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5 Werke 346 Mitglieder 8 Rezensionen

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Carl Smith is the Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English and American Studies and Professor of History, Emeritus, at Northwestern University. His books include Chicago and the American Literary Imagination, 1880-1920; Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief, The Plan of Chicago; and City Water, mehr anzeigen City Life. weniger anzeigen

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Chicago has dozens of neighborhood groups that try to nudge the course of development. A century ago there was "The Plan of Chicago," a coffee-table book produced by Daniel Burnham's architectural practice, funded by Burnham and a host of business heavyweights. It's comforting that community organizers now can speak with the same authority as those captains of industry once did with the Burnham Plan. But as a community volunteer who reads a lot of planning documents, I can't help but think that Burnham's authority to think big has been lost forever.

By 1909 fast-growing Chicago already was conjuring City Beautiful amenities from landfill and grappling with downtown gridlock, making the plan's six basic prescriptions inevitable -- lakefront improvements, highways, outlying rail yards, neighborhood parks, a traffic grid and civic amenities. Carl Smith casts the 1909 plan as both bigger and smaller than its legend: a seminal urban planning document spread by modern marketing and taught in the public schools, yet blinkered on social welfare issues and unable to deliver on its grand proposals.

Yes, the civic center that Burnham envisioned is instead an expressway interchange. But the leafy boulevards of the Chicago Plan continue to be civilizing, resilient influences, even as their wide streets fill with frat-bar cafe tables. If the Commercial Club's present-day Metropolis 2020 is a shadow of its Plan of 1909, it may be because its backers follow a different vision of enlightened self-interest, money and politics.
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rynk | 4 weitere Rezensionen | Jul 11, 2021 |
A detailed historical piece on the fire that burned down much of the city in 1871. It is hard to imagine the devastation that took place but it is even more remarkable how the city closed ranks and rebuilt in a very short time period.

Throughout the book topics and struggles surfaced that had relevance to today and obstacles we face which reinforced an adage, the more things change. So the lessons learned in this great event can still teach us today it seems and recover regardless the blow.… (mehr)
 
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knightlight777 | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Apr 25, 2021 |
My great-great grandparents lived in Chicago in the 1870s in the area where the fire started and I've always been interested in its history. This book is fascinating and very informative. It's more than just a recounting of the fire itself. The author explains the political and social attitudes of the city at the time. This gives you a feel for the era and the circumstances that contributed to the fire.

He also covers the period after the fire which brought aid from around the world along with political corruption, power grabs and discrimination against immigrants. Again his descriptions of the forces at work are excellent and provide a unique understanding of the city.

This is an outstanding history of the Chicago Fire and of the city.

I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley.
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CaitZ | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Sep 30, 2020 |
Well done historical piece with many photographs culled from numerous historical societies and museums. It is also a social history detailing the many immigrants and the why and origins deciding where they would settle. the history of firefighting in America was more than interesting with all the numbers provided. It is a celebration of a city that literally rose from it's own ashes.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Grove Atlantic via NetGalley. Thank you!
 
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jetangen4571 | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Jun 4, 2020 |

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