A hundred years of town planning and the influence of Ebenezer Howard

by Max Steuer

The Garden City Association, now the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), was founded on the 10th of June 1899 by a group of men hoping to create a new way of living. They were led by Ebenezer Howard, the author of To-morrow! A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Originally the TCPA planned to celebrate its centenar y by publishing a new edition of Howard’s book. Instead, the Association’s Chairman, Sir Peter Hall, and its former Environmental Education OfŽ cer, Colin Ward, have produced a commemorative volume in two parts. The Ž rst part consists of a detailed and interesting history of the life and works of Ebenezer Howard, and the inuence of his and related ideas on town planning during the past centur y. The second part of the book is a chronicle of Hall and Ward’s ideas about the best way to accommodate the proposed building of new houses in the UK over the next few decades. Not surprisingly, the authors want to show that Howard’s thinking is relevant to current housing and town planning issues. They struggle to do so, sometimes making big claims for Howard, and at other times getting on with their own ideas and leaving Howard to one side. This book is a pivotal publication which is intended to celebrate the achievements of the town planning movement. The centenary means one thing to the members of the town planning establishment, and quite another thing to outsiders, like myself, who come from the social science tradition.
Hall and Ward describe Howard’s life prior to writing Tomorrow!, later republished as Garden Cities of To-Morrow, as, ‘one of hard grind and personal failure’ (p. 4). Howard emigrated to America, where he tried unsuccessfully to make a go of farming. When disaster struck, he was able to rescue his family and earn a ver y modest living by moving to Chicago and working as a shorthand writer. He returned to London in 1876 and carried on with shorthand as a Parliamentary reporter. He had no particular educational background, but always took an interest in social movements, rejecting most, but being rather drawn to the economist Henry George and his single land tax. Howard appears to have been a decent enough fellow with something of a gift for orator y. He hardly seems to be the kind of person who would write a book which, in Hall and Ward’s phrase, ‘would change the course of history’.

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Letschworth Garden City

Letschworth Garden City

Letschworth Garden City

more about Ebenezer Howard and Garden City:

INTRODUCTION: THE GARDEN CITY LEGACY

From Garden Cities to New Towns – An Integrative Planning Solution?

History of Letchworth Garden City

Howard Park and Howard Garden, Letchworth Garden City, Herts: Archaeological Desk Based Assessment

The Roots and Origins of New Urbanism

What is Green Urbanism? Holistic Principles to Transform Cities for Sustainability

What is Green Urbanism? Holistic Principles to Transform Cities for Sustainability

by Steffen Lehmann

Over the last thirty-five years or so, an international debate on eco-city theory has emerged and has developed as a relevant research field concerning the future of urbanism and the city itself. During that time, a number of architectural schools of thought have been implemented worldwide. One such school is Technical Utopianism (a technological idealism that relied on the quick `techno-fix’, as expressed, for instance, in the work of Archigram).
Other early writing on green urbanism was available from Ebenezer Howard, whose 1902 book was entitled `Garden City of Tomorrow’, and whose political and social agenda has recently made a comeback. Much later, in 1969, Reyner Banham pioneered the idea that technology, human needs and environmental concerns should be considered an integral part of architecture. Probably no historian before him had so systematically explored the impact of environmental engineering and services on the design of buildings. (Howard, 1902; Banham, 1969) Some other early significant writing on green urbanism has come from Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs – although they didn’t call it green urbanism. From `Silent Spring’ (by Rachel Carson, 1962), to Victor Olgyay’s `Design with Climate’ (1963), to Reyner Banham’s `Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment’ (1969), to Ian McHarg’s `Design with Nature’ (1969), to the pivotal publications by authors re-connecting urbanism with the climatic condition (such as Koenigsberger, Drew and Fry, or Szokolay, in publications in the 1970s and 80s), to the remarkable `Brundtland Report’ (Brundtland, 1987); the important contributions from Robert and Brenda Vale (`Green Architecture: Design for an Energyconscious Future’, 1991), and the `Solar City Charter’ (Herzog et al, 1995/2007), the field of sustainable city theories and climate-responsive urbanism has constantly been expanded.
An important contribution came from Guenther Moewes with his book `Weder Huetten noch Palaeste’ (1995), which is a programmatic manifesto for designing and constructing longer-lasting buildings. More recent theories for `Compact Cities’ and `Solar Cities’ (Burton, 1997; Jenks and Burgess, 2000; Lehmann, 2005) encapsulate the visions based on the belief that urban revitalization and the future of the city can only be achieved through `recompacting’ and using clearly formulated sustainable urban design principles. These principles for achieving green urbanism have to be clearly defined and adjusted to an era of rapid urbanization, especially in the Asia-Pacific Region. In the 21st century we are working in an entirely new context, for which we need new types of cities. As noted by Ulrich Beck, we have arrived in `a new era of uncertainty’, where energy, water and food supply are critical. ‘We live in a world of increasingly non-calculable uncertainty that we create with the same speed of its technological developments.’ (Beck, 2000)

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Sir Ebenezer Howard, by Mr Gue

more about urban sustainability:

Urban Sprawl and Atlanta’s Air Quality Problems

STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES FOR TEHRAN

The Münster Application for the European Green Capital Award

Capturing Sao Paulo's Sidewalks

A Garden City Without A Garden!

