Table Of ContentREGIONAL 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.
