1791

Pierre L.Enfant plans the capital of the United States

1818

Robert Owen publishes Report to the Committee of the Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor. (a proposal for small village communities of 1,200 for the relief of overcrowded towns)

1849

James Silk Buckingham publishes National Evils and Practical Remedies, a proposal for a model town to absorb the unemployed (never built).

1857

The development of Llewellyn Park, an elaborately landscaped villa development in the foothills of New Jersey's Orange Mountains. (one of the first planned American suburbs)

1857

Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. chosen as the superintendent of New York's new Central Park (which he designed with Calvert Vaux)

1860s

The period of Baron Haussmann intense rebuilding of Paris (starting in about 1855)

1860s

Vienna began its Ringstrasse development

1868

Olmsted began planning the suburb of Riverside, Illinois.

1870

Baron Haussmann was forced to resign his position as Prefect of Paris

1875

Benjamin Ward proposes his model city of health called "Hygeia" to promote longevity and lower mortality.

1880

Building of Pullman, Illinois, model industrial town, begun by George Pullman (completed 1884)

1884

First settlement house: Toynbee House in England

1886

First settlement houses in United States: Neighborhood Guild in New York

1890

Jacob Riis publishes his How the Other Half Lives, a view of the New York slums, which stimulated housing reform.

1893

Columbian Exposition in Chicago (roots of City Beautiful). Main architect: Burnham.

1894

the National Municipal League founded

1898

Ebenezer Howard publishes To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (reprinted in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-Morrow)

1899

the American Society of Landscape Architects founded

1901

Charles M. Robinson publishes The Improvement of Towns and Cities or the Practical Basis of Civic Aesthetics. (New York), which emerged as a key statement of the City Beautiful Movement.

1902

the McMillan Plan for Washington, D.C. (an updated version of the L'Enfant layout), in City Beautiful style

1903

Letchworth constructed (as England's first Garden City, about 30 miles north of London)

1906

The Garden Cities Association of America established (first Vice Pres.: the president of Long Island Railroad)

1907

the first city planning commission (in Hartford, CT) established

1909

First Nat'l Conference on City Planning in Wash. D.C.

1909

Burnham's Plan of Chicago published (seen as the first regional-oriented plan in the U.S.)

1909

Harvard offers the first course in city planning (in its School of Landscape Architecture)

1911

Forest Hills Garden built as a middle- and upper-income garden city-like development in Queens, NY. (designed by Frederick Olmsted, Jr., and built by the Russell Sage Foundation)

1911

Frederick Winslow Taylor publishes The Principles of Scientific Management, one of the fountainheads of the efficiency movements in the U.S. (including the City Efficient movement).

1916

first comprehensive zoning in the US (by New York City Board of Estimates)

1917

American City Planning Institute (ACPI) established, with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. as 1st president

1920

The second Garden City was built in England in Welwyn, about 20 miles north of London

1924

U.S. Dept. of Commerce (under Secretary Herbert Hoover) issues a Standard State Zoning Enabling Act.

1922

Inauguration of Regional Plan of New York under Thomas Adams.

1924-8

Sunnyside Gardens constructed (in New York, designed by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright)

1925

first comprehensive plan officially endorsed by a major US city (Cincinnati)

1925

Ernest Burgess publishes his "concentric zone" model of urban structure and land use.

1926

Village of Euclid vs. Ambler Reality (constitutionality of zoning upheld by Supreme Court)

1928

construction of Radburn, NJ, begun (a Garden City designed by Stein and Wright), located in what is now Fair Lawn, between Paterson and Paramus.

1929

The Stock Market Crash

1932

26 mayors met in Detroit to appeal for federal support of Depression-hit cities (this group formally became the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1933)

1933

Congress creates the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in May

1933

The Public Works Administration (PWA) created (in May), as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)

1933

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) created (in November), later folded into the FERA in April, 1934

1933

The National Planning Board established in the Interior Department to assist in the preparation of a comprehensive plan for public works. Its last successor agency, the National Resources Planning Board (NRPB), was abolished in 1943.

1933

The Tennessee Valley Authority created to provide for unified and multi-purpose rehabilitation and redevelopment of the Tennessee Valley. (the most famous experiment in integrated river basin planning in the U.S.)

1934

Housing Act of 1934 (establishes the FHA)

1934

American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO) established.

1935

The U.S. Resettlement Administration established to carry out experiments in land reform and population resettlement. (led by Rexford Tugwell). It built three Greenbelt towns (as early forms of new towns): Greenbelt, Maryland; Greendale, Wisconsin; and Greenhills, Ohio.

1935

Congress created the Works Progress Administration (WPA)

1935

The Social Security Act passed in August

1937

The U.S. Housing Act (Wagner-Steagall). Set the stage for future government aid by appropriating $500 million in loans for low-cost housing. Tied slum clearance to public housing.

1937

Farm Security Administration established, successor to the Resettlement Administration and administrator of many programs to alleviate the condition of the rural poor

1939

Homer Hoyt publishes his monograph, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities, outlining his theory of radial-sector.

1939

ACPI renamed the American Institute of Planning (AIP)

1944

Serviceman’s Readjustment Act ("G.I. Bill"). Guaranteed loans for homes to veterans under urban favorable terms (which, in turn, accelerated suburbanization after the war).

1946

the Full Employment Act of 1946

1947

the Housing and Home Finance Agency (predecessor of HUD) created to coordinate federal government’s various housing programs.

1947

Construction of Levittown, NY, begun (a private-sector development to sell affordable houses to the new white middle-class with their FHA loans).

1949

Housing Act of 1949 (Wagner-Ellender-Taft Bill). Aimed to provide about 800,000 units to be constructed over a period of six years. First U.S. comprehensive housing legislation.

1954

the Housing Act of 1954 (created the Urban Planning Assistance Program to aid states and localities)

1954

In Berman vs. Parker, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the right of Washington, D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency to condemn properties which are unsightly though nondeteriorated if required to achieve objectives of duly established area redevelopment plan.

1956

Federal Aid Highway Act (to create the interstate highway system)

1961

Jane Jacobs publishes The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which strongly criticized contemporary city planning and large-scale urban renewal.

1964

the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964

1965

the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965

1965

the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act (HUD) to replace the old Housing and Home Finance Agency

1966

the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 (including the Model Cities program)

1967

Urban Riots in Newark (July)

1968

the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968

1968

The New Communities Act of 1968 (which guaranteed private financial for private entrepreneurs to plan and develop new communities)

1969

NEPA: The National Environmental Policy Act (requiring an EIS for every federal or federally-aided state or local major action that would affect the environment)

1970

National Environmental Protection Agency established. Administers the main provisions of the Clean Air Act (1970).

1974

Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. It establishes the block grant (CDBG), as opposed to the categorical grant, as the main form of federal aid for local development.

1978

Hawaii becomes the first state to institute statewide zoning.

1978

ASPO and AIP combined into the American Planning Association (APA)