Jim Rouse

Book excerpt: Jim Rouse: Capitalist/Idealist is the story of a very special businessman. A successful capitalist--a real estate developer--Jim Rouse led his life as a practicing idealist. He sought to help people enrich their lives. He wanted people to live in an enjoyable environment and to experience the joy in caring for each other. But he knew that to raise the capital to accomplish those goals his companies had to be profitable. As an enthusiast of urban renewal, he worked to rid core downtown areas of American cities of blight and despair. He created indoor malls in the new post-war suburbs that would be focal points for community life. He developed a whole new city--Columbia, Maryland--to show what an American city could be like. For one thing, it would be a city totally integrated racially, a city in which anyone could buy or rent on any street. In retirement, Rouse founded the Enterprise Foundation to produce profits that would be used to provide the poorest of Americans with a decent place to live. Rouse was one of America's first practitioners of social enterprise.