Society for American City and Regional Planning History

Society for American City and Regional Planning History
Name	Society for American City and Regional Planning History
Formation	1986
Type	Professional association
Headquarters	United States
Region served	North America
Membership	Scholars, practitioners, students

Society for American City and Regional Planning History is a learned association devoted to the historical study of urban and regional planning in the United States and North America. The organization connects scholars, practitioners, archivists, librarians, and students from institutions such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Pennsylvania. It engages with archival collections at repositories like the Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Chicago History Museum, National Archives and Records Administration, and Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to promote research into planning figures including Daniel Burnham, Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses, Lewis Mumford, and Patrick Geddes.

History

The Society was founded in the mid-1980s by historians and planners active at centers such as the American Planning Association, Urban History Association, Society of American Historians, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Johns Hopkins University. Early founders drew on scholarly networks around journals like the Journal of the American Planning Association, Planning Perspectives, Journal of Urban History, Technology and Culture, and Annals of the Association of American Geographers. The Society’s inception followed conferences at venues such as Columbia University, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Michigan, Cornell University, and Yale University, and was influenced by historiographies from figures associated with Milton Keynes Development Corporation, Chicago School (sociology), Garden City movement, City Beautiful movement, and the Regional Planning Association of America.

Mission and Activities

The Society’s mission emphasizes archival preservation at institutions like the Smithsonian Institution, Bancroft Library, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, and Newberry Library, and supports research on planners such as Le Corbusier, Ebenezer Howard, Clarence Stein, Alison and Peter Smithson, and Raymond Unwin. Activities include facilitating access to records from municipal archives in cities like Boston, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, and collaborating with organizations such as the American Institute of Architects, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Historic New England, Preservation Society of Charleston, and Los Angeles Conservancy.

Publications and Awards

The Society sponsors publication outlets and prizes tied to outlets such as Planning Perspectives, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Cambridge University Press, University of Chicago Press, and Routledge. It confers awards honoring scholarship on topics linked to figures and works like The Death and Life of Great American Cities, City of Tomorrow (Lewis Mumford), Civic Realism, Garden Cities of To-morrow, and archives relating to Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux, Andrew Jackson Downing, Hildebrand de Hemptinne, and Oscar Niemeyer. The Society’s prizes have been given to book authors at institutions including Princeton University, Yale University Press, Oxford University Press, and recipients with fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and Social Science Research Council.

Conferences and Events

Annual conferences rotate among host institutions such as University of California, Los Angeles, University of Texas at Austin, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Ohio State University, Rutgers University, University of Toronto, McGill University, and Rice University. The program committees often coordinate sessions on case studies in cities including Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle, and panels on policies tied to statutes like the Housing Act of 1949, Interstate Highway Act, Homestead Act, and programs from the Public Works Administration. Plenary speakers have included historians associated with MIT Press, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, and scholars linked to archival projects at the Pritzker Architecture Prize trustees, Getty Research Institute, Huntington Library, and Newberry Library.

Membership and Governance

Membership draws from faculties at Princeton University, University of Michigan, University of California, Los Angeles, Indiana University Bloomington, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Arizona State University, University of Minnesota, Tulane University, and professional staff from Municipal Archives of Los Angeles, Chicago Department of Planning and Development, New York City Department of City Planning, Toronto Transit Commission, and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York). The Society is governed by an elected board with officers modeled on governance practices at American Historical Association, Modern Language Association, Society for American Archaeology, Association of American Geographers, and American Studies Association. Committees oversee fellowships with partners like the Kluge Center, National Humanities Center, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and regional collaborations with organizations such as Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Impact and Contributions to the Field

The Society has shaped historiography by promoting archival research on urban plans, transportation schemes, and housing projects connected to actors like Henry Hobson Richardson, Cass Gilbert, Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago, Robert Rauschenberg, Mies van der Rohe, and policies such as New Deal. It has facilitated preservation of records that informed reinterpretations of events like the Great Migration, Urban Renewal, Suburbanization, and the development of transit systems including Interborough Rapid Transit Company, Pacific Electric Railway, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York), and Bay Area Rapid Transit. Through partnerships with the National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, Getty Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and scholastic presses, the Society has influenced curricula at Princeton University School of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Yale School of Architecture, Columbia GSAPP, and history departments at Stanford University, University of Chicago, and Brown University.

Category:Urban history organizations