Town Planning in Frontier America

Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1989. Second Paperback Printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Good. v, [3], 328 pages. Footnotes. Maps. Illustrations. Notes on the Illustrations. Selected Bibliography. Index. Minor 'dinging' to top front corner of front cover and early pages. John Reps ( 1921-2020) was a historian of urban planning and an authority on American urban iconography. His book, The Making of Urban America (1965), was followed by five books exploring in more detail the origin and subsequent growth of towns and cities in the southeast and west. He has also written another half-dozen studies about 19th-century printed views of American cities, identifying the artists who created them, and explaining how they were drawn, printed, published, sold, and used. Reps headed the Cornell City and Regional Planning program from 1951-64. In 1996, citing him as the father of modern American city planning history, the American Planning Association designated him a Planning Pioneer. In 1985 the University of Nebraska conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts and Letters. Earlier that year the University of Georgia appointed him one of six Bicentennial Distinguished Visiting Professors. In 1984 the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning recognized him with its biennial award for Distinguished Service to Education in Planning. Reps received his A.B. degree summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1943, and was awarded his master's degree from Cornell in 1947. Town Planning in Frontier America is a shortened version of John Reps's longer and more detailed book, The Making of Urban America (1965). In these books, Reps covers city plans from the first European settlement at St. Augustine in 1565 to the frontier planning experiences of the middle of the nineteenth century. In this section, Reps examines nineteenth-century frontier planning and discusses the obstacles involved in transferring planning knowledge from England to her former colony. Finally, he summarizes the planning failures and achievements of the era. He focuses on the lessons that can be learned from our frontier development-planning experiences and applied to the challenges of modern urbanization.