Lewis Mumford was a very powerful force in shaping policy during FDR's New Deal Era.

Three main ideals:

• Technics and Civilization Promotes the liberating potential of hydro-electric power as an "inexahustible" supply which would re-open the Western frontier and rekindle the frontier experience that "makes this country great".

• The Culture of Cities Life in the over-industrialized and over-crowded cities of the East was de-humanizing. An opening of the Western Frontier would allow a return to a "pastoral" living community centered around regional river basin development, using dams as the principle means of development.

• Palotechnic Era vs. Neotechnic Era Palotechnic relies upon "coal and iron" and exploited finite fossil fuels that generated a "befouled and disorderly environment; the end product an exhausted one". Private Owners = monopoly.

  Neotechnic, in contrast, purfied the social and ecological environment through "infinite" hydro-electricity. This promotes PUBLIC POWER = DEMOCRACY

There are elements of that idealogy that are sensible, in principle, and very sensible in the historical context of the time.

Week 4