Tuesdays at APA DC: Planning the Home Front - How the Lessons of World War II Apply to Today

October 22, 2013


The American mobilization for World War II is famed for its
industrial production; less well known is that it was also one of
the greatest urban planning challenges that the United States has
ever faced. Although Americans tend to think of World War II as a
time of national unity, mobilization had a fractious side.
Interest groups competed for federal attention, frequent —
sometimes violent — protests interrupted mobilization plans, and
seemingly local urban planning controversies could blow up into
investigations by the U.S. Senate.


Drawing on her recently released book, Planning the Home Front:
Building Bombers and Communities at Willow Run, Sarah Jo Peterson
shows how the federal government used a participatory planning
approach to mobilize the home front. For the massive Willow Run
Bomber Plant, built in a rural area 25 miles west of Detroit,
bringing the plant to success required dealing with housing,
transportation, and communities for its tens of thousands of
workers. It involved Americans from all walks of life: federal
officials, industrialists, labor leaders, social activists, small
business owners, civic leaders, and — just as significantly — the
industrial workers and their families.