Postwar housing development sharply raised environmental costs that people then politicized
Evidence
How had the environmental impact of residential development changed over time? In answering that question, I hoped to contribute to scholarly understanding of urban environmental history. … I found abundant evidence that the environmental cost of homebuilding rose sharply after 1945. But that fact by itself seemed lifeless to me. What problems did people notice first? Who took the initiative in trying to reduce the environmental costs of tract-house construction? How did the critics define the issues? What solutions did they propose? Which problems proved relatively easy to overcome, and which problems proved relatively intractable? I realized that my analysis of the environmental impact of homebuilding no longer was the heart of my work. I was most interested instead in how environmental problems became part of the public agenda. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 15
Categorization
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
- XREF: connects to: Postwar suburban sprawl provoked organized protest against its environmental costs — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 0; Environmental criticism of postwar housing began by 1950 but went largely unheard — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 157; Postwar housing production quadrupled within two peak years of 1949-1950 — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 75 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Environmental criticism of postwar housing began by 1950 but went largely unheard
#expands(0.85) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 157 - Postwar open-space loss converted conservation into a suburban problem and generated new causes
#expands(0.85) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 546 - Postwar housing production quadrupled within two peak years of 1949-1950
#corroborates(0.75) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 75