Government
Warning of Urban Sprawl...in 1959
A Hitchcockian take on the danger of perpetual suburbanization from the Urban Land Institute
As part of the celebration of its 75th anniversary, the Urban Land Institute has unearthed a great short film it produced in 1959 in partnership with the National Association of Home Builders. It warns – against the backdrop of what sounds like a swelling Hitchcock score – of the impending cataclysm of suburban sprawl.
"Once," intones the male narrator in dramatic incomplete sentences, "the land seemed inexhaustible. The whole vast sweep of the American continent, 3 million square miles of the richest land on earth, a land of quiet main streets, rolling farm lands, plains, forests and mountains. A land with elbow room, with unlimited space for our towns, our cities and our people to grow."