Greenhills

How Greenhills began

Greenhills was built in 1935-1938 by the federal Resettlement Administration as one of only three 'greenbelt towns' completed under the New Deal, alongside Greenbelt, Maryland and Greendale, Wisconsin. Planners Justin B. Hartzog and William A. Strong laid out a 5,930-acre site with a belt of woodland, curving streets, homes that faced backward onto common greens, underground utilities, a co-operative shopping center, school and library; WPA crews of about 5,000 workers built 676 homes on it for low-income families, using mules instead of machines to employ more men. The village incorporated in 1938, according to its comprehensive plan. Like the other greenbelt towns it excluded minority buyers. In 1950 residents organized to buy the town from the government, the only greenbelt community to do so. The Greenhills Historic District was listed on the National Register in January 1989 and designated a National Historic Landmark on January 11, 2017; the village had 3,741 residents in 2020.

Platted 1935, incorporated 1938 (per the village's comprehensive plan), by Built by the U.S. Resettlement Administration as a federal planned community; plan by Justin B. Hartzog and William A. Strong.

Where the name comes from

The village was designed to be surrounded by a protective "belt" of woodland and natural landscaping, in keeping with the Greenbelt town model, which is the documented basis for its name.

Before the town

No source found records a Native American village, trail, mound or treaty line specific to the Greenhills site itself, which the federal government bought as dairy-farm and cornfield land and built up as a planned community in the 1930s.

Timeline

1. 1935 — The federal Resettlement Administration begins building Greenhills as one of three national Greenbelt town projects.
2. 1935 — Justin B. Hartzog and William A. Strong design the plan for the 5,930-acre site, and WPA workers break ground, using mules instead of machines to employ more men.
3. 1937 — About 5,000 workers have turned more than a square mile of cornfields into a village for 676 low-income families over the project's two years; the Resettlement Administration is dissolved and the Farm Security Administration takes over some of its functions.
4. 1938 — In October, FSA photographer John Vachon documents daily life in the new community, including images later held by the Library of Congress.
5. 1938 — Greenhills is incorporated as a municipality, according to the village's comprehensive plan.
6. 1940 — The U.S. Census records Greenhills' population at 2,677.
7. 1948 — With veterans returning from the war, the federal government lets private developers build housing on Damon Road and Gambier Circle.
8. 1950 — A homeowners association of residents buys Greenhills from the federal government, the only one of the three greenbelt towns whose residents did so; the government sells the undeveloped northern land to the Warner-Kanter Corporation, and about 3,500 of the original 5,930 acres become the city of Forest Park.
9. 1970 — Greenhills reaches its peak census population, 6,092 (5,407 in 1960 and 3,005 in 1950).
10. 1989-01 — The original government-built part of Greenhills is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Greenhills Historic District.
11. 2011 — Greenhills is listed among Ohio's Most Endangered Historic Sites.
12. 2017-01-11 — The Department of the Interior designates Greenhills a National Historic Landmark.
13. 2020 — The census counts 3,741 people in Greenhills.

Stories

A New Deal town built with a hidden color line

Greenhills exists because of a specific piece of 1930s federal policy: the Resettlement Administration, under the New Deal, built exactly three "Greenbelt" communities nationwide to demonstrate planned, government-built suburban housing ringed by protected open land, and Greenhills, north of Cincinnati, was one of them, alongside Greenbelt, Maryland and Greendale, Wisconsin. FSA photographer John Vachon visited in October 1938 and photographed ordinary scenes, laundry on a line, new streets, that survive today in the Library of Congress collections as some of the only period documentation of the town's first year. The project's idealism had a hard limit: like the other federal Greenbelt towns, Greenhills was built using restrictive covenants that barred minority buyers from purchasing homes, a deliberate exclusion baked into the same New Deal planning that gave the town its parks and curving streets.

Mules, extra plaster and houses that face backward

Greenhills was a make-work project as much as a housing one. In 1935 the Resettlement Administration, then led by Rexford Tugwell, who had bought about 6,000 acres of farmland north of Cincinnati, put WPA crews to work, and over the next two years some 5,000 men turned more than a square mile of cornfields into a village meant for 676 low-income families. To employ more of them, planners had the work done with mules instead of machines and ordered extra layers of plaster and paint on the buildings. The design turned the ordinary suburb inside out: homes were built facing backward, so that windows looked onto shared greens and walkways instead of the street, utilities were buried, curving streets and cul-de-sacs kept cars away from front doors, and the shopping district was a co-operative group of stores that has been called Ohio's first strip mall. The project cost $11.5 million, which drew objections in Congress; Tugwell had planned twenty greenbelt towns, and only three were built, Greenhills among them.

Buying the town back from Washington

The federal government built Greenhills to rent, not to sell, and for years its residents were tenants of Washington. After the war, with veterans needing housing, the government let private builders add homes on Damon Road and Gambier Circle in 1948. In 1950 the residents organized a homeowners association and bought the village from the government, the only one of the three greenbelt towns whose people did so; former renters became owners, and the association kept most of the green belt that gave the town its name. The government sold the undeveloped northern land to a private developer, the Warner-Kanter Corporation, and about 3,500 of the original 5,930 acres became the city of Forest Park. Over residents' objections the village council later razed 52 of the original townhouses and apartments, and in 2011 the town was listed among Ohio's most endangered historic sites.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · greenhillsohio.gov · livingnewdeal.org

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• Cincinnati Public Water System100% of residentsOhio River (Miller Plant, ~88%) plus Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer wells (~12%)

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Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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