A History of the Department of City and Regional Planning (1948-1979), Part 1

Author(s): Kent, Jr., T.J. | Abstract: The publication in 1938 of Lewis Mumford's book, The Culture of Cities, was one of the major events that led to the establishment of the Department of City and Regional Planning on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. At a time when the profes­ sion of city planning was in its infancy in the United States, it inspired a generation of Berkeley architecture and landscape archi­ tecture students to focus their idealism and energies on efforts to improve, protect, and enhance the cities and the natural environ­ ment of the San Francisco Bay region. Influenced and to a consid­erable extent educated by the events and implications of the Great Depression and World War II, they seemed to have no difficulty during the 1930's and 1940's in finding or organizing useful things to do, and in a relatively short time their efforts led to the expan­ sion of city planning, housing, and community development pro­ grams in the San Francisco offices of FDR's New Deal administra­ tion and in the city and county governments of the Bay Area.