This book is an extension of the interpretive essay that Carl Smith wrote for the online version of the superb Encyclopedia of Chicago. Its genesis as an extended encyclopaedia entry is evident in its admirable clarity, relative brevity for a book, bibliographic essay instead of footnotes, generous amounts of illustrations and balanced tone. Unlike many encyclopaedias, Smith's work is also deeply researched and vividly written. This is the place to turn to for a thorough introduction to what Smith calls ‘one of the most fascinating and significant documents in the history of urban planning’ (p. xv), Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago. Burnham's 1909 plan not only helped systematize Chicago's parks and downtown, it also inspired much twentieth-century urban planning.

Smith has written a wonderful introduction but not a critical assessment. What is at stake when a small group of elite businessmen invests more than $100,000 to promote their specific vision of a city? Smith repeatedly notes that the leaders of Chicago's Merchants' Club, who financed and promoted Burnham's plan, were sincere in their belief that they were serving the entire city even as they served their own self-interests. This is true, but simply praising their goals evades the question of their results. Smith notes that others have criticized Burnham's plan for its lack of attention to social problems and especially housing issues, yet he generally refrains from taking any side himself. Do the plan's ambitious goals neglect the realities of actual people on the street? Smith notes that smaller plans may be more successful and serve more diverse people, but big plans are impressively inspiring, and it is important to consider metropolitan regions comprehensively. In other words, he takes few sides. This can be frustrating.

Like Burnham's plan itself, Smith's book begins with a history of planning. Smith relates early antecedents to Burnham's plan as well as the city that Burnham and his colleagues encountered in 1909 – yet one longs for a stronger authorial point of view than is contained in a list of how many streetlights Chicago had in 1909. In tone, this work resembles Bessie Louise Pierce's classic History of Chicago (1940–41). Her work ends in 1893; Smith takes up where Pierce left off, and his work may stand alongside hers as the starting-point for numerous inquiries into the fascinating city of Chicago. For planners and activists interested in changing urban space, Smith's most important chapter may be the one on the extensive promotional activities undertaken by supporters of Burnham's plan. Clever use of the media, school system, churches, public lantern-slide lectures and films were all part of this early and innovative lobbying effort – yet even with all that, the public was not always persuaded by the plan. There are lessons to be learned here, though Smith himself does not draw those lessons out. Smith's measured tone is most welcome in his final chapters assessing the complex legacy of Burnham's plan. He acknowledges how many proposals existed before Burnham's plan itself, how many proposals were modified during execution and how difficult it is to assess the impact of this iconic document. Here, his balanced tone is a welcome contrast to the bombast of many plan supporters and opponents.

Carl Smith and the editors of The Encyclopedia of Chicago have placed the full text of Burnham's plan online, as well as the delightful Wacker's Manual of the Plan of Chicago (1911), which, for decades, was a required textbook for every eighth-grade student in Chicago's schools. Since the online version of Smith's book is also available, and since the online version features many illustrations in their glorious original colour, instead of the black-and-white necessary for economical book printing, the best way to teach this will be to use the material Smith has provided online, in order to help students assess the primary documents themselves.