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1928: @City_of_Roanoke presents its first "Comprehensive City Plan" https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x000238930&view=2up&seq=2&size=150
We begin with a beautiful sunrise from "The Beckoning Land". The scan is bad but I was able to find a better copy here https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t33207112&view=image&seq=11
I don't know my Roanoke history sadly so only the consultant jumps out at me, the great John Nolen, "City Planner"
I first learned of Nolen from Silver's "Racial Origins of Zoning", which focuses on this Roanoke document for its deployment of "zoning as a social control device in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's strictures
against racial zoning" https://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/silver%20--%20racialoriginsofzoning.pdf
against racial zoning" https://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/silver%20--%20racialoriginsofzoning.pdf
In 1917, Nolen presented at the national planning conference on how "small places" were handling city planning, for example by banning the popular "three decker" homes to prevent "tenements" https://twitter.com/LyleSollaYates/status/1262088065750896640?s=20
Nice quote from President Hoover here. He was a crucial booster for zoning at the national level after racial zoning was banned.
Pretty solid review of Nolen's work here from Chair Stone
Chair Stone is offering a meal in five courses, including interestingly plans for the area outside Roanoke which at this time could reasonably be expected to some day be annexed, a legal act in 1928 Virginia.
Stone emphasizes the importance of tying major capital expenses to the plan for the purpose of efficiency and good governance.
So modern! I do love the hand drawn image.
I've never seen an image of Roanoke before all of the demolitions.
Okay, it's a little late, but I'll take a table of contents. "Areas for Colored Population" jumps out as unusual for a planning document, from a 2021 perspective.
Aside: I regret turning the page on "The Beckoning Land", which appears to be paid propaganda boosting Roanoke, which is introduced in this way.
Although this is the first official Comprehensive Plan, this refers to a citizen initiated 1907 Comprehensive Plan with "no legal authority" but with many of the same people working on both documents.
They include this image from the 1907 plan, drawn by a "John Nolen, Landscape Architect"
Nolen calls out the importance of "provision for the parking for automobiles", this is the oldest reference I've seen so far in a planning document
Here's a different view, I'm guessing from 1928
And another view
This map shows the history of annexation in Roanoke ending with the 1926 annexation
There's a short history of Roanoke that includes the rapid evolution from a booming railroad town of renters with "a migratory character" to a "population...imbued with the idea of home ownership and...an interest in the general improvement of the city"
Nolen has included this propaganda for dedicating more city space to "motors", which are becoming popular. "Existing sidewalk is thrown into roadway" "Overcome congestion and benefit"
There's a long listing of streets that need to be widened and this nice picture of a bridge
Nolen asserts that "jogs" that slow down these new cars in cities are "dangerous and interrupting" and advises condemning nearby private property for demolition to allow new slip lanes for faster travel in the city and "settled and attractive property frontages"
Nolen thinks about private car storage in terms of "live parking" which I understand to mean customer parking, and "dead parking" which appears to be owner and employee parking. Both must be cheap and plentiful for "business houses".
Many parts of Roanoke are close to parks. Many are not. Hashed blob=park, green circle=close to park.
Nolen offers some propaganda for "Parks and Parkways": "A clear running stream with grassy banks tree bordered is a delight" "The parkways prove to be not only beauty lines but important circulation arteries"
Nolen's idea of a parkway should be "pleasant", should actually go to public parks, and should run along a watercourse of some kind.
Nolen is selling the concept of recreation in public parks.
"It would be wise" for Roanoke to reserve a large chunk of its public park system exclusively for the game of golf. "Golf has an appeal to many who do not care to subscribe to all the activities customary in a country club"
"Colored Schools" are included on this map (denoted with diamonds) but do not get the big yellow buffers the segregated white schools get, so can be difficult to see.
The next section is called "BUSINESS DISTRICTS" which deals almost exclusively with how to replace the business district with wider streets and ample parking in "street space...unbuilt-upon areas, and development of storage garages of the ramped type"
Gotta say, they followed the plan.
