CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLACES
The modern movement for city planning in the United States may be said to have begun about 1890, with a special stimulus along certain lines in 1893 through the influence of the World's Fair at Chicago. A large amount (if city planning, much of it of a high order, was done earlier. In no sense, however, did it represent a movement—it was not widespread, and it was not continuous or persistent.
Notable examples of earlier city planning are: William, Penn's plan for Philadelphia in 1681, and the plans for other Pennsylvania cities, like Reading, for instance, which were connected with it; the plan of Williamsburg, Va., in 1699; Oglethorpe's plan for Savannah, in 1713; the great plan of L'Enfant for Washington, D. C, in 1790; other plans due to the influence of L'Enfant or his associates, as Buffalo, N. Y., and Erie, Pa.; the plan for New York City in 1807. All of these plans were of a spasmodic character, of the "once for all" type, without any adequate provision for systematic revision and extension.
The period from the early part of the nineteenth century until the last decade of that century was one in which the planning of cities, like the architectural planning of buildings, and, in fact, like municipal government itself, was at a low point, characterized by few results of a desirable type. It was during this period largely that the western cities adopted checkerboard plans of the most commonplace form, without any real recognition of the requirements of streets and transportation, nor the necessity to preserve natural
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