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GALLERY II

American Cities

Case studies in the American urban experiment — form, housing, mobility, economics, crime (cities.* contrast tables).

The Lights of America
A relief map of the continent the size of a classroom: city lights come up decade by decade, 1790 to now, and the westward surge plays like weather.
Boston, 1775
A walking port town - wharves, steeples, and everything within a mile of the water.
Chicago, 1893
The White City and the black smoke - the fair, the stockyards, and the first steel frames rising together.
Levittown, 1950
The assembly-line suburb: one house every sixteen minutes, and the pattern that remade the American map.
The Reading Wall
The hall's informational panels in sequence - the argument of the gallery told in maps, figures, and captions. Read it like a chapter.
Viewpoints
The American room keeps the CBD wall and the historical set at the rail - current and simulated views of the estate cities.
The Great US Diorama
The whole country as comparative diorama: vast deserts, then the pocketed cities - Texas metros, the Florida tips, the crowded northeast. Cities as islands in an enormous land.
The West Coast Room
An entire room: Los Angeles as the bowl with its many centers, running south through Orange County and San Diego to the Tijuana edge - where the model abruptly ends and goes decrepit - then north up the whole coast to Seattle, the Space Needle, and Canadian Vancouver.
The Megalopolis: The East Coast
The east coast at one-third scale: population belted together - beltways, linked towns, cities that do not end at their borders. Philadelphia shown with its daytime surge and its neighborhoods in a war of different activities, some depressed, some not.
The Interior Spots
Between the coasts: Chicago larger, Kansas City and St. Louis as small bright points - the bi-coastal country read honestly.
🎧 A moment to consider
What will you carry out of this room?
← EXIT TO
Gallery I · The World Timeline
EXIT TO →
Gallery III · The Modern World City
FULL EXHIBIT →
🗺 POCKET MAP
🗺 Museum Map
Galleries▲
∞The City Model IThe World Timeline IIAmerican Cities ◄ YOU ARE HERE IIIThe Modern World City IVThe Classroom VThe Walking City VIThe Port City VIICoal and the Clock VIIIWhy Buildings Rise IXGoing Up XThe Tenement and the Terrace XIThe Company Town XIIThe Machine and the Ward XIIIThe Cooled Room XIVThe Sunbelt Bargain XVThe Return Downtown XVIThe Tower Again XVIIThe New Mills XVIIIThe Moving City XIXThe Precinct and the Patrol XXThe Ward and the Ambulance XXIThe Schoolhouse XXIIThe Commons and the Canopy XXIIIThe Crossroads XXIVThe Airfield XXVThe Alley and the Margin XXVIRails and the River XXVIIMetropolis and Hinterland XXVIIIThe Horse and the Motor XXIXThe Aqueduct and the Larder XXXThe Lights and the Arena XXXIThe Crowded Floor XXXIIThe Edge and the Gradient XXXIIIThe City Profiles The City in Focus — The Decade Panels The Earliest Cities Ancient Babylon Damascus, Cut in Half The Seven Hills of Rome Alexandria and the Ports The Federal Triangle 3-D Texas in the City The River Room Chicagoland The Megalopolis The Pacific Northwest France, with Large Paris Great Britain Map Room The Asia Gallery The Great Desert Africa, and the Projection Room
Plan your visit▲
🧭 Visit planner — been / want / done 🏛 Floor plan 🚪 Museum lobby
Research▲
📂 The Sources Room 🗄 Metadata 📖 Glossary
Your route▲
…tracing your steps…