| ERAS (approximate) |
YEAR |
EVENT |
TOPIC |
keywords (selected): e.g., environment, zoning, regional |
| |
|
|
1682 |
William Penn's Philadelphia Plan (surveyor general: Thomas Holme), with gidiron street plan and public squares [link] [link] |
|
|
| 1713 |
Hans Carl von Carlowitz. (1713). Sylvicultura Oeconomica, Oder Haußwirthliche Nachricht und Naturmäßige Anweisung Zur Wilden Baum-Zucht. Leipzig: Braun. In his book on forestry, the German accountant and administrator developed the idea of sustained yield forestry -- often seen as an antecedent to conceptions of sustainable development. [link to German text] |
publication |
environment |
| 1788 |
The case of Steel v. Houghton et Uxor (in the UK's Court of Common Pleas), ruled that ‘no person has, at common law, a right to glean in the harvest field’. This ruling against the customary rights of the poor to collect the leftover grains (etc.) in farm fields after harvest, can be seen as a major symbolic step in the transformation of rights and the rise of formalized private property rights. (see King, Peter. “GLEANERS, FARMERS AND THE FAILURE OF LEGAL SANCTIONS IN ENGLAND 1750–1850.” Past & Present, vol. 125, no. 1, 1989, pp. 116–50, doi:10.1093/past/125.1.116.) |
|
|
| 1791
|
Pierre L.Enfant plans the capital of the United States |
|
|
| 1811 |
Commissioners' Plan establishes the street grid pattern for New York City (i.e., "the greatest grid") [link] |
|
|
| 1818
|
Robert Owen publishes Report to the Committee of the Association for
the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor. (a proposal for
small village communities of 1,200 for the relief of overcrowded towns)
|
|
|
1826 |
Johann Heinrich von Thünen. 1826. Der isolierte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie. Hamburg. ["The Isolated State in Relationship to agriculture and national economics" -- an early effort to conceptualize optimal land use types relative to distance from a central market point. a foundational text in economic geography] [German version] [English translation] |
publication |
|
| 1842 |
Croton Aqueduct begins supplying water from Westchester County to New York City. |
|
|
| 1845 |
Friedrich Engels. 1845. Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England [English translation, The Condition of the Working Class in England, published in 1887]. Much of it was based on Engels' research in the industrial city of Manchester, 1842–44. (Urbanists often read the chapter, "The Great Towns") |
publication |
|
| 1849
|
James Silk Buckingham publishes National Evils and Practical Remedies,
a proposal for a model town to absorb the unemployed (never built).
|
publication |
|
 |
1853 |
Baron Hausmann appointed prefect of the department of the Seine (including Paris) by Emperor Napoleon III to undertake a massive urban renewal program in Paris, including grand boulevards. † |
|
|
| 1855 |
The London physician John Snow publishes his map of the cholera outbreak in Soho [seen as a landmark prototype of a thematic map] † |
|
|
| 1857
|
The development of Llewellyn Park, an elaborately landscaped villa development
in the foothills of New Jersey's Orange Mountains. (one of the first planned
American suburbs) [link] |
new town/project |
|
| 1857 |
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux win the design competition for what would become New York City's Central Park (built 1858-1873). [confirm dates] |
new town/project |
|
| 1857 |
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) established. |
|
|
| 1862 |
Hobrecht Plan implemented in Berlin. (Full title: "Bebauungsplan der Umgebungen Berlins" -- Land Use Plan for Berlin). Named after James Hobrecht, the planning director (Stadtbaurat) for Berlin. |
|
|
| 1863 |
London opens the first underground railway in the world (the "Metropolitan Railway"). [link] |
|
|
| 1867
|
Cerdá, Ildefons. 1867, Teoría general de la urbanización [General theory of urbanization] -- one of the first efforts to theorize urban planning (using Barcelona as his example). |
publication |
|
| 1860s
|
Vienna began its Ringstrasse development
|
|
|
| 1868
|
Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted began planning the suburb of Riverside, Illinois. (incorporated as a village in 1875). an early example of an American planned community. (or 1869?) |
new town/project |
|
| 1870
|
Baron Haussmann was forced to resign his position as Prefect of Paris
|
|
|
| 1870 |
Planning begins for San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (designed by William Hammond Hall and John McLaren) [link] |
new town/project |
|
| 1876
|
Richardson, Benjamin Ward (1876). Hygeia, a city of health. London,: Macmillan and co.
[a proposal for a model
city of health called "Hygeia" to promote
longevity and lower mortality] [link to original text] [alternate source] [Note: book opens with a dedication to Edwin Chadwick, the notable English social reformer and promoter of improvements to urban sanitation and public health] |
publication |
|
| 1876 |
Baumeister, Reinhard. 1876. Stadt-Erweiterungen in technischer, baupolizeilicher und wirthschaftlicher Beziehung. Berlin: Ernst & Korn. (City Extensions and their technical, building regulatory and economic relationships). [written by a civil engineer; considered the first modern city planning textbook.] † |
publication |
|
| 1880 |
German planning education begins at the technical university in Aachen † |
education |
|
| 1880
|
Building of Pullman, Illinois, model industrial town south of Chicago, begun by George
Pullman (completed 1884) |
new town/project |
|
| 1883 |
Brooklyn Bridge completed (connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn over the East River). |
|
|
| 1884
|
First settlement house: Toynbee Hall in England |
|
|
| 1885 |
The City of Modesto (California) enacts an ordinance that can be seen as both a forerunner of zoning and an example of land use regulations to promote racial segregation (here against mostly Chinese-run laundries): "It shall be unlawful for any person to establish, maintain, or carry on the business of a public laundry or washhouse where articles are washed and cleansed for hire, within the City of Modesto, except within that part of the city which lies west of the railroad track and south of G Street." † [ordinance upheld by the California Supreme Court in 1886] [Note: Edward Bassett, the "father of American zoning," noted in his 1940 book, Zoning (Russell Sage Foundation, pp. 202-3), that "Before modern zoning was established several laundry cases arose in California. The opinions in these cases assisted in the framing of later laws." [link] |
|
zoning |
| 1886
|
Establishment of the Neighborhood Guild in New York's Lower East Side (considered the first settlement house in the US) [link] |
|
|
| 1887 |
Ferdinand Tönnies. 1887. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Leipzig. (later translated as Community and Society), [foundational text of urban sociology that contrasts small-scale rural community life to mass-scale urban industrial society] |
publication |
|
| 1888 |
Inauguration of Port Sunlight, a model village for workers (an industrial suburb south of Liverpool on the west side of the River Mersey). Created by William Lever (of Lever Brothers soapworks) † |
new town/project |
|
| 1889 |
Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr co-founded Hull House, an early settlement house, in Chicago [an idea imported from England, modeled on Toynbee Hall (1884) in East London] |
|
|
1889 |
Sitte, Camillo. 1889. Der Städte-Bau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen : ein Beitrag zur Lösung modernster Fragen der Architektur und monumentalen Plastik unter besonderer Beziehung auf Wien. Wien: C. Graeser & Co. [later translated as: City Planning According to Artistic Principles] (an emphasis on the historical, organic, aesthetic role of urban form and design, rather than on the functional, technical aspects of city management.) |
publication |
|
 |
1890
|
Jacob Riis publishes his How the Other Half Lives, a view of the
New York slums, which stimulated housing reform.
