Flavel Shurtleff

Flavel Shurtleff was an American lawyer closely associated with the rise of modern city planning in the United States. Reliable catalog and publisher records identify him as the author of Carrying Out the City Plan: The Practical Application of American Law in the Execution of City Plans, published in 1914, and describe him as being of the Boston Bar. The book was written in collaboration with Frederick Law Olmsted and focuses on the legal side of turning planning ideas into real public improvements.

His writing stands out because it treats city planning not as an abstract dream, but as a practical problem involving land acquisition, public powers, costs, and administration. The book looks at parks, playgrounds, squares, parkways, streets, and the siting of public buildings, making it a useful window into how early twentieth-century reformers thought cities should grow.

Planning-history sources also credit him as a cofounder of the American City Planning Institute in 1917, and as a longtime secretary both of that organization and of the National Conference on City Planning. Even where biographical details are sparse, the record is clear that his influence came through institution-building and through a book that helped define the legal and administrative backbone of American planning.