The Intellectual Versus the City

by Samuel Z. Klausner (Editor), Lucia White

Sociology

Genres: History, Philosophy

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

Reviews

[Tom Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic text surveying the most significant contributions to the American conversation about cities. The Whites (Morton and Lucia) demonstrate that there has been a contual aversion toward urban development from the beginnings of the United States, and they show how intellectuals from Jefferson through Freank Lloyd Wright have approached this ambivalence in the American character. As engaging and useful as any philosphical text can be, THE INTELLECTUAL VS. THE CITY should illuminate the thinking of anyone searching for the roots of our current urban and exurban crisis.

[Zack Gebhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Intellectual Versus the City is a textual analysis of how prominent American intellectuals have regarded the city in their works. Each chapter either compare contemporaries or contrasts individuals with their predecessors. The book is arranged chronologically from ‘The Irenic Age’ (Benjamin Franklin, J. Hector St. John Crèvecoeur, and Thomas Jefferson) to ‘Architecture Against the City’ (Frank Lloyd Wright) followed by three short essays that represent the author’s conclusions. These conclusions center around the themes in the secondary authors works of romanticism, the idea that ‘nature’ is something to be held separate and above urbanity. White writes that much of the anti-urbanism goes beyond romanticism for the natural physical state and moves towards a longing for the natural economic state, where desperation and satiety are mutually experienced by all people.

This text is thorough and surprisingly succinct for such dry material, but I felt like the analysis could have been improved if the authors wrote on the real-world implications of these anti-urbanist writings. American urban centers were continually growing from 1780-1950, when suburbanization really hit. The last chapter, focused on Frank Lloyd Wright, touches upon how his architectural influence contributed to decentralized populations, but I would have liked some reflection on why Ralph Emerson’s, William James’, or Frank Norris’ anti-urbanism didn’t translate to an actual migration.

This work traces the history of the American city through how it is portrayed by its writers. A growing and shifting discontent resulted in the mass exodus away from cities in the mid-20th century. This book was published too early to see the permanence of that shift, so couldn’t truly reflect on it, but I wonder if the authors would conclude, as I did, that suburban flight is a response to 150 years of negativity surrounding the city. Today we are living in an up-swell of urbanist fetishism and seeing wealthy populations return en masse to the city. There are many more technical theories and explanations as to why, but I would love to see an adapted edition of this book with the last 60 years added on that provided this particular analytic style to explain this new shift.

I liked this book, and found it useful to bang around in my head with my other thoughts on history, urbanism, political ecology, and capitalism. I would recommend it to folks who are interested in the intersection of these things, and to those who are curious to see snapshots of urban conceptualities in the context of the long-term trends of urbanism. For those who have a light understanding of American literary history, this book will also provide you with excerpts and descriptions of many once-famous-now-obscure pieces of fiction.

[Melissa]

Goof country