[see this Library of Congress exhibit] |
publication |
|
| |
1890 |
Stübben, Hermann Josef. Der Städtebau. [part of the series Handbuch der Architectur (Handbook of Architecture); later translated as City Building; available online both in German and English]. became the standard German text for planning. |
publication |
|
| |
1891 |
Die Frankfurter Zonenbauordnung von 1891 (the Frankfurt, Germany, "zoning ordinance" -- the beginning of citywide planning in Frankfurt and an early landmark step in the development of zoning) |
|
zoning |
 |
1893
|
Columbian Exposition in Chicago (seen as one of the origins of the City Beautiful movement). Main architect:
Burnham. |
temporary event |
|
| 1894
|
the National Municipal League founded
|
|
|
| 1894 |
Bournville, a model village built by Cadbury (the chocolate company), south of Birmingham UK [link] |
new town/project |
|
| 1896 |
Theodor Fritsch. 1896. Die Stadt der Zukunft. [City of the Future] Leipzig: Verlag von Theod. [link to original text]
[presents a idea for a low-density alternative to the industrial city. in the second edition (1912), Fritsch would use the term "Gartenstadt" [garden city], though his anti-Semitic, racist vision of these settlements was in stark contrast to Ebenezer Howard's communitarian, social reformist vision of garden cities. For a detailed discussion, see Schubert, D. (2004). "Theodor Fritsch and the German (völkische) version of the Garden City: the Garden City invented two years before Ebenezer Howard." Planning Perspectives, 19(1), 3-35.] |
publication |
|
| 1897 |
Boston builds the first subway in the United States. |
|
|
| 1898
|
Ebenezer Howard publishes To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform
(reprinted in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-Morrow)
[the seminal text on the Garden Cities movement] [link to an online copy of the 1902 edition] ""Town and Country must be married, and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilization." |
publication |
|
1898 |
"Greater New York" created out of the merger of the five boroughs. |
|
|
1898 |
Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops [link] |
publication |
|
| 1898 |
New York Mayor George E. Waring Jr. organizes the first international urban planning conference in New York (with a focus on the horse manure problem on urban streets) [link] |
|
|
| 1899 |
Du Bois, W. E. B., and Isabel Eaton. 1899. The Philadelphia negro : a social study. Publications of the University of Pennsylvania Political economy and public law series.[a classic sociological study, the first case study of an African-American community in the US] [link to full text] |
publication |
|
| 1899
|
the American Society of Landscape Architects founded
|
|
|
| |
1899 |
Ebenezer Howard and others form the Garden City Association. † |
|
|
| 1900 |
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal opened (linked the south branch of the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River). Reversed the flow of the Chicago River to prevent pollution of Lake Michigan water supply. |
|
|
| 1901
|
Charles M. Robinson publishes The Improvement of Towns and Cities
or the Practical Basis of Civic Aesthetics. (New York), which emerged
as a key statement of the City Beautiful Movement.
|
publication |
|
| 1901 |
New York State Tenement Housing Act of 1901 [required improvements in window ventilation, courtyards, fire safety, etc.] |
|
|
| 1902
|
the McMillan Plan for Washington, D.C., redesigning the National Mall, in City Beautiful style. (named after Senator James McMillan of Michigan, who chaired the Senate Park Commission. Participants included: Daniel Burnham, Charles McKim, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Charles Moore). [link] |
new town/project |
|
| 1903
|
Letchworth constructed (as England's first Garden City, about 30 miles
north of London) |
new town/project |
|
1903 |
Georg Simmel, "Die Großstadt und das Geistesleben" ["The Metropolis and Mental Life"] |
publication |
|
| 1904 |
a new German-language planning journal published, Der Städtebau: Monatsschrift für die Künstlerische Ausgestaltung der Städte nach Ihren Wirtschaftlichen, Gesundheitlichen und Sozialen Grundsätzen[Urban Design: monthly journal for the artistic design of cities according to their economic, health and social principles]. [one of its founders, Camillo Sitte, died before its first publication; Werner Hegemann was editor from 1925-32; ceased publication in 1939.] [link] |
publication |
|
| 1904 |
The Association of American Geographers (AAG) founded. |
education |
|
| 1904 |
Los Angeles adopted an ordinance prohibiting industrial uses in residential districts (one of the first examples of land use restrictions in the US). In subsequent years the city would enact more formal, detailed zoning regulations. [link] |
|
zoning |
| 1904 |
New York City's first official subway system opened in Manhattan. [link] |
|
|
| 1906 |
Construction begins on the garden city (Gartenstadt) of Margarethenhöhe in the city of Essen (in the Ruhr industrial region of Germany). [architect/planner: Georg Metzendorf] Completed in 1938. [link] |
|
|
| 1906
|
The Garden Cities Association of America established (first Vice Pres.:
the president of Long Island Railroad)
|
|
|
| 1906 |
The US Steel Corporation establishes the City of Gary (Indiana) for its new Gary Works (on the south shore of Lake Michigan). Once the county's largest steel mill. [link] |
new town |
|
| 1907
|
the first city planning commission (in Hartford, CT) established
|
|
|
| 1908 |
Ford produces the first "Model T" automobile (in the Piquette Plant in Detroit) [seen as the first affordable, mass produced car] |
|
|
 |
1909
|
First National Conference on City Planning in Wash. D.C.
