Regional Visionaries and Metropolitan Boosters: Decentralization, Regional Planning, and Parkways During the Interwar Years PDF
Preview Regional Visionaries and Metropolitan Boosters: Decentralization, Regional Planning, and Parkways During the Interwar Years
REGIONAL VISIONARIES AND METROPOLITAN BOOSTERS Decentralization, Regional Planning, and Parkways During the Interwar Years REGIONAL VISIONARIES AND METROPOLITAN BOOSTERS Decentralization, Regional Planning, and Parkways During the Interwar Years by Matthew Dalbey Jackson State University, U.S.A. SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.Y. Library of Congress Cataloging-tn-Publication Data Dalbey, Matthew, 1965- Regional visionaries and metropolitan boosters : deeentralization, regional planning, and parkways during the interwar years I by Matthew Dalbey. p.em. Inc1udes bibliographieal referenees and index. ISBN 978-1-4613-5386-7 ISBN 978-1-4615-1083-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-1083-3 1. Regional planning-United States-History-201h eentury. 2. Parkways-United States-History-Case Studies. 1. Title. HT392.D35 2002 307.1'2'0973-de21 2002067818 Copyright © 2002 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2002 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 2002 Ali rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper. For Mollie, Noah, and Liz Contents Acknowledgements ix Preface XI 1: Decentralization and Regional Planning 2: From Urban Reform to Parkway 11 3: Regional Visionaries 35 4: Metropolitan Boosters 67 5: The Skyline Drive 95 6: The Green Mountain Parkway 139 7: Conclusion 177 Sources 185 Index 195 Acknowledgements Many individuals have helped me over the years it has taken to complete this work. I thrived on all the kind words and advice offered during this time. I am grateful for the time and effort of the faculty in the Department of Urban Planning at Columbia University, including Elliott Sclar and Peter Marcuse, as well as Cliff Ellis at SUNY Albany. Two other colleagues, Randy Mason and Paul Sutter, provided constant support over the research and writing phases of this work. Their efforts - as motivators, critics, sounding boards, and peers - kept me going and helped turn this entire experience into a rewarding one. Thank you both. I am also grateful to Jackson State University for financial and professional assistance with this project. During the initial stages of research, I received a great deal of assistance from the archivist at the Shenandoah National Park Archives in Luray, Virginia and the librarians at the Vermont Historical Society in Montpelier, Vermont. Thanks also to the staff archivists at the National Archives Record Center in College Park, Maryland and the Virginia State Library in Richmond, Virginia. Thanks also to Glenn Peake, Kelly Higgins, and Jan Hillegas for editing work on the various drafts. I also appreciate the help I received with the graphics from Richard E. Lloyd, Milo Dalbey, and Chris Dorin. Although a number of people helped make this work better, any shortcomings are entirely my responsibility. Finally, thanks to my spouse, Liz Hunter, for putting up with me during this seemingly never-ending process - your support and interest in my work helped more than you can ever know. Preface This book is an examination of two conflicting regional planning ideologies and the impact of this conflict on the development of two regional parkways. I hypothesize that regional parkways of the 1920s and 1930s emerged out of these two visions of regional planning - regionalism and metropolitanism. The regional view coalesced around the work of Benton MacKaye, Lewis Mumford, and the Regional Planning Association of America. The metropolitan viewpoint, while less definable, grew out of the market-oriented economic boosterism efforts associated with early twentieth century planning. This view found literal and philosophical support with Thomas Adams and the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs. In an effort to flesh out the competing theories and the development of the regional parkway, I discuss the history of the Skyline Drive and the proposed Green Mountain Parkway. In addition to supplementing the planning history and theory literature, I try to inform on issues important to the contemporary planning profession. The regional visionaries viewed their regional work as a social reform effort. The metropolitanists wanted to tweak the market so as to provide for a minimized congestion and economic hardship for the greatest number of citizens. This "vision versus reality" still troubles the profession today, especially in the areas of sustainable development, growth management, and "smart growth." Matthew Dalbey Jackson, Mississippi March 2002 Chapter 1 Decentralization and Regional Planning Practical and Ideological Problems 1. INTRODUCTION Between 1921 and 1936 planners, landscape architects, business boosters, and automobile and tourism advocates planned for, built, and attempted to institutionalize regional parkways as major recreational and travel arteries for Americans. Prior to this period parkways existed within cities and early suburbs and had roots in early urban reform. Their use as facilitators of suburban development grew in the first part of the 20th century. The period between 1921 and 1936 saw the introduction of the automobile into the countryside and revealed a broader debate over development in the region. Two conflicting visions of regional development characterized this debate - called in this work the "regionalists'" vision and the "metropolitanists'" vision. The debate continues today and is expressed in two ways. One is the debate over metropolitan sprawl, loss of farmland, consumerism, and what constitutes appropriate road planning. The second revolves around the very core of the planning profession: Should planners work to present visions of future social and economic development or should their work accommodate the market and tweak it only when seriously needed? The purpose of this study is to explore in detail how the two planning ideologies shaped the parkway in the region. Previous histories have focused on design, use, and, to some extent, the institutions and ideology. These histories leave out the social consequences and portray the regional parkway as a benign intervention into vacant landscapes. The regionalists structure the decentralization of M. Dalbey, Regional Visionaries and Metropolitan Boosters © Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002 2 Chapter 2 congested urban areas. The conflict between the regionalists and the metropolitanists shaped the form and meaning of the regional parkway during the 1920s and 1930s. This is the story of that conflict. 1.1 The Regionalists "Regionalists" describes a distinct group of regional planners - really regional visionaries - primarily associated with ideas that evolved out of the work of the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA). They believed that regional planning in a capitalist democracy required the vision to look beyond the conventional logic of the city and the market. This vision required planning tools specific to the region and its component parts, as well as the cultural and political will to fundamentally break from the dominant economic forces. Unfortunately the regionalists' vision was not always the practical path towards reform but it did present an alternative to the path facilitated by the metropolitanist planners. 1.2 The Metropolitanists "Metropolitanists" attempted to plan regionally by facilitating the expansion of the market. They employed the tools available to city planners on a regional scale and attempted to accommodate (rather than fundamentally reform, as the regionalists did) the inefficiencies associated with regional urbanization (or metropolitanization). The metropolitanists were business boosters, developers, and planners interested in tweaking the market so as to interfere only minimally with its logic. 2. PREMISES FOR THE STUDY OF THE REGIONAL PARKWAY During the years between World War I and World War II automobile travel on the regional parkways (and later freeways) in the United States supplanted rail and foot travel as the dominant mode of access to the regional landscape. The builders and supporters of the regional parkway (that is, the metropolitanists) included planners, landscape architects, automobile enthusiasts, business interests, some environmentalists and conservationists, and many local, state, and federal officials. The regional visionaries, on the other hand, viewed the introduction of the automobile as antithetical to the pursuit of regional culture. Given the terms of the debate, the regional parkway left its mark on indigenous communities, the Decentralization and Regional Planning 3 conceptualization of the natural environment, regional planning theory and practice, and the landscape itself. The history of the regional parkway indicates that early parkways, such as Skyline Drive in Virginia, evolved out of a closed planning process without public input. Later parkways, like the proposed Green Mountain Parkway in Vermont, had a more open, institutionalized structure, but supporters of the parkway could not gain the political support for its implementation. Many of the issues that confronted proponents of the regional parkway came back during the 1950s and 1960s in the form of controversies over the construction of the interstate highway system. Moreover, contemporary planning issues such as sustainable resource use, conservation, smart growth policies, and environmental protection on the one hand, and property rights, deregulation, and subsidized sprawl on the other are the updated form of the conflict that shaped the regional parkway between 1921 and 1936. This study demonstrates that even during an era when regional planning had a national constituency, problems with implementation still existed. In order to create a successful initiative, visionary planners had to try to develop a constituency of supporters who believed in reformist goals. Benton MacKaye, one of the leading regionalists, believed that the construction of the Appalachian Trail by middle-class professionals would lead to a "social readjustment," with the same professionals leading the charge. Instead, these middle-class volunteers put completion of the Trail ahead of reformist goals (most had previously rejected the "social readjustment" goals anyway) and a segment of these volunteers saw no need to hold out against the parkways to save the primacy of the Trail on the ridgeline. I The history of the regional parkway and its evolution from the conflict between the regionalists and the metropolitanists can provide us with practical knowledge about the current state of the planning profession. It suggests that neglecting a progressive vision for the comfort of market facilitation is too easy and often dangerous, because too many people are left out of the market. Much of what we value as a society is similarly left out. This study presents to planning professionals a picture of progressive planners as visionaries or leaders in a field often filled with market facilitators. Moreover, by restating and broadening the 1932 debate between Lewis Mumford and Thomas Adams over the Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, this work re-examines one of the essential ongoing debates in regional planning.
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