YouTube

How Frank Lloyd Wright Predicted Modern Suburbs (Broadacre City)

2026-04-28 · 19:14 UTC ·City Beautiful ·1 min read

Brief

Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City is examined in a City Beautiful video presentation (published 2026-04-28) that reviews Wright's 1930s proposal for a decentralized, low-density urban model that presaged today's exurbs. Writer-producer Dave Amos (Nebula Studios) traces which elements of Broadacre anticipated real suburban sprawl, which failed to materialize, and links primary sources including The Disappearing City.

Why it matters

Frank Lloyd Wright proposed Broadacre City in the 1930s as a decentralized, low-density urban model that presaged the exurbs (the most rural form of suburbs).

Key details

  • City Beautiful published a video on 2026-04-28 written and produced by Dave Amos with Nebula Studios that evaluates which elements of Broadacre City succeeded and which missed the mark.
  • The video cites primary sources including Wright's book The Disappearing City and the essay 'The Suburbanite of FLW's Broadacre City,' and provides links to those resources.
Source evidence

Click https://saily.com/citybeautiful or use the code CityBeautiful to get an exclusive 15% off your first Saily purchase!

U.S. architect Frank Lloyd Wright proposed Broadacre City in the 1930s. It was a vision for a decentralized, low-density city that presaged the exurbs, or the most rural of the suburbs. What did Broadacre City get right, and what did it miss?

Resources on this topic:

  • The Disappearing City by FLW: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015047936219

  • The Suburbanite of FLW's Broadacre City: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096144218797923?casatoken=Ym9IPiU9YloAAAAA%3AXniSCLN0XfasavCJ2xLoH8R8ZMlJoJJlWLD483SbJpeZ7Ph3R9Lu83YHoJA8n7bPAKhduI-CPYU

Produced by Dave Amos and the fine folks at Nebula Studios.
Written by Dave Amos.
Select images and video from Getty Images.
Black Lives Matter.
Trans rights.

Channel: City Beautiful
Published: 2026-04-28
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blmkN1PaP1w