United States Housing Corporation

The Council of National Defense, studying the question of how to provide housing for war workers, advised that the work be delegated to the Department of Labor.

These ideas related to decentralization of the industrial city, promotion of regionalism, infusion of nature into everyday life, and improving the living conditions of the working class.

[3] Today, many of these developments are still very much intact physically, though in some cases their social and cultural makeup has changed dramatically, for example in the Baker Yacht Basin neighborhood in Quincy, Massachusetts, the majority of current inhabitants are recent Asian immigrants.

In 1923, for example, many of the architects and planners who had worked for USHC during the war formed the Regional Plan Association of America (RPAA), which went on to build model developments across the country.

At the time of World War I, the Garden City movement was near the peak of its influence, and almost all of the USHC developments incorporated typical Garden City principles: a distinct community with its own identity; a park-like environment with an abundance of well distributed open space; roads designed according to their planned level of use with few sharp turns; a mix of housing types all designed with ample front, side and rear yards; and strict land use zoning.

In order to make the housing affordable for workers, some of the communities were designed at relatively high density (for example, 13 families per acre at the Baker Yacht Basin neighborhood in Quincy, MA).