The book explores the 1960s "new town" movement, where visionary developers aimed to reshape American suburbs by creating large-scale projects designed to combat suburban sprawl. Through a detailed examination, it highlights the ambitious efforts to transform both the physical landscape and social dynamics, reflecting the era's aspirations for a redefined American Dream.
The history of public policy in postwar America tends to fixate on developments at the national level, overlooking the crucial work done by individual states in the 1960s and ’70s. In this book, Nicholas Dagen Bloom demonstrates the significant and enduring impact of activist states in five areas: urban planning and redevelopment, mass transit and highways, higher education, subsidized housing, and the environment. Bloom centers his story on the example set by New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, whose aggressive initiatives on the pressing issues in that period inspired others and led to the establishment of long-lived state polices in an age of decreasing federal power. Metropolitan areas, for both better and worse, changed and operated differently because of sustained state action—How States Shaped Postwar America uncovers the scope of this largely untold story.
JAMES ROUSE, AMERICA'S SALESMAN OF THE BUSINESSMAN'S UTOPIA
Focusing on the innovative contributions of developer James Rouse, the book explores his pivotal role in reshaping urban policy in America. Rouse championed the idea that the private sector could effectively create ideal urban environments with minimal government intervention. His projects, including shopping centers and festival marketplaces, served as a counterpoint to state-controlled urbanism seen in the Soviet Union and Europe. Through diverse communication strategies, he advocated for a new vision of urban development that emphasized community and commerce.
A Century of Austerity, Auto-Centric Planning, and White Flight
The book critically examines the intentional disinvestment in public transit across several major U.S. cities, arguing that the decline was a result of deliberate choices rather than inevitable outcomes. Nicholas Dagen Bloom identifies key factors such as municipal austerity, auto-centric planning, and suburban migration that shaped these decisions. By analyzing cities like Baltimore and Chicago, he challenges prevailing myths about transit issues and aims to inform current discussions on public transportation funding and policy.
"One of the most enduring American urban myths concerns the death of the Red Car Trolley, an extensive and equitable system in Los Angeles County that some say was weakened and then eradicated by US car manufacturers. Yet as Nicholas Dagen Bloom shows, an array of larger yet less tangible forces together interacted to practically murder public transportation of all kinds in cities nationwide. Most centrally, public transit collapsed because essentially we wanted it to-no conspiracy necessary. Detailing the histories of transportation in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and San Francisco, Bloom seeks to set all of our transit myths to rest for the sake not only of accuracy but in order to enrich our conversations about public transportation funding today"--