Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age

Harvard historian Cohen (Consumers’ Republic) charts the life and career of pugnacious urban planner Ed Logue in this methodical reappraisal of the successes and failures of postwar urban renewal. From his early days remaking postindustrial New Haven and Boston to his rise and fall as the head of the powerful New York State Urban Development Corporation, and finally his redemption in the burned-out streets of the South Bronx, Logue defied easy characterization. A committed New Dealer, he believed above all in the duty of the federal government to provide decent housing, yet he spearheaded new public-private funding schemes; he initially limited his community outreach to established interest groups, but later evolved his approach to more closely resemble grassroots participatory democracy. Cohen’s lucid account provides insights into the convictions that drove Logue, from his commitment to racial integration to the working-class sympathies he developed as an Irish Catholic scholarship student at Yale College. Yet her central argument—that the era of federal urban renewal was one of not only squandered promises, but real progress—will be familiar to readers with an interest in the subject. The result is a sturdy biography that doesn’t break new ground in the ongoing debate over urban policy.[em] (Oct.) [/em]