|
|
|
| 1909 |
"Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909" (UK) [permits local authorities to engage in planning] |
|
|
| 1909 |
Marsh, Benjamin C., & Ford, George. B. (1909). An introduction to city planning; democracy's challenge to the American city. New York. [an early and influential text on the new field of city planning] |
publication |
|
| 1909
|
Burnham's Plan of Chicago published (seen as the first regional-oriented
plan in the U.S.) |
|
|
| 1909 |
First university program in town planning established in the UK: the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool (as an extension of the School of Architecture). [partly funded by W.H. Lever, who was building his model village of Port Sunlight nearby for his Lever soap factory.] The second professor of Civic Design was Patrick Abercrombie.† |
education |
|
| 1909
|
Harvard offers the first course in city planning in the US (in its School of Landscape
Architecture)
|
education |
|
| 1909 |
Hellerau, an early "garden city" (Gartenstadt) in Germany (adjacent to Dresden). [known as the 'German Letchworth'] † |
new town/project |
|
| 1909 |
Weber, Alfred. 1909. Über den Standort der Industrien. Tübingen. [Theory of the Location of Industries] (an influential text on location theory written by Max Weber's brother) |
publication |
|
| 1909 |
Welch v. Swasey, 214 U.S. 91: The US Supreme Court ruled that regulations that limit building height in specific areas of the city (in this case, Francis Welch was a property owner in Boston) did not violate the US Constitution. [Note: George B. Swasey, et al., was the Board of Appeal from the Building Commissioner of the City of Boston] [link] |
|
zoning |
| 1910 |
General Town Planning Exhibition ('Allgemeine Städtebau-Ausstellung') in Berlin (May) † |
|
|
| 1910 |
Establishment of Britain's first planning journal, Town Planning Review (TPR) |
publication |
|
| 1910 |
The word urbanisme first appears in print to describe planning to a French audience. † |
|
|
| 1910 |
"The Town Planning Conference," London (October), organized by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)† |
|
|
| 1911
|
Forest Hills Garden built as a middle- and upper-income garden city-like
development in Queens, NY. (designed by Frederick Olmsted, Jr., and built
by the Russell Sage Foundation) |
new town/project |
|
| 1911 |
Société française des Urbanistes established (French Society of Urban Planners) [link] |
|
|
1911 |
Frederick Winslow Taylor publishes The Principles of Scientific Management,
a key text of the efficiency movement in the U.S. (including
the City Efficient movement). |
publication |
|
| 1912 |
Columbia University (NY) offers a town planning course within the School of Architecture [link] |
education |
|
 |
1914 |
Perry, Clarence Arthur. 1914. The school as a factor in neighborhood development, by Clarence Arthur Perry, [Russell Sage Foundation, New York Pamphlet]. New York City,: Dept. of Recreation. [an early version of Perry's idea of the neighborhood unit as the foundation of planning] |
publication |
|
| 1914 |
Royal Town Planning Institute established (first president: Thomas Adams) † |
|
|
| 1915 |
Park, R. E. (1915). The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the City Environment. American Journal of Sociology, 20(5), 577-612. [a leader of the "Chicago School," Park studied with John Dewey (Michigan) and Georg Simmel (Berlin), and worked with Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute.] |
publication |
|
1915 |
Geddes, Patrick. 1915. Cities in evolution: an introduction to the town planning movement and to the study of civics. London: Williams & Norgate. [link] [an emphasis on the regional scale, of surveying before planning, and introducing the term "conurbation".] |
publication |
|
 |
1916
|
first comprehensive zoning in the US (authored by Edward Bassett; adopted by New York City Board of Estimates). "CITY OF NEW YORK BOARD OF ESTIMATE AND APPORTIONMENT ------- BUILDING ZONE RESOLUTION (Adopted July 25, 1916.) A Resolution regulating and limiting the height and bulk of buildings hereafter erected and regulating and determining the area of yards, courts and other open spaces, and regulating and restricting the location of trades and industries and the location of buildings designed for specified uses and establishing the boundaries of districts for the said purposes." [link] |
|
zoning |
| 1916 |
Lewis, Nelson Peter. 1916. The planning of the modern city; a review of the principles governing city planning. New York: John Wiley & sons. (Lewis was the Chief Engineer of the City of New York Board of Estimate and Apportionment) [link] |
publication |
|
| 1917 |
The United States Supreme Court (in "Buchanan v. Warley") declares that racially biased zoning is unconstitutional (but only applied to legal statutes, so did not ban race-based restrictive covenants among home-owners). [link] |
|
|
| 1917
|
American City Planning Institute (ACPI) established, with Frederick Law
Olmsted, Jr. as 1st president
|
|
|
| |
1919 |
Canadian Institute of Planners founded. |
|
|
1919 |
Staatliches Bauhaus art school formed in Germany (Walter Gropius, director 1919 - 1928; later Hannes Meyer and then Ludwig Mies van der Rohe). First in Weimar, moved to Dessau in 1925, then to Berlin in 1932. Closed in 1933 after the Nazi regime comes to power. [link to Bauhaus Archiv] |
education |
|
 |
 |
1919 |
Members of the Société française des Urbanistes (French Society of Urban Planners) and the Musée Social created l’École des hautes études urbaines (the School of Advanced Urban Studies) in Paris. [link] |
education |
|
| 1920 |
Edward M. Bassett. 1920. Zoning. New York: National Municipal League (revised 1922). [link to original text] [an early text by the so-called "father of American zoning. Bassett was trained as a lawyer. see his 1936 publication for a more extensive text on zoning.] |
publication |
zoning |
| 1920 |
The 1920 US Decennial Census confirms that the US urban population (54.3 mil) has surpassed the rural population (51.8 mil). |
|
|
| 1920 |
The second Garden City was built in England in Welwyn, about 20 miles
north of London |
new town/project |
|
1921 |
Port Authority of New York created. To insure "faithful cooperation in the future planning and development of the port of New York." Empowered to operate "any terminal of transportation facility" within the port district. (later renamed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) |
|
regional |
1921 |
Max Weber, Die Stadt. [The City] |
publication |
|
| 1922 |
Inauguration of Regional Plan of New York under Thomas Adams. |
|
regional |
| 1922 |
Country Club Plaza established in Kansas City, considered the first automobile-oriented shopping mall. It opened in 1923. |
new town/project |
|
| 1922 |
Le Corbusier develops the idea of the Ville contemporaine (City Contemporary), a utopian planned community intended to house three million inhabitants in steel and glass towers surrounded by parks [link] |
|
|
1923 |
Creation of the Regional Planning Association of America ("RPAA") -- a small but influential group including Clarence Stein, Henry Wright, Benton MacKaye, Lewis Mumford, Alexander Bing, Catherine Bauer, and others. |
|
regional |
| 1923 |
Harvard opens the first graduate program in city planning (housed in the Department of Landscape Architecture) † |
education |
|
| 1924
|
U.S. Dept. of Commerce (under Secretary Herbert Hoover) issues a Standard
State Zoning Enabling Act.
