City : urbanism and its end / Douglas W. Rae.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rae, Douglas W.

Series:

Yale ISPS series

The Yale ISPS series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

City and town life--Connecticut--New Haven--History--20th century.

City and town life.

Industrialization--Social aspects--Connecticut--New Haven--History--20th century.

Industrialization.

Urban renewal--Connecticut--New Haven--History--20th century.

Urban renewal.

History.

Industrialization--Social aspects.

New Haven (Conn.)--Politics and government--20th century.

New Haven (Conn.).

New Haven (Conn.)--Economic conditions--20th century.

New Haven (Conn.)--Social conditions--20th century.

Connecticut--New Haven.

Physical Description:

xix, 516 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2003]

Summary:

How did neighborhood groceries, parish halls, factories, and even saloons contribute more to urban vitality than did the fiscal might of postwar urban renewal? In the grand lineage of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone and Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Douglas Rae depicts the features that contributed most to city life in the early "urbanist" decades of the twentieth century. Rae's subject is New Haven, Connecticut, but the lessons he draws apply to many American cities. Starting with a vivid sketch of the guests attending a party in August 1910, City: Urbanism and Its End presents a richly textured portrait of New Haven in a period of centralized manufacturing, civic vitality, and mixed-use neighborhoods. As social and economic conditions changed, the city confronted its end of urbanism, first during the Depression, and then very aggressively during the mayoral reign of Richard C. Lee (1954-70), when New Haven led the nation in urban renewal spending. Government spending aimed at new buildings and social engineering for the urban poor may have had many good purposes, but it did little to restore urban vitality. And in most cases, government programs could not restore the large numbers of manufacturing jobs lost, perhaps forever, in older American cities. Strategies for the urban future should focus instead on nurturing the unplanned civic engagements that make mixed-use city life so appealing and so civilized. Small-scale retailing, neighborhood clubs, informal enforcement of sidewalk civility, and new urbanist design may be the keys to the future. Cities need not reach their old peaks of population, or look like thriving suburbs, to be once again splendid places for human beings to live and work.

Contents:

1 Creative Destruction and the Age of Urbanism 1

Part 1 Urbanism

2 Industrial Convergence on a New England Town 35

3 Fabric of Enterprise 73

4 Living Local 113

5 Civic Density 141

6 A Sidewalk Republic 183

Part 2 End of Urbanism

7 Business and Civic Erosion, 1917-1950 215

8 Race, Place, and the Emergence of Spatial Hierarchy 254

9 Inventing Dick Lee 287

10 Extraordinary Politics: Dick Lee, Urban Renewal, and the End of Urbanism 312

11 The End of Urbanism 361

12 A City After Urbanism 393.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 433-497) and index.

ISBN:

0300095775

OCLC:

52178948