| Book Review | Environmental History, 9.4

Book Review

The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840–1917. By Jon A. Peterson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. xxi + 431 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. $59.95.
American environmental historians have paid little attention to urban planning. Yet the rise of city planning in the United States was tied to several issues and movements that long have concerned historians of environmentalism. Jon Peterson's outstanding account of the birth of city planning therefore ought to be part of all future discussions of environmental activism in the period before World War I.	1
Peterson roots the planning vision in three reactions to the extraordinary growth of cities in the nineteenth century. The first two—sanitary reform and park building—both were efforts to deal with what Peterson terms an "environmental crisis" in the middle third of the century, when the ill-effects of unregulated growth became overwhelming. Deadly epidemics, dirty streets, smoke-filled skies, catastrophic fires, congested and unhealthy neighborhoods—all suggested to reformers that city life might become unsustainable. Though much of the literature about nineteenth-century urban sanitation written by environmental historians has focused on the creation of a sanitary infrastructure of sewers, street cleaning, and garbage collection, Peterson demonstrates that the first wave of urban environmental reform also involved efforts to design healthier landscapes.	2
The third source of the planning vision was architectural—a drive at the end of the century to make the public spaces of cities more orderly and inspiring. But the interest in "civic art" soon became part of a broader City Beautiful movement that drew attention to a number of environmental problems. In some cities, City Beautiful reformers challenged the pollution of waterfronts. Many of the first efforts to reduce urban air pollution also were part of City Beautiful campaigns. In the first years of the twentieth century, indeed, the ideal of "beauty" became a shorthand for the broader goal of creating cities that would instill pride in residents, and that broader ambition led to efforts to provide safe drinking water, build parks, and control noise. Because the quality of the urban environment depended on so many factors, reformers began to call for "comprehensive" city planning.	3
Peterson concludes with a thoughtful examination of the ultimate failure of the planning vision. Soon after planners took the first steps toward professionalization, the field divided over whether planning should aim to achieve social justice as well as economic efficiency. Because few people accepted the argument that the city was "a great organic unit" that required comprehensive planning, planners also settled for—in Peterson's words—"opportunistic interventionism." Planning became a set of tools useful in addressing a variety of problems rather than a holistic way to guide the development of cities.	4
For environmental historians, one minor point in Peterson's book is especially provocative. Many of the people who laid the foundations for city planning also were concerned about rural environments. The American Park and Outdoor Art Association, founded in 1897, welcomed anyone interested in "the conservation of natural scenery" as well as the establishment of city parks. By the early 1900s, landscape architects and planners were working to create metropolitan park systems that included forests and river valleys. Landscape architect and planner Harlan Kelsey, in addition to directing the anti-smoke efforts of the American Civic Association, was president of the Appalachian Mountain Club and lobbied for the establishment of forest reserves in the southern Appalachians and the White Mountains.	5
Though Peterson does not speak directly to debates in environmental history, The Birth of City Planning in the United States calls into question the way scholars have written about the early history of environmental activism. The literature on the subject now is divided into four sub-literatures. One body of work has focused on the conservation movement and another on wilderness preservation. A third sub-literature has considered anti-pollution campaigns in cities, while a fourth has analyzed efforts to green the urban landscape. Yet, as Peterson's book suggests, environmental activism was not as fragmented as our historiography.	6
Adam Rome is associate professor of history at Pennsylvania State University and editor of Environmental History. He is currently working on a book tentatively titled "Sustaining the Nation: Environmental Activism and the Emergence of Modern America."

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