The Puzzle of Antiurbanism in Classic American Literature

Abstract

Whenever American attitudes toward the city are under discussion we are likely to hear a familiar note of puzzlement. We hear it, for instance, near the end of the influential study by Morton and Lucia White, The Intellectual versus the City: From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright. After making their case for the centrality of antiurban motives in American thought and expression, the Whites invite us to share their perplexity. ``How shall we explain this persistent distrust of the American city?'' they ask. ``Surely it is puzzling, or should be.''1