277	(4)
Index	281