A blast from the past from Coronet Instructional Films (score by Aaron Copeland!) shows us the scourge of the city -- from which the suburbs were designed to deliver us.
In 1939 the American Institute of Planners commissioned a film for the 1939 New York World's Fair. The result was The City, a film about the historic importance of rural, small town life in America, the evils of the city that had developed as America industrialized, and the possibility of reclaiming the "good life" through suburban housing initiatives. You can see the complete film here.
(I was surprised to see in the credits Pare Lorentz the groundbreaking documentarian who made the film The Plow That Broke the Plains and The River, which told that story of the great rivers of the American continent and the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority.)
via The Atlantic
If you haven't already, check out the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit at MAM. I think readers might be interested in your take on Wright's ideas about making cities more livable and ameliorating sprawl. I am not sure his ideas would really work as he thought, but I'm not knowledgeable on urban planning.
Posted by: Erik Gunn | February 15, 2011 at 03:19 PM
Excellent idea. I've actually done a bit of reading on FLW's (sub)urban development theories, so it'll be interesting to view the exhibit in that light.
Posted by: John Michlig | February 15, 2011 at 03:33 PM