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Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century
It is a paradox of American life that we are a highly urbanized nation filled with people deeply ambivalent about urban life. An aversion to urban density and all that it contributes to urban life, and a perception that the city was the place where "big government" first took root in America fostered what historian Steven Conn terms the "anti-urban impulse." In response, anti-urbanists called for the decentralization of the city, and rejected the role of government in American life in favor of a return to the pioneer virtues of independence and self-sufficiency.
In this provocative and sweeping book, Conn explores the anti-urban impulse across the 20th century, examining how the ideas born of it have shaped both the places in which Americans live and work, and the anti-government politics so strong today. Beginning in the booming industrial cities of the Progressive era at the turn of the 20th century, where debate surrounding these questions first arose, Conn examines the progression of anti-urban movements.: He describes the decentralist movement of the 1930s, the attempt to revive the American small town in the mid-century, the anti-urban basis of urban renewal in the 1950s and '60s, and the Nixon administration's program of building new towns as a response to the urban crisis, illustrating how, by the middle of the 20th century, anti-urbanism was at the center of the politics of the New Right. Concluding with an exploration of the New Urbanist experiments at the turn of the 21st century, Conn demonstrates the full breadth of the anti-urban impulse, from its inception to the present day. Engagingly written, thoroughly researched, and forcefully argued, Americans Against the City is important reading for anyone who cares not just about the history of our cities, but about their future as well.
In this provocative and sweeping book, Conn explores the anti-urban impulse across the 20th century, examining how the ideas born of it have shaped both the places in which Americans live and work, and the anti-government politics so strong today. Beginning in the booming industrial cities of the Progressive era at the turn of the 20th century, where debate surrounding these questions first arose, Conn examines the progression of anti-urban movements.: He describes the decentralist movement of the 1930s, the attempt to revive the American small town in the mid-century, the anti-urban basis of urban renewal in the 1950s and '60s, and the Nixon administration's program of building new towns as a response to the urban crisis, illustrating how, by the middle of the 20th century, anti-urbanism was at the center of the politics of the New Right. Concluding with an exploration of the New Urbanist experiments at the turn of the 21st century, Conn demonstrates the full breadth of the anti-urban impulse, from its inception to the present day. Engagingly written, thoroughly researched, and forcefully argued, Americans Against the City is important reading for anyone who cares not just about the history of our cities, but about their future as well.
296 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2014
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332 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 15, 2021
While the scholarship is good, this reads like a boring text book (and was more boring than any of those I had to read in school during planning classes). The title was perhaps the most interesting part. Also be warned, you're going to get a heavy dose of Ohio.
May 7, 2015
This was an excellent book that examine anti-Urbanist thought in the U.S. The author used writers, architects, policy makers and others to trace how fear of urbanism and urbanity has been a constant presence in the American experience. If you have concerns about the evolution of the city, this is a must read.
December 27, 2016
I finished this wonderful historical survey of America's political culture and its conflicted relationship over the past century with both cities and the styles of life and governance they gave rise to months ago--but it's only really come to impress me as an important guide to our present moment since the election of Donald Trump, where the divide between urban voters and rural voters was greater than any presidential election has seen in over a century. Those of us who live in urban areas (which is over 80% of the whole population of the United States) need to better understand why so much of America's political thinking has been suspicious of the city, even while our country's economy--to say nothing of the whole planet's economy, both for better and for worse--has come to revolve so much around what cities make possible. Conn is not a political theorist or sociologist; he doesn't directly or analytically engage the ideas he describes, but often he doesn't need to--simply laying out the dozens of ways the national government, and state and local governments, as well as innumerable private organizations, have attempted over the past century to prioritize small town or otherwise agrarian-friendly models of urban living, and found them frustrated by human choice and capitalist developments again and again, provides plenty of intellectual engagement all its own. Conn's implied thesis throughout is pretty undeniable: industrialization has made cities both inevitable and crucial to ways of life we all enjoy, and for all the flaws and pathologies of 19th-century cities, at least they (and the public and political forms they incubated) initially grew without a reactive--though often simply defensive or xenophobic--self-consciousness against their own logic; it is only in the past century that Americans pastoral ideals gave rise to a genuine anti-urbanism. That anti-urbanism was mostly political and economic, but it is also present in art, literature, science, and more; if American politics is going to develop in a healthy way, we urbanists--and again, that's nearly all of us--need to (re)develop a broad understanding of what the city is capable of, and work that understanding into not just how we vote, but how we talk, and how we celebrate our lives. There are plenty of examples of such throughout American history of a properly balanced rural-urban consciousness; the information Conn provides is an important resource for doing so again today. (For more thoughts about the book, check out this post here.)
