The City Beautiful movement rose in late nineteenth-century America as a reformist attempt by the ruling elites to solve the urban crisis that was plaguing big cities across the country during the Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century and particularly during the economic depression of 1893 to 1897. With its emphasis on comprehensive, large-scale planning, the City Beautiful movement would set the standards for modern city planning.

The vanishing of the agrarian society, coupled with the increasing processes of immigration and urbanization, had led to a drastic rise of the population in urban areas across the country. From 1860 to 1910 the American population as a whole had increased from 31.4 million to 91.9 million, and 46 percent of Americans lived in urban areas, as ...