What was the primary goal of the City Beautiful movement?

• A. Focus on expanding highways and car-centric infrastructure.
• B. Promote orderly, monumental urban design and beautification.
• C. Prioritize industrial output over livability.
• D. Reject public art or monuments.

Answer: (B)

The core idea here is that designing cities with beauty and order can elevate how people live and behave in public life. The City Beautiful movement pushed for orderly, monumental urban design—grand avenues, formal plazas, classical façades, and integrated parks and civic centers—so that public spaces would be harmonious, inspiring, and morally uplifting. This Beaux-Arts approach sought to transform chaotic industrial cities into legible, dignified environments that reflected democratic ideals and civic pride.

That emphasis on grandeur and beautification is why the best match is the description of promoting orderly, monumental urban design and beautification. The other ideas don’t fit the movement: highways and car-centric infrastructure came later and weren’t the movement’s focus; prioritizing industrial output over livability contradicts its aim to improve everyday public life through beauty; and rejecting public art or monuments runs counter to its use of sculpture, monuments, and architecture to uplift society.