"The action of the Congress of the United States in appropriating one billion dollars to create a new urban environment places on all of us a responsibility we cannot duck." So Edmund Bacon began his remarks at the Harvard Urban Design Conference in 1956, provoking our reflections on the history of urban renewal, on the smaller value of a billion dollars in today's money, and on the current lack of any such Congressional commitment. Not having Federal subsidies to help cities buy land and buildings makes a big difference in the design of cities today. The flow of Federal money is the presence behind much of the discourse at the 1956 Harvard Conference about the directive role of the urban designer.
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