The Depression, Professional Practice and the Urbanism Study
: 1930–1939

The city plan for Lexington, Kentucky (1931) is evidence of the timelessness and longevity of Segoe’s planning. The concept of a belt designating an urban service area is still used successfully in that city. By limiting the area available for urban services such as water supply and sewer lines, the government can keep growth in check. Furthermore, other metropolitan areas, most notably Portland, Oregon, have adopted this method to control suburban “sprawl”
—a contemporary planning issue foreseen by Segoe. Segoe claimed, “…truly adequate planning for any metropolitan community must embrace not only the entire city but all of the outlying urban and urbanizing areas.” He also directed the first federal study of urban problems in the United States, which was published in 1937 as Our Cities and Their Role in the National Economy. It stressed the need for a “sound long-term land policy,” which could properly direct urban and economic development. 
What is remarkable about these achievements is that that took place after the cataclysmic stock market crash of 1929 and the resulting malaise of the Depression.