An interesting, erudite, and important book. It describes the evolution of the urban professions (academic social scientists, real estate professionals, and urban planners) from 1920 to 1960 and combines prodigious scholarship with a strong thesis, and very deftly explores the relationship between the local and the national-a great contribution. -- Robert H. Kargon, The Johns Hopkins University

In the early twentieth century, America was transformed from a predominantly agricultural nation to one whose population resided mostly in cities. Yet rural areas continued to hold favored status in the country's political life. For prominent figures in the social sciences, city planning, and real estate who were anxious about the future of cities, this obsession with the agrarian past inspired a new campaign for urban reform. They called for ongoing programs of natural resource management to be extended to maintain and improve cities. Jennifer S. Light finds a new understanding of the history of urban renewal in the United States in the rise and fall of the American conservation movement. The professionals Light examines came to view America's urban landscapes as ecological communities requiring scientific management on par with forests and farms. The Nature of Cities brings together environmental and urban history to reveal how, over four decades, this ecological vision shaped the development of cities around the nation.