"The City," A 1939 Film on the Supposed Suburban Future

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Part 2:

The intent of this film was to promote the idea of the Garden City, an idea that was gaining traction at the time due to the popularity of the automobile. In this film, a social justice appeal is made claiming that traditional methods of city building are no longer adequate to foster social interaction among residents, that density causes isolation, and that pollution generated from nearby factories aids in the creation of slums. The solution that is presented to this problem is that of separating the living from the working. In other words, the creation of suburbs.

It is interesting to note that the suburbs depicted in this film differ in many respects from the actual results of the Garden City movement. In the film, houses are in close proximity to stores and offices, but factories are separated, it is noted that one can walk to work, school, and various stores. The film claims that this will bring people closer to nature, something which the film (commentary written by Lewis Mumford) considers a major concern.

The film lists the benefits of these as such: It claims that cities built in this manner will remain human scaled and not grow ungainly (read: will not be dense), it claims that they will balance people, technology, and nature, and it claims that they allow for efficiency by consolidating living and working into separate domains.

However, when these ideas were translated into policy, the exact opposite happened. Suburbs became disconnected and focused on the automobile alone, they sprawled out of proportion and sacrificed natural resources and land, and made living less efficient because more money must be spent on roads, utilities, and transportation expenses.

The arguments that this film makes for suburbs seem more appropriate if they are instead used to promote density, mixed uses, and transit options. These are efficient, conserve land, and allow for social interaction.

Further more, in Death and Life of Great American Cities, published slightly over twenty years after this film, Jane Jacobs argues that density and mix of uses are, in fact, beneficial as they promote both social and economic diversity, which allows cities to develop and function efficiently. This has been proven as suburbs have expanded and required large amounts of land and money to do so.

The lacuna between the ideas expressed in this film and their implementation is a lesson for the current generation of urban planners. Care must be taken to insure that cities are rebuilt with proper regard to how they are used by their residents and the social and psychological effects of the urban landscape. In addition, planners must insure that their ideas are not tainted in the name of political gain or expedience during implementation.