Landscape of Modernity

New York City stands as the first expression of the modern city, a mosaic of disparate neighborhoods born in 1898 with the amalgamation of the five boroughs and shaped by the passions of developers and regulators, architects and engineers, politicians and reformers, immigrants, entrepreneurs and corporate builders. Their labor, their ideals, and their often fierce battles established the physical and social dimensions of the modern city. The Landscape of Modernity tells the compelling story of the growth of New York City from 1900 to 1940, from the beginnings of its skyscraper skyline to the expanding reaches of suburbanization.

David Ward is chancellor and Andrew Hill Clark Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Poverty, Ethnicity, and the American City, 1840-1925. Olivier Zunz is professor of history at the University of Virginia and the author of Making America Corporate, 1870-1920.