In the early 1960s, New England's Three Largest Cities - Boston, Providence, and Worcester - were subjected to radical urban renewal projects that were promoted, in part, by progressive and influential architects of the era, including I.M. Pei Kevin Lynch at MIT, and Josef Luis Sert, then Chair of the Architecture Department at Harvard. Love will discuss how the urbanism of the medieval European city became the model for proposed pedestrian precincts. Networks of plazas and pedestrian-only streets in city centers were promoted as the best solution for combatting the growing dominance of automobiles in American cities, partly enabled by new highways that cut through historic neighborhoods.