Washington,D.C.: Worthy after All

Frederick Gutheim , consultant, Worthy of the Nation: The History of Planning for the National Capital (Washington , 1977), 345-46, 349.

Alan Lessoff , The Nation and Its City: Politics, "Corruption," and Progress in Washington, D.C., 1861-1902 (Baltimore, 1994), 14.

Howard Gillette, Jr. , Between Beauty and Justice: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. (Baltimore, 1995), 213.

For a review essay reflecting this mood, Steven J. Diner, "The Nation’s City," Journal of Urban History 24 (1998): 655-66. Political and social scientists produced a parallel series of critical studies of redevelopment and gentrification: Dennis E. Gale, Washington, D.C.: Inner-City Revitalization and Minority Suburbanization (Philadelphia, 1987); Brett Williams, Upscaling Downtown: Stalled Gentrification in Washington, D.C. (Ithaca, NY, 1988); Stephen J. McGovern, The Politics of Downtown Development: Dynamic Political Cultures in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. (Lexington, KY, 1998). The widely read journalistic account, Harry S. Jaffe and Tom Sherwood, Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C. (New York, 1994), summed up its point of view in its title.

Carl Abbott , Political Terrain: Washington, D.C., from Tidewater Town to Global Metropolis (Chapel Hill, 1999), esp. 140-41, 156. Also, Carl Abbott , "Washington and Berlin: National Capitals in a Networked World," in Berlin-Washington, 1800-2000: Capital Cities, Cultural Representations, and National Identities , ed. Andreas W. Daum and Christof Mauch ( New York , 2005), 101-24.

For example, Antoinette J. Lee, Architects to the Nation: The Rise and Decline of the Supervising Architect’s Office (New York, 2000); William C. Dickinson, Dean A. Herrin, and Donald R. Kennon, eds., Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation’s Capital (Athens, OH, 2001); Alan Lessoff and Christof Mauch, eds., Adolf Cluss, Architect: From Germany to America (New York, 2005); C. Ford Peatross, ed., Capital Drawings: Architectural Designs for Washington, D.C., from the Library of Congress (Baltimore, 2005); Pamela Scott, Capital Engineers: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Development of Washington, D.C., 1790-2004 (Alexandria, VA, 2005); Michael Bednar, L’Enfant’s Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, D.C. (Baltimore, 2006).

Joel W. Achenbach, Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West (New York, 2004); Scott W. Berg, Grand Avenues: The Story of the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C. (New York, 2007); Fergus Bordewich, Washington: The Making of the American Capital (New York, 2008); Les Standiford, Washington Burning: How a Frenchman’s Vision of Our Nation’s Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army (New York, 2008). These trade press books build on the careful scholarship pursued in recent decades by Kenneth Bowling and other Early National period historians. Kenneth R. Bowling, The Creation of Washington, D.C.: The Idea and Location of the American Capital (Fairfax, VA, 1991); Kenneth R. Bowling, Peter Charles L’Enfant: Vision, Honor, and Male Friendship in the Early American Republic (Washington, 2002); Bob Arnebeck, Through a Fiery Trial: Building Washington, 1790-1800 (Lanham, MD, 1991).

Stanley Harrold, Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828-1865 (Baton Rouge, 2003); Josephine F. Pacheco, The Pearl: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac (Chapel Hill, 2005); Katherine Masur, "Reconstructing the Nation’s Capital: The Politics of Race and Citizenship in the District of Columbia, 1862-1878" (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2002); Jacqueline M. Moore, Leading the Race: The Transformation of the Black Elite in the Nation’s Capital (Charlottesville, 1999). Also Abbott, Political Terrain, chap. 3.

Zachary M. Schrag , The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro ( Baltimore, 2006), 283.

For comparison, Gutheim, Worthy of the Nation, 28.

Jon A. Peterson , The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917 (Baltimore, 2003), 10.

See Gillette, Between Beauty and Justice; Jaffe and Sherwood, Dream City; Sam Smith, Captive Capital: Colonial Life in Modern Washington (Bloomington, IN, 1974); Charles Wesley Harris, Congress and the Governance of the Nation’s Capital (Washington, 1995); Alan Lessoff, "Washington under Federal Rule, 1871-1945," in Daum and Mauch, eds., Berlin-Washington, 1800-2000, 235-62.

Thomas W. Hanchett , "Roots of the Renaissance: Federal Incentives to Urban Planning, 1941-1948" in Planning the Twentieth-Century American City, ed. Mary Corbin Sies and Chris Silver (Baltimore, 1996), 283-304.

See also David F. Krugler , This Is Only a Test: How Washington, D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War (New York, 2006).

John W. Reps, Monumental Washington: The Planning and Development of the Capital Center (Princeton, 1967). In addition to Designing the Nation’s Capital, Washington historians commemorated the centennial of the McMillan Plan with two special issues in 2002 of Washington History 14, nos. 1-2. These issues explored not the 1901-1902 plan itself but background and related matters.

Peterson, Birth of City Planning, esp. chapters 6-8; William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement (Baltimore, 1989), esp. chap. 4; Carl Smith, The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City (Chicago, 2006).

See also Peterson, Birth of City Planning, chap. 4; Jon A. Peterson, "The Mall, the McMillan Plan, and the Origins of American City Planning," in The Mall in Washington, 1791-1991, ed. Richard Longstreth (Washington, 1991), 101-13; Peterson, "The Nation’s First Comprehensive City Plan: A Political Analysis of the McMillan Plan for Washington, D.C., 1900-1902," Journal of the American Planning Association 51 (Spring 1985): 134-50; and Peterson, "The Hidden Origins of the McMillan Commission for Washington, D.C., 1900-02," in Historical Perspectives on Urban Design, Washington, D.C., 1890-1910, Antoinette J. Lee (Washington, 1983), 3-18.

Jeffry M. Diefendorf , "Berlin Irresistible: Explorations in Culture and Politics," Journal of Urban History 26 (2000): 823-29; Andrew Lees , "Cities, Society, and Culture in Modern Germany: Recent Writings by Americans on the Großstadt ," Journal of Urban History 25 (1999): 733-44. Kristin Stapleton , "Beijing: Olympic City," Journal of Urban History 34 (2008): 1013-20.