Discuss the Garden City Movement, how it occurred and the influences on planning today.

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HOWARD’S GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT

Neil Morbey, PLYMOUTH, 11/08/82

Discuss the Garden City Movement, how it occurred and the influences on planning today.

In 1902 a book was published, entitled: Garden cities of To-morrow. It was written By Ebenezer Howard and it set out his plan for creating better neighbourhoods, cities, regions, nations and a better society. It did this through diagrams and explanations of his ideals. Some describe it as a dream, an impossible utopia. Yet it is one of the greatest influences of Town planning today.

So how did Howard, a man who had very little town planning background, create such a book?

His influences are many. If you were to look chronologically at past models of city ideals you could start with that of the Greeks with Miletus, a complete planned city. Or the Kaogongji, of the ancient Chinese. Principle traditions to create perfect cities. Indeed Plato was the one of the first to set out plans for utopian cities and would probably have influenced Howard, even slightly, with theories of population limits and balancing urban areas and country settings. But Howard’s influence started with the stories in the bible. City layouts as described for Levitical cities of Palestine in the 15th century by Moses and Ezekial. These cities had ‘cubits’ or perimeters. They were also surrounded by country and pasture grounds. The Roman empire echoed this with the Pomerium (Space either side of the city walls)and Ager Effatus (designated fields.)

Some influences upon Howard’s thinking were the literary utopias that man has thought about for hundreds of years. Sir Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ was a set of rules, but no plans for an ideal city. He stated that towns should have distance between them, children should have access to the countryside. He was against sprawl over the countryside, instead opting for ‘green belts’. He also thought of neighbourhood units and communal buildings. But he lacked details and plans.  

In 1817, Robert Owen, started a town a New Lanark  with his own ‘social philosophy’. He believed that humans could influence the character of society. Though work and education they could achieve genuine values.

Owens thinking was radical and he did a lot of work, creating ‘The institute for the formation of character’. He experimented with his ideas, published them and became a famous social thinker. He was a strong influence on Howard’s ideas, yet Owen’s thinking was  too communal and his plans were not perfect.

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J S Buckingham,  also a keen influence for Howard, Created plans for his ideal city at Victoria. It was a compact city, but everyone would have easy access to all parts of the city.

The use of parklands and belts emerged famously in the planning community from Col William Light, in Australia, 1837. With the planning of Adelaide’s park belt, which was very successful. But earlier signs of the green belt ideas were shown in Christopher Wrens plans for the rebuilding of London after the great fire of 1666.

The most recent influences leading up to Howard’s ...

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