Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
TVA workers, and it would, at Morgan's insistence, be called Norris, after
the senator who had fought so hard for the TVA Bill.
21
One of the people brought on board early was Benton MacKaye, a stal-
wart of the RPAA, a founder of the Wilderness Society, and the conceiver
of the Appalachian Trail. In an important article in the May 1933
Survey
Graphic
titled “Tennessee—Seed of a National Plan,” MacKaye extolled the
breadth, scope, and depth of the Roosevelt plan for the Tennessee Valley:
“President Roosevelt has spread it out from a dam to a river to a region.
. . . He has done more—he has related a local project to a national emer-
gency; he has sown the seed of that “national planning” announced in his
inauguration speech.”
22
MacKaye was ultimately concerned with the pro-
tection of what he termed “the basic settings”—wilderness, community,
and wayside. To stem the tide of the “metropolitan slum,” he urged the
“townless highway” and the “highwayless town.” Highways bypass the
town, but are connected to it by spur roads. Surrounded by green spaces,
the town is to the region as the cul-de-sac is to the main road.
23
MacKaye
concluded with a peroration: “The Tennessee Valley project sows the seed
of a national plan for the country's redevelopment. . . . Further steps . . . must
in due course carry on the national evolution conceived in the Roosevelt
statesmanship.”
24
The actual planning and implementation of Norris were in the hands of
Earle Draper, director of the TVA's Division of Land Planning and Hous-
ing, and his assistant director,Tracy B. Augur.The town was put on the fast
track.The site was picked in July 1933, and housing construction started in
January 1934.The idea remained “high concept.” In an article published in
December of 1933, Earle Draper noted:
To serve the entire community a complete town center has been laid out adjacent
to a 14-acre public recreation ground. . . . Here will be grouped the public hall and
administration building, a small hotel, stores, public market, bus station and service
garage and other community features as the need arises. Centered on the main axis
of this group will be the public school, away from traffic....The utilities, includ-
ing electric distribution station and steam laundry are relegated to nearby but
unobtrusive locations. . . . [Norris] will demonstrate that the unduly congested,
insanitary, matter-of-fact ugliness and the usual haphazard growth . . . can be
avoided inexpensively.
25
Tracy Augur, director of planning for Norris, drew a direct line from
Ebenezer Howard's garden city ideal to Norris. According to Augur, the
