Description
Book SynopsisLadd describes the struggle of German leaders to bring order to their rapidly growing cities during the age of industrial expansion before World War I, setting the emerging theory and practice of city planning in the context of debates about the nature of the modern city and the possibility of improving society by regulating physical environments.
Trade ReviewLadd’s work is a carefully researched and clearly organized survey of a major theme in the social history not only of modern Germany but also—owing to the exemplary quality of the German experience—of modern Europe and America more generally… The end result of Ladd’s labors is a very useful study, which German historians and urban historians of other countries are sure to find highly instructive. Facing no real competition in any language as a synthetic overview of the emergence of German city planning in relation to the history of German society, Ladd’s work enables us to see for the first time how some of the institutions and practices that William Harbutt Dawson described with such great admiration in 1914 in his
Municipal Life and Government in Germany evolved during the half century before that book was written. His contribution is substantial. -- Andrew Lees, Rutgers University
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. German Cities in the Limelight 2. Public Health and Public Works 3. City Extension Planning 4. Urban Aesthetics and the New Planning of the 1890's 5. The "Housing Question" and the "Social Question" 6. Growth, Speculation, and Comprehensive Planning 7. Civic Pride, Municipal Enterprise, and the Urban Environment Notes Selected Bibliography Index
