Mumford, Lewis of his first major work on urbanism in 1938,

The Culture of Cities, that Mumford achieved the

(1895–1990) widespread recognition that eventually led the
prestigious New Yorker magazine to hire him to
MARK LUCCARELLI write its Skyline column.
University of Oslo, Norway

Contexts and Dimensions

Lewis Mumford (born 1895 in New York City,
died 1990 in Amenia, New York) was a prolific Mumford should not be read as a theoreti-
journalist, independent academic and cultural cian of social science, but rather as a broadly
critic. Although, he wrote convincingly and made humanistic thinker who eloquently and often
important contributions on a variety of topics, incisively ranged over a series of important issues
including literary criticism, ethics, American concerning the modern condition/modernity.
studies, and world politics, he is best known In one respect Mumford was a forerunner to
for his work in technology studies and urban cultural studies, taking as his topic the means
studies; arguably a quartet of works on urban and by which beliefs, values, and conceptions order
technology studies – two written in the 1930s, the world we experience. His analysis of society
Technics and Civilization (2010 [1934]) and The delved into the construction of time and space
Culture of Cities (1938), and two from the 1960s, revealing the structures of order and control that
The City in History (1961) and The Myth of the lie beneath the appearance of technical and social
Machine (2 vols, 1966/1970) – are his greatest progress. Unlike many adherents to contempo-
works. Of mixed German and German-Jewish rary cultural studies, however, Mumford sought
heritage, Mumford grew up in lower-middle- to highlight distinguished men and women of
class circumstances cared for by his mother and high culture – artists, scientists, and critics – who
supported largely by his maternal grandfather – a had come to understand that ethical and aes-
German immigrant and headwaiter who took thetic choices at variance with the mainstream
the boy for long walks in Manhattan, initiating are possible. Another difference was his soft
Mumford’s lifelong interest in cities. At that time evolutionary approach to culture: he saw a com-
in the United States a poor boy like Mumford bination of better social and aesthetic choices
would not have had a chance to attend university, as responses to conditions rooted in changing
but the virtually unique tuition-free City College material conditions of the techno-environmental
of New York offered him that opportunity and field. Material conditions must be addressed; the
he eagerly immersed himself in a wide range job of the cultural historian and critic is to then
of courses, although he never completed even a discover/recover humanistic technologies and
Bachelor’s degree there. Instead, he began writing modes of organization that address conditions.
for the little magazines of that era, Freeman, This interpretation is evident in his reading of
New Republic, and The Dial, where he became technology: resisting an overdetermining of the
acquainted with Van Wyck Brooks, Randolph role for culture, he argues that a shift from one
Bourne, Thorstein Veblen, and other progressive- energy system to another is required by the
era intellectuals in search of an alternative to exhaustion of specific resource bases; similarly in
America’s “business civilization,” as Brooks put urban studies, he suggests that population growth
it. In the same milieu he met and later married must be accommodated and this delimits the
Sophie Wittenberg, his lifetime partner, in 1922. potential solutions.
Mumford began to write books on American life A great synthesizer of ideas, Mumford arrived
and culture and published four volumes between at his conclusions by working from opposite ends
1924 and 1931, but it was with the publication of a question: from the perspective of fact and

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer.

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosm134.pub2
2 M U M F O R D, L E W I S ( 1 8 9 5–1 9 9 0 )

that of value. In regards fact, we can observe the richer urbanism of the pre-urbanization period
effects of energy regimes (such as coal-based be recreated. The goal was a return to a finer
steam power) are apt to produce conditions relation to place and the achievement of an eco-
that require a technical solution. In point of logical regionalism that acknowledged the city
value, the cities of the late Middle Ages and and conservation of the landscape at the same
early Renaissance provide an example of how time. He found hope for this vision in the land-
aesthetic, political, and religious contexts created scape architecture of F.L. Olmsted whose work
values at odds with capitalism and in favor of in the later part of the nineteenth century sug-
humanism. Cultural history becomes a source for gested to Mumford the possibility of the “renewal
reconstructing culture: the city he admired was of landscape” (Mumford, 1931) and he joined
essentially a work of art and stood as an expres- with a group of like-minded architects in the
sion of humanity’s balanced development in 1920s (RPAA – Regional Planning Association
many spheres of life. Mumford used what we now of America). By the end of the 1930s, Mumford
refer to as “classical” sociological observations of and his colleagues had worked out a program for
modernity as productive of anomie (Durkheim) renewing and reconstructing modern cities based
and loss of organic community (Tönnies) to on organized decentralization; conservation of
criticize modern cities. soil, flora, and fauna; the development of land-
Consequently, the American metropolis, the scape as a regional art form; and social housing.
great city of modernity, in its extensiveness and in
its culture of self-making and commercialization,
drew Mumford’s sharp criticism. Indeed in one Reception and Revision
respect Mumford’s work might be understood as
romantic, conservative in its opposition to the During the 1940s and 1950s Mumford was a
industrial age, which Mumford associated with highly respected urbanist and scholar, his books
the mega-machine’s triumph over nature. But this were widely read in architecture and planning
interpretation misses the mark. Mumford knew schools, and he was an important influence on
that there was no going back to a medieval city, historians of cities and urban planning, certainly
much less a rural idyll. He knew that urbaniza- in the English-speaking world. In the general
tion was an ongoing process. But he wanted to optimism in the postwar period, reduction of
develop an aesthetic that could lend imaginative urban concentrations and growth of garden-city-
support to a project for developing technologies style planning spread. Nonetheless, Mumford’s
and modes of social organization capable of hope that a multiple nuclei planning model with
humanizing modern life. a strong landscape emphasis on the region and
He searched for an aspect of social experience backed by state planning did not survive into the
concrete enough to counter modernity’s obsessive postwar era, certainly not in the United States.
concern with abstraction – a counter-“friction” to By the 1950s Mumford was beginning to revise
the narrative of progress. He found it in the envi- his earlier assessments of urban planning and
ronmental consequences of human activity, just technological modernization. The City in History
as he found hope in harnessing the shaping force (1961) is replete with criticism of highway con-
of (regional) geography. Mumford’s interest in the struction and its effects on the urban core – the
influence of nature on culture reflected the work “parking lot city” – but Mumford was reluctant
of George Perkins Marsh (whose Man and Nature to attack the planning profession or renounce the
in 1864 describes the effect of environmental modernist framework with its functional separa-
degradation on civilized societies), nineteenth- tion of commerce and residence and redefinition
century French regionalist sociologist, Frederick of the street from a form of public space to an
LePlay, and urban theorist and planner, Patrick implement of automobile transportation; these
Geddes. Mumford became convinced that only ideas had driven modern planning discourse.
by engaging the metropolis with modern tech- He remained critical, but was slow to see that
nologies of power generation and techniques of the developing suburban nation then underway
urban planning (in particular the garden city threatened the very existence of the city; in hind-
paradigm) could some measure of the older and sight we see clearly that diffusion of population,
 M U M F O R D, L E W I S ( 1 8 9 5–1 9 9 0 ) 3