Sustainable Urban Planning

Urban Planning and Real Estate Development

INTRODUCTION: THE GARDEN CITY LEGACY

from Architectural Review, June 1978

Eighty years ago Ebenezer Howard published his visionary essay Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898). In 1902 Letchworth, the first garden city, was founded. The 75th anniversary of the first twentieth century British new town provides the occasion for the publication of five articles exploring the creative impact of garden city thinking in four countries: Germany, France, Russia and Britain.

Editors frequently strain credulity by insisting that all of their contributions-despite appearances to the contrary-are in fact saying the same thing. In this case no such claim is made. However, one unifying factor may well prove to be that most of the contributions will raise the eyebrows of right-thinking garden city partisans. The notion that Ernst May's Frankfurt housing (long claimed for the Modern Movement), the flattened blocks of the Paris satellite towns and Greater Moscow, or the estates built during the Great War to house British munitions workers could be presented as products-even by-products-of the garden city may well be regarded as provocative. Whatever may be said about the need to modify Howard's ideas to the requirements of public housing schemes at home and abroad, we shall almost certainly be accused of chronicling the misapplication and misunderstanding of his prospectus.

Howard's vision of the garden city projected a view of a total environment and a new urban society. The garden city was to be limited in size to 6000 acres; the city itself to occupy 1 000 acres, the rest of the land being given over to industry and agriculture. The population was to be limited to 32 000 inhabitants. Intended to compensate the, squalor and social alienation of the big city as well as the deficiencies of rural life, the garden city was to be autonomous and would incorporate all types and conditions of people. Industry would be located on the periphery of the built-up area, encircled by a 'green girdle' of farm land. The residential areas would be, sub-divided into six wards, or neighbourhoods. Land was to be owned, developed and controlled on a communal basis. [Toward thus saw the garden city in social, economic and political, terms 'social city' as he termed it-and perhaps for the first time articulated a direct link between all of these factors and the physical environment. Individually, each component of Howard's , proposal had its precedent in a tradition of utopian literature that extended to the Renaissance, and beyond. Howard selected from this tradition to compose what he himself called a 'unique combination of proposals'.

The idea was propagated and exploited by a unique combination of sponsors: social reformers, industrialists, philanthropists, politicians, literati, architects, do-gooders, temperance campaigners and all manner of faddist. Given the heterogeneous nature of its membership, it was remarkable that the garden city movement adhered as closely as it did to Howard's proposals. Letchworth, despite a slow start and chronic under-capitalisation, eventually vindicated the founder's belief in the practicability of a socially-mixed residential and working community founded on cooperative (later municipal) enterprise. But later developments had progressively less revolutionary objectives. At Hampstead there was no attempt to provide a commercial, still less an industrial base. The project was planned as a multi-class residential suburb, but never achieved social balance.

 

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Letworth Garden City, by skenmy

 

more about Garden City:

From Garden Cities to New Towns – An Integrative Planning Solution?

A Garden City Without A Garden!

The history of British and Irish towns

From Garden Cities to New Towns – An Integrative Planning Solution?

by Chris Gossop

From their foundation in the form of the two garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn at the start of the twentieth century, the British new towns are now a well established part of planning history. It is perhaps surprising, though, to realise that Milton Keynes, the largest of them, and one of the last to be set up, was designated 40 years ago. So, are the British new towns just history or do they have a continuing relevance?
This paper first traces the evolution of the new towns concept, from the formulation of the garden cities idea by Ebenezer Howard, to the programme of Government new towns that followed the Second World War (WWII). It next seeks to highlight some of the lessons of this experience and then to provide a personal verdict on the successes and failures of these new communities.
An underlying question is whether the new towns achieved Howard’s vision for garden cities as well as the wider regional development aims of Government? Related to that is whether they have become successful places in which to live and work. Following the Congress theme, has Howard’s inclusive vision been realised – have the new towns proved to be an integrative solution?
In its final section, the paper explores the ways in which the new town idea has been taken forward in the United Kingdom. After a lengthy period during which it was given too little importance, the regional planning - of which the new towns were a product - is once more a priority. In the south east of East of England, four major growth areas are now being pursued through a range of mechanisms. One of these will involve a substantial expansion of Milton Keynes and there are roles for other new towns too. The paper concludes with a brief look at the plan for Northstowe, a proposed new settlement near Cambridge.

