The History of
Community Design
and Development
in America
Community Development Archive
The History of Community Design and Development in America

Planning, Modernism, & Rules for Radicals

During World War II, modernism became a global movement. At the same time, social sciences were growing as a field of research and coalition-based activism based on the writings of Saul Alinsky began to emerge.

Philanthropy & “The Urban Crisis”

A board meeting at the Ford Foundation. 1959.
Image: Rockefeller Archive Center

Reacting to Roosevelt’s Revenue Act of 1935, which introduced a 70% tax on large inheritances, president of Ford Motor Company Edsel Ford founded the Ford Foundation to receive and distribute funds for the purposes of science, education, and public welfare. When Edsel’s son Henry Ford II took over the foundation in 1947, he appointed two nonfamily trustees: Donald K. Dean, dean of Harvard Business School and director of Ford Motor Company, and Karl T. Compton, president of M.I.T.. These two trustees assembled a committee led by California attorney H. Rowan Gaither to guide the future of the foundation and its role in society, as it was soon to be the most well-funded foundation in the world.

Influenced by the intersection of modernization theory and American social science, Gaither recommended that the foundation move to New York City and focus on solving humankind’s most pressing problems. In the early 1950s, the Ford Foundation opened its first international office in New Delhi upon the belief that its mission should be served at home and abroad. The mission of the foundation was detailed in the study committee’s report:

“In the Committee’s opinion the evidence points to the fact that today’s most critical problems are those which are social rather than physical in character— those which arise in man’s relation to man rather than in his relation to Nature. Here is the realm where the greatest problems exist, where the least progress is being made, and where the gravest threat to democracy and human welfare lies.”

The Gaither Report
H. Rowan Gaither, Jr., Report of the Study for the Ford Foundation on Policy and Program (Detroit: Ford Foundation, 1949).

The Ford Foundation’s programming to address ‘the urban crisis’ began a decade later in the 1950s, when planner Paul Ylvisaker joined the institution and urged a change in direction towards addressing inequities in the built environment.1

1941
Japan launches a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor killing more than 2,300 American servicemen.

1944

Expansion of Planning as a Field of Research

The expansion of urban planning as an independent field of research was driven by a confluence of factors, including the post-World War II population boom, increasing concerns about suburbanization, and a growing realization of the need for comprehensive approaches to urban development. Schools began offering specialized programs and degrees in urban planning, often affiliated with architecture or social science departments. Prominent institutions like Harvard, MIT, Yale University, and the University of Pennsylvania led the way in establishing planning departments and attracting renowned faculty members from the design field. Walter Gropius was one such figure who made the move from Bauhaus to Harvard.

Maurice Rotival’s Map of New Haven traffic arteries courtesy of the New Haven City Plan Commission.
Image: Maurice Emil Henri Rotival Papers via Yale University Library

Charles Burchard, founding dean of Virginia Tech’s architectural program, was a graduate student who studied under both Gropius and Marcel Breuer while at Harvard. In his recollections of Gropius’ tenure at Harvard, he described a new form of learning and design process that emphasized groupwork, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and being aware of the needs of the contemporary environment. Exhibiting lessons from both Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, design schools began to move away from the isolating architecture, the engineering, and social sciences.2

1944
Allied troops invade Normandy in the largest seaborne invasion in history, often referred to as D-Day

Le Corbusier’s High Modernism

On an international scale, the pioneering architect Le Corbusier left a permanent mark on urban planning and architecture. Embodied in his Radiant City project, he advocated for a rational and efficient restructuring of urban areas through the demolition of existing structures and the construction of large-scale, modernist housing projects. This approach was widely influential in modern architecture, but faced criticism for its totalitarian tendency to produce alienating urban environments.3

Le Corbusier’s ‘Plan Voisin’ sought to raze sections of central Paris and replace them with high rises in line with the ‘tower in the park’ model.
Image: Fondation Le Corbusier

“What did happen was that the famous innovators reverted to the old prima donna role: papa has all the answers, and personal aesthetic expression is paramount, even if it fails to function properly or to improve the cityscape.”

Catherine Bauer Wurster, at the 1964 Columbia symposium on modernism
Meredith L. Clausen, Pietro Belluschi: Modern American Architect (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).

1946

Saul Alinsky and the Rules for Radicals

The usage of eminent domain and slum clearance often exacerbated existing social inequalities. From the neighborhood Upton Sinclair made famous in The Jungle, Saul Alinsky introduced innovative strategies for grassroots activism and counter-protesting. Alinsky’s approach emphasized empowering marginalized communities to advocate for their interests through community organizing and non-violent protest. His work resonated with many civil rights and social justice movements, offering practical tools for challenging established power structures and promoting social change.4

Saul Alinsky standing on a South Side Chicago street. 1966.
Image: Time Magazine

Alinsky’s methodology in direct action and community organizing became the model for future generations of activists. His two books, Reveille for Radicals (1946) and Rules for Radicals (1971), reinforced that the American dream can only be achieved through active democratic citizenship. While not all his direct action campaigns were successful, his organizing with the Industrial Areas Foundation, Woodlawn Organization, and FIGHT in Rochester, NY laid the groundwork for future activism in community development.

“In our modern urban civilization, multitudes of our people have been condemned to urban anonymity—to living the kind of life where many of them neither know nor care for their neighbors. This course of urban anonymity… is one of eroding destruction to the foundations of democracy. For although we profess that we are citizens of a democracy, and although we may vote once every four years, millions of our people feel deep down in their heart of hearts that there is no place for them—that they do not ‘count’.”

Saul Alinsky
Sanford D. Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).

Footnotes

  1. Sam Collings-Well, Developing Communities: the Ford Foundation & the Global Urban Crisis, 1958–66 (2021) ↩︎
  2. Charles Burchard, Gropius at Harvard (1959) ↩︎
  3. Rachel Donadio, Le Corbusier’s Architecture and His Politics Revisited (2015) ↩︎
  4. Saul D. Alinsky, Community Analysis and Organization (1941) ↩︎