ABSTRACT
In urban areas, the regulations were designed to promote health and safety. Freedom to follow the religion of their choice was one of the reasons for the move to the new land, and each religious group had its own convictions and dogma. Problems of survival gave way to problems of development, first of trading, and later of manufacture. Psychologically, privatism meant that the individual should seek happiness in personal independence and in the search for wealth. The American experience, born of its different history, was essentially entrepreneurial and disdainful of government. The development of public policies has been an erratic one, beset with continual controversies about the relative roles of public and private action and of the organizational structures that are required. The reform of municipal government and a later movement for the origin of modern municipal planning emanated from broader concerns for improving the character of urban life and the instruments of control.
