The City

An interesting film, created as part of the 1939 New York World's Fair, is 'The City', an heavily anti-urban vision of the perils of the the modern city agglomeration. Using a number of images from both the smoky and polluted industrial Pittsburgh and the crowded, frenetic cosmopolitan New York City of the 1930s, the film sets the stage of life in the city as overwhelming and unhealthy. Written by Lewis Mumford, and indicative of his nostalgic view of cities, the film does offer up an alternative - a Howard-esque garden-city model of inspired new American Greenbelt towns (notably Radburn, NJ and Greenbelt, MD) that were at the time a planning panacea that reflected the forthcoming suburban ideal.
source: landscapeandurbanism

cityofsound


City, The (Part I) (1939) (16:25)
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City, The (Part II) (1939) (15:37)
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1939 New York World's Fair