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Planning versus administration: The Independent City Planning Commission in Cincinnati, 1918–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Robert A. Burnham
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Extract

City planning has become such an acknowledged function of city government that today we tend to take the city planning commission for granted as a logical part of the city government. Pioneers in the city planning movement in the United States at the turn of the century, however, had yet to decide upon the proper vehicle for carrying out city planning. Although in the early years of the movement a variety of methods were tried, including private planning associations, planning conducted by a committee of city council, and city planning conducted by a single city official, the most common agency of planning to emerge out of this period was the city planning commission.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , October 1992 , pp. 229 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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Footnotes

*

The author wishes to thank Zane L. Miller, Sue Leslie, and the anonymous reviewer(s) for making suggestions that helped improve this essay.

References

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6 Foglesong, R.E., Planning the Capitalist City: The Colonial Era to the 1920s (Princeton, NJ, 1986), 226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Unfortunately Foglesong does not explain how the creation of city planning commissions enabled planning advocates to keep control over planning in their hands.

7 Boyer, M.C., Dreaming of the Rational City: The Myth of American City Planning (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 130.Google Scholar

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9 In fairness, it should be noted that Richard E. Foglesong mentions that early planning advocates argued that city officials were too immersed in the details of government to provide the kind of broad vision that comprehensive planning required. But Foglesong does not make much of it. See Foglesong, , Planning the Capitalist City, 226.Google Scholar

10 Olmstead, F.L., ‘Introduction’, in Nolen, J. (ed.), City Planning (New York, 1916), 1Google Scholar; Williams, , The Law of City Planning and Zoning, 4, 27Google Scholar; Cincinnati City Planning Commission, Official City Plan of Cincinnati, Ohio (1925), 28, 248Google Scholar; ‘A city planning primer’, American City, 36 (January 1927), 89–90Google Scholar; Macdonald, A.F., American City Government and Administration (New York, 1929), 457.Google Scholar

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14 Ibid., 144–7, 149; Magee, ‘The organization and functions of a city planning commission’, 74–5, 79; Gilbertson, ‘The political background for city planning’, 395–6. Also, see de Forest, R.W., ‘The practical side of city planning’, Charities and the Commons, 19 (1 February 1908), 1550.Google Scholar

15 Bettman, ‘The relationship of the functions and powers of the city planning commission to the legislative, executive and administrative departments of city government’, 147–8. In their account of the development of American city planning through the 1920s, Theodora Kimball Hubbard and Henry Vincent Hubbard accepted Bettman's view, as expressed in the essay cited above, as ‘The fundamental theory of the planning commission as a part of the governmental structure…’ See Hubbard, T.K. and Hubbard, H.V., Our Cities To-Day and To-Morrow: A Survey of Planning and Zoning in the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), 28.Google Scholar

16 For the emergence of the national city planning movement, see Scott, M.I., American City Planning Since 1890 (Berkeley, 1969), 100–1, 249Google Scholar and Hubbard, and Hubbard, , Our Cities To-Day and To-Morrow, 3, 7–8.Google Scholar For details concerning the effort to establish a planning commission in Cincinnati, see Kornbluh, A.T., ‘The cultivation of public opinion: the Woman's City Club of Cincinnati, 1915–1925’ (M.A. thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1983), 52, 54–5, 64–72Google Scholar and Fairbanks, R.B., Making Better Citizens: Housing Reform and the Community Development Strategy in Cincinnati, 1890–1960 (Urbana, 1988), 41–2.Google Scholar For the best account of politics and government in Cincinnati during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, see Miller, Z.L., Boss Cox's Cincinnati: Urban Politics in the Progressive Era (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

17 Hubbard and Hubbard, Our Cities To-Day and To-Morrow, 37–8; Walker, , The Planning Function in Urban Government, 38, 115, 142, 161Google Scholar; Scott, , American City Planning Since 1890, 253–4.Google Scholar

