Influential People Flashcards
Alfred Bettman
Bettman, Alfred - Cincinnati lawyer who drafted the bill, passed by Ohio in 1915, which enabled the creation of local planning commissions. Played a key role in establishing the constitutionality of zoning in Euclid vs. Ambler (1926). Alfred Bettman was the first president of American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO) founded 1934.
Daniel Hudson Burnham
Burnham, Daniel Hudson (1846-1912) - Father of city planning in U.S. Among city planners, architect Daniel H. Burnham is renowned for the influential 1909 “Plan for Chicago,” which proposed transportation and parkway schemes for the entire region– from downtown Chicago to Kenosha, Wisconsin. His architectural firm, Burnham and Root, planned the 1893 World’s Colombian Exposition–also influential because its classical style architecture inspired legions of city halls, public libraries, and banks throughout the U.S. Burnham is famous for his quote, “Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood”. Burnham was the national president of American Institute of Architects. His “White City” at the Colombian Exposition inspired the “City Beautiful Movement”, and his Chicago plan (1909) gave birth to modern city planning.
Paul Davidoff
Davidoff, Paul (1930-1984) - Founded the Suburban Action Institute in 1969. The institute challenged exclusionary zoning in the courts, winning a notable success in the Mt. Laurel case. This led to the requirement by the state supreme court of New Jersey that communities must supply their “regional fair share” of low-income housing needs. Developed the concept of “advocacy planner”, where a planner serves a given client group’s interests and should do so openly; a planner could develop plans for a particular project and speak for interests of the group or individuals affected by these plans.
Patrick Geddes
Geddes, Patrick (1854-1932) - British biologist and sociologist, was also an innovative city planning theorist. Author of the Cities in Evolution. He is considered the “father” of regional planning.
Ebenezer Howard
Howard, Ebenezer (1850-1928) - A British reformer. The Garden City was Howard’s answer to what many in his day sought: an alternative to the endlessly sprawling 19th century industrial city. Howard’s idea was to combine the best features of town and country life in a ring of satellites surrounding London. His ideas spawned Garden City movements in many other countries, including the U.S. His own Garden Cities, Letchworth (1903) and Welwyn (1920), were the direct ancestors of Radburn, New Jersey, and the Greenbelt towns built during the Depression in America. Howard published Tomorrow A Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1898, starting the Garden City movement. The book was reissued in 1902 as Garden Cities of Tomorrow.
Jane Jacobs
Jacobs, Jane - Author of 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, forced its readers to rethink urban renewal and other contemporary tools of city building. The book has also inspired two generations of planners. Jacobs lived in New York City when the book was published (and drew many of her conclusions from observing its old neighborhoods); in more recent years she has lived in Toronto.
Pierre Charles L’Enfant
L’Enfant, Pierre Charles (1754-1825) - Designed the plan for Washington D.C. - made use of grid pattern, axials, and circles.
Kevin Lynch
Lynch, Kevin (1918-1984) - Professor at MIT and author of Image of the City. Famous quotation: “Historically, public opinion has favored development almost irrespective of the cost of the environment. Our laws and institutions . . . reflect a pro-development bias.”
Ian McHarg
McHarg, Ian - Wrote Design with Nature. Considered the “father” of Modern Ecology/ Environment Movement. In 1962, he and David Wallace founded Wallace, McHarg Associates, a firm known for such environmentally innovate projects as the 1962 plan for four contiguous Maryland river valleys, which for the first time proposed to use transfer of development rights (TDR) to preserve a landscape. Renowned for his advocacy of ecological planning and for the layered mapping techniques that created the foundation for GIS. Famous quotation: “The purpose of this exploration is to show that natural process, unitary in character, must be so considered in the planning process: that changes to parts of the system affect the entire system, that natural processes do represent values and that these values should be incorporated into a single accounting system.”
Robert Moses
Moses, Robert (1888-1981) - Known as the “Great Expediter” - Moses was the leading person on city planning in the 1920’s, replacing Burnham. Famous quotation: “If the ends don’t justify the means, then what the hell does.” Portland, Oregon hired him to recommend a program of public improvements. He did more to shape the New York region than anyone else; oversaw the construction of more than 400 miles of parkways, the Triborough Bridge, and Jones Beach (the world’s largest public bathing beach).
Lewis Mumford
Mumford, Lewis - Prolific author on the field of urban planning - The Culture of Cities (1938) - Mumford inspired city and regional planning efforts in America. He was an outspoken critic of the Regional Plan of NY (1929). He was a member of the Regional Planning Association of America - Sunnyside Gardens, New York, Radburn, New Jersey, (City Housing Corporation).
Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.
Olmsted, Frederick Law, Sr. (1822-1903) - Co-designer of Central Park in New York. Designed the suburban community of Riverside, IL. Site planner for the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
Frederick Law Olmsted Jr
Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr. (1870-1957) - Planner for both public and private uses. First president of the American City Planning Institute. Designer of Forest Hills Gardens and Palos Verdes Estates. Played important role in shaping Standard City Enabling Act of 1928.
Perry, Clarence Arthur (1872-1944) - Father of the Neighborhood Unit Concept; lived in Forest Hills Gardens; codified Unwin’s designs of neighborhood. While living in the “garden suburb” of Forest Hills Gardens, New York, he worked on his scheme for the “neighborhood unit”– a self-contained residential area that would be bounded by major
streets, with shops at the intersections and a school in the middle. The concept of the self-contained neighborhood unit was made public with the publication of Housing for the Mechanic Age. Author of the Regional Survey of New York and Its Environs (1929).
George Pullman
Pullman , George (1831-1897) - Railroad tycoon and inventor of the Pullman railroad car, was also a social inventor. In Pullman, Illinois, his model company town (Pullman) tried to combine the industrialist’s need for efficiency with the worker’s need for a decent housing. The experiment failed partly because Pullman tried to regulate the private lives of his tenants and partly because of the economic problems that engulfed the project during the depression of the 1890s. When built, Pullman was a free-standing town eight miles south of Chicago; it is now incorporated into the city of Chicago and remains virtually intact.
Jacob Riis
Riis, Jacob August (1849-1914) - Used photography and writing to reveal the terrible conditions of the urban poor in the US. He was the author of two books that looked at life in the slums of New York: How The Other Half Lives (1890) and Children of the Poor (1892). These books led to the first federal investigation of slum conditions and to changes in New York’s housing laws that later became national models. Riis arises as one of the leading housing reformers in the history of American City Planning.
