Product Description

Downtown is the first history of what was once viewed as the heart of the American city. Urban historian Robert Fogelson gives a riveting account of how downtown—and the way Americans thought about it—changed between 1880 and 1950. Recreating battles over subways and skyscrapers, the introduction of elevated highways and parking bans, and other controversies, this book provides a new and often startling perspective on downtown’s rise and fall.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #372401 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 492 pages

From Library Journal
One of the nation's leading urban historians, Fogelson (urban studies, MIT; The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeles, 1850-1930) examines the history of the American city center, from a position of business and commercial dominance in 1880 to one of obsolescence in the mid-20th century. Drawing on his comprehensive research, Fogelson presents a detailed portrayal of downtown's fragmented reaction to residential dispersal, the decentralization of business, traffic congestion, the Depression, and want of vision by downtown's leaders and advocates. He tracks controversial and conflicting public policy debates over rapid transit systems, limited building heights, zoning, traffic regulations, and public parking, which highlight uncoordinated and shortsighted attempts to reshape a once-dominant central city. Fogelson concludes with the perceptive and perhaps rueful observation that downtown's decline in the first half of the 20th century was mostly the result of an American vision of "bourgeois utopia," a nation of suburbs, which brought the beginning of urban sprawl. A superbly thorough analysis of the causes of inner-city blight, congestion, and economic decline in mid-20th century urban America, this is essential reading for American historians and an excellent addition to academic and urban libraries. John E. Hodgkins, Yarmouth, ME
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Most U.S. cities have a downtown, historically the business, commercial, and entertainment hub of a city, to which many flock each day to work, shop, and play. In the words of the pop song, "the lights are much brighter there," where "you can forget all your troubles, forget all your care." Recently, downtown has been forgotten, but is the decline of downtown areas really a recent phenomenon? Fogelson--long interested in how downtowns have been shaped and have attracted people, businesses, traffic, and crime--argues that they have been doomed from the beginning of their existence. The American phenomenon of suburban sprawl has been occurring since American cities were founded. The decline of downtown areas was actually completed in the 1950s, though they have begun to reemerge once again as centers of activity. Projecting his enthusiasm for the subject in this very well researched history of America's downtown experience, Fogelson creates extremely engaging reading for those interested in the history of cities and urban experience. Michael Spinella
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
A study as thorough as it is refreshingly unstuffy. -- Jennifer Howard, Washington Post Book World

Customer Reviews

An Unexamined Journey
This massive undertaking certainly fulfills its primary function of assembling, in one place, the various threads of intellectual discourse about the American central business district before 1950. It fills an interesting void in the literature by examining the details of why central business districts in American cities went from virtually uniform vitality in the 1920s to a post-war situaton where the signs of decline were everywhere to be seen. The writing is somewhat tedious, however, perhaps because the same points are made over and over again from different angles and from different urban areas. The author does a brilliant job of tracing the influence of a wide variety of attempted urban paneceas, ranging from highways and elevated railroads to removal of "blight." By concentrating on details (only Chicago, for instance, has consistently banned on-street parking in the downtown area), the reader is forced to examine individual issues, not maga-trends. One can only admire the scholarship and devotion to accuracy that went into the writing. My reservation about this book stems from the fact that the author eschews any analysis of the implications of his observations. He comments, for example, that the future of downtown rests upon individual residential choices and seemingly rejects the hope that intervention, in the form of government or privately financed sports facilities, convention centers, etc. will in the long run have much effect. However, the reader is left to wonder what the view of the author is on such issues as growth boundries, light rail, tax abatements, historic preservation, etc. - or even whether the author believes that the future of the central business district matters very much at all. It would have been a much more satisfying experience for me if each chapter or perhaps an endnote had pulled back from the natural reluctance of the historian to look into the future. In the end, the reader is left to undertake that task alone which, I suspect, is what the author had in mind all along.

Fascinating--definitely recommended
This is a wonderful book; it is comprehensively researched and offers a detailed history of why US downtowns developed and declined. Anybody who is interested in urban planning and downtown revitalization should read this to see why downtowns were successful for so many years and why they fell; for example, a current trend is to revitalize downtowns by attracting more residents, but 19th century downtowns developed by pushing out residents in favor of commercial growth. I couldn't put this book down; it's absolutely compelling and I would highly recommend it.

a story of unintended consequences
Much of this book describes downtown in its early years of decline (1920-50): as cars and highways mushrooomed, shopping begin to move outside downtown. The solutions to this state of affairs were completely counterproductive: downtown business interests assumed that downtown's problem was too much congestion rather than too little, and so fought for a downtown overrun with parking lots and highways. For example, an official of one downtown business group in Los Angeles wrote in 1940 that freeways "will go a long way in solving the traffic problems and consequently make the trip to downtown Los Angeles pleasant for customers and productive for downtown merchants and office tenants alike, and thereby recentralize businesses and offices in a compact area." (p. 274).

The result: even more suburban sprawl as suburbanites took advantage of easier commutes to move further out, and an even deader downtown as highways and parking lots took the place of shops and offices.

Why did downtown boosters make this mistake? Because in downtown's heyday at the start of the century, downtown really was immensely congested; due to the difficulties of intracity travel, nearly all business was downtown. So like generals fighting the last war, downtown boosters were fixated on the congested downtown of 1900, and trying to apply 1900 solutions to the far less lively downtowns of the late 20th century.