Design of markets: Social division and the Progressive design of Northeast Philadelphia, 1900--1960 (Pennsylvania)

Over the course of the late nineteenth century American cities grew at a rapid rate due to the combination of industrialization, immigration, and migration. Responding to these changes, Progressive reformers developed new strategies for structuring their urban landscapes. Out of the two main strategies for reform that they developed, communal and market, Philadelphia reformers made their design for the city's Northeast section a prime example of the market-based reform that came to dominate urban growth throughout the United States during the twentieth century.; Wishing to extend and improve upon the city's low-density residential landscape and promote home ownership as their city grew, Philadelphia's Progressive reformers targeted Northeast Philadelphia, a vast undeveloped area within the city's limits, for greater municipal spending on infrastructure and the regulation of housing markets. While Philadelphia's market based reform strategy led to an unparalleled rate of home ownership, over fifty four percent, the highest of any of the country's fourteen largest cities, in 1930, by the last half of the twentieth century, it had also left the Philadelphia region increasingly divided by both race and class.; By tracing the history of the Progressive strategy for market reform throughout the first half of the century, this study argues that new planning tools, such as zoning ordinances and housing codes, despite the best intentions of their creators, ultimately contributed to contemporary racial and class distinctions. In examining the limits of market reform this dissertation corrects a scholarly trend toward seeing the pre-World War II city as a positive example for the contemporary city.