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Garden Apartments
The History of a Low-Rent Utopia
Brief Description
How a form of multifamily housing with idealistic roots became a ubiquitous model promoted by both public entities and private developers. Eminent historian Joshua Freeman rescues garden apartments—typically low-rise multifamily residences that enclose or are surrounded by landscaped gardens—from their invisibility in the American landscape. He...
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Description
How a form of multifamily housing with idealistic roots became a ubiquitous model promoted by both public entities and private developers.
Eminent historian Joshua Freeman rescues garden apartments—typically low-rise multifamily residences that enclose or are surrounded by landscaped gardens—from their invisibility in the American landscape. He details their outsized influence on housing policy and social policy, as they have helped to reduce class and income inequality.
Though partly influenced by the architectural innovations and socialist politics of British garden cities, "Red Vienna," and German modernist housing in the 1920s, these large, centrally managed projects were mostly not public housing. However, their capitalist developers worked with governments to keep down rents.
The results were often relatively small apartments and large communal spaces, aimed at fostering actual American community.
Garden Apartments by Joshua B. Freeman offers a thorough exploration of this influential housing phenomenon.
Series: Historical Studies of Urban America
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780226841816
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 23 December 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Illustration: 22 color plates, 84 halftones
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 454g
Pages: 288
About the Author
Joshua B. Freeman is distinguished professor of history emeritus at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of American Empire: The Rise of a Global Power, the Democratic Revolution at Home, 1945–2000; Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World; and Working-Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II.
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