|
|
zoning |
| 1924-8
|
Sunnyside Gardens constructed (in New York, designed by Clarence Stein
and Henry Wright) |
new town/project |
|
| 1925
|
first comprehensive plan officially endorsed by a major US city (Cincinnati)
|
|
|
| 1925
|
Ernest Burgess publishes his "concentric zone" model
of urban structure and land use. |
publication |
|
1925 |
Le Corbusier exhibits his "Plan Voisin" for Paris (a massively-scaled replacement of central Paris neighborhoods with highrises.) [link] |
|
|
1925 |
Survey Graphic Regional Planning Number (1925), edited by Lewis Mumford. [contained the writings of the Regional Planning Association of America] |
publication |
|
1925 |
Le Corbusier. 1925. Urbanisme, Collection de "L'esprit nouveau". Paris: G. Crès & cie. [later translated as The city of to-morrow and its planning] |
publication |
|
| 1926
|
Village of Euclid vs. Ambler Realty (constitutionality
of the Cleveland suburb's zoning upheld by the US Supreme Court in a 6-3 vote, which concluded the ordinance did not exceed the local government’s police power.) [link] the decision includes this support of separating single family detached housing from apartment buildings: "The police power supports also, generally speaking, an ordinance forbidding the erection in designated residential districts, of business houses, retail stores and shops, and other like establishments, also of apartment houses in detached-house sections -- since such ordinances, apart from special applications, cannot be declared clearly arbitrary and unreasonable, and without substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare." [link] [hence the term "Euclidean zoning"] |
|
zoning |
| 1928
|
construction of Radburn, NJ, begun (a Garden City designed by Stein and
Wright), located in what is now Fair Lawn, between Paterson and Paramus. |
new town/project |
|
| 1928 |
Formation of the Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne (CIAM) [International Congresses of Modern Architecture]. Founders included Le Corbusier, Sigfried Giedion, Ernst May, and others. |
|
|
1928 |
MacKaye, Benton. 1928. The new exploration; a philosophy of regional planning. New York,: Harcourt. |
publication |
environment |
| |
 |
1929
|
The Stock Market Crash
|
|
|
| 1929 |
Harvard creates the first independent planning school (3-year Master of City Planning program), with funding assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation † |
education |
|
| 1929 |
Publication of the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs. (a wide-ranging study including physical, demographic, economic and government elements).† |
publication |
regional |
| 1930 |
Werner Hegemann, Das steinerne Berlin: Geschichte der grössten Mietkasernenstadt der Welt. Berlin: Kiepenhauer. [Stony Berlin: History of the Largest Tenement City in the World] |
publication |
|
| 1930 |
Rockefeller Center begun in midtown Manhattan (principal architect Raymond Hood) |
new town/project |
|
| 1932
|
26 mayors met in Detroit to appeal for federal support of Depression-hit
cities (this group formally became the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1933)
|
|
|
1932 |
Wright, Frank Lloyd. 1932. The Disappearing City. New York, W. F. Payson. [Wright presents his idea for the decentralized "Broadacre City"] |
publication |
|
 |
1933 |
Christaller, Walter. 1933. Die zentrale Orte in Süddeutschland. Jena. [Central Places in southern Germany] (develops the influential idea of "central place theory" and the resulting hierarchical network of cities) |
publication |
|
| 1933
|
Congress creates the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in
May
|
|
|
| 1933
|
The Public Works Administration (PWA) created (in May), as part of the
National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)
|
|
|
| 1933
|
The Civil Works Administration (CWA) created (in November), later folded
into the FERA in April, 1934
|
|
|
| 1933
|
The National Planning Board established in the Interior Department to
assist in the preparation of a comprehensive plan for public works. Its
last successor agency, the National Resources Planning Board (NRPB), was
abolished in 1943.† |
|
environment, regional |
| 1933
|
The Tennessee Valley Authority created to provide for unified and multi-purpose
rehabilitation and redevelopment of the Tennessee Valley. (the most famous
experiment in integrated river basin planning in the U.S.) |
|
environment, regional |
| 1934
|
Housing Act of 1934 (establishes the FHA)
|
|
|
| 1934 |
Catherine Bauer, Modern Housing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934). ["The book quickly became the bible of New Dealers searching for ways of building decent, safe, and sanitary housing while simultaneously promoting construction that would ease unemployment." -- Mel Webber.] † |
publication |
|
| 1934
|
American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO) established.
|
|
|
| 1935
|
The U.S. Resettlement Administration established to carry out experiments
in land reform and population resettlement. (led by Rexford Tugwell).
It built three Greenbelt towns (as early forms of new towns): Greenbelt,
Maryland; Greendale, Wisconsin; and Greenhills, Ohio. |
new town/project |
|
| 1935
|
Congress created the Works Progress Administration (WPA)
|
|
|
| 1935
|
The Social Security Act passed in August
|
|
|
| 1935 |
MIT approves a Master in City Planning (MCP) program. [link] [link] |
education |
|
| 1935 |
Cornell offers regional planning classes through a Carnegie Corporation grant (a joint architecture and engineering program) [link] |
education |
|
| 1936 |
Bassett, E. M.. (1936). Zoning; the laws, administration, and court decisions during the first twenty years. New York,: Russell Sage Foundation. [link to original text] |
publication |
zoning |
| 1937
|
The U.S. Housing Act (Wagner-Steagall). Set the stage for future government
aid by appropriating $500 million in loans for low-cost housing. Tied
slum clearance to public housing.
|
|
|
| 1937
|
Farm Security Administration established, successor to the Resettlement
Administration and administrator of many programs to alleviate the condition
of the rural poor
|
|
|
1938 |
Wirth, Louis. "Urbanism as a Way of Life." American Journal of Sociology 44 (1):1-24. |
publication |
|
 |
1939
|
Homer Hoyt publishes his monograph, The Structure and Growth of Residential
Neighborhoods in American Cities, outlining his theory of radial-sector urbanization.
|
publication |
|
| 1939
|
ACPI renamed the American Institute of Planners (AIP)
|
|
|
| 1939 |
The American Institute of Planners (through Civic Films, Inc.) releases the influential film "The City", with commentary written by Lewis Mumford and music by Aaron Copeland. (presents the dark side of the congested industrial city and the benefits of regional planning and new towns/garden cities) [link] |
|
|
1939 |
New York World's Fair, which included the "Futurama" exhibit, designed by Norman Bell Geddes, at the General Motors Pavilion. The exhibit presented a vision of the rationally-planned city of the future, with superhighways and multi-leveled streets. |
|
|
| 1940 |
Lösch, August. 1940. Die räumliche Ordnung der Wirtschaft: Eine Untersuchung über Standort, Wirtschaftsgebiete und internationalen Handeln. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer. [later translated as The economics of location] (a seminal text on location theory and urban economics) |
publication |
|
| |
|
1941 |
Walker, Robert A. (1941). The planning function in urban government. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [argued that planning has not yet lived up to its expectations/potential, and that planning needed to be both broadened to include a wide range of city functions and put at the center of city government] |
|
|
| 1944
|
Serviceman’s Readjustment Act ("G.I. Bill").
Guaranteed loans for homes to veterans under urban favorable terms
(which, in turn, accelerated suburbanization after the war). |
|
|
| 1944 |
Creation of the World Bank (at the 1944 Bretton Wood Conference). First loan: to France in 1947. |
|
|
| 1944 |
The Greater London Plan of 1944 (i.e., the "Abercrombie Plan") [link] [map] |
|
|
1944 |
Hayek, Friedrich. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. London: Routledge. [an argument for the benefits of decentralized markets and against centralized planning] |
publication |
|
| 1945 |
The University of Illinois authorized a master's degree in urban planning [link] |
education |
|
 |
1946
|
the Full Employment Act of 1946
|
|
|
| 1946 |
The University of North Carolina establishes the Department of City & Regional Planning. [the TVA and state & local planning agencies in the south saw the need for a planning program in the region] (Significantly, a planning program without links to an architecture or landscape architecture school; see also U. Chicago in 1947) † |
education |
|
| 1946 |
The University of Michigan creates a program in City Planning, housed within what was then the College of Architecture and Design (CAD). (The program would become a formal department in 1968, the same year as the creation of a university-wide Ph.D. program in urban and regional planning.) |
education |
|
| 1947
|
the Housing and Home Finance Agency
(predecessor of HUD) created to coordinate federal government’s
various housing programs. |
|
|
| 1947
|
Construction of Levittown, NY, begun (a private-sector development to
sell affordable houses to the new white middle-class with their FHA loans). |
new town/project |
|
1947 |
Coursework began at University of Chicago's Program for Education and Research in Planning [a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary planning program, treating planning as an applied social science rather than as an extension of architecture]. program terminated in 1956. † [see also] Faculty included Rexford Tugwell (program director), Melville Branch, Harvey Perloff, Edward Banfield, Martin Meyerson, and Julius Margolis. |
education |
|
| 1947 |
Planning schools started at the University of Illinois, Rutgers University and the University of Texas † |
|
|
| 1948 |
UC Berkeley creates a program in City and Regional Planning (under TJ Kent)† |
education |
|
| 1949
|
Housing Act of 1949 (Wagner-Ellender-Taft Bill). Aimed to provide about
800,000 units to be constructed over a period of six years. First U.S.
