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Palgrave Macmillan

Shaping American Democracy

Landscapes and Urban Design

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Scott M. Roulier

    1. Political Science, Lyon College, Batesville, USA

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  • Introduces the unique democratic visions of Olmsted, Wright, Moses, and several new urbanists to a broader academic audience, to treat them as theorists of democracy in their own right
  • Blends together research in urban policy with environmental political theory by focusing on both landscapes and build spaces, i.e humans' relationship to nature and the environment
  • Includes chapters on specific architects, planners and design movements--information that is relevant not just to political theorists and urban studies scholars but also to practitioners

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
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  2. American Democracy and Its Spaces: An Introduction

    • Scott M. Roulier
    Pages 1-24

  3. Correction to: Shaping American Democracy

    • Scott M. Roulier
    Pages C1-C2

  4. Primary Landscapes

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25
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    2. American Pastoral: Jefferson’s Agrarian Republic

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 27-46

    3. Democracy Gone Wild: Thoreau and the Wilderness Tradition

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 47-71

  5. Rival Democratic Designs

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73
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    2. Olmsted’s Public Parks: Civic-Spirited Design

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 75-103

    3. Democracy and Individuality: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacres and the Burbs

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 105-132

  6. Modernism: Promise, Problems and New Prescriptions

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 133-133
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    2. Democratic Ambivalence: Robert Moses and Modernist Urban Planning

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 135-156

    3. Democracy and Civic Ecology: New Urbanism

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 157-178

  7. Design Portfolios: A Juried Competition

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 179-179
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    2. Democratic Designs: A Multipronged Assessment

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 181-219

    3. Conclusion

      • Scott M. Roulier
      Pages 221-231

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 233-237
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Keywords

About this book

This book argues that the design of built spaces influences civic attitudes, including prospects for social equality and integration, in America. Key American architects and planners—including Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Moses, and the New Urbanists—not only articulated unique visions of democracy in their extensive writings, but also instantiated those ideas in physical form. Using criteria such as the formation of social capital, support for human capabilities, and environmental sustainability, the book argues that the designs most closely associated with a communally-inflected version of democracy, such as Olmsted's public parks or various New Urbanist projects, create conditions more favorable to human flourishing and more consistent with a democratic society than those that are individualistic in their orientation, such as urban modernism or most suburban forms.



Reviews

“Scott Roulier’s wonderfully engaging and approachable book will be essential reading for students of architecture, landscape architecture and city planning, to further their understanding of how design traditions that they may lean on in scholarship and practice—from Frederic Law Olmsted’s parks movement, Robert Moses’ modernist city, to the form based codes of the New Urbanism, among others—actually foster (or sometimes subvert) the democratic ideals of social equity and civic life. It is a timely contribution to draw the city design disciplines into thinking more deeply about creating just cities and landscapes.” (Tanu Sankalia, Associate Professor and Director of Urban Studies, University of San Francisco, USA)

“Bringing diverse voices like Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Moses, and Jane Jacobs into conversation with contemporary political theory, Roulier offers not only a rich intellectual history but important insights into how land-use issues raise critical challenges for the future of our democracy.  This is an invaluable book that will appeal to scholars and students of political theory, environmental studies, intellectual history, public policy, and urban planning.” (Peter Cannavò, Associate Professor of Government and Director of Environmental Studies, Hamilton College, USA)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Political Science, Lyon College, Batesville, USA

    Scott M. Roulier

About the author

Scott M. Roulier is the John Trimble Professor of Political Philosophy at Lyon College, USA 

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