Abstract

Although rhetoric and city life have been closely aligned since ancient times, urban planning documents have received little attention as rhetorical texts shaping discourse about citizenship. The Plan of Chicago, a key document in the history of US urban planning, not only proposed improvements, but, more importantly, its visual and verbal language constructed an idealized and ideologically infused conception of the city and its citizens. By enacting what Burke called a representative anecdote, the Plan constitutes a specifically commercially oriented city and citizen, foregoing other possible identifications.