Table Of ContentFrom Warfare to Welfare
From Warfare to Welfare
Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in
Cold War America
Jennifer S. Light
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore and London
This book has been brought to publication with the generous
assistance of the Pribram Fund.
© 2003 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2003
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Light, Jennifer S., 1971–
From warfare to welfare : defense intellectuals and urban
problems in Cold War America / Jennifer S. Light
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8018-7422-X (alk. paper)
1. Urban policy—United States—History—20th century.
2. Federal-city relations—United States—History—20th century.
3. Technology and state—United States—History—20th
century. 4. National security—United States—History—20th
century. 5. United States—History—1945– I. Title.
HT123.L45 2003
307.76’0973’0904—dc21 2003006229
A catalog record for this book is available from the British
Library.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Planning for the Atomic Age: Creating a Community of Experts 10
PART I : Command, Control, and Community
2 The City as a Communication System 35
3 Cybernetics and Urban Renewal 55
PART I I : Cities in the Space Age
4 Urban Intelligence Gathering 95
5 Moon-Shot Management for American Cities 124
PART I I I : The Urban Crisis as National Security Crisis
6 Cable as a Cold War Technology 163
7 Wired Cities 195
Conclusion 231
Notes 239
Note on Sources 275
Index 281
Acknowledgments
This book had its origins in a summer I spent working at the RAND Corpora-
tion. I joined a team working on new methods for defense science and tech-
nology planning, designing aWWW-based tool for collaborative public policy
decision making. The plan was to use this technology to lead military of~cials
through a decision-making environment and then to model the consequences
of their choices—and alternatives—in the context of several different wartime
scenarios.
Part of my job was to prepare a literature review of ~ndings on the histori-
cal role of information technology in collaborative decision making. The con-
clusions I drew were entirely unexpected. Rather than ~nding that decades of
investments had produced de~nitive knowledge about how such tools im-
proved decision-making processes, I concluded that in all but a few cases, the
results of such technologies were murky. My mentors at RAND urged me to
publish the ~ndings, but I declined. Perhaps I was missing something, I
thought; surely, so many resources would not be devoted time and again to
trying to improve on a category of innovations whose bene~ts repeatedly re-
mained unproven?
It is precisely that question—How and why are resources allocated time and
again to support the adoption of technical and technological tools whose
bene~ts remain unproven?—that motivated me to write this book. I focus on
how several decades of American city planners and managers came to rely on
innovations ~rst developed to ~ght the cold war. The RAND Corporation
plays a starring role in this history, and I am indebted to Robert Lempert and
James Bonomo for offering me the opportunity to see ~rsthand the inner
workings of that fascinating institution.
Equally essential to the start-up of this project was the Graham Foundation
for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Support from the Graham Foundation is
acknowledged in remarkably many of my favorite books on the history and
theory of architecture and urban planning. I am honored to be able to thank
viii Acknowledgments
the foundation here for generously sponsoring much of my research travel
and all of the visual material costs of this project.
Historians whose focus is the recent past occasionally have the good for-
tune to meet some of the men and women who have made history, and sev-
eral of the participants in this historical story generously gave their time for
extended conversations. Harry Finger patiently answered many of my ques-
tions during a chance encounter at a New Year’s Eve party, and in a later, more
structured conversation, helped me to understand more precisely how both
Democrats and Republicans saw hope for the future of America’s cities in the
products of the nation’s defense and space programs. M. C. Branch invited me
into his home to share his recollections and let me read his as-of-yet unpub-
lished autobiographical musings on the history and future of planning.
Leland Johnson, Laurence Lynn, and Henry Rowen each offered answers to
questions I could not ~gure out based on documentary records alone and
pointed me toward additional sources to incorporate into the book. Speaking
with these men in person and on the telephone con~rmed what I had hoped
in undertaking this project—that in many cases, efforts to transfer defense
and aerospace innovations to address the nation’s urban problems were un-
dertaken with good intentions.
Interdisciplinary research thrives in a community that makes collegiality
across departments a priority, and Northwestern University provided an ideal
home in which to write this book. Colleagues across the campus, including
Jonathan Caverley, James Ettema, Susan Herbst, Eric Klinenberg, James
Schwoch, and Marc Ventresca all volunteered to read a draft version of this
book, and the ~nal result re_ects their extensive comments and criticisms.
John Hudson, whose career at Northwestern’s Geography Department
spanned the era of defense- and space-agency sponsorship for the kinds of re-
search described in this book, helped to compensate for decades of depart-
ment records having been lost in a _ood.
Northwestern University also provided extensive institutional support for
this project. Colleagues in the Department of Communication Studies made
all efforts to arrange my teaching schedule to facilitate productive research. At
the School of Communication, Dean Barbara O’Keefe extended the honor of
Ameritech Research Professor for a year, giving me the time and funding to
complete the book. At the Institute for Policy Research, Fay Cook warmly wel-
comed me to join the institute’s interdisciplinary community of scholars as a
Acknowledgments ix
faculty fellow. Funding from the University Research Grants Committee pro-
vided additional support for research travel.
The insights of colleagues at several other institutions also signi~cantly
shaped the pages of this book. Michael Dudley sent his then-unpublished re-
search on the defensive dispersal movement. Stephen Graham offered com-
ments on an article-length version of my arguments. Robert Bruegmann, John
Cloud, Michael Gordin, Richard John, Nicholas King, Ronald Kline, Bill Leslie,
Richard Light, and John Durham Peters each offered feedback on an earlier
version of the manuscript. Peter Buck read a draft manuscript as he has read
nearly everything I have ever written, and our conversations continue to be a
highlight of my return visits to Cambridge.
While this project was not based on my dissertation, so many of the skills I
learned in graduate school, and people I met in those years, laid the intellec-
tual foundations on which this project could be built. Sherry Turkle, Everett
Mendelsohn, and Peter Buck were scholarly models par excellence. Fellow
graduate students, including Eileen Anderson-Fye, Michael Gordin, Kristen
Haring, Edward Jones-Imhotep, David Kaiser, Nicholas King, and Deborah
Weinstein, continue to be sounding boards for ideas.
Historical research is impossible without the work of librarians and archi-
vists, and several stand out for special mention. At the Los Angeles City Ar-
chives, Jay Jones met me as planned on the morning of September 11, 2001,
and kept the archives open when most city buildings had closed. At the RAND
Corporation, Vivian Arterberry, Ann Horne, and Roberta Shanman helped me
to locate the information I was looking for in record time. At the Municipal
Archives of the City of New York, Kenneth Cobb and Leonora Gaitlin offered
astute advice about ~les in the John Lindsay collection. At Northwestern Uni-
versity Library, Victoria Zabohlsky and the team of librarians in interlibrary
loan tracked down obscure conference proceedings and limited-circulation re-
ports. In doing so, they signi~cantly reduced the amount of research travel
needed to complete this project.
At the Johns Hopkins University Press, this project was ably assisted by
Robert J. Brugger, who urged me to write history. Our conversations con-
vinced me that historical inquiry has an important, if undervalued, role to
play in current affairs, and I hope this book will ~nd its way to both historians
and city administrators. Melody Herr shepherded the manuscript through the
review and publication process, making every step a pleasure. Dennis Marshall
offered superb advice about polishing and tightening my arguments. An
