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Planning the Home Front: Webinar on How the Lessons of WWII Apply to Today

The University of Maryland Urban Studies and Planning Program and
the National Center for Smart Growth’s 2014 Brown Bag Webinar Series continues with

Planning the Home Front:

How the Lessons of World War II

Apply to Today

Presentation by Sarah Jo Peterson

Wednesday, April 23
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

 View the Webinar   

Preinkert Field House – Conference Room 1112V
University of Maryland College Park
 
Planning the Home FrontThe American mobilization for World War II is famed for its industrial production; less well known is that it was also one of the greatest urban planning challenges that the United States has ever faced. Although Americans tend to think of World War II as a time of national unity, mobilization had a fractious side. Interest groups competed for federal attention, frequent — sometimes violent — protests interrupted mobilization plans, and seemingly local urban planning controversies could blow up into investigations by the U.S. Senate.

Drawing on her recently released book, Planning the Home Front: Building Bombers and Communities at Willow Run, Sarah Jo Peterson shows how the federal government used a participatory planning approach to mobilize the home front. For the massive Willow Run Bomber Plant, Sarah Jo Petersonbuilt in a rural area 25 miles west of Detroit, bringing the plant to success required dealing with housing, transportation, and communities for its tens of thousands of workers. It involved Americans from all walks of life: federal officials, industrialists, labor leaders, social activists, small business owners, civic leaders, and—just as significantly—the industrial workers and their families.

The presentation will close by engaging the audience in a discussion about what the lessons of urban planning for World War II mean for today.

SARAH JO PETERSON,has spent over 20 years in urban planning, with experience in government, academia, and the non-profit sector. She received a M.S. in urban and regional planning from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and a Ph.D. in American history from Yale University. She currently resides in Maryland. Planning the Home Front, published by the University of Chicago Press, is a work of independent scholarship.

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