Synopses & Reviews
The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal examines how postwar thinkers from both sides of the Atlantic considered urban landscapes radically changed by the political and physical realities of sprawl, urban decay, and urban renewal. With a sweep that encompasses New York, London, Berlin, Philadelphia, and Toronto, among others, Christopher Klemek traces changing responses to the challenging issues that most affected the lives of the worldand#8217;s cities.and#160;
In the postwar decades, the principles of modernist planning came to be challengedand#8212;in the grassroots revolts against the building of freeways through urban neighborhoods, for instance, or by academic critiques of slum clearance policy agendasand#8212;and then began to collapse entirely. Over the 1960s, several alternative views of city life emerged among neighborhood activists, New Left social scientists, and neoconservative critics. Ultimately, while a pessimistic view of urban crisis may have won out in the United States and Great Britain, Klemek demonstrates that other countries more successfully harmonized urban renewal and its alternatives. Thismuch anticipated book provides one of the first truly international perspectives on issues central to historians and planners alike, making it essential reading for anyone engaged with either field.
Review
and#8220;Klemekand#8217;s much-anticipated and greatly needed transatlantic pursuit of modernist planning and its failures does not disappoint. With deep research and sparkling insight, Klemek brings to life the urban dreams of planners, architects, public officials, activists, and social scientists in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The collapse of urban renewal is a complex story, and Klemek captures it with subtlety and wisdom.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Christopher Klemek has written a remarkably comprehensive and sophisticated account of the rise and fall of what he calls the urban renewal orderand#8212;the great effort to reorder and rebuild cities in the postwar world, based on the triumph of modernist architecture and planning, a self-confident elite of city planners, and and#160;huge government programs. It reshaped New York, London, Berlin, and other cities. But it all came crashing down,and#160;in different ways in different countries and cities, not least because of the writing and activism of Jane Jacobs, whose influence spread far beyond her New York, where she first confrontedand#8212;and confoundedand#8212;the urban renewal order.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;Klemekandrsquo;s account reads like an adventure story.and#160;He wears his intercontinental, interdisciplinary scholarship lightly, yet produces profound answers to questions left hanging for sixty years: why, for example, during the Nixon and Reagan eras, local planning agencies felt like haunted houses; how big city building projects got (and get) botched through the agendas of their stakeholders; and why the best metaphor for the urban architect or planner is not the sailor at the helm but the surfer catching the waves.and#160;However, for young architects and planners now reappraising the 1960s and 1970s, Klemek offers more than illumination of a downfall and sly prescriptions.and#160; The book is an introduction toand#160;the role of social conscience in their careers, suggesting thatand#160;this was not just andlsquo;an old hangup of the 1960s,andrsquo; that thereand#160;can be, must be, ways of showingand#160;social concern in the 2010s andand#160;beyondandmdash;and methods toand#160;avoid theand#160;traps that snared our earlier efforts.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Christopher Klemek has written an erudite transnational history of modernist planning and its discontents. Sweeping from Berlin to Toronto, from London to New York, and from Philadelphia to Boston, Klemek takes intellectual history to the streets. This is a major contribution to the fields of urbanism, architecture, planning, and the history of ideas and public policy.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Christopher Klemek offers fresh insights into topics of broad interestandmdash;above all, the failure of urban renewal programsandmdash;and into well-known personalities such as Jane Jacobs and Denise Scott Brown. This book is the first to add international dimensions to its subject, recasting the story of US urban renewal as the end of a transatlantic consensus. A compelling and original book.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Klemekandrsquo;s insightful, original, transatlantic perspective on the fate of what he calls the andlsquo;urban renewal orderandrsquo; offers a useful addition to the growing literature on postwar urbanism.andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;An outstanding beginning to tracing the transnational flow of renewal ideas and recognizing the mimetic quality of urban policy.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;This book provides a valuable interpretation of the transformations in postwar urban planning in the United States. . . . A conceptually farsighted study.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;[Klemekandrsquo;s] study succeeds in presenting the material in a succinct and comprehensible manner that speaks to the importance of transatlantic and global communication of ideas, while underscoring the enduring nature of the local in an increasingly technical and homogenized world.andrdquo;
Review
and#160;andldquo;This is a work of enormous ambition and deep research. Klemek gives urban planning and architectural ideas the respect they deserve, and provides an ideal opening to what one hopes will be an ongoing conversation about the possibilities, limits and shifting priorities of urban planning on both sides of the Atlantic.andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal demonstrates convincingly how valuable it is to reexamine urban renewal outside the typical national and single-city context and employing the international diffusion perspective. . . . Suffice it to say, this is an important book that would benefit in so many ways courses in planning history and theory, and should guide future research in this important planning field.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;A World of Homeowners is a persuasive, solidly researched, and synthetic interpretation of Americaandrsquo;s role in the promulgation of international housing in the postwar period. Kwak presents an ambitious studyandmdash;one that is well-written, clearly organized, and draws on many original and long-neglected archival sources. The book adds an important dimension not only to our understanding of the history of U.S. housing policy, but also to its postwar international role.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A World of Homeowners is a game-changerandmdash;one of the most important books on housing published in the last decade. Kwak offers a brilliant study of the internationalization of US housing policy, with a richly drawn cast of characters and a deep dive into the construction of soft imperialism. Weandrsquo;ll be looking back at this book for years to come as a point of departure for how housing became integral to the making of a global American imaginary.andrdquo;
Synopsis
What is more American than the ideal of homeownership? In this ambitious and groundbreaking work of transnational history, Nancy Kwak reveals how the concept of homeownership became one of Americaand#8217;s major exportsand#151;and defining characteristicsand#151;around the world. Kwak charts the emergence of democratic homeownership in the glow of the postwar landscape and booming economy; its evolution as a tool of foreign policy and as a vehicle for international investment during the 1950s, and#8217;60s, and and#8217;70s; and finally, the application of lessons learned to lower-income homeownership programs in the United States from the 1960s to today. Over that period, Americans leaders, institutions, and policy experts urged leaders in China, Taiwan, Burma, South Korea, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, and countless other countries to embrace the belief that more accessible, mortgage-driven homeownership could simultaneously strengthen democracy and capitalism. This idea took shape differently in all those countriesand#151;even as it failed to be honored in poorer and nonwhite areas of America itself.
Synopsis
Is there anything more American than the ideal of homeownership? In this groundbreaking work of transnational history, Nancy H. Kwak reveals how the concept of homeownership became one of Americaandrsquo;s major exports and defining characteristics around the world. In the aftermath of World War II, American advisers urged countries to pursue greater access to homeownership, arguing it would give families a literal stake in their nations, jumpstart a productive home-building industry, fuel economic growth, and raise the standard of living in their countries, helping to ward off the specter of communism.
A World of Homeowners charts the emergence of democratic homeownership in the postwar landscape and booming economy; its evolution as a tool of foreign policy and a vehicle for international investment in the 1950s, andrsquo;60s, and andrsquo;70s; and the growth of lower-income homeownership programs in the United States from the 1960s to today. Kwak unravels all these threads, detailing the complex stories and policy struggles that emerged from a particularly American vision for global democracy and capitalism. Ultimately, she argues, the question of who should own homes whereandmdash;and howandmdash;is intertwined with the most difficult questions about economy, government, and society.
About the Author
Nancy H. Kwak is assistant professor of history and urban studies and planning at the University of California, San Diego.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Building a New American Model of Homeownership
2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Combatting Communism with Homeownership
3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Homeownership in an Era of Decolonization
4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Homeownership as Investment
5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Fair Homeownership
6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; A Homeownership Consensus?
Conclusionand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index