July 7, 2015
Original research into obscure sources like journals of early 20th century organizations added enormously to my interest. I read a lot of 21st century urbanism--books, blogs, news, and policy--and Conn's book taught me a lot I didn't already know.
Most notable is his careful tracing of the threads of anti-urbanism through the 19th and 20th centuries, and the way they all tangle and cross during the 1960s and 70s. Conn shows how the hippie, back-to-the-land communards shared values with conservative anti-government thinkers: they all saw cities as the source of all evil. He is unsparing in equating anti-urbanism with thinly veiled racism.
The title reveals that there is very little in the book about the 21st Century's New Urbanism (though, lest you think he's extolling the anti-urbanist movements of the last century, he starts and ends on a positive, New Urbanist note).
He didn't change my mind about the value and desirability of urban life: I was already there. But the way he ties all the historical threads of Americans' attitude towards (and policies about) the city is truly educational.
Most notable is his careful tracing of the threads of anti-urbanism through the 19th and 20th centuries, and the way they all tangle and cross during the 1960s and 70s. Conn shows how the hippie, back-to-the-land communards shared values with conservative anti-government thinkers: they all saw cities as the source of all evil. He is unsparing in equating anti-urbanism with thinly veiled racism.
The title reveals that there is very little in the book about the 21st Century's New Urbanism (though, lest you think he's extolling the anti-urbanist movements of the last century, he starts and ends on a positive, New Urbanist note).
He didn't change my mind about the value and desirability of urban life: I was already there. But the way he ties all the historical threads of Americans' attitude towards (and policies about) the city is truly educational.
May 22, 2025
Page 141 (my book) small town utopia
A yearning for a life as we imagine it must have been.
Page 262 from “What the Trees Said” by Steve Diamond
The car trip from the farm to the city is a journey from all that is good and healthy and natural to all that is decaying.
Steven Conn gives us a history of the development of the American city from the early 1900s to the 1990s.
His basic premise is that due to their size and population density, cities require government intervention to plan and improve urban areas. This angered rural Americans who were against government intrusion – even though they often benefitted from it, like road construction and electricity.
Cities were seen as socialistic – in opposition to rural self-reliance.
Rural areas are often perceived as seemingly idyllic, friendly, and peaceful – where community could flourish. The word “community” is often associated with rural living; juxtaposed against the perceived chaos, overcrowding, and anonymity of city living.
Page 120
Regional culture had an integrity and a unity that metropolitan culture did not, and in this sense stood as its opposite; harmonious rather than promiscuous; authentic rather than commercial; truly American rather than mongrel.
But as the author points out “community” can also be both inclusive and exclusive.
Page 128
New England towns [in the 1930s and 40s] offered all the unspoken and retrograde comforts of ethnic and racial homogeneity to those who found cities nothing but a welter of people decidedly not Yankees… did not acknowledge that the vision of “community” was predicated on a tightly defined ethnic-racial exclusivity.
Cities by contrast offer diversity.
Page 80 Catherine Bauer in the 1930s on leaving the city
Finally, you must be actively convinced that schools, colleges, theaters, lectures, libraries, museums, art galleries, concerts, automobiles, doctors, dentists, hospitals, leisure, and most forms of social intercourse or communal recreation belong to a world well lost.
By the 1960s, urbanism also became associated with race – white flight to the suburbs. Urbanism became a code word for government subsidies to Black urban residents, as opposed to the apparent self-sufficiency of the rural countryside. Cities came to be seen as places where “liberals” endlessly spent tax money, and the suburbs were thriving in a market driven economy. Suburbs started to replace the utopia of the rural countryside.
