It’s one example in my personal life of something I feel very strongly: we need ambitious expectations for public agencies, because, when they work well, they make our shared life better in ways that are impossible for private or voluntary actors.

I was primarily responding to the claim in the OP; I don’t disagree early C20 NYC was superior to barely-out-of-feudalism peasantry. But you could keep doing that comparison forever; most price-strangled neighborhoods in today’s US are similarly superior to a huge fraction of global housing stock.

I’m not one of the people who think all housing problems can be traced back to the original sin of capitalism. But, if the claim is “people in the early C20 US were satisfied, in their terms, with the affordability and quality of private housing,” that’s just not true as a historical point of fact.

There is a huge body of economic and policy literature from the 1920s and beyond which all accepts the premise of “the market has failed to provision adequate housing; what is the best way to intervene?” … so even at the time most people didn’t think this.

collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commo...

There’s always precedent, and it is very often specifically Andy Woodruff precedent

The most impressive part of all this:

2. Dolores Hayden, "Urban Landscape History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space," in "The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History"

3. William Cronon, "Kennecott Journey: The Paths out of Town," in "Under and Open Sky"

There are many good possible answers to this question, but my three go-tos for introducing this theme at the undergrad level are:

1. Donald Meinig, "The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene, in "The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes"