Nature of Cities

Jennifer S. Light is a professor at the School of Communication and the Departments of History and Sociology at Northwestern University and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research. She is the author of From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America, also published by Johns Hopkins.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Revisiting American Antiurbanism1. The City Is an Ecological Community2. The City Is a National Resource3. A Life Cycle Plan for Chicago4. From Natural Law to State Law5. A Nation of Renewable CitiesConclusion: From Ecology to SystemNotesEssay on SourcesIndex

Of interest to scholars and students of urban history, planning, geography, and sociology, as well as urban studies more generally... Highly recommended. Choice A fascinating and suggestive account of the influence of ecology and natural-resource management on academic urbanists, city planners, and real-estate professionals. -- Adam Rome Technology and Culture Light's excavation of the intellectual terrain, on which so much of mid-20th-century urban policy rested, significantly contributes to our understanding of planning's evolution in this critical period following the profession's foundational years. -- Edward K. Muller Journal of the American Planning Association An outstanding history of how ecological concerns have shaped urban development around the country. -- James A. Cox Midwest Book Review Light does a wonderful job of tracking the migration of people and ideas to the nation's capital, demonstrating how these shaped the National Resources Planning Board's agenda and actions, and detailing how urban management became national policy from FDR to LBJ. -- Char Miller American Historical Review This engaging and well-written work challenges the notion that cities were seen as 'unnatural' places during the early years of the twentieth century, when the United States was transitioning from an agrarian to an urban society and the professions of social science, urban planning, and real estate were being developed... To understand that policies that led to the bulldozing of neighborhoods in the name of "urban renewal" in the 1960s and 1970s had their origins in theories first espoused in the opening decades of the twentieth century relating to forest and field resource management reminds us that there may well be unintended consequences for seemingly benign theories, models, and approaches promoted today. -- Dean Sinclair Historical Geography Light explores how ecological ideas such as 'climax,' 'blight,' and 'conservation' transferred from the natural sciences to the emerging fields of urban sociology, geography, and economics during the 1920s and were eventually adopted by urban professionals during the 1930s and 1940s. Most importantly, she argues that these ideas-which saw cities as closed ecological communities that, like farms and forests, could be managed scientifically-significantly shaped local and national urban-renewal policy in postwar America... This book makes an important contribution to the study of twentieth century American cities. -- Robert Gioielli Register of the Kentucky Historical Society A model for anyone looking to reveal the complex ways that scientific thinking plays into the emergence of an entire field of social planning. -- Chris Young Journal of the History of Biology