The latter half of the 20th century's radical transformation of American cities and regions has paradoxically stimulated interest in older forms of cities and renewed respect for the planning tradition which created them. With everything urban and public now perpetually in crisis, attention is focused on the figures who shaped the cities and left a magnificent legacy of public spaces, public transit, public parks, public libraries, public schools, public health and public safety. This volume re-evaluates those planners and their times in a series of essays by contemporary urbanists. These contributors view such antecedents as Albert Gallatin, Frederick Law Olmsted, Daniel Burnham, Edward Bennett and Lewis Mumford not merely as precursors who prepared the way for the revelations of modern planning theory, but as contemporaries and even "prophets", who struggled with many of the same problems of today, and who responded with vision, confidence and hope.
The essayists discuss principles proposed for American urban planning, cover a series of national efforts at planning for transportation, resources and the environment, and describe experiences in New Orleans, Portland, Chicago and Boston.