18 The creation of the City Charter Committee, however, represented only one consequence of a broad-based ‘Good Government’ revolt against the local Republican organization. The reformers also secured the adoption in 1924 of an amendment to the city charter to provide for the city manager form of government and a small council elected at large under proportional representation. For an analysis of the Cincinnati charter revolt and the emergence of the City Charter Committee, see Burnham, R.A., ‘“Pulling-together” for pluralism: politics, planning, and government in Cincinnati, 1924–1959’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 1990), chapters 1, 2, 6.Google Scholar

19 For ‘Good Government’ and Cincinnati's financial situation, see New York Times, 19 January 1932, 9; 14 February 1932, section 3, 6; 7 January 1934, section 4, 4. For the budget problems faced by city planning commissions in the 1930s, see Walker, , The Planning Function in Urban Government, 36–7.Google Scholar

20 This matter will be discussed in more depth below.

21 Bettman (1873–1945), a Democrat in national politics, was also a longtime opponent of the local Republican machine. Indeed, he had made an unsuccessful bid for city council in 1903 as a candidate of the Citizens' Municipal Party, a reform organization that sought to rid the city of Boss rule under the GOP. Unsurprisingly, then, Bettman supported the movement to amend the city charter in 1924 and the City Charter Committee. See Citizens' Bulletin, 1 March 1903, 4 (the repository for the Citizens' Bulletin is in the Cincinnati Historical Society); newspaper clipping, ‘Hear Brothers Debate on City Charter’, 17 October 1924, n. p., Henry Bentley Papers [hereafter cited as HBP], box 2, folder 8 (Cincinnati Historical Society, Manuscripts Collection).

22 This arrangement, as provided under city charter revisions made in 1926, represented a modification of the planning commission. Under the city charter of 1917, the planning commission consisted of seven members, including the mayor, the director of public service, the three members of the board of park commissioners, and two citizens appointed by the mayor. See Cincinnati, , Charter for the City of Cincinnati (1917), 6Google Scholar; Cincinnati Enquirer, 26 February 1918, 8Google Scholar; Cincinnati, , Charter and Code of Ordinances (1928), 18.Google Scholar

23 Alfred Bettman to the City Council of Cincinnati, 16 August 1926, 2–3, Alfred Bettman Papers [hereafter cited as ABP], box 1, folder 6 (University of Cincinnati Libraries, Archives and Rare Books); Notes of the Charter Amendment Committee, n. d., but c. 1926, n. p., HBP, box 4, folder 5; Bettman, ‘The relationship of the functions and powers of the city planning commission to the legislative, executive and administrative departments of city government’, 148–9.

24 It should also be noted that there was no limitation on the number of terms one could serve. See Cincinnati, , The City Charter of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1983), 18.Google Scholar

25 de Forest, ‘The practical side of city planning’, 1550.

26 Cincinnati, , Charter and Code of Ordinances (1928), 19.Google Scholar

27 Ibid.

28 Laws of Ohio (1919), vol. 108, part 2, 1175. The City Council possessed the authority to regulate private property through zoning under the so-called ‘police powers of the state: the inherent right of the people to pass laws for the public safety, health, morals and general welfare.’ See Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 November 1923, 36.Google Scholar

29 City Council, ‘Minutes’ (1926), vol. 49, 221, 295–6Google Scholar (the repository for the minutes of council is the Clerk of Council's office, Cincinnati City Hall); City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 1, 8 June 1926, 523; 20 July 1926, 537 (the repository for the minutes of the planning commission is the office of the Cincinnati City Planning Commission, room 230, Cincinnati City Hall); City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1926), 1 (the repository for the planning commission's annual reports is the Planning, Managing, and Support System office, room 147, Cincinnati City Hall); Cincinnati, , Municipal Activities (1926), 31.Google Scholar

30 For the argument that the city planning commission ought to have its own technical staff, see Alfred Bettman to the City Planning Commission, 8 December 1924, 3, ABP, box 1, folder 5.

