Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom’s new book How States Shaped Postwar America: State Government and Urban Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2019) is positively reviewed in Planning Magazine (American Planning Association):
“Bloom provides a needed reminder of how significant state governments were to urban development and planning in the mid-twentieth century. . . . The moral of the many stories is that in today’s political climate, urban Americans may again need to look to state governments.” Choice (American Association of Research Libraries) rates the book “Highly recommended. . . Bloom’s carefully crafted work persuasively shows that without the intervention of states, large public systems in fields such as education, transportation, housing, and the environment might not exist or would be unrecognizable today.”