From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth-Century America

Authored by prominent scholars, the twelve essays in this volume use the historical perspective to explore American urban housing policy as it unfolded from the late nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. Focusing on the enduring quest of policy makers to restore urban community, the essays examine such topics as the war against the slums, planned suburbs for workers, the rise of government-aided and built housing during the Great Depression, the impact of post-World War II renewal policies, and the retreat from public housing in the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan years.

John F. Bauman is Research Professor of Community Planning and Development at the Muskie School of Public Policy, University of Southern Maine and Professor of History, California University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Public Housing, Race and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974 (1987) and, with Thomas Coode, In the Eye of the Great Depression: New Deal Reporters and the Agony of the American People (1988).

Roger Biles is Professor of History at East Carolina University. He has written several books, including Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race, and the Governing of Chicago (1995) and The South and the New Deal (1994).

Kristin M. Szylvian is Assistant Professor of History at Western Michigan University.