31 Scott, , American City Planning Since 1890, 120–2, 146, 228–9.Google Scholar Also, see James, H., Land Planning in the United States for the City, State and Nation (New York, 1926), 277.Google Scholar

32 Cincinnati City Planning Commission, Official City Plan of Cincinnati, 4.Google Scholar

33 Cincinnati Enquirer, 2 April 1924, 10.

34 Laws of Ohio (1914–1915), vols 105–106, 455–6Google Scholar; Cincinnati, , Charter for the City of Cincinnati (1917), 8Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, The Official City Plan of Cincinnati (1925), 243.Google Scholar

35 Hubbard, and Hubbard, , Our Cities To-Day and To-Morrow, 36–8Google Scholar; Scott, , American City Planning Since 1890, 143–4, 231, 243–5.Google Scholar

36 Walker, , The Planning Function in Urban Government, 146–7, n. 22.Google Scholar

37 City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1926), 2.Google Scholar In a sense, the planning commission also performed an administrative function when it acted as a guardian. By using its approval power to prevent the construction of projects which did not conform to the city plan, the commission was, in essence, helping to carry out, to administer, the plan. It should also be noted that the administrative role of the planning commission, as discussed here, is rather narrowly defined. Although the planning commission sought to carry out the plan through the use of its approval power, and by making recommendations for new public improvements, the city council had the final say as to whether such projects would be built and the public works department built them. This enabled the planning commission to assert that its ‘accomplishments’ were ‘planning accomplishments’ and that the ‘actual construction of public improvements represents the accomplishments of the administrative and legislative departments of the city government.’ See City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1927), 8.Google Scholar

38 About 1 per cent of the ‘reports’ related to projects initiated by other city boards and commissions or organizations from outside the city government. The data on planning commission ‘reports’ is contained in the annual reports of the City Planning Commission.

39 The membership of the planning commission during those years included eleven ex-officio members, six businessmen, two architects, two realtors, one lawyer, and one teacher.

40 ‘History of the Planning Commission’, n. d., 3–4, City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 1, at p. 98; City Planning Commission, Agreement, The City Planning Commission of Cincinnati and Technical Advisory Corporation of New York City (Cincinnati, 1922)Google Scholar; Cincinnati Enquirer, 24 May 1934, 12Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1944), 1–2.Google Scholar

41 City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1927), 7.Google Scholar In the ‘intermediate’ stage of planning, the planning commission, for various reasons, sometimes chose not or could not carry out the city plan with exactitude, yet still attempted to follow its basic prescriptions. In one such instance, the plan called for the acquisition of three acres of land on a particular street for use as a neighbourhood play field. The planning commission, however, satisfied the need for a playfield in that area by securing a fifteen-acre tract on a different street nearby. When it followed a course other than that outlined in the city plan, the planning commission, by the passage of a resolution, amended the plan to denote the change. In this way the planning decision of the commission became part of the city plan. See ‘Excerpts from the minutes of the City Planning Commission relative to amendments to the Official City Plan’, n.d., 1–15, ABP, box 6, folder 8; City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’; vol. 2, 407.Google Scholar

42 City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1926), 2Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1927), 7Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, The Official City Plan of Cincinnati, Ohio (1925), 250.Google Scholar

43 See Bettman, A., ‘What Cincinnati wants and the city plan’, Cincinnatian (April 1923), 3Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, The Official City Plan of Cincinnati, Ohio, 28, 248Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1928), 1.Google Scholar

44 Cincinnati City Council, Supplement to Codification of City Ordinances (1923–1925), nos 13–15, 103Google Scholar; Cincinnati, Charter and Code of Ordinances (1928), 20.Google Scholar

45 These numbers were compiled from the annual reports of the planning commission.

46 Cincinnati, Charter and Code of Ordinances (1928), 106–7Google Scholar; Cincinnati City Council, Supplement to Codification of City Ordinances (1923–1925), nos 13–15, 100–3.Google Scholar

47 Cincinnati, Charter and Code of Ordinances (1928), 20.Google Scholar

48 Ibid.

49 The planning commission did not merely disapprove a plat, but informed the subdivider how to change it in order to secure approval. See City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1926), 2.Google Scholar

50 Cover letter, from Ladislas Segoe to Col. Clarence O. Sherrill, city manager, 9 April 1926, 1, attached to the City Planning Commision's annual report of 1926.

