ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the housing and planning ideas which abounded in Philadelphia and the nation during World War II. It shows the propensity of wartime housers and planners to spawn visions about the future of the post-war city. The chapter suggests that the critical shortcomings of America's post-war housing and redevelopment can be traced to the conflicting visions. Regionalists envisioned a new urban configuration marked by plentiful open space, light, playgrounds, and parks. During the war the vision of large-scale urban redevelopment titillated economically and politically conservative downtown businessmen as much as it did planning professionals. World War II urban visionaries, however, regarded urban blight and slum formation as the main target for post-war urban strategies. Inspired by the challenge of post-war regional planning, labor spokesmen such as Thomas Adams demanded an end to the artless and pernicious "business as usual psychology" which abetted the urban deterioration of the pre-war age.
