YEAR

EVENT

TOPIC

1791

Pierre L.Enfant plans the capital of the United States

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)

1849

James Silk Buckingham publishes National Evils and Practical Remedies, a proposal for a model town to absorb the unemployed (never built).

1860s

The period of Baron Haussmann intense rebuilding of Paris (starting in about 1855)

1860s

Vienna began its Ringstrasse development

1870

Baron Haussmann was forced to resign his position as Prefect of Paris

1875

Benjamin Ward proposes his model city of health called "Hygeia" to promote longevity and lower mortality.

1884

First settlement house: Toynbee House in England

1886

Establishment of the Neighborhood Guild in New York's Lower East Side (considered the first settlement house in the US) [link]

1890

Jacob Riis publishes his How the Other Half Lives, a view of the New York slums, which stimulated housing reform.

1893

Columbian Exposition in Chicago (roots of City Beautiful). Main architect: Burnham.

temporary event

1894

the National Municipal League founded

1898

Ebenezer Howard publishes To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (reprinted in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-Morrow)

1898

"Greater New York" created out of the merger of the five boroughs.

1899

the American Society of Landscape Architects founded

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.

1902

the McMillan Plan for Washington, D.C., redesigning the National Mall, in City Beautiful style

1906

The Garden Cities Association of America established (first Vice Pres.: the president of Long Island Railroad)

1907

the first city planning commission (in Hartford, CT) established

1909

First National Conference on City Planning in Wash. D.C.

1909

Burnham's Plan of Chicago published (seen as the first regional-oriented plan in the U.S.)

1911

Frederick Winslow Taylor publishes The Principles of Scientific Management, one of the fountainheads of the efficiency movements in the U.S. (including the City Efficient movement).

1916

first comprehensive zoning in the US (by New York City Board of Estimates)

1917

American City Planning Institute (ACPI) established, with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. as 1st president

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)

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.

1924

U.S. Dept. of Commerce (under Secretary Herbert Hoover) issues a Standard State Zoning Enabling Act.

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.

1925

Le Corbusier exhibits his "Plan Voisin" for Paris (a massively-scale replacement of central Paris neighborhoods with highrises.) [link]

1926

Village of Euclid vs. Ambler Reality (constitutionality of zoning upheld by Supreme Court)

1929

The Stock Market Crash

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)

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.†

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.)

1934

Housing Act of 1934 (establishes the FHA)

1934

American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO) established.

1935

Congress created the Works Progress Administration (WPA)

1935

The Social Security Act passed in August

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

1939

Homer Hoyt publishes his monograph, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities, outlining his theory of radial-sector.

1939

ACPI renamed the American Institute of Planners (AIP)

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.

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).

1946

the Full Employment Act of 1946

1947

the Housing and Home Finance Agency (predecessor of HUD) created to coordinate federal government’s various housing programs.

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).

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.

1956

Passage of the U.S. Federal-Aid Highway Act (popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act)

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.]

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. The failed protests against the demolition helped trigger the historic preservation movement.

1964

the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964

1964

The 1964 Urban Mass Transportation Act

1965

the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965; creates the Economic Development Administration (EDA)

1965

the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act (HUD) to replace the old Housing and Home Finance Agency †

1966

the 1966 Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act (including the Model Cities program)

1967

Urban Riots/Rebellions in Detroit, Newark and other cities (July)

1967

Metropolitan Council (Minneapolis/St. Paul and surrounding region) created [a model of comprehensive regional planning]

1968

the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968

1968

The New Communities Act of 1968 (which guaranteed private financial for private entrepreneurs to plan and develop new communities)

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)

1970

National Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established. Administers the main provisions of the Clean Air Act (1970).

1972

California passes the Coastal Zone Management Act (leading to the California Coastal Commission)

1973

The 1973 Oregon Statewide Land Use Law (leading to urban growth boundaries)

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.

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.

1978

Hawaii becomes the first state to institute statewide zoning.

1978

ASPO and AIP combined into the American Planning Association (APA)

publication

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).

1992

New Jersey's State Development and Redevelopment plan adopted.

1993

The Congress of New Urbanism (CNU) founded by Duany, Moule, Plater-Zyberk, and others.

1996

The Regional Plan Association publishes A Region at Risk: the Third Regional Plan

1999

the Georgia legislature creates the Georgia Regional Transportation Agency (GRTA) to address sprawl in Atlanta

2005

The US Supreme Court rules in favor of eminent domain authority in the case Kelo v. City of New London