The author explains how newer cities like Houston and Los Angeles were more spread out than older cities like New York and Chicago. Houston also had very little zoning restrictions. Zoning was seen as against the values of the free-market economy. These cities also became very car-centric with expressways dominating the landscape.
Page 205
Zoning = planning = government interference = Stalinism
This is the fundamental demarcation between urban and rural, where cities are encumbered by government regulations.
There were times I felt this book to be somewhat dry, as if the author was observing the city at a high altitude. It could feel too much like a social studies thesis.
He says very little on public transportation which is one of the key differences between urban and rural. Public transportation in the countryside is non-existent. Many cities are now becoming opposed to “car culture” and encourage the use of public transit.
Also, nothing on how religion plays a big factor in small farming communities. And no mention of the increasing rural drug epidemic – this book was published in 2014.
Page 275
The role of the city allows those not necessarily in the mainstream to breathe a little more freely.
Page 275 Robert Park writing in 1915
A smaller community sometimes tolerates eccentricity, but the city often rewards it.
A yearning for a life as we imagine it must have been.
Page 262 from “What the Trees Said” by Steve Diamond
The car trip from the farm to the city is a journey from all that is good and healthy and natural to all that is decaying.
Steven Conn gives us a history of the development of the American city from the early 1900s to the 1990s.
His basic premise is that due to their size and population density, cities require government intervention to plan and improve urban areas. This angered rural Americans who were against government intrusion – even though they often benefitted from it, like road construction and electricity.
Cities were seen as socialistic – in opposition to rural self-reliance.
Rural areas are often perceived as seemingly idyllic, friendly, and peaceful – where community could flourish. The word “community” is often associated with rural living; juxtaposed against the perceived chaos, overcrowding, and anonymity of city living.
Page 120
Regional culture had an integrity and a unity that metropolitan culture did not, and in this sense stood as its opposite; harmonious rather than promiscuous; authentic rather than commercial; truly American rather than mongrel.
But as the author points out “community” can also be both inclusive and exclusive.
Page 128
New England towns [in the 1930s and 40s] offered all the unspoken and retrograde comforts of ethnic and racial homogeneity to those who found cities nothing but a welter of people decidedly not Yankees… did not acknowledge that the vision of “community” was predicated on a tightly defined ethnic-racial exclusivity.
Cities by contrast offer diversity.
Page 80 Catherine Bauer in the 1930s on leaving the city
Finally, you must be actively convinced that schools, colleges, theaters, lectures, libraries, museums, art galleries, concerts, automobiles, doctors, dentists, hospitals, leisure, and most forms of social intercourse or communal recreation belong to a world well lost.
By the 1960s, urbanism also became associated with race – white flight to the suburbs. Urbanism became a code word for government subsidies to Black urban residents, as opposed to the apparent self-sufficiency of the rural countryside. Cities came to be seen as places where “liberals” endlessly spent tax money, and the suburbs were thriving in a market driven economy. Suburbs started to replace the utopia of the rural countryside.
The author explains how newer cities like Houston and Los Angeles were more spread out than older cities like New York and Chicago. Houston also had very little zoning restrictions. Zoning was seen as against the values of the free-market economy. These cities also became very car-centric with expressways dominating the landscape.
Page 205
Zoning = planning = government interference = Stalinism
This is the fundamental demarcation between urban and rural, where cities are encumbered by government regulations.
There were times I felt this book to be somewhat dry, as if the author was observing the city at a high altitude. It could feel too much like a social studies thesis.
He says very little on public transportation which is one of the key differences between urban and rural. Public transportation in the countryside is non-existent. Many cities are now becoming opposed to “car culture” and encourage the use of public transit.
Also, nothing on how religion plays a big factor in small farming communities. And no mention of the increasing rural drug epidemic – this book was published in 2014.
Page 275
The role of the city allows those not necessarily in the mainstream to breathe a little more freely.
Page 275 Robert Park writing in 1915
A smaller community sometimes tolerates eccentricity, but the city often rewards it.