comprehensive housing legislation. Title I: federal funding for slum clearance; Title II: Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance; Title III: federal funding for public housing. "The law was the product of seven years of bitter legislative stalemate and a shotgun wedding between enemy lobbying groups. It set lofty goals—to eliminate slums and blighted areas and provide a decent home for every American family—but provided only the limited mechanisms of public housing and urban renewal to meet them" (von Hoffman, Alexander. 2000. "A study in contradictions: The origins and legacy of the housing act of 1949." Housing Policy Debate 11 (2):299). |
|
|
| 1950 |
Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Buffalo, Albany (NY), Cincinnati and other older industrial cities reach their peak historical population level (and subsequently decline in population due to outmigration both to the suburbs and to southern and western US regions). Source: US Decennial Census. |
|
|
| 1951 |
Stanford Industrial Park created by Stanford University (later renamed Stanford Research Park); first tenants, Varian Brothers, arrive in 1953. [becomes an early center of what would become known as "Silicon Valley"; an example of university-firm technology transfer] |
new town/project |
|
| 1951 |
O’Harrow, D. (1951) ‘Performance Standards in Industrial Zoning’, in Planning 1951 , Chicago: American Society of Planning Officials, pp. 44–55. [an early discussion of what would become "performance zoning" -- the regulation by the impact/effect of development rather than its use/size.] |
publication |
zoning |
| 1952 |
Georgia Tech opens a Graduate City Planning Program [link] |
education |
|
1952 |
Gruen, Victor and Smith, Lawrence P. "Shopping Center: The New Building Type. Progressive Architecture, June 1952, pp. 67–109. [one of many of Gruen's early postwar writings on the shopping mall] |
publication |
|
| 1954
|
the Housing Act of 1954 (created the Urban Planning Assistance Program
to aid states and localities). Also gave federal grants for councils of governments and other metropolitan planning agencies (early federal support for regional coordination). † |
|
|
| 1954
|
In Berman vs. Parker, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the right
of Washington, D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency to condemn properties which
are unsightly though nondeteriorated if required to achieve objectives
of duly established area redevelopment plan.
|
|
|
 |
1954 |
The Hudson Company (a Detroit department store) opens "Northland Center" in Southfield, Michigan (an inner-ring suburb of Detroit), considered the largest shopping center at the time. Designed by Victor Gruen. (The mall closed in 2015.) [link] |
new town/project |
|
| 1954 |
Youngtown, Arizona, opens as the first age-restricted retirement community in the US. † |
new town/project |
|
| 1955 |
Disneyland Park opens in Anaheim, CA. |
new town/project |
|
1955 |
Meyerson, Martin, and Edward C. Banfield. 1955. Politics, planning, and the public interest; the case of public housing in Chicago, Glencoe, Ill.,: Free Press. [emphasizes the political nature of planning and the link between planning, urban politics and public support] |
publication |
|
| 1956 |
Chandigarh completed as the new provincial capital of Punjab, India (designed by Le Corbusier along with Piere Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew starting in 1950). [confirm completion date] |
new town/project |
|
| 1956
|
Passage of the U.S. Federal-Aid Highway Act (popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act) |
|
|
1956 |
Development of Brasília, the new capital of of Brazil (planner: Lucio Costa; architect: Oscar Niemeyer). Inaugurated in 1960. |
new town/project |
|
1956 |
Isard, Walter. 1956. Location and Space-Economy. New York: The Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley & Sons. [the foundational text by the "father" of regional science] |
publication |
regional |
1956 |
Tiebout, Charles M. 1956. "A pure theory of local public expenditures." Journal of Political Economy no. 64 (3):416–424. [the classic statement of the "Tiebout Model"] |
publication |
|
| 1956 |
The Dayton Company opens the Southdale Center (designed by Victor Gruen) in Edina, Minnesota -- the first enclosed shopping mall. |
new town/project |
|
1957 |
Perloff, H. 1957. Education for Planning: City, State, and Region. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. |
publication |
|
1957 |
Chapin, F. Stuart. 1957. Urban land use planning. New York: Harper. [the first of many versions/editions of this standard text] |
publication |
|
1958 |
Regional Science Department established by the University of Pennsylvania (chair: Walter Isard); department closed in 1993. † |
education |
regional |
| 1958 |
Jacobs, Jane. 1958. "Downtown is for People," Fortune, April. [a highly influential article, written for Fortune's editor William H. Whyte, that criticized modernism urban renewal and would lead the Rockefeller Foundation to give Jacobs a grant to support writing her landmark 1961 book, Death and Life of Great American Cities] |
publication |
|
1959 |
Lindblom, C.E 1959. "The Science of 'Muddling Through," Public Administration Review 19 79-88. [seminal article on incremental planning] |
publication |
|
| 1959 |
Research Triangle Park created (between the cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, NC), a model of postwar, suburban, campus-like research and development centers. |
new town/project |
|
1960 |
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City, MIT Press, Cambridge MA. |
publication |
|
| 1960 |
Del Webb's Sun City opens in Arizona, promoted as an "active living" retirement community † |
new town/project |
|
1961 |
Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects, Harcourt, Brace & World (New York). |
publication |
|
| 1961
|
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities [strongly criticized contemporary city planning and large-scale urban
renewal, and argued that vibrant city life needed diversity, density, small-blocks, mixed-uses and vibrant streets and sidewalks for people, not just cars.] |
publication |
|
| 1961 |
Gottmann, Jean. (1961). Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund. [an early, influential text on the idea of the emerging megaregion] |
publication |
regional |
| 1962 |
The first phase of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Midtown Manhattan completed (the Philharmonic Hall). The Lincoln Square neighborhood had been designated for urban renewal in 1955, with ground breaking in 1959. † |
project |
|
| 1962 |
Conversion of the old Ghirardelli chocolate factory in San Francisco into a commercial complex. (architects: Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons Inc.; and Lawrence Halprin & Associates) [seen as the first major "adaptive reuse" project of old factory/warehouse buildings turned into retail/tourist uses]. The nearby adaptive reuse project, "The Cannery," completed a year later in 1963 (architect: Joseph Esherick). † |
adaptive reuse |
|
| 1962 |
Highway Act of 1962. Federal highway aid to areas with populations over 50,000 required the “establishment of a continuing and comprehensive transportation planning process carried out cooperatively by state and local communities.” [link] |
|
|
| 1962 |
Roger Tomlinson develops the Canada Land Inventory [an early effort in the development of what would be known as the Geographic Information System (GIS)]. [source: GIS LOUNGE] |
|
environment |
| 1962 |
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press. [triggered a re-evaluation of the structure and transformation of social science ideas and truth] |
publication |
|
| 1962 |
Gans, Herbert J. 1962. The urban villagers; group and class in the life of Italian-Americans. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. [study of Boston's West End neighborhood and a critical view of slum clearance programs] |
publication |
|
1962 |
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin). [a foundational text in the modern environmental movement] |
publication |
environment |
| |
 |
1963 |
Destruction of the above-ground portion of historic Pennsylvania Station -- the main train station in New York City, designed by McKim, Mead and White and completed in 1910. (above-ground portion replaced by the new Madison Square Garden). The failed protests against the demolition helped trigger the historic preservation movement. [link] |
|
|
 |
1963 |
Creation of URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association) |
|
|
| 1963 |
Benevolo, Leonardo. 1963. Le origini dell'urbanistica moderna. [published in English in 1967: The origins of modern town planning. Cambridge, Mass.,: M.I.T. Press.] |
publication |
|
| 1964
|
the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
|
|
|
| 1964 |
Planners for Equal Opportunity (PEO) created. Officially launched on August 17, 1964, at the AIP (American Institute of Planners) convention in Newark. (PEO disbands in 1974). † |
|
|
1964 |
The 1964 Urban Mass Transportation Act, which provided federal funds for development of mass transit systems (and incentives for preparing metro transportation plans). |
|
|
1964 |
Kent, T.J. 1964. The Urban General Plan. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing. [a foundational text by the founder of the UC Berkeley city planning program] |
publication |
|
1964 |
Anderson, Martin. 1964. The Federal bulldozer; a critical analysis of urban renewal, 1949-1962, Cambridge,: M.I.T. Press. |
publication |
|
1964 |
Gruen, Victor. 1964. The heart of our cities; the urban crisis: diagnosis and cure. New York: Simon and Schuster. |
publication |
|
1964 |
Alonso, William. 1964. Location and Land Use. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. [an early, influential text on regional science. Alonso was a student of Walter Isard at Penn's regional science program.] |
publication |
regional |
| 1964 |
Glass, Ruth. 1964. London : aspects of change. University of London Centre for Urban Studies. London, MacGibbon & Kee. [The Berlin-born, London-based sociologist Ruth Glass coins the term "gentrification" to describe the movement of affluent middle-class residents into working class neighborhoods.] |
publication |
|
| 1964 |
Reston, Virginia founded as a new town/planned community (developed by Robert E. Simon). |
new town/project |
|
| 1965
|
the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965; creates the Economic Development Administration (EDA) |
|
|
| 1965 |
First published use of the term "Geographic Information System" (GIS): Michael Dacey and Duane Marble, "Some comments on certain technical aspects on geographic information systems" (Department of Geography, the University of Illinois, Evanston, Ill., Dec 1965). [source: GIS LOUNGE] |
|
|
| 1965
|
the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act (HUD) to replace
the old Housing and Home Finance Agency † |
|
|
1965 |
Davidoff, Paul. "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning." Journal of the American Institute of Planners no. 31 (4):544-555. [seminal article on advocacy planning] [link to the Davidoff Tapes Project at UMass Boston] |
publication |
|
1965 |
Altshuler, A.A. 1965. The City Planning Process: A Political Analysis Ithaca, New York Cornell University Press. |
publication |
|
| 1965 |
Mitscherlich, Alexander. 1965. Die Unwirtlichkeit unserer Städte: Anstiftung zum Unfrieden. [The inhospitality of our cities. A deliberate provocation] . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. (The German psychologist writes a passionate criticism of German postwar urban development.) |
publication |
|
| 1966
|
the 1966 Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act (including
the Model Cities program) |
|
|
1966 |
Babcock, Richard F. 1966. The zoning game; municipal practices and policies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. [helped assert the centrality of land use controls in community planning] |
publication |
zoning |
| 1966 |
Walt Disney, shortly before his death, presents his ambitious plan for a new city adjacent to Disneyworld called "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" (EPCOT) for central Florida. The city was never built, though a highly modified and downsized version was opened as a theme park in 1982. |
new town/project |
|
| 1967
|
Urban Riots/Rebellions in Detroit, Newark and other cities (July)
|
|
|
1967 |
Bacon, Edmund N. 1967. Design of cities. New York: Viking Press. [influential book based on Bacon's years as director of planning in Philadelphia] |
publication |
|
| 1967 |
Columbia, Maryland opened (new master planned community by James Rouse) |
new town/project |
|
| 1967 |
Milton Keynes, UK, completed as a new town (part of a larger postwar new town construction effort) |
new town/project |
|
| 1967 |
"In retrospect, this [1967] was the high watermark of a belief in a total, centralised, top-down, expertly based – but also benign – planning system." Peter Hall † |
|
|
1967 |
Metropolitan Council (Minneapolis/St. Paul and surrounding region) created [a model of comprehensive regional planning] |
|
regional |
| 1968
|
the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968
|
|
|
| 1968 |
The Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) prohibited discrimination in housing based on race, color, sex, national origin, or religion. [link] |
|
|
| 1968 |
Second Regional Plan of the Regional Plan Association (RPA) of New York. [argued for recentralization to counteract suburban sprawl, emphasizing urban centers and transit.] [link] |
|
regional |
| 1968
|
The New Communities Act of 1968 (which guaranteed private financial for
private entrepreneurs to plan and develop new communities)
|
|
|
1968 |
Garrett Hardin, 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science, Vol. 162 no. 3859, pp. 1243-1248 |
publication |
environment |
| |
 |
1969
|
NEPA: The National Environmental Policy Act (requiring an EIS for every
federal or federally-aided state or local major action that would affect
the environment)
|
|
environment |
1969 |
McHarg, Ian L. Design with nature. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press. |
publication |
environment |
| 1969 |
Scott, Mel. 1969. American City Planning Since 1890. Berkeley: University of California Press. |
publication |
|
| 1969 |
Jacobs, Jane. 1969. The Economy of Cities. New York: Vintage Press. |
publication |
|
| 1969 |
Jack and Laura Dangermond founded Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), in Redlands, CA. (an early developer of GIS - Geographic Information Systems) [link] |
|
|
| 1969 |
Following disputes between Yale's city planning department and the university administration (including a contentious battle over admitting additional black and Hispanic students), the university administration disciplined several faculty leaders (including chair Christopher Tunnard) and began to dismantle the city planning department. † |
education |
|
| 1969 |
Formation of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) † |
education |
|
| 1969 |
Creation of a planning program at UCLA (with Harvey S. Perloff, the founding dean of the new School of Architecture and Urban Planning) [link] |
education |
|
| 1969 |
Banham, Reyner, Paul Barker, Peter Hall, and Cedric Price. 1969. "Non-Plan: an experiment in freedom." New society 13:338. (an lively, provocative and influential essay that speculates whether reversing the troublesome emergence of heavy-handed, modernist, urban renewal planning would "let people shape their own environment.") |
publication |
|
| 1970
|
National Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established. Administers the
main provisions of the Clean Air Act (1970).
