DURING WORLD WAR II, a coterie of American men, secure in the righteousness of their cause, the necessity of their means, and the efficacy of their tactics, methodically destroyed Germany’s cities. A decade later, some of the same men, still just as confident of their purpose and certain of their methods, demolished their own cities, too. They used bulldozers instead of bombs and promised prosperity instead of victory, but the effect was the same: a landscape of empty lots and traumatized people.
The goal, in America, was a mix of righteousness and prejudice: to uplift the poor, eliminate the unsanitary, stimulate commerce, and bring order to the messiness of urban life. In the period’s ideological framework, this required radical strokes rather than patience, sensitivity, and grassroots labor. If that meant…
