The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change (review)

Dorceta Taylor has taken on an immense challenge in this book, presenting an urban environmental history of the United States that spans no less than three centuries. On all counts, she succeeds. The book masterfully weaves together the histories of the American city, and the environmental and social justice movements within it. In prose that is at once engaging and convincing, she sheds new light on the story we think we know of the American "melting pot." Readers with interests in urban history, environmental justice, urban land use, or similar areas will find much food for thought here.

One of the many strengths of Taylor's work is its extensive detail and documentation. No less than 95 pages of notes confirm that her research is exhaustive. Yet the story she tells never becomes tedious. The examples she draws upon to build her account of the growth and development of U.S. cities are fascinating. Even stories that have received considerable prior attention, such as the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire, which killed nearly 150 workers in New York City, seem new. Taylor tells this particular story by demonstrating how labor and factory conditions in New York at the turn of the century set the stage for disaster. By the time she presents the actual details of the fire, where "women and young girls, literally ablaze, [leaped] from the ninth-story windows with their flaming skirts billowing in the wind," the reader is grimly aware of how larger, entrenched forces contributed to this horrifying image (421). It is but one example of the ways that social and environmental reforms are inextricably linked to the history of U.S. cities, and an illustration of why Taylor's treatment of these issues is so important.

In the book's introduction, Taylor lays out three conceptual frameworks, primarily from sociology, that provide the theoretical foundation for the five parts that follow. Theories of race relations, social movements, and organizations, which Taylor summarizes in a clear and organized manner, all bolster her argument that analyses of urban environments are complete only when informed by a corresponding understanding of the social processes that influence them. She then revisits these theoretical underpinnings in separate sections at the end of the main parts of the book.

The chapters in these five main parts address the following areas: The Condition of the City; Reforming the City; Urban Parks, Order and Social Reform; The Rise of Comprehensive Zoning; and Reforming the Workplace and Reducing Community Hazards. Part I is more general, laying out basic dynamics of cities, while subsequent parts address specific aspects of how cities have grown and changed. In all parts, detailed descriptions of the relationships between social and physical environments of now-major cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia offer the reader a new lens on the complexities that have shaped those and other urban places.

One of the most interesting stories in the book, and one that exemplifies Taylor's treatment of the multifaceted nature of urban environments and their legacies, is that of Central Park. While this most famous of U.S. city parks is commonly associated with its designers, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Taylor ensures that the reader has a more complete picture of its history. The initial idea for the park emerged from elite interests in providing a recreational asset as well as a form of social control. Taylor asserts: "Businessmen became ardent environmental advocates when it facilitated their recreational pursuits, furthered their business interests, and enhanced their status in society" (252). The site for such a showcase park, however, was hotly debated for several years, with working class interests advocating other, less-expensive ways to meet public needs. In particular, they suggested building many small parks throughout the city instead of one large park, noting that the latter could exacerbate housing shortages, and ultimately harm public health. When elite...