City planner and planning consultant.
In the 1940s, Oppermann advised on federal housing legislation as a planner for the Federal Housing Administration. He was planning director of San Francisco city and county from 1949-58, and was the first director of the Illinois planning agency, predecessor to the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. He served as president of the American Institute of Planners and as assistant director of the American Society of Planning Officials. Oppermann lectured in metropolitan planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a member of the International Fraternity of Lambda Alpha, Ely Chapter.
Includes carbon typescripts of correspondence between Alfred Bettman and officials of the Federal Housing Administration, with copies directed to Oppermann; memoranda; findings of committees; reports and drafts; legislative acts; notes; proposals; agenda; studies; published proceedings of the Conference on City Planning Administration in Chicago, 1936; correspondence as Director of City Planning, City and County of San Francisco and as Director of the Northeastern Illinois Metropolitan Area Planning Commission; speeches, 1926-1964; and scrapbooks.
Paul Oppermann Papers, #3161. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
Part of Lambda Alpha Literary Archives.
Correspondence on Program of the Committee on Housing and Blighted Areas, deteriorated districts, real estate assessment, causes of blight, population density, technological change, rapid transportation systems, land tenure and land use institutions, building codes, real estate mortgage system, loans and grants, public ownership of blight areas, interdependence of rural and urban economy. Includes Philip H. Cornick, Frederick Bigger, Frederic A. Delano, Earle Sumner Draper, National Resources Planning Board, Committee on Housing and Blighted Areas, National Association of Real Estate Boards.
Correspondence and drafts on Federal Agencies, U.S. Housing Act, terminology advantages and disadvantages of combination of existing agencies, City Realty Corporations, tax delinquency, Urban Redevelopment Corporations, amortizations, FHA staff activities, Decentralization study, urban population patterns, municipal fiscal instability, FHA policy limitations, planning agency, land acquisition agency, obsolete neighborhood demolition, municipal bonding, Decentralization study brochure, zoning and subdivision regulations, industry distribution patterns, essential elements for federal urban redevelopment legislation, community automony vs. federal control, Professor Hansen, planning stages, provisions of the new draft housing investment insurance. Includes Alfred Bettman, Frederick Bigger, Paul Oppermann, Herbert S. Colton, Earle Sumner Draper, Federal Agency of Urban Reconstruction and Development Committee to Examine and Report on Cornick's Decentralization Study, Federal Housing Administration, Department of Urban Affairs.
Correspondence, reports, drafts on terminology, provisions of the Urban Redevelopment Act, federal agencies, district boundaries, development vs. redevelopment, program for city building and urban housing, city growth forecasts, Urban Land Institute Bill, population data use. Includes Herbert S. Colton, Alfred Bettman, Frederick Bigger, E. S. Draper, Alvin H. Hansen, Martin Myerson, National Housing Administration, Work Projects Administration, Federal Security Agency, American Society of Planning Officials.
Correspondence, reports on urban and regional planning technique, population planning, land use planning, circulatory planning, city functions, urban complex study. Includes Alvin H. Hansen, Charles S. Ascher, Communities Redevelopment Corporation.
Paper presented before City Planning Division, Centennial Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Chicago, Ill.