Twentieth-Century Saint John: The Built Environment
Dr. Greg Marquis, Associate Professor, Department of History and Politics, UNB Saint John
The emphasis is on how industrialization and general economic development, combined with the intervention of the municipal, provincial and federal governments, affected the built environment of greater Saint John. Related topics include civic politics, municipal and regional planning, urban renewal, regional development, transportation, energy, the central business district, public housing, suburbanization, urban sprawl, heritage preservation, and the role of the business sector and organized labour. In addition, topics such as housing lead to research on poverty and social conditions. In keeping with the broader aims of the CURA project, the object of the research is to chronicle how a mid-sized industrial city responded to economic and social change during the 20th century.
Note: The research involves working on primary sources at the Provincial Archives, the New Brunswick Museum Archives, Saint John City Hall, the Saint John Public Library and at the Ward Chipman Library. During the summer of 2005, a student researcher worked on the following topics: the Saint John Board of Trade, the Comprehensive Community Plan (adopted in 1973) and general urban issues for the 1950s and 1980s. To date the emphasis has been on the period from the 1950s until the 1980s. Future research will cover the first half of the 20th century