Is Twentieth Century Luminary Lewis Mumford a Precursor to the Twenty-First Century Grassroots Reformation?

Mumford's decentralized regionalism grown from innerman outward.

Todd Diemer Unsplash

In my last post, I discussed JT Thomas’s Paper that positions archeology as an interpretive science in search of meaning.

Lewis Mumford is one of the greatest thinkers in city planning of the twentieth century. Mumford was popular after World War II, a time when cities were being rebuilt, and when my Dad returned to his studies in Industrial Design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

A paper written by Dr. Peter Critchley titled LEWIS MUMFORD AND THE SEARCH FOR THE HARMONIOUS CITY THE ARCHITECTONICS OF AN ECOLOGICAL REGIONALISM is an elegant and extraordinary read. Critchley is familiar with all of Mumford’s writing and presents a comprehensive view, starting with Technics and Civilization (1934) and following Mumford’s thinking as it is impacted by World War II. Critchley describes Mumford as writing as a moral philosopher first rather than as a professional urban planner, first.

Mumford’s popularity rose during the mid-twentieth century at a time of restora…