The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City (review)

In the early 20th century, the large cities of the United States—the products of rapid industrialization and urbanization—were dirty, congested, unhealthy, ugly, and inefficient. Property development was driven solely by land values and speculation was rife. Civic elites feared that the cities were becoming less hospitable to investors and the growing middle class.

Local governments, though, lacked the vision and the regulatory tools to manage growth. Consequently, in numerous cities like St. Louis and Boston, business associations—"practical men of affairs" (p. 1)—proposed citywide plans to rationalize infrastructure and organize land uses. The intent was to facilitate the flow of commerce, improve health, and provide public spaces for culture and recreation. The most famous of these endeavors was the 1909 Plan of Chicago sponsored by the Commercial Club. Utilizing the financial resources of its members and the planning and organizational skills of the architect Daniel Burnham, the Club created "one of the most fascinating and significant documents in the history of urban planning" (xv).

The story begins with the World's Columbia Exposition of 1893. Designed by Burnham with the planner Charles McKim, the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the exposition was a formal arrangement of classical buildings and open spaces drawing on the then popular Beaux Arts style. It provided the principles—aesthetic consistency, functional logic, and holistic vision—on which the 1909 Plan was based.

In 1907, the Merchants Club hired Burnham to begin work, but it was not until a year later when it merged with the Commercial Club, that subscriptions were solicited from business and civic elites to pay for the Plan and the extensive promotion and lobbying that followed. These businessmen saw no conflict between their private interests and the public good. Even more interesting, they embraced the mix of practicality and idealism with which Burnham approached city planning. Implementation, however, would require public investments in infrastructure, charter reforms to expand the powers of local government, and numerous land use and environmental controls. The business community could not act alone.

Burnham, who provided his services for free, hired Edward H. Bennett to manage the day-to-day planning operations. Their work was completed in early 1909 and presented in a tome of over 120 pages of text along with photographs and futuristic drawings. The Plan recommended the building of a monumental civic center, the development of a park along the lakefront, enhancement of the city's cultural facilities, circumferential highways, improvements to rail lines and terminals, rationalization of the city's streets and avenues, and a metropolitan park system. Its focus was the central area of the city and the spreading Chicago metropolis, while its goal was a city designed for commerce and middle-class life.

Walter L. Moody was hired to publicize the Plan to the city's residents, lobby local officials, and garner additional support within the business community. An edition of 1650 copies was distributed to influential individuals throughout the city. (Facsimile editions were produced in 1970 and 1993.) In addition, Moody wrote promotional brochures, mounted exhibits, developed teaching guidelines for eighth-grade civic classes, placed newspaper and magazine articles, and produced a film. And, while few of the bold proposals were implemented, the Plan influenced development for the next three decades. Its most important contribution was convincing the City to establish the Chicago Plan Commission; its most recent was being inspiration for Chicago Metropolitan 2020.

Of course, there was criticism. The Plan gave little attention to slums, low-cost housing, and working conditions in the factories. Moreover, it ignored the social reforms being implemented by reformers like Jane Addams. The focus was business and the middle class, not the immigrants, the poor, and the working class. Burnham and the Commercial Club had developed a vision for the Chicago metropolis haunted by "anxieties about polyglot...