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Built in the 1930s on worn-out tobacco land between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland, was designed to provide homes for low-income families as well as jobs for its builders. In keeping with the spirit of the New Deal, the physical design of the town contributed to cooperation among its residents, and the government further encouraged cooperation by helping residents form business cooperatives and social organizations.

In Greenbelt, Maryland, Cathy D. Knepper offers the first comprehensive look at this important social experiment. Knepper describes the origins of Greenbelt, the ideology of its founders, and their struggle to create a cooperative planned community in the capitalist United States. She tells how the town, saved at one point by the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, struggled through the McCarthy years, when it was branded "socialistic" and even "communistic." In conclusion, she provides a timely analysis of those qualities that not only helped the town survive but also served as the model for currents in urban development that have once again come into vogue in such movements as the new urbanism and traditional neighborhood development.

Customer Reviews (2)

A Must-read for any Greenbelter
I received this book as a gift when I moved to the town of Greenbelt, Maryland.I found the story fascinating and loved learning so much history of my new hometown.Greenbelt was part of Roosevelt's New Deal so the history would be interesting to anyone - be they a resident of this town or not.My sister recently moved to Greenbelt and I passed on the tradition and gave her a copy of this book as a housewarming gift.

A lesson in community spirit
What a powerful story Dr. Knepper tells of this entirely planned community originally created as an experiment in socialism. In addition to a thorough description of historical details and events, each person is so vividly painted in their full complexities as to make this a fascinating and almost breezy read.
I was captivated by this town who brought a developer's greed all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Capraesque fashion in which this community dealt with the McCarthy era witch hunt. I cannot recommend this enough as a sociology or government text book, as well as a worthy addition to any personal library. ... Read more

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This guide is about communities where you can still let your ten-year-old walk down the street and not worry too much and where the neighborhood tavern can sometimes rival the Cheers bar and clientele. ... Read more

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An account of the origin, enactment, and implementation of Maryland's Smart Growth land use program begun in 1966. ... Read more

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Eugenics, racial thinking, and white supremacist attitudes influenced even the federal government's actions toward housing in the 20th century, dooming American cities to ghettoization. The Federal Housing Administration continued discriminatory housing policies even into the 1960s, long after civil rights legislation. This all-American tale is told through the prism of Baltimore, from its early suburbanization in the 1880s to the consequences of white flight after World War II, and into the first decade of the twenty-first century. The events are real, and so are the heroes and villains. Mr. Pietila's narrative centers on the human side of residential real estate practices, whose discriminatory tools were the same everywhere: restrictive covenants, redlining, blockbusting, predatory lending. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Moving The Color Line
What a fine book--Not In My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped A Great American City by Antero Pietila. I intended to do a quick read but ended up doing a SLOW one--highlighting the book extensively and identifying in a Baltimore mapbook every street location and neighborhood Pietila discusses. I found it to be a highly informative case study, one that has been replicated in cities across America, about how whites, aided by politicians, bankers, realtors, zoning officials, the FHA, churches, and other groups, fought the encroachment of African-Americans into their neighborhoods, and the methods blockbusters used to drive whites out and provide housing and financing for blacks, all the while filling their own coffers. But Not In My Neighborhood is not a textbook. Pietila not only tracks the movement of minorities through urban neighborhoods over many generations, he details the histories of the people involved and tells the most interesting stories about them. After all, Pietila spent thirty-five years with the Baltimore Sun, covering the city's neighborhoods, politics, and government, so he knows where the bones are buried, and he tells all. This book is as much fun as fiction.

Entertaining and Enlightening
I enjoyed the book very much but don't know how enlightening it would be for someone not from the local area. Certainly many of the instances of prejudice and segregation cited would be understandable almost anywhere, but the local references were particularly relatable. I've shared it with my neighbor, a retired real estate salesperson, and plan to send it on or recommend it to any number of family and friends. I sort ot wished there had been space for a few more maps of specific neighborhoods.

