| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Robert B. Fairbanks. For the City as a Whole: Planning, Politics, and the Public Interest in Dallas, Texas, 1900–1965. (Urban Live and Urban Lanscape Series.) Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 1998. Pp. xiii, 318. $47.95.

In his account of Dallas through the early and middle years of the twentieth century, Robert B. Fairbanks traces the rise and decline of a discourse of "the city as a whole." He contrasts talk about "the city as a whole" with a later rhetoric that centers on individuals and groups. At various stages, linked to comprehensive planning, council-manager government, and aggressive pursuit of economic growth, Fairbanks argues, "whole-city" rhetoric enabled a small group of business and civic leaders, with the backing of the city's daily newspapers, to govern Dallas. 1

Fairbanks finds, however, that "whole-city" talk did not fully subdue conflicts of race and class. Creative responses to problems ranging from racial discord to the development of a regional airport lay beyond the reach of Dallas, despite extensive reliance on planning and management expertise. Effective as "whole-city" rhetoric was on some matters, it proved to have limited range in problem solving. 2

As Fairbanks points out, Dallas was not alone in embracing a discourse about "the city as a whole." Still, he suggests, Dallas's leadership, through the city's Citizen Charter Association, may have guarded this rhetoric more vigorously than was the case in most cities. Even so, Dallas, along with other cities saw "whole-city" talk go into decline at midcentury. Yet, though Fairbanks is strongly attentive to the shift in discourse, he has little to say about why dominant ideas change. . . .

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