Planning for Prosperity, Planning for War: The New Deal and War Mobilization in the Pacific Northwest

• In Event: Strategic Planning, Civil Wars and Environment between the World Wars

Abstract

During the New Deal, regional planners in the states of Washington and Oregon sought to bring federal dollars to the Pacific Northwest to build infrastructure and diversify the region’s economy. As increasing hostilities in Europe and Asia turned the attention of the federal government toward rearmament, local planners reframed their goals to use war mobilization as a means for regional development. To planners in the interwar Northwest, war signaled the potential for prosperity, rather than destruction, for their region. At the same time, prosperity brought with it significant changes to the region’s environment and land use patterns. This paper examines the ways in which local New Deal-era planners incorporated preparedness into regional plans for the Northwest and how local and federal stakeholders sought to direct mobilization efforts toward long-range goals for the region. By the late 1930s, the lumber, shipbuilding, and aircraft manufacturing industries emerged as the primary war industries in the Northwest. I argue that the development of these industries both advanced and thwarted the vision of regional planners, contributing to the diversification of the region’s economy but not necessarily to the rational use of the region’s resources. For the Northwest, the interwar years represented opportunity and set the stage for vast environmental transformation during World War II.

Author

• Katherine Macica, Loyola University, Chicago