The City Beautiful Movement

An outstanding piece of scholarship. -- Paul Boyer, University of Wisconsin

Wilson sees the movement as its founders did: as an exercise in participatory politics aimed at changing the way citizens thought about cities.Critics of the turn-of-the-century's City Beautiful Movement denounced its projects-broad, tree-lined boulevards and monumental but low-lying civic buildings-as grandiose and unnecessary. In this masterful analysis, William H. Wilson sees the movement as its founders did: as an exercise in participatory politics aimed at changing the way citizens thought about cities.