New Deal Utopias' explores three planned communities built by the US government during the Great Depression, collectively known as Greenbelt Towns. The photographs of the built environments and landscapes of Greenbelt, Maryland, Greenhills, Ohio, and Greendale, Wisconsin, evoke utopia both as an idea and place in the American mind. The towns were designed to be model cities to address the social and economic discrepancies brought on and accentuated by the Great Depression. In the 1930s, the program was critiqued as socialistic and communistic by conservative members of Congress, industrial and corporate leaders, and newspapers hostile to New Deal policies, yet they still managed to make an indelible impression on urbanist ideas in America. This book emphasizes that the Greenbelt towns are an overlooked, but crucial part of the American landscape, as we continue to grapple with the complex roles of housing, nature, and government in contemporary life.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.