51 Cincinnati, Charter and Code of Ordinances (1928), 21.Google Scholar

52 Cincinnati, Municipal Activities (1927), 167Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, ‘Annual Report’ (1926), 4Google Scholar; City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 1, 29 June 1926, 531.Google Scholar

53 Alfred Bettman to the City Planning Commission, 29 June 1926, 1–2, ABP, box 1, folder 6; City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 1, 29 June 1926, 531Google Scholar; Alfred Bettman to John T. Faig, 19 August 1926, 1, ABP, box 1, folder 6; City Planning Commission, The Official City Plan of Cincinnati (1925), 255.Google Scholar

54 Before this step was taken, however, there had been much discussion as to what the planning commission's role should be in the creation of a ‘coordinated bond program’. See Notes of the Charter Amendment Committee, n.d., 2, HBP, box 4, folder 5; Alfred Bettman to the City Council of Cincinnati, 16 August 1926, 5–6, ABP, box 1, folder 6; Alfred Bettman to John T. Faig, 19 August 1926, 1, ABP, box 1, folder 6.

55 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 1, 13 July 1926, 535; 20 July 1926, 537; 27 July 1926, 539; 2 August 1926, 541; 4 April 1927, 593; 31 May 1927, 608; 5 July 1927, 616. The people approved public improvement bonds in the amount of $8,686,000. See Cincinnati, Municipal Activities (1928), 12.Google Scholar

56 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 1, 6 July 1926, 532.Google Scholar

57 City Planning Commission to City Council, ‘Subject: Columbia Avenue Project’, 14 October 1935, 1, ABP, box 2, folder 12.Google Scholar

58 Cincinnati Enquirer, 8 October 1935, 22.Google Scholar The city began working on this ambitious project in 1929 and had completed three phases of it by 1935. Cincinnati, Municipal Activities (1929), 60, 64Google Scholar; Cincinnati, Municipal Activities (1933), 53Google Scholar; Cincinnati, Municipal Activities (1934), 42Google Scholar; City Council, ‘Minutes’, vol. 58, 18 December 1935, 326–7.Google Scholar

59 City Planning Commission to City Council, ‘Subject: Columbia Avenue Project’, 14 October 1935, 1–3, ABP, box 2, folder 12.Google Scholar

60 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 3, 14 October 1935, 83.Google Scholar

61 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 3, 7 October 1935, 80; 14 October 1935, 83; 21 October 1935, 86Google Scholar; Cincinnati Enquirer, 22 October 1935, 10.Google Scholar

62 City Council, ‘Minutes’, vol. 58, 18 December 1935, 327.Google Scholar

63 Cincinnati, Charter and Code of Ordinances (1928), 19–20.Google Scholar

64 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 3, 28 October 1935, 87.Google Scholar

65 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 3, 7 October 1935, 80; 28 October 1935, 87.Google Scholar

66 Cincinnati Enquirer, 24 November 1935, 1Google Scholar; City Council, ‘Minutes’, vol. 58, 18 December 1935, 327.Google Scholar The city completed the Columbia Avenue improvement project in 1938. See Cincinnati, Municipal Activities (1938), 1.Google Scholar

67 For accounts of the flood, see Cincinnati, Municipal Activities (1937), 1–4Google Scholar and Thomas, L., Hungry Waters: The Story of the Great Flood (Philadelphia, 1937).Google Scholar

68 Hurley, D., Cincinnati: The Queen City (Cincinnati, 1982), 125.Google Scholar

69 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 5, 18 March 1939, 21.Google Scholar

70 Ibid., 23.

71 City Planning Commission, The Cincinnati Waterfront: Its Problems and Recommended Future Utilization, 30 December 1937, 14, ABP, box 7, folder 19.Google Scholar

72 Ibid., 16.

73 Ibid., 5–6.

74 Ibid., 8.

75 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 5, 18 March 1939, 23.Google Scholar

76 Untitled document advocating the development of a comprehensive plan for the Cincinnati riverfront, n. d., but c. February 1937, 2–3, ABP, box 7, folder 19.