which Mumford, following planning orthodoxy was reprinted in 2010, in part because Langdon
of the day, thought necessary to make cities Winner saw the need for advocates of techno-
more livable, had contributed to the building logical and social reform to recall Mumford’s
of a suburban enclave society; the new space constructive, humanistic approach.
of the American megalopolis had exacerbated
the social divisions inherent in the urbanization SEE ALSO: Community; Cultural Studies;
process. Jane Jacobs’s embrace, in Death and Life Culture, Nature and; Durkheim, Émile; Ecolog-
of Great American Cities (1961), of the urbanism ical Models of Urban Form: Concentric Zone
she saw evident in America’s old industrial cities Model, the Sector Model, and the Multiple
encouraged historic preservation and the devel- Nuclei Model; Environment and Urbanization;
opment of new planning techniques designed to Evolution; Jacobs, Jane; Modernity; Tönnies,
retain or recreate mixed use and street-centered Ferdinand; Urbanization
places. Jacobs’s work did more to slow down the
construction of new highways inside the cities
than anything Mumford had said over his long References
career as urban critic. While Jacobs’s Death and
Life became the planning manual of a generation, Jacobs, J. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American
Mumford slipped into the background. Cities, Random House, New York.
Mumford, L. (1931) The Brown Decades: A Study of the
Arts in America, 1865–1895, Harcourt, Brace, New
York.
Recent Interest
Mumford, L. (1938) The Culture of Cities, Harcourt,
Brace, New York.
Recent interest in Mumford’s work covers a range Mumford, L. (1961) The City in History, Harcourt,
of fields, including educational theory, the his- Brace, New York.
tory of science, and landscape studies; but most Mumford, L. (1966, 1970) The Myth of the Machine, 2
attention remains focused on his contributions vols, Harcourt, Brace, New York.
to the fields of technology and culture and urban Mumford, L. (2010 [1934]) Technics and Civilization,
studies/planning. There was a revival of interest intro. L. Winner, University of Chicago, Chicago.
in Mumford in the 1990s around his conjoining
of environmental and urban issues. By that time
it had become apparent that despite the revival Further Readings
of some city centers, the accelerating pace of
diffusion, inadequate infrastructure, and lack of Hughes, T.P. and Hughes, A.C. (eds) (1990) Lewis Mum-
regional planning continued to plague Amer- ford: Public Intellectual, Oxford University Press, New
ican urban areas. The movement “back to the York.
center” coexisted with the continuation of urban Luccarelli, M. (1995) Lewis Mumford and the Ecological
diffusion in growing metropolitan areas; other Region: The Politics of Planning, Guilford Press, New
cities were dying for lack of economic develop- York.
ment and federal monies. Mumford’s regional Miller, D.L. (1989) Lewis Mumford, A Life, Weidenfeld
approach, his arguments for planning in relation and Nicolson, New York.
to transportation infrastructure, his advocacy of Novak, F.G., Jr. (ed.) (1995) Lewis Mumford and Patrick
Geddes: The Correspondence, Routledge, London.
smaller regional cities, his understanding that the
Tumbler, C. (2012) Small, Gritty and Green: The Promise
urbanization presents environmental as well as a of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon
social problems and opportunities, his advocacy World, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
of public housing – all these positions are quite Wojtowicz, R. (1996) Lewis Mumford and American
possibly more relevant to urban studies today Modernism: Utopian Theories for Architecture and
than they were 10 or 20 years ago. It may be of Urban Planning, Cambridge University Press, New
some significance that Technics and Civilization York.