A sharply critical, exhaustively researched, and absolutely invaluable analysis
Not In My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City is a revealing expose about how bigotry and residential segregation impacted Baltimore's development - as well as that of America at large, using Baltimore as a mirror to reflect national trends. From how public discrimination shifted to focus especially upon African-Americans and Jews in the late nineteenth century onward, to the racially biased housing policies enacted by the Federal Housing Administration up to the 1960s, to the consequences of white flight after World War II, and much more, Not In My Neighborhood examines the overall paradigm of human behavior and its deleterious consequences resounding up to the present day and beyond. A sharply critical, exhaustively researched, and absolutely invaluable analysis, Not In My Neighborhood is the most important kind of history book - the history that must be studied so that its mistakes are not repeated (and that so solutions to difficult problems can be worked upon for the future)! Highly recommended.

Great history of Baltimore housing
Antero Pietila has written one of the best history books on the city of Baltimore.His attention to detail on incidents, people and the struggles of the past that have shaped the current city is remarkable.Once I picked the book up, I could not put it down.He covers many of the famous neighborhoods of Baltimore and describes how segregation shaped the city.He explains the migration from white to jewish to black in many neighborhoods and how exploitation created the slums in Baltimore.I highly recommend the book to any one who is interested in our local and national history. ... Read more

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The "new community" movement of the 1960s and 1970s attempted a grand experiment in housing. It inspired the construction of innovative communities that were designed to counter suburbia's cultural conformity, social isolation, ugliness, and environmental problems. This richly documented book examines the results of those experiments in three of the most successful new communities: Irvine Ranch in Southern California, Columbia in Maryland, and The Woodlands in the suburbs of Houston, Texas.
Based on new research and interviews with developers, designers, and residents, Ann Forsyth traces the evolution, the successes, and the shortcomings of these experiments in urban innovation. Where they succeeded, in areas such as community identity and open space preservation, they provide support for current "smart growth" proposals. Where they did not, in areas such as housing affordability and transportation choices, they offer important insights for today's planners, designers, developers, civic leaders, and others interested in incorporating new forms of development into their designs. ... Read more

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How did the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee break open the caste system in the American South between 1960 and 1965? In this innovative study, Wesley Hogan explores what SNCC accomplished and, more important, how it fostered significant social change in such a short time. She offers new insights into the internal dynamics of SNCC as well as the workings of the larger civil rights and Black Power movement of which it was a part.

As Hogan chronicles, the members of SNCC created some of the civil rights movement's boldest experiments in freedom, including the sit-ins of 1960, the rejuvenated Freedom Rides of 1961, and grassroots democracy projects in Georgia and Mississippi. She highlights several key players—including Charles Sherrod, Bob Moses, and Fannie Lou Hamer—as innovators of grassroots activism and democratic practice.

Breaking new ground, Hogan shows how SNCC laid the foundation for the emergence of the New Left and created new definitions of political leadership during the civil rights and Vietnam eras. She traces the ways other social movements—such as Black Power, women's liberation, and the antiwar movement—adapted practices developed within SNCC to apply to their particular causes. Many Minds, One Heart ultimately reframes the movement and asks us to look anew at where America stands on justice and equality today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

SNCC As It Was
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) meant many things to many people and remains so today. Wesley Hogan brings SNCC to us in all its strengths and weaknesses for better and for worse. She reveals a driven group of individuals who reached out to local people in the Black Belt South, listening to what they wanted and linking up with the local leaders who were there and who had fought the fight of the oppressed, down-trodden, and poverty-stricken. The study reveals how SNCC staffers went into rural Mississippi, Southwest Georgia, and Alabama and reached out to the local people whether they were literate or not, helping them voice their problems and overcome them by joining together no matter what the danger to them or the SNCC workers who came and stayed among the people and fought the fight with them. While doing this SNCC staffers listened to local elders as well as the young people and heard their stories and paid attention to their recommendations in discovering new leaders and training them to do what needed to be done in creating local movements. Hogan does not shy away from SNCC's difficulties in the Deep South in fighting its violent and brutal enemy and in the process reveals to the nation through its fight that white America needed to be pushed into helping the African Americans of the South by losing some of its best and its brightest in that battle.The course chosen by SNCC is revealed as one of a democratic group operating by consensus decisions rather than leadership from the top like other civil rights organizations. This choice is discussed and documented and examined for where this led and how it finally left the Black Belt South without the SNCC presence that drove the movement there from 1960 to 1966. Hogan documents this study with interviews, archival materials, bibliographic citations, and insightful use of extensive resources. ... Read more