November 27, 2022
“Broadly speaking, they rejected the density of urban spaces and the public nature of urban life. Some who objected to density did so because they genuinely believed that the crowded, often unsanitary conditions of industrial neighborhoods were inhumane. Others simply could not abide the ethnic and racial diversity that came to define American cities.
Their antidote to density—and they often referred to it as “concentration”—was to decentralize the city, and they offered various proposals and plans to achieve that goal. From garden cities, to a revival of the American small town, to the building of new towns and cities, anti-urban Americans imagined and tried to build a variety of alternatives to the city that were less dense—and presumably less diverse, as well.
Anti-urbanists objected to the public, collective nature of city life. In the Progressive-era city, urban citizens turned increasingly to the mechanisms of government to shape and improve the quality of urban life. For many anti-urbanists, however, that expansion of government constituted, in and of itself, a grave concern. As the importance of cities and the scale of government expanded across the twentieth century, these anti-urbanists began to see the two as almost coterminous. They grew equally suspicious of both.”
Their antidote to density—and they often referred to it as “concentration”—was to decentralize the city, and they offered various proposals and plans to achieve that goal. From garden cities, to a revival of the American small town, to the building of new towns and cities, anti-urban Americans imagined and tried to build a variety of alternatives to the city that were less dense—and presumably less diverse, as well.
Anti-urbanists objected to the public, collective nature of city life. In the Progressive-era city, urban citizens turned increasingly to the mechanisms of government to shape and improve the quality of urban life. For many anti-urbanists, however, that expansion of government constituted, in and of itself, a grave concern. As the importance of cities and the scale of government expanded across the twentieth century, these anti-urbanists began to see the two as almost coterminous. They grew equally suspicious of both.”
November 24, 2025
By the end of the 19th century, America was freaking out over the growth of cities (hives of immigrants, political corruption and wage slaves) but some thinkers were contemplating how to make it work better. Over the course of the 20th century, hope of improvement flagged and dreams of alternatives to city life — small towns, communes, suburbs — sucked people away (suburbs most of all) Conn looks at the way all these trends played out and the political context around them.
This was informative although I'd been hoping for more of a pop-culture perspective. It's a little dry though. Definitely only if you're into the subject.
This was informative although I'd been hoping for more of a pop-culture perspective. It's a little dry though. Definitely only if you're into the subject.
August 21, 2017
This is the best book we've read for urban planning book club so far, though it assumes a fair bit of knowledge (e.g. why Robert Moses was important). It did a very pleasing job of tracing the similar impulses of different generations of Americans to "go back to the land" and form living environments that encouraged "community." There might always be a set of reformers who haven't learned that almost no one actually wants to be a subsistence farmer if there are any other options for feeding one's self.
May 24, 2019
Rich, wonderfully researched history and commentary. I wish it wrapped up with some more specifics on the current state of efforts to reverse all the anti-urban policy. Despite the title, I think a solid chapter on the how the 21st century effort has done so far (barriers, successes, developments, etc.) was called for.
January 22, 2019
I have been reading this book for sooo long. Ummm... I think it had some good points but never quite felt like it added up to enough to make the point he was trying to make ... but maybe that's just my slow reading. Hard to tell
April 25, 2023
don't remember why I decided to read this, but glad I did! very well written, and some iiiiinteresting ideas
January 20, 2019
Conn offers a history of an under-examined strain in American social thought and another lens through which to view contemporary social struggles in the United States. Tracing American anti-urbanism all the way to its roots in the thought of Thomas Jefferson, Conn outlines the remarkable durability of anti-urbanism in an increasingly urban society. Conn concludes by quoting another writer's observation that the GOP has become the 'party of anti-urbanism' and this conclusion is even more true today. To the coalition formed around states dominated by rural voters, exurbanites and gated-community dwellers, Trump added the two midwestern states (Ohio and Indiana) whose largest cities are. as Conn shows, 'northern Sunbelt' cities. No wonder then that Trumpism revolves around a pastiche of anti-urban cliches and fantasies of violent, expurgating re-ruralization.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews