The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The City Beautiful is a progressive social reform movement that emerged in North American architecture and urban planning in the 1890s. It is associated primarily with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, DC. The goal of its proponents is not just to beautify cities, but also to foster moral and civic virtue among urban populations. The architectural styles most closely associated with the City Beautiful are Beaux-Art and Neoclassical. The first large-scale example of the movement appeared at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The McMillian Plan, which drastically altered the monumental core of Washington, DC, is one of the best examples of the movement.

Decentrists are urban planners who advocate extending the Garden City concept into a regional approach. Their ultimate goal is to decentralize cities. Jacobs describes them as “a group of extraordinarily effective and dedicated people, among them Lewis Mumford, Clarence Stein, the late Henry Wright and Catherine Bauer” (19), who followed the ideas of Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes.

Eminent domain is the right of governments to expropriate private property for public use in exchange for compensation. Housing projects are often built on land purchased using eminent domain.