Harland Bartholomew

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Harland Bartholomew (September 14, 1889 – December 2, 1989) was an American urban planner and the first full-time planner employed by an American city.^[1] He was described as the father of city planning.^[2]

Early life

Bartholomew was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts on September 14, 1889.^[1]

Career

In 1919, he established Harland Bartholomew and Associates and served as its chairman until his retirement in 1962.^[1]

He served as city planning commissioner in St. Louis, the first full-time planner employed by an American city. He served in that capacity until 1950.^[1]

He was noted for his work by the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, including his work on the Washington Metro as chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, and advocating society first planning for freeway building.^[3] He was appointed to Federal planning committees by three US Presidents—Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.^[4]

From 1918 to 1956 Bartholomew taught civic design at the University of Illinois.^[4]

Harland Bartholomew’s Contributions by Eldridge Lovelace

Harland Bartholomew died December 2, 1989, a few months after his 100th birthday. By that time, the firm which he created, Harland Bartholomew and Associates, had completed 6,000 major professional assignments. Among these are hundreds of innovations, many unusual and important accomplishments, a record so rich and so complex as to defy summary or simplification. In it are ten major contributions that Harland Bartholomew made to the planning profession, any one of which would have been sufficient for a full career. That there are so many demonstrates the extraordinary caliber of the most unusual and productive man. The ten are:

1. He brought recognition of our desperate need for the use of foresight in urban development and of the general dimensions.

2. He refined and systematized the approach to urban planning.

3. He was the major influence that brought about the acceptance of planning as a responsibility of local government, and eventually of all levels of government and of private corporations and institutions as well. Planning, a new thing when Bartholomew started his career, is now almost universal, and much of the acceptance may be created to Harland Bartholomew.

4. By systematizing the approach, Bartholomew enabled planning to become a rational discipline that could be taught.

5. He organized Harland Bartholomew and Associates as an interdisciplinary design team, unheard of in 1919, but almost universal practice now.

6. He discovered the relation between urban land use and zoning and published two books on the subject: Urban Land Uses (1932) and Land Uses in American Cities (1953). These were significant results of his urban research, all contributed without outside funding.

7. Harland Bartholomew was instrumental in the development of the urban renewal process for the rebuilding of obsolete portions of American cities, a process initiated with the publication of An Urban Land Policy for St. Louis in 1936.

8. In 1940 President Roosevelt appointed Harland Bartholomew as a member of the “Interregional Highway Committee” to investigate and make proposals for a system of freeways interconnecting the centers of the larger cities in the nation. The report of this committee, made in 1944, was the start of our Interstate Highway System. Harland Bartholomew was the committee member most interested in the potential impact of such a system on the American city. The principles for the location of such highways in an urban area, outlined in the 1944 report, have become one of the most influential factors affecting our urban communities.

9. In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed Harland Bartholomew chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission. During the seven years that Bartholomew served as chairman of this commission, he was influential in forming the National Capital Regional Planning Council and in preparing the studies that led to the construction of the Washington “Metro.” Bartholomew realized that building highway capacity necessary to accommodate an all-motorized transportation system would ruin the nation’s capital, and that a rapid transit system was essential to its function. By doing this, Harland Bartholomew can truly be said to have saved the nation’s great capital city.

10. Last but not least was Bartholomew’s insistence that planning without mechanisms for achievement is worthless, which brought him to propose capital improvement programming, advanced zoning techniques, public participation, neighborhood plans and programs, urban redevelopment corporations, and similar means of implementation.

There is not one American city that does not show the results of his work, directly or indirectly. Harland Bartholomew’s thinking affected both his profession of planning and the American city—those he worked in and others—because his contributions were so basic, so fundamental to the use of foresight as a means of solving urban problems. While the results ware more apparent and more personalized in cities such as Washington, Memphis, or St. Louis, all cities show effects of his work. Most of his contributions are honored by having been incorporated and placed in daily use by planning agencies, commissions, and boards, both public and private.

See also

• Eldridge Lovelace
• American Planning Association
• City planning
• Urbanization

References

External links

• New York Times Obituary, December 7, 1989