New Deal Utopias

New Deal Utopias explores three planned communities built by the US government during the Great Depression, collectively known as »Greenbelt Towns.«

New Deal Utopias explores three planned communities built by the US government during the Great Depression, collectively known as »Greenbelt Towns.« The photographs of the built environments and landscapes of Greenbelt, Maryland, Greenhills, Ohio, and Greendale, Wisconsin, evoke utopia both as an idea and place in the American mind. The towns were designed to be model cities to address the social and economic discrepancies brought on and accentuated by the Great Depression. In the 1930s, the program was critiqued as »socialistic« and »communistic« by conservative members of Congress, industrial and corporate leaders, and newspapers hostile to New Deal policies, yet they still managed to make an indelible impression on urbanist ideas in America. This book emphasizes that the Greenbelt towns are an overlooked, but crucial part of the American landscape, as we continue to grapple with the complex roles of housing, nature, and government in contemporary life.
Jason Reblando is an artist and photographer based in Chicago and Bloomington, Illinois. His work has been published in the New York Times, Camera Austria, Slate, Bloomberg Businessweek, Real Simple, Places Journal, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune.