The extent to which the nuclear arms race may have played a role in the development of postwar urban form in the United States is explored through an examination of planning literature and government documents from the 1940s and 1950s. The project to disperse the urban form for civil defense reasons is followed from its emergence in the literature to the adoption of these principles by both the American Institute of Planners and the U.S. federal government. The ramifications of this movement, and the role it played in the social history of the cold war, are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adams, Carolyn , David Bartlet, David Elesh, Ira Goldstein, Nancy Kleniewsky, and William Yancy. 1991. Philadelphia, neighborhoods, division, and conflict in a postindustrial city. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
2.
American Institute of Planners . 1953. Defense considerations in city planning. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists9 (7): 268.
3.
Anderson, Martin . 1966. The federal bulldozer. In Urban renewal, the record and the controversy. Edited by James Q. Wilson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4.
The Atomic Café. 1982. Produced and directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty. 88 min. Archives Project. Videocassette.
5.
Augur, Tracy B.1948. The dispersal of cities as a defense measure. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Summer, 29-35.
6.
Barnett, Jonathan . 1995. The fractured metropolis. New York: Icon Editions.
7.
Beatley, Timothy , and Kristy Manning. 1997. The ecology of place. Washington, DC: Island Press.
8.
Beauregard, Robert A.1993. Voices of decline: The postwar fate of U.S. cities. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.
9.
Bosworth, Thomas L. 1997. The bomb and the suburbanization of America. In The atomic age opens: American culture confronts the atomic bomb. Selected proceedings from the conference sponsored by the Popular Culture Library and the Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University, July 13-15, 1995. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green Center for Popular Culture Studies, 275-286.
10.
Boyer, Paul . 1985. By the bomb’s early light, American thought and culture at the dawn of the atomic age. New York: Pantheon.
11.
Brians, Paul . 1987. Nuclear holocausts: Atomic war in fiction, 1895-1984. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press.
12.
Clapson, Mark . 1998. Invincible green suburbs, brave new towns: Social change and urban dispersal in postwar England. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
13.
Clayton, Philip . 1960. Can we plan for the atomic age?Journal of the American Institute of Planners26 (2): 111-118.
14.
Congress and the nation 1945-1964: A review of government and politics in the postwar years. 1965. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Service.
15.
Davis, Mike . 1998. Ecology of fear, Los Angeles and the imagination of disaster. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
16.
Dimendberg, Edward . 1997. City of fear, defensive dispersal and the end of film noir. Any18: 14-17.
17.
Fishman, Robert . 1999. The American metropolis at century’s end: Past and future influences. Washington, DC: Fannie Mae Foundation.
18.
Flanagan, William G.1993. Contemporary urban sociology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
19.
Frieden, Bernard . 1966. Policies for rebuilding. In Urban renewal, the record and the controversy. Edited by James Q. Wilson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
20.
Friedmann, John . 1987. Planning in the public domain, from knowledge to action. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
21.
Gorrie, Jack . 1951a. NSRB dispersion policy. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists7 (9): 263.
22.
Gorrie, Jack1951b. Official dispersal recommendations of the National Security Resources Board. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists7 (9): 264.
23.
Henriksen, Margot A.1997. Dr. Strangelove’s America: Society and culture in the atomic age. Berkeley: University of California Press.
24.
How U.S. cities can prepare for atomic war: MIT professors suggest a bold plan to prevent panic and limit destruction . 1950. Life, 18 December, 77-86.
25.
Howard, Ebenezer . 1996. The town-country magnet. In The city reader. Edited by Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout. New York: Routledge.
26.
Innes, Judith E.1998. Information in communicative planning. Journal of the American Planning Association64 (1): 52-63.
27.
Institute affairs . 1950. Planners and the national emergency. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 16(4), 200.
28.
Irvine, E. Eastman , ed. 1949. World almanac. New York: World Telegram.
29.
Jacobs, Jane . 1961. The death and life of great American cities. New York: Vintage Books.
30.
Kunstler, James Howard . 1996. Home from nowhere, remaking our everyday world for the twenty-first century. New York: Simon & Schuster.
31.
Lapp, Ralph E.1949. Must we hide?Cambridge, UK: Addison-Wesley.
32.
Lapp, Ralph E.1951. Does safety lie in dispersal?... yes. Progressive Architecture, September, 75.
33.
Lewis, Tom.1997. Divided highways, building the interstate highways, transforming American life. New York: Viking.
