The City Beautiful Movement grows from increased interest in urban planning and its effect on a city’s inhabitants. The movement advocates that beauty would foster moral and civic virtue among urban populations. Charles Mulford Robinson was the first to write on the subject of urban planning in his 1903 book “Modern Civic Art; or, The City Made Beautiful.” His work was theoretical, investigating how people interacted and benefited from urban planning and the positive effects of gardens on city design.

City planning entered into the purview of landscape architecture programs such as the Harvard School of Landscape Architecture.

Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow. Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001).