Shaping American Democracy by Scott M. Roulier

Author:Scott M. Roulier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The Historical “Necessity” of a Decentralized Future

The genesis of suburbanization in America and the many historical factors that facilitated its growth over time are well documented in several studies (see, for instance , Hayden 2003; Jackson 1985; Warner and Whittemore 2013). Generally , these scholars point to suburbanization as the result of interventions by a number of different social actors: private investment by transit owners and developers, lobbying by the construction industry and realtors, and government support (state, local, and federal) in the form of mortgage insurance, tax incentives, and transportation appropriations. Depending on the author, the role of certain individuals, events, or institutions may receive more emphasis than others. But, in the main, thanks to these historians, we are much more knowledgeable about the nitty-gritty “how” and “why” of suburbia. However, the narrative that interests Wright is quite different. Instead of focusing on things like mortgage amortization or federal transportation appropriations, Wright fixes his sights on civilizational patterns and technological and cultural change. Astonishingly, Wright claims to have had the equivalent of a crystal ball, to have been able to see, with a high degree of certainty, what America’s future built form would look like.

There are at least three distinct (though often overlapping) varieties of teleological history that one finds in Wright’s prophetic utterances, all of which point in the same direction: toward a decentralized future. Indeed, it is the combined force of these three philosophical histories that account for Wright’s sanguine attitude about Broadacres’ future. The first strain is the anarchist tradition, represented (in varying degrees) by such thinkers as Peter Kropotkin and Lewis Mumford . These writers believed that human history was experiencing (or would experience in the near future) a decisive moment of decentralization. According to Kropotkin, for instance, the West had experienced first a period of communalism, encompassing rural village life and urban guilds. Then, around the sixteenth century, with the emergence of nation states, centralization—what Kropotkin calls the “Roman-imperial-authoritarian” tradition—becomes entrenched. However, technological change, linked to the industrial revolution, would usher in a completely different set of political, social, and economic conditions. This new social landscape, defined by the “popular-federalist-libertarian” movement, would witness the blurring of the lines between urban and rural: factories would invade the fields and, thereby, become more human (Hall 2002, 150–151).

Lewis Mumford , an eminent architectural and planning historian, put an American spin on Kropotkin’s narrative. He argued in 1925 that America had experienced three “migrations,” and that a fourth was underway. According to Mumford , the first migration is best symbolized by the covered wagon, and its purpose was to clear the land, to open the continent—even if achieved destructively: “[T]he history of the pioneers is the history of restless men who burned the forests of the Mohawk Valley in order to plant farms, who shifted into the soft glacial deposits of Ohio in order to cleave their plows through its rich soil; men who grabbed wheat land and skinned it…” (Mumford 1925, 130). Close on its heels was

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