34.
Lifton, Robert Jay , and Richard Falk. 1982. Indefensible weapons, the political and psychological case against nuclearism. New York: Basic Books.
35.
Lifton, Robert Jay , and Greg Mitchell. 1995. Hiroshima in America, fifty years of denial. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
36.
Logan, John R. , and Harvey L. Molotch. 1987. Urban fortunes: A political economy of place. Berkeley: University of California Press.
37.
Mailer, Norman . 1957. The white Negro. San Francisco: City Lights.
38.
Markusen, Ann , Scott Campbell, Peter Hall, and Sabina Deitrick. 1991. The rise of the gunbelt: The military remapping of industrial America. New York: Oxford University Press.
39.
Miller, Richard L.1986. Under the cloud, the decades of nuclear testing. New York: The Free Press.
40.
Monson, Donald . 1951. Should urban redevelopment go forward now?... no. Progressive Architecture, September, 73.
41.
Monson, Donald , and Monson, Astrid. 1950. How can we disperse our large cities? Part I. American City65 (12): 90-92.
42.
Monson, Donald , and Monson, Astrid1951a. How can we disperse our large cities? Part II. American City66 (1): 107-111.
43.
Monson, Donald , and Monson, Astrid1951b. A program for urban dispersal. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists7 (9): 244-250.
44.
Mumford, Lewis . 1947. Social effects. Air Affairs, March, 370-382.
45.
Mumford, Lewis1961. The city in history. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
46.
National Security Council. National Security Council Web site [Online]. Available from: http://www2.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/nschome.html.
47.
National Security Resources Board . 1951. Industrial dispersion as a national policy. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists7 (9): 265-269.
48.
National Security Resources Board1952a. Federal leadership to reduce urban vulnerability. Part II-B of the Report of Project East River June, 1952. New York: Associated Universities, Inc.
49.
National Security Resources Board1952b. Reduction of urban vulnerability. Part V of the Report of Project East River June, 1952. New York: Associated Universities, Inc.
50.
Nelson, General Otto L. 1953. Planning cities in an atomic era. In Proceedings of the Annual National Planning Conference, Detroit Michigan, October 11-15th 1953. Chicago, American Society of Planning Officials.
51.
Norton, C. McKim . 1953a. Report on Project East River part I. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Spring, 87-94.
52.
Norton, C. McKim1953b. Report on Project East River, part II, Development of standards. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Summer, 159-167.
53.
Parsons, Kermit Carlyle . 1990. Shaping the regional city: 1950-1990: the plans of Tracy Augur and Clarence Stein for dispersing federal workers from Washington, D.C. In Proceedings of the Third National Conference on American Planning History, Cincinnati, Ohio, 30 November-2 December 1989, 649-690. Edited by L. C. Gerckens. Hilliard, OH: The Society for American City and Regional Planning History.
54.
Rhodes, Richard . 1986. The making of the atomic bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster.
55.
St. Clair, David J.1986. The motorization of American cities. New York: Praeger.
56.
Scott, Mel.1969. American city planning since 1890. Berkeley: University of California Press.
57.
Spain, Daphne . 1993. Been-heres versus come-heres, negotiating conflicting community identities. Journal of the American Planning Association59 (2): 156-172.
58.
Thabit, Walter . 1959. Planning and civil defense. Journal of the American Institute of Planners25 (1): 35-39.
59.
Truman, President Harry S.1951. National dispersal program forecast by presidential statement. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists7 (9): 263.
60.
Tyrwhitt, Jaqueline . 1951. Do new towns provide safety?...no.Progressive Architecture, September, 77.
61.
Walker, Mabel . 1957. Business enterprise and the city. Princeton, NJ: Tax Institute.
62.
Weart, Spencer R.1988. Nuclear fear, a history of images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
63.
Weaver, C. , J. Jessop, and V. Das.1985. Rationality in the public interest, notes towards a new synthesis. In Rationality in planning, critical essays on the role of rationality in urban and regional planning. Edited by M. Breheny and A. Hooper. London: Pion.
64.
Wigton, C. Benson . 1953. Is your city a target?American City68 (2): 159-161.
65.
Wright, Frank Lloyd . 1935. Broadacre City: A new community plan. Architectural Record77 (April): 243-254.
66.
Wylie, Philip . 1954. Panic, psychology and the bomb. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists10 (2): 37-40, 63.
