ABSTRACT
The urban renewal order was a formidable juggernaut, but its dominance also brought scrutiny and, gradually, a reevaluation of its assumptions. Some of the earliest critiques came from architects and designers who felt uneasy about the results of modernist urbanism, particularly the loss of a certain human-scale perspective and detail. In the United Kingdom, such reservations found expression in a celebration of British urban vernacular. Particular small-scale elements, ignored by the didacticism of modernist planning, came to embody a sense of civic vitality and historical complexity. Urban sociologists in West Germany focused their discussion around the concept of the "public sphere", as a way to get at something worth preserving in a society undergoing rapid structural transformations. In practice, it was often a gritty fight by threatened residents against an entrenched redevelopment machine using every available professional, political, and legal means. The cradle of modernist urban renewal evolved into a model of humane urbanism.
