Geez Wisconsin, you’re such an enabler. You’re making all your first, second, and third tier cities feel like they can form Planning Commissions. Oh, that’s intentional? Well, it ended up being a great idea, especially when you consider the legacy that it left behind. Wisconsin Planning Enabling Act (1909): https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/1909/related/acts/162.pdf https://www.law.du.edu/documents/rmlui/conference/powerpoints/2013/Meck-RMLUI-2-6-2013v2.pdf https://www...

In the future, the system must be first. At least, that’s what Frederick Taylor thought when he devised his Scientific Management theory that ended up kicking off the City Efficient Movement. Efficient? Maybe. But was it all unicorns, roses, and rainbows? The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor (1911): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Principles_of_Scientific_Management https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/scientific-managem...

I walk a lonely road. Wait, no I don’t, because this City Beautiful movement brought the people out! As a reaction to the rapidly densifying and grimy industrialized cities, City Beautiful came with a promise for a city that we could all love and enjoy. Did it work? Daniel Burnham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Burnham City Beautiful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Beautiful_movement#:~:text=The%20City%20Beautiful%20Movement%20was,and%20monumental%20...

Like normal gardens, Garden Cities needed a love and attention to grow, and they definitely got it. Garden Cities are maybe one of the more influential planning movements to date. As a reaction to the rapid industrialization of the city, the Garden City movement tried to make the best of all worlds. But how did it start, and how did it evolve. Ebenezer Howard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Howard Letchworth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth htt...

Planning in the early 1900’s was really just a baby – a cute little planning baby. And we as planners, like to look back and remember all of the special “first” moments in the life of the little planning baby. So let’s take a look at the first baby steps of the First Comprehensive Survey, Permanent Planning Commission, Citizen Conference, and finally, the first city-wide Comprehensive Plan. Support the show

Time to take this thing regional. We’ve been focusing a lot on the individual cities, but our friend Patrick Geddes opened up the world of planning to this crazy idea that we should start thinking about our places in the context of other places, and Boston, Ohio, New York, and Los Angeles apparently got the memos. Mind. Blown. Cities in Evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Geddes https://archive.org/details/citiesinevolutio00gedduoft/page/n17/mode/2up?ref=...

Come on and get in the zone! More like, “Get out of the zone.” Since we started urbanizing rapidly, we got into the realization that somethings just don’t belong together – like residential houses and slaughterhouses. Finding a way to make those two get a long wasn’t always easy, and navigating these scary skyscraper things created their own challenges. That solution required taking this developing thing called zoning to new heights. Nuisance Law: https://en.wikipedia...

Whelp, it’s time to go back to school. We need to learn a little more about the first course dedicated to city planning, and we need a professor dedicated to teaching city planning, and we need a textbook dedicated to city planning. Can we get it all in one place? Nope, but we’ll look at the two colleges that started it all. First Course in Planning: https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/landscape-architecture/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Sturgis_Pray http://urbanplanni...

Chicago? They don’t make little plans there - City of broad shoulders, City of big plans. At least, that’s what Daniel Burnham told them when he wrote up the 1909 Plan of Chicago with Edward Bennett. In fact, the plans were so big that Charles Wacker called up a guy named Walter Moody to write a textbook about it. Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnham_Plan_of_Chicago http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/10537.html https://...

Yeah…so I’m going to need everything you got on that case please? That’s how I imagine the U.S. Supreme Court asks a lower court for their files, at least. We kick off some case reviews in this episode with Mugler v. Kansas and The U.S. v. Gettysburg Electric Railway Company. Mugler v. Kansas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugler_v._Kansas https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/123/623.html U.S. v. Gettysburg Electric Railway Company: https://en.wikipedia.org/w...