ABSTRACT
The discourse on urban decline began in the latter decades of the nineteenth century when massive urban population growth combined with industrial capitalism to create urban slums, environmental degradation, municipal corruption, and moral danger. Numerous urban ills characterized the industrial city, and reformers, with the help of progressive local governments, attacked the city’s problems with the new tools of city planning, public administration, and social research. Though progress had been achieved by the 1920s, the unprecedented and rapid expansion of cities overwhelmed the ability of reformers to keep pace. As the size and influence of cities extended beyond earlier boundaries, the inhabitants of the countryside perceived them as threats to the rural origins and values of American society. Up to the 1930s, the discourse dwelled on the ominous consequences of urban growth and prosperity, and the inevitability of big, vibrant, and dangerous cities.
