GEOG 217 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Lewis Mumford
18 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
GEOG 217: February 8th, 2018
New (Sub)Urban Visions:
- Lewis Mumford: Urban Historian
- Greenbelt Cities
- Video: The City (1939)
o Discussion
o How Garden City ideas were taken up in the United States
Midterm Exam:
- 25 – 30 Multiple Choice Questions
- 4 – 5 Short Answer/Definitions
- Example questions on myCourses
The City (1939):
- Lewis Mumford:
o Most widely known as a urban historian and theorist
- The film was produced for the 1939 New York Worlds Fair:
o Was telling the audience about what the city would be
o Has a clear idea of what good and bad urban environments are (and how to fix the
problems)
o Made for the general public, not for scholars
- The Film Has a Five-Part Structure:
o New England Village – Arts of Life
o The Industrial City – Arts of Death
▪ Pollution is celebrated as a sign of prosperity
▪ Organized around production of heavy industry
o The Financial City – Arts of Death
▪ Filled with service workers and white-collar workers
▪ The domination of machines is less obvious
▪ Humans are more dominated by a rigid schedule
o The Automobile – Arts of Death
▪ Focuses on the ills caused by cars
▪ The amount of space that is dedicated to machinery, and not people
o Greenbelt Towns – Garden Cities
▪ Filmed in Greenbelt, Maryland
▪ The unification of City and Nature
▪ The vision is not anti-modern or anti-industrial, but is optimistic that
technology can be made to serve humans
Greenbelt, MD:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Video: the city (1939: discussion, how (cid:494)garden city(cid:495) ideas were taken up in the united states. Lewis mumford: most widely known as a urban historian and theorist. Part of a federal program to provide affordable housing in the great depression: also a way to stimulate economic growth. The town and organizations within had a lot of cooperative elements. However, residents were screened on income and occupation (and willingness to be involved in community activities), among other things: racial exclusion, african-americans were excluded until 1963, only the man of the household could work, sexism. Influence of garden city ideas: greenbelt was a public cooperative, social structure of mumford(cid:495)s new cities, family structure and gender, social diversity (racial exclusion, role of technology. New england village: (cid:494)the town was us and we were part of it(cid:495: combination of farms and residential housing, open fields, church and town hall are in the center of the village.