77 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 5, 18 March 1939, 22–3.Google Scholar

78 Ibid., 25. Sherrill and Myron Downs, the engineer-secretary of the City Planning Commission, had presented radically different figures concerning property values along the riverfront. Sherrill claimed that a floodwall along the central riverfront would protect $47,000,000 in property, while Downs held that it would only protect from $2,000,000 to $2,554,000 in property. See Cincinnati Times Star, 15 March 1939, 1.

79 The evidence also provides reason to suspect that Sherrill was enamoured with the idea of constructing large-scale public works projects, another possible explanation for his desire to build the floodwall. For example, soon after becoming city manager for a second time, Sherrill held a meeting with city department heads to find out what ‘big’ public works projects were scheduled for construction. When told that twenty-three million dollars in needed improvements had not left the blueprint stage, the City Manager reportedly ‘smiled’ and indicated his intention to secure federal dollars to finance local public works projects. See newspaper clipping, ‘Old Soldier Sherrill Is Used to Demanding Obedience and Action’, 28 July 1937, Clarence Osborn Sherrill Newspaper Clippings, box 4 (Cincinnati Historical Society, Manuscripts Collection). Also, see Cincinnati Enquirer, 29 July 1937, 1, 3.Google Scholar

80 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 5, 18 March 1939, 23–7.Google Scholar Also, see Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 March 1939, 23.Google Scholar

81 City Planning Commission, ‘Minutes’, vol. 5, 20 June 1939, 70–3; 11 September 1939, 2–4.Google Scholar Also, see Cincinnati Enquirer, 12 September 1939, 1Google Scholar; Cincinnati Post, 11 September 1939, 13.Google Scholar

82 Cincinnati Times Star, 27 January 1940, 1Google Scholar; Cincinnati Enquirer, 27 January 1940, 1, 9.Google Scholar The Army Corps of Engineers began construction on the project in October 1941. In January 1943, however, the federal government stopped work on all public works projects, including the Cincinnati barrier dam, that were not considered crucial to the war effort. The Army Corps of Engineers finally completed the project in 1947. See Cincinnati, Yearbook (1943), 4–5Google Scholar; Cincinnati, Yearbook (1948), 1.Google Scholar

83 Walker, , The Planning Function in Urban Government, x, 26–7, 38, 133, 139, 166.Google Scholar One ought to note that Walker's views were not the same as those of Robert Whitten (see above). While Whitten sought to encourage a close relationship between planning and administration, he did not view the planning body as a mere staff agency of the executive. Indeed, Whitten believed that the ‘city plan office’ ought to ‘consider and report upon every matter affecting the integrity of the city plan, and every action contrary to its recommendation should require a two-thirds vote of the governing authority.’ See Whitten, , ‘The constitution and powers of a city planning authority’, 1440.Google Scholar

84 Walker, , The Planning Function in Urban Government, 167, 171.Google Scholar

85 Ibid., 111.

86 Ibid., 144.

87 Archer, , ‘City planning—and politics’, 327–328Google Scholar; Rabinovitz, , City Politics and Planning, 9–10.Google Scholar

88 Burnham, , ‘“Pulling together” for pluralism,’ 192–9.Google Scholar

89 Miller, Z.L. and Tucker, B., Planning and the Persisting Past: Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine, 1925–1985 (forthcoming).Google Scholar

90 Bassett, E.M., Williams, F.B., Bettman, A. and Whitten, R., Model Laws for Planning Cities, Counties, and States (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), 57.Google Scholar