John Nolen and the Metropolitan Landscape by Beck Jody;

Author:Beck, Jody;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

4

Modern City Planning Principles and Local Happiness

The decade after Nolen finished his report for Madison was a period of intense professional activity, and he was well known by 1920 when he began work on Mariemont, a new suburb outside Cincinnati (see Plate 6).

Plate 6 General Plan, Mariemont, A New Town, Situated in the Middle West (John Nolen, July 1921)

In addition to designing the grounds for a handful of private residences, several college campuses and eight parks or park systems, Nolen had been at least contacted regarding work on thirty town plans, twenty-nine land subdivisions and fourteen housing studies or developments – many of which were industrial towns or other work for manufacturing clients. While the majority of his projects between 1910 and 1920 were in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts or Connecticut, his work spanned the country and he had clients in twenty-two states ranging from Maine to South Carolina and from New Jersey to California.1 In his proposal for Mariemont, Nolen attempted to address the problem of the housing of workers of various economic means at the scale of the metropolis with the full support of his client.

Nolen had been active in housing for much of his career up to this point. In his 1910 plan for Reading, Nolen wrote that while recreation was an important focus of city planning, it was “overshadowed by this difficult and far-reaching question of housing”.2 He made it clear that he approved of the fact that many families lived in homes they owned, but claimed that these were not very “homelike”, being built in solid blocks of brick with twelve to fifteen foot frontages. He proposed that even workmen should be able to own detached or semi-detached homes and for the solution pointed to the “vacant” agricultural lands within easy reach of Reading. In order to achieve this, he noted that housing regulations would be required – presumably to place lower limits on lot size and the arrangement of streets – and that legislation should be undertaken in the Pennsylvania State government that would give Reading and other cities in the state such powers. As was common at the time, Nolen indicated what he thought were positive precedents from German municipal government and the Garden City proposals. Prior to beginning work at Mariemont, Nolen’s housing work that focused on accommodating households with lower incomes was exemplified by two projects: Overlook Colony for the General Chemical Company, and Union Park Gardens for the US Shipping Board to house shipbuilding workers in Wilmington, Delaware.

Nolen was consulted about the site for Overlook Colony in January of 1917 and thought the site was beautiful and could “be developed into a thoroughly attractive village, town site, or home section” and that it was well located relative to the company works and other amenities in the area. He was concerned that too much of the land – 25 per cent – would be lost as unbuildable land along the stream and the necessary recreation areas, and suggested buying more land to offset the loss.

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