Over the years I've acquired a small trove of documents, some of which are quite odious, and I thought it was time to start sharing them. Here's the first one, a fancy pamphlet from 1946 called PLANNING -- Saint Paul For Better Living" produced by the City Planning Board.
I'm going to put the whole scanned document online [see at bottom] but also highlight some of the worst things in here. This era sort of predates "city planning" per se. It was still a very young idea back then, and "planning boards" like this were basically a stand-in for elite thought, the business class, large property owners and highway engineers, who used the language of planning and "good government" to justify all sorts of shady stuff. Either that or that had deluded themselves. Probably both.
Anyway, here are five highlights from this ignominious era:
#1. Tearing down perfectly good buildings and businesses just so people can "view" government office windows from farther away.
This has been almost the oldest policy in the city's planning books, dating all the way back to when notable architect (and not at all a city planner or urban design person) Cass Gilbert sketched on a napkin once, justifying a century of demolition of working-class, diverse, and historic neighborhoods around the state capitol.
It's still happening today, of course, only it's a lot harder now because 99% of the historic structures around the capital have already been torn down. This is the worst thing. The "capital approach" history is one of the things that makes Saint Paul the "anti-Madison".
#2. Turning city streets into death traps
"Solving" traffic was an obsession of mid-century city planners in the same way that Freud thought about mothers. And boy did Saint Paul planing honchos love Kellogg Boulevard -- that was the model for road widening around the whole city.
Note also the huge list of "improvements" at the end of the document. Almost every one of these changes made our streets more dangers for anyone walking.
#3. Eminent Domain to clear entire blocks
Thank goodness the law allows the City to seize and condemn people's homes and businesses. They can even lease it to a private corporation!
A huge percentage of the most historic neighborhoods around downtown were cleared in this fashion, with the people who lived or worked in them having very little say in how their homes and businesses were destroyed. Rondo was the most famous of these projects, but there were many others around Saint Paul.
#4. Keeping Saint Paul boring
mixed-use streets are what make cities great. A place like Grand Avenue (or insert any streets you like) is great precisely because of its mixed-use character. Every neighborhood in old Saint Paul used to be chock full of corner groceries, small bars, and many other little shops that were seamlessly part of the community.
Can't have that! Apparently back then, planners viewed corner stores as the worst form of blight for some reason.
#5. Declaring war on renters and the poor
I saved the best for last. The whole document is couched in this glib moralistic language aimed surely at the middle-class, where renters and poor people (and presumably anyone who wasn't white) was basically treated like a cancerous tumor.
Anyway, that's Saint Paul c. 1946 for you! The main takeaway is that city planners have a lot to atone for -- they were terrible. It was straight-up city policy to screw poor people, bulldoze historic businesses, turn city streets into deadly hellholes, and make neighborhoods into boring suburban enclaves. Trying to un-do all that now is hard and thankless work. The entire document barely mentions transit, FFS. That was back when the streetcars were relatively thriving!
Anyway, enjoy!