|
|
|
| 1970 |
The 1970 US Decennial Census confirms that, for the first time, more people live in suburbs (37.6%) than central cities (31.4%), with the remainder living outside metropolitan areas. † |
|
|
1972 |
California passes the Coastal Zone Management Act (leading to the California Coastal Commission) |
|
environment |
1972 |
Beginning of destruction of Pruitt-Igoe public housing projects (St. Louis) |
new town/project |
|
1972 |
Castells, Manuel. 1972. La question urbaine. Paris,: F. Maspero. [later translated as The Urban Question] |
publication |
|
| 1972 |
Newman, Oscar. 1972. Defensible space; crime prevention through urban design. New York: Macmillan. |
publication |
|
| 1972 |
Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. W. I. (1972). The Limits to growth; a report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind. New York: Universe Books. [a landmark report that used computer simulations to examine the constraints on population growth] |
publication |
environment |
| 1973 |
1973 Highway Act. allocated funding from the Highway Trust Fund for new "Metropolitan Planning Organizations" (MPOs), in urbanized areas with population greater than 50,000. [link] |
|
regional |
1973 |
The 1973 Oregon Statewide Land Use Law (leading to urban growth boundaries). Portland gained its UGB in 1980. [link] |
|
regional |
1973 |
David Harvey, Social Justice and the City |
publication |
|
1973 |
Rittel, Horst W.J., and Melvin M. Webber. 1973. "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning." Policy Sciences Vol. 4:155-169. [introduces the idea of urban social problems as "wicked problems"] |
publication |
|
1973 |
Lee, Douglas. 1973. "Requiem for Large Scale Models." Journal of the American Institute of Planners (May). |
publication |
|
| 1973 |
Faludi, Andreas. 1973. Planning theory. Oxford: Pergamon Press. [a key text in the rise of procedural planning theory] |
publication |
|
| 1973 |
Friedmann, John. 1973. Retracking America; a theory of transactive planning. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press. |
publication |
|
| 1974
|
Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. It establishes the block
grant (CDBG), as opposed to the categorical grant, as the main form of
federal aid for local development.
It also establishes the Section 8 housing program. |
|
|
1974 |
Henri Lefebvre, La production de l'espace, Paris: Anthropos. [later translated as The Production of Space] |
publication |
|
1974 |
Caro, Robert. 1974. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. New York: Alfred Knopf. |
publication |
|
| 1975 |
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled, in Southern Burlington County N.A.A.C.P. v. Mount Laurel Township, that the township's zoning excluded low- and moderate-income persons. (eventually led to the principle that localities had an obligation to provide affordable housing) [link] |
|
zoning, regional |
| 1976 |
Faneuil Hall Marketplace renovation in Boston (developer: James Rouse). an early example of a "festival marketplace" |
adaptive reuse |
|
| 1977 |
Peter Hall presents "Green Fields and Gray Areas" at the Royal Town Planning Institute Annual Conference (1977) promoting the “free port” idea for decaying neighborhoods, which would later emerge as the "enterprise zone" concept. see also: Hall, P. (1982). Enterprise zones: a justification. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 6(3), 416-421. |
|
|
| 1977 |
US Congress passes the Community Reinvestment Act (requires banks to report their lending practices in neighborhoods where they collect deposits) |
|
|
| 1978
|
Hawaii becomes the first state to institute statewide zoning.
|
|
zoning, regional |
| 1978
|
ASPO and AIP combined into the American Planning Association (APA)
|
|
|
| 1979 |
The Planning and Women Division formed within the American Planning Association. |
|
|
| 1979 |
Voters approve the Metro Council, covering the three counties in the Portland (Oregon) metropolitan area. (and the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission would accept the Urban Growth Boundary map drawn by Metro)† |
|
environment, regional |
| 1980 |
Harborplace opens in the inner harbor of Baltimore, Maryland (developer: Rouse Co.) -- another example of a "festival marketplace" |
adaptive reuse |
|
1980 |
William H. Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, Washington, D.C.: The Conservation Foundation. |
publication |
|
 |
 |
|
1981 |
Construction of Seaside, Florida -- a New Urbanist town designed by Duany & Plater-Zyberk (DPZ). |
new town/project |
|
| 1981 |
The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), formed in 1969, holds its first conference (at Howard University) separate from AIP/APA. ACSP creates the Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER) [as a separate voice from the Journal of the American Planning Association] † |
education |
|
| 1981 |
Planners Network holds its Founding Conference of A Union of Progressive Planning in Washington DC. [link] [see also] |
|
|
| 1981 |
Michael Heseltine (UK Secretary of State for the Environment), creates the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) to redevelop the once-thriving port terminal areas after containerization of maritime shipping led to the area's demise. [link] (see also the Museum of London/Docklands). An early and prominent example of the capital-intensive conversion of industrial and port lands into a post-industrial, globally-oriented cityscape. |
new town/project |
|
| 1981 |
Brown, Lester R. and Worldwatch Institute. (1981). Building a sustainable society. New York, Norton. [an early publication from the Worldwatch Institute -- founded by Brown in 1974 -- that explored "the unsustainable relationship that has developed between our contemporary civilization and the biological systems that support it." (p. 6) |
publication |
environment |
| 1982 |
Krumholz, Norman. 1982. A retrospective view of equity planning: Cleveland, 1969-1979. Journal of the American Planning Association 48 (Spring): 163-74. [the originator of the "equity planning" idea recounts his years as planning director of Cleveland] |
publication |
|
1982 |
Bluestone, Barry, and Bennett Harrison. 1982. The Deindustrialization of America. New York: Basic Books. |
publication |
|
| 1983 |
South Street Seaport opens in Manhattan as a "festival marketplace" -- adaptive reuse of old commercial buildings (developer: James Rouse) |
adaptive reuse |
|
| 1983 |
Schön, Donald. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books. |
publication |
|
| 1983 |
The Housing and Urban-Rural Recovery Act creates the Section 8 voucher program (which are more flexible than the old Section 8 certificates). |
|
|
| 1984 |
Hayden, Dolores. 1984. Redesigning the American Dream. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. (an influential critique of the way that American suburban housing calcifies antiquated gender roles and reinforces the gender division of labor). |
publication |
|
| 1984 |
Spirn, Anne Whiston. 1984. The granite garden : urban nature and human design. New York: Basic Books. |
publication |
|
| 1985 |
Jackson, Kenneth T. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. |
publication |
|
| 1986 |
Faculty Women's Interest Group (FWIG) established within the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) -- officially approved in 1987. |
education |
|
| 1986 |
The Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) established (first president: Eugenie Birch). [link] |
education |
|
| 1986 |
Congress passes the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) to encourage the construction and rehabilitation of low-income housing. |
|
|
 |
1987 |
United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), "Our Common Future" (commonly known as "the Brundtland Report"). [an important landmark in the development of the sustainability movement] |
publication |
environment |
| 1987 |
Fishman, Robert. 1987. Bourgeois Utopias: the rise and fall of suburbia. New York: Basic Books. |
publication |
|
| 1987 |
Markusen, Ann R. 1987. Regions: The Economics and Politics of Territory. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. |
publication |
regional |
| 1987 |
Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) established. [link] |
education |
|
| 1988 |
Union Station (Washington DC) reopens after major restoration/redevelopment -- a prominent example of renewed interest in historic train stations (now with food courts and shops). [the building originally opened in 1907. architect: Daniel Burnham] [link] |
adaptive reuse |
|
| 1988 |
Hall, Peter. 1988. Cities of Tomorrow : An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell. [became the standard planning history text] |
