The War (1914-18) brought with it sudden and great expansion of key industries, and an alarming shortage of housing for the workers in those industries. Two agencies were set up to meet this situation, one under the Department of Labor and the other under the Shipping Board. Among the architects in charge were men influenced by the English Garden City movement, which had been brought to a philosophical and practical head by Ebenezer Howard, whose Cities of Tomorrow (first published in 1898 as Tomorrow) had resulted in the planned town of Welwyn, England. These architects felt that here was an opportunity to test out some of the Garden City theories in the United States, not only theories relating to the planned community but those more technical ques tions having to do with the economies of large scale construction.
The war-housing villages, therefore, were conceived, whenever possible, as complete planned communities, very different in aspect and purpose from the miserable industrial villages of speculative endeavour and from the "company towns" of indus trial paternalists. The war came to an end before a great deal had been actually built, but Seaside Village at Bridgeport, Conn., and Yorkship Village at Camden, N.J., were sufficiently complete to remain as notable examples of coordination of architecture, town planning, and social and community services.
Following the war, a small group of architects continued to pursue studies in co-ordinated planning. The economies demon strated by the war-housing and the very obvious improvement in community pattern over the past customary confused small scale subdivisions interested a few far-seeing investors. Mrs. Mary M.
Emery of Cincinnati, 0., provided funds for the planning and commencement of Mariemont, 0., as one of the first experiments in pre-planned suburbs. In New York, two advanced experiments were initiated by Alexander M. Bing through the City Housing Corporation. Sunnyside Gardens, Long Island, was planned as a unit within the framework of several city blocks. While it was not possible to change the street pattern to achieve the maximum economies in the use of land it was possible by careful planning to provide each of the row houses with its own garden and to set aside additional community space within each block.
The amenities made possible through careful land planning and the economies achieved through large scale construction, were a revelation compared to the waste and disorder of the "single house" suburb on the one hand and the arid monotony of the usual row-house street on the other.
The other experiment was even more ambitious. In 1928 under the guidance and direction of the same architects (Henry Wright, Clarence S. Stein, Frederick L. Ackerman) work was commenced on the satel lite town of Radburn, New Jersey. Described as "The Town for the
Motor Age," Radburn comprised in its layout the latest thought in community planning. Streets were designed for specific kinds and amounts of traffic, with the necessary residential traffic carefully iso lated from through traffic. Much use was made of cul-de-sacs; and the interior areas of the large super-blocks resulting from the use of cul-de-sacs were reserved as common parks providing pedestrian circu lation completely isolated from the dangers and noise of automobiles. School facilities, a shopping centre and a business and industrial sec tion were all part of the planned growth of the community. In the meantime, very little was being accomplished toward providing solu tions for the urban problem. There was as yet no convincing evi dence, in the form of definite surveys, that the speculative values at which land was held was the primary cause of blight and slum condi tions, or that the rate at which blight was spreading in the centre parts of all cities was a cause for alarm. The approach to the housing prob lem was still small scale. When in 1926 the first State Board of Hous ing was created in New York, its principal emphasis was on the control of limited dividend corporations and the provision of tax exemption. It was hoped that private enterprise would be tempted to construct a sufficient number of limited dividend projects to at least provide a cushion for the middle class groups and consequently allow what was optimistically called a "filtering up" process to take place. In other words, the hope was that private enterprise might build a sufficient number of middle priced apartments to make available a lower grade of apartments at lower rents for the lower income groups. But the failure to provide funds at a sufficiently low rate of interest, and the lack of opportunity for speculative profits prevented any important progress being made along this line.
The depression which commenced in 5929 brought housing prom inently to the fore as a possible way of reviving the building industry and creating employment. The Real Property Inventory which also was carried out as a relief employment measure, gave for the first time a factual record of the physical condition of our cities. While there had been general knowledge of the prevalence of blight and slums among students of housing and social work, even they had no real conception of the vast extent of sub-standard dwelling conditions, vacant and dilapidated business and industrial areas. In some cases recorded conditions were so shocking and so upsetting to the financial stability of municipalities that the data were ruthlessly suppressed.