Reclaiming American Cities: The Struggle for People, Place, and Nature since 1900

Structured in three parts, this book provides a detailed discussion of the historical developments toward humane urbanism in American cities.

Part 1 examines the patrician decades between 1900 and 1940, followed by the technocrat decades of 1940–1990 in Part 2 and what is termed the more humane era in Part 3. The author analyzes the shift from grassroots efforts and poverty-oriented movements like those spearheaded by prominent figures such as Jane Addams and Jane Jacobs toward contemporary urban agriculture and community-based resource management approaches. Contrasting it with the City Beautiful movement and Urban Renewal programmes, the book reveals legacies of tensions between today’s more humane forms of urbanism and long-dominant top-down and expert-driven approaches.

Based on detailed descriptions of projects and case studies that shaped the residents (see for instance chapters on separations along ethnicity or income class), place (e.g. suburban development and urban sprawl, large-scale infrastructure and displacements) and nature (e.g. waterways, forests and protected areas) of American cities, the book is able to capture very clearly the people supporting, benefiting and losing from various urban planning efforts.

Its focus on ordinary micro-places brings about a perspective on the policies that affect the everyday lives in urban and suburban communities. But even though the close examination of the context of several American cities and their histories and legacies is central to this book, readers from other geographical and disciplinary backgrounds might also find it useful to compare and contrast it with their experiences. Specifically, insights into tensions between bottom-up and top-down and technocratic versus people-centred approaches, as well as the role of historical movements that lead to more humane urbanisms, seem to be generally useful for struggles to make urban places at various scales more safe, healthy, equitable, efficient and people-friendly.

For more details, see https://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/reclaiming-american-cities

Book note prepared by Julia Wesely