41 Small City Anchor Institutions • Feature • Myers During the progressive era, Sergey Grim’s concept of “scientific urbanism” infused empirical methods and top-down visions in city planning, thinking “how can I move the parts of a city in the same way that you move the parts of a machine? And some of those parts are people,” says Jess. This approach reflected a broader desire to rationalize and control urban systems, and grew out of planners’ anxiety about losing control, especially as cities that depended on a single industry or institution were facing economic decline. Planners and officials wanted empirical proof that certain investments could work: “It’s scary, actually, to invest in any one thing that you’re not sure is going to get pulled off. So the idea of scientific urbanism was a way of saying, this is means-tested. We have some kind of empirical proof behind the efficacy of this type of housing or this type Syracuse Newspaper
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