Planning the Postwar City: Wilson W. Wyatt and the Louisville Area Development Association 1943–1950

World War II had a powerful transformative impact on American cities. Between 1939 and 1945, thousands of manufacturers retooled to aid the war effort. The federal government built new and expanded existing military bases and erected defense plants to manufacture weapons and other war matériel. Billions of dollars in capital moved from the industrial Northeast and Midwest to Sunbelt cities of the Pacific, Gulf, and South Atlantic coasts. Millions of Americans relocated to cities across the country in search of new jobs, and urban communities grappled with housing shortages, inadequate infrastructure, racial conflict, and many other issues.¹

Despite such problems, many urban leaders saw the changes brought on by the war as an opportunity to reshape their cities for the better after the conflict. While some cities turned to the power of municipal government to effect change, other post-war urban planning strategies relied heavily on the contribution of business interests. In New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, and several other large cities, municipal governments instigated and controlled planning, and municipal planning commissions churned out long lists of public works projects designed to create jobs for returning veterans and revitalize older parts of the city. In other cities, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Cleveland, influential business interests played a leadership role, usually in cooperation with local government officials and with the support of citizen advisory committees designed to mobilize broad community support. The most outstanding example of this model was Pittsburgh, where Republican Richard King Mellon, the powerful banker, industrialist, and donor, enlisted the support of other members of the city's economic elite and united with Mayor David O. Lawrence, the dynamic Democratic Party boss, to create the Allegheny Conference on Community Development. Organized in 1943, the group spearheaded the campaign to revive the Steel City's industrial economy, rebuild its urban core, and clean up its filthy air.²

Regardless of the model, the desire to rebuild infrastructure, improve housing stock, and strengthen central business districts characterized most postwar plans. Such was the case in Louisville, Kentucky. During the war, Louisville developed as a center for manufacture of ammunition, aircraft, military vehicles, synthetic rubber, naval vessels, and weapons while also experiencing massive population growth and social dislocation. What set Louisville's experience apart from those of other cities was a unique approach to the opportunities and issues the war generated. While other large urban areas tended to favor either the power of municipal government or business interests, Louisville's post-war planning was more balanced and inclusive. The guiding force behind this successful merger of public and private initiative was Wilson W. Wyatt, a visionary mayor who won national acclaim for his efforts to restructure city government, improve finances, and develop an innovative planning process that united the government and business sectors and was therefore able to address long-standing problems while simultaneously building on the city's wartime economic development. Wyatt's mechanism was the Louisville Area Development Association (LADA), which under his leadership would initiate more than a score of studies that reshaped the urban landscape between the mid-1940s and 1975, and ignited development patterns still apparent today.

Wilson W. Wyatt (1905-1996).

FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY

World War II set the stage and created the major opportunities and challenges that inspired Wyatt's organization of LADA. However, the physical and psychological consequences of two powerful events in 1937 heightened his motivation. In January, the city suffered its worst flood in history, causing millions of dollars in property damage, severely weakening much of the infrastructure, inflicting long-term emotional trauma, and highlighting a need to resolve long-standing drainage and flood-protection issues. The damage was still apparent in September when Harper's Monthly Magazine published an article by George R. Leighton that described Louisville as "a museum piece among American cities…[an] old red brick jumble…the city of let-well-enough-alone." Leighton's characterization stung deeply, and it drew strong rejoinders from prominent citizens. But he identified real problems, notably the passage of...