publication |
|
1989 |
Harvey, David. 1989. The Condition of Post-Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. |
publication |
|
| 1989 |
Forester, John. 1989. Planning in the face of power. Berkeley: University of California Press. |
publication |
|
 |
1989 |
Soja, Edward. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso Press. |
publication |
|
| 1989 |
Oldenburg, Ray. 1989. The great good place : cafés, coffee shops, community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars, hangouts, and how they get you through the day. New York: Paragon Press. [an influential book about places that are neither home (first) nor the workplace (second), but instead shared spaces to connect with the community (third spaces).] |
publication |
|
| 1989 |
SimCity was first published as a computer game, allowing users to build simulated cities. (Many planning students have stated that playing SimCity as a child triggered their interest in urban planning). [link] |
|
|
| 1990 |
Davis, Mike. 1990. City of quartz: excavating the future in Los Angeles. London: Verso. [an influential text on the bleak implications of the privatization and securitization of urban spaces] |
publication |
|
| 1990 |
Formation of the "International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives" (ICLEI) at the United Nations' World Congress of Local Governments for Sustainable Future. (In 2003 renamed "ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability"). |
|
environment |
| 1990 |
First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) |
publication |
environment |
1991 |
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). Federal law encouraging intermodal transportation policies, and granting new powers to Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). |
|
regional |
| 1991 |
Construction begins on the "Big Dig" megaproject in Boston -- officially the "Central Artery/Tunnel Project" (planning began in 1982). Project completed in 2007. [link] Represented a new era of urban megaprojects after the mid-century era of massive above-ground highway construction. |
project |
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| 1991 |
Garreau, Joel. 1991. Edge city: life on the new frontier. New York: Doubleday. |
publication |
|
| 1991 |
Cronon, William. 1991. Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton. |
publication |
environment |
| 1991 |
Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [a foundational text on global cities as the command and control centers of the modern global economy] |
publication |
|
| 1992 |
Rees, W. E. (1992). Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out. Environment and Urbanization, 4(2), 121-130. [the first publication on the concept of "ecological footprint," developed by Rees and Wackernagel - a variation on carrying capacity] |
publication |
environment |
1992 |
New Jersey's State Development and Redevelopment plan adopted. |
|
regional |
| 1992 |
The US Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) begins the HOPE VI program (to provide low-rise, urban, walkable housing -- as an alternative to the old model of highrise public housing and the concentration of poverty) |
|
|
| 1992 |
Oriole Park at Camden Yards opens in downtown Baltimore (a few blocks from the Inner Harbor). Seen as a first of the new generation of downtown, "retro"-styled ballparks (after an era of multi-purpose stadiums). |
project |
|
1993 |
The Congress of New Urbanism (CNU) founded by Duany, Moule, Plater-Zyberk, and others. |
|
environment |
| 1994 |
Fainstein, Susan S. 1994. The City Builders. Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. |
publication |
|
1996 |
The Regional Plan Association publishes A Region at Risk: the Third Regional Plan |
|
regional |
| 1996 |
Celebration, Florida (southwest of Orlando) built as new town/planned community by Disney. |
new town/project |
|
| 1996 |
Atlanta hosts the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Considered a new model of entrepreneurial mega-event funding, with heavy reliance on private corporate sponsorship (expanding on the earlier Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984). |
|
|
| 1997 |
The State of Maryland enacts "Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation" legislation. † |
|
environment |
| 1997 |
Healey, Patsy. 1997. Collaborative planning: shaping places in fragmented societies, Planning, environment, cities. Houndsmills, UK: Macmillan. |
publication |
|
| 1997 |
Completion of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in the Basque region of Spain (construction began in 1993), designed by Frank Gehry. Hence the term: "Bilbao Effect" (the idea that building a high-profile cultural institution, designed by a prominent architect, will trigger increased media attention, tourism, cultural activity and investment) |
project |
|
| 1998 |
Sandercock, Leonie (editor). 1998. Making the invisible visible: a multicultural planning history. Berkeley: University of California Press. [part of a larger effort to update and broaden the scope of planning history to include hitherto silent voices and invisible actors] |
publication |
|
| 1998 |
The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) introduces the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification system. [link] |
|
environment |
| 1998 |
Flyvbjerg, Bent. 1998. Rationality and power: Democracy in practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. |
publication |
|
| 1998 |
The first Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in the US was negotiated in relation to the planned development of the Hollywood and Highland Center (now the Ovation Hollywood), home to the theater that hosts the annual Academy Awards. |
|
|
| 1998 |
Global Planning Educators Interest Group (GPEIG) established within the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) |
education |
|
1999 |
the Georgia legislature creates the Georgia Regional Transportation Agency (GRTA) to address sprawl in Atlanta |
|
regional |
| |
2004 |
Millennium Park opens in Chicago. (construction began in 1998). a large-scale, centrally-located civic project known for its prominence, heavy use, considerable expenses (and cost-overruns), use of TIF funds, well-known architects and features (e.g., Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker Pavilion and Pedestrian Bridge, Anish Kapoor's sculpture "Cloud Gate" (commonly known as "the bean"), Jaume Plensa & Krueck and Sexton Architects' Crown Fountain). [link] |
project |
|
| 2004 |
The U.S. Home Ownership Rate reaches a historic high point of 69.2 percent (during the 2nd and 4th quarters of 2004). The rate would significantly drop during the "Great Recession" of 2007-2009. Source: US Census (Table 4). [Note: the home owneership rate first exceeded 50% after WWII. link] |
|
|
| 2005 |
Batty, Michael. 2005. Cities and complexity : Understanding cities with cellular automata, agent-based models, and fractals. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. |
publication |
|
2005 |
The US Supreme Court rules in favor of eminent domain authority in the case Kelo v. City of New London |
|
|
| 2007 |
Planners of Color Interest Group (POCIG) established within the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) |
education |
|
| 2009 |
The first section of the "High Line" opens on the west side of lower Manhattan. This linear urban park/walkway occupies a revitalized and landscaped section of the once-abandoned, elevated spur of the New York Central Railroad. Section 2 opens in 2011, and Section 3 in 2014. [link] |
project |
|
| 2012 |
Construction begins on the massive Hudson Yards project in Manhattan, built over the West Side Rail Yards (west of Penn Station New York). |
project |
|
| 2013 |
Rockefeller Foundation establishes the "100 Resilient Cities" program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans/Gulf Coast) and Superstorm Sandy (New York/East Coast). (its termination announced 2019). |
|
environment |
| 2015 |
The United Nations (UN) adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Goal 11: "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable." |
|
environment |
| 2021 |
California effectively ends single-family zoning. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB9, allowing up to four dwellings (as many as two duplexes or two houses with attached units) on almost any lot currently zoned for a single-family residence. |
|
zoning |
design and configuration © Scott D. Campbell
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See also these related sites: Remembrances & Obituaries of Planning Scholars & "Urban theorist timeline"