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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient James Rouse
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient James Rouse
JAMES ROUSE
Awarded by Bill Clinton
September 1995
For creating a blueprint for reviving community and healing the torn-out heart of America's cities.
Comments by President Bill Clinton on the presentation of the Medal of Freedom to James Rouse in 1995.
Our homes, our cities, our neighborhoods, our communities -- all these represent who we are. With the helping hand of James Rouse, many of these places have come to reflect our best values. In the 1960s, James Rouse saw a problem. Poorly planned suburban neighborhoods did more than take away from the landscape, they had a corrosive effect on our sense of community. So he did something about it -- he conceived and built Columbia, Maryland. By updating the colonial village for modern times, he gave a generation of architects and designers a blueprint for reviving community all across our nation.
A decade later, James Rouse turned to another monumental task -- healing the torn-out heart of America's cities. He met the challenge head-on. With Boston's Faneuil Hall, Baltimore's Harbor Place and other developments, he put the town square, squarely back into America's urban life. He proved that we could reclaim and recreate our urban frontiers. Advisor to presidents, foe of economic and racial segregation, champion of high-quality, affordable housing, James Rouse's life has been defined by faith in the American spirit. He has made our cities and our neighborhoods as beautiful as the lives that pass through them.
He has shown us that we can build communities worthy of the character and optimism of our people. I know that he has had a special impact on our Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Henry Cisneros. And I can tell you that he has had a very special impact on my life. Every time I see James Rouse I think, if every American developer had done what James Rouse has done with his life, we would have lower crime rates, fewer gangs, less drugs. Our children would have a better future. Our cities would be delightful places to live. We would not walk in fear, we would walk in pride down the streets of our cities, just as we still can in the small towns in America.
James Rouse has changed this country. And if more will follow his lead, we can do the entire job we need to do in our cities. Mr. James Rouse. (Applause.)
James Rouse died six month later of Lou Gehrig's disease at the age of 80.
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Medal History
