Toledo Tomorrow: reading Norman Bel Geddes' vision for the future in a shrinking Midwestern City

This paper examines Norman Bel Geddes’ 1945 Geddes, N. B. 1945. Toledo Tomorrow. Toledo: Toledo Blade. Google Scholar] Toledo Tomorrow plan, his only proposal for a specific city, and its stamp on the morphology of today's Toledo. The paper surveys retrospectively the changes in the morphology of the city and critically analyzes the impact of the Toledo Tomorrow Plan. Today's Toledo, a shrinking rustbelt city, reflects Geddes' legacy of neglecting the historic core, focusing on highway infrastructure, that has since worked in tandem with the forces of decentralization and suburbanization, and the city's weak relationship with its natural features and larger region.