Regionalism, politics and the environment: Metropolitan public works in Boston, Massachusetts and Oakland, California, 1840 to 1940 and beyond.

Abstract

Like many cities at the turn of the century, Boston, Massachusetts, and Oakland, California, faced environmental crises which existing municipal institutions could not solve. Bostonians feared that their poor sanitation and contaminated drinking water would increase crime and social chaos as well as epidemic disease. In Oakland, recurrent water shortages seemed to limit economic growth, while the private water companies contributed to local political corruption and operated with little regard for local residents. In 1889 and 1924, respectively, the cities abandoned municipal water and sewer networks for metropolitan systems which crossed county lines and were administered by semi-autonomous regional agencies. The new regional public works united each city with its suburban neighbors, creating new political units and permitting Boston and Oakland to overcome the environmental limits on their continued growth and prosperity. However, urban expansion and the centralization of power associated with regionalism also decreased voter oversight of public works and water resource policy, and spread the environmental costs of urbanization far beyond metropolitan boundaries. Regionalism succeeded because environmental crises precipitated a powerful consensus in favor of new public works construction, and because regional agencies balanced political reform with protections for municipal institutions. The new agencies concentrated power in the hands of a bureaucratic elite, but permitted elected officials to improve services without raising taxes. The popularity of regional public works allowed reformers to implement aspects of broader social and political agendas. Furthermore, the new services increased cities' access to water resources and, in so doing, permitted considerable urban growth in both Boston and Oakland. These similarities do not overshadow the very real differences between these communities, but rather highlight the significance of regionalism and of environmental crisis in urban history. This study addresses aspects of American politics and the environment not frequently invoked by current historiography. It combines resource allocation questions from environmental history with political history's attention to electoral process, government growth and reform ideology. This approach yields a perspective on political reform that highlights the unique contributions of public reactions to the urban environment and constituent demand for public services.