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queen's court, the centre, milton keynes, england, 1973-1979, by seier+seier

more about Garden City movement:

History of Letchworth Garden City

Staff Houses and Garden Cities: The Influence of the Pulp and Paper Industry on Newfoundland’s Built Heritage

Assessment of Garden City Planning Principles in the ACT

Howard Park and Howard Garden, Letchworth Garden City, Herts: Archaeological Desk Based Assessment

History of Letchworth Garden City

via First Garden City Heritage Museum

In 1898 a small book was published that was to have an effect all over the world. This book, entitled ‘Tomorrow A Peaceful path To Real Reform’, led to the building of two Garden Cities, inspired similar developments world-wide and set a precedent in new standards for urban environments that is still in use today.

The author was Ebenezer Howard, a shorthand writer and social reformer, who believed that he had the solution to the problems of the uncontrolled growth of towns and the migration of people from the countryside to the towns seeking jobs and homes.

By the late 19th century, towns and cities in this country - and in many of the industrialised nations - were overcrowded, polluted by factories and workshops and by the smoke from the coal fires of houses. Many people were living in slum housing and the quality of life for the poorest people, in particular, was almost indescribably bad.

In the countryside, life was often no better with many people out of work and living in houses that were as deficient as the worst houses found in the towns. Many agricultural workers and their families were forced to leave the country for the towns where they hoped to find jobs and houses. In fact, for many people life in the towns was just as difficult as the life they had left behind them.

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more about planning history:

Urban Planning and the British New Right

Railways, Urban Development and Town Planning in Britain, 1948–2008

Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City

Assessment of Garden City Planning Principles in the ACT

Howard Park and Howard Garden, Letchworth Garden City, Herts: Archaeological Desk Based Assessment

Keith J Fitzpatrick-Matthews
North Hertfordshire District Council Museums Service
Archaeology Report 35

Introduction

This assessment of the archaeology of Howard Park and Howard Garden was commissioned on 10 April 2008 by Keith Gayner of North Hertfordshire District Council as part of a Stage 2 submission for Heritage Lottery Funding. The study area is bounded to the west by Norton Way South, to the North by Birds Hill, to the east by Rushby Mead and to the south by Pixmore Way. This report is based purely on existing documentation in the public domain, personal knowledge of the site and its surroundings from the early 1960s to the present, and a detailed site inspection undertaken in April 2008. No original fieldwork was undertaken beyond the site inspection and no original documents held in archives outside North Hertfordshire Museums Service were consulted.

Letchworth Garden City
 

Geology

Letchworth Garden City lies on deposits of Cretaceous chalk, the Lower Chalk formation in lower- lying parts of the town and Middle Chalk on the higher ground (Figure 2). The study area straddles the boundary between the two. The element of the Lower Chalk found in this area has been termed Grey Chalk, occasionally overlain by a thin deposit of Plenus Marl. The former contains frequent marine fossils, especially of pycnodonteine oysters, while the latter appears to have formed in shallow waters with an abundant macrofaunal fossil assemblage (Hopson et al.1996, 34). These are likely to be the deposits underlying the north-western part of the study area. Above them, the Middle Chalk is represented by Melbourn Rock, an off-white chalk with few fossils (Hopson et al.1996, 43). This is the deposit underlying the south-eastern part of the study area. The Lower Chalk and Grey Clay are impervious and their outcropping at the foot of the hills to the south-east cause springs to form; one of these, Pix Brook, and its tributaries, flows through the centre of Letchworth Garden City and forms the eastern boundary of the study area (Miller 2002, 27).
During the Quaternary, the valley of the Pix Brook was occupied by a river draining south from the Midlands via Stevenage in a palaeochannel known as the Stevenage Channel. The initial advance of the Anglian ice sheet (beginning around 480,000 BP) was through this valley, which was gradually broadened to the west, forming the Hitchin Gap. An early retreat of the glacier left a proglacial lake south of Letchworth Garden City, but the site remained under the glacier (Hopson et al. 1996, 100). The ice sheet was up to a kilometre thick and eroded as much as 70 m or so from the former land surface. Deposits left after its retreat have been classified in the Thames Catchment subgroup of the Britannia Catchments Group (McMillan 2005, 98).
In parts of the valley of the Pix Brook, deposits of a neogene calcareous tufa have been observed (for instance, at Norton Common). It is deposited above the till deposits around three metres above the stream and contains species of mollusca known to have been extinct by about 4000 BP (Hopson et al. 1996, 110). It is not known if these deposits are present in the study area.

read the report here

Letchworth, image by stevecadman

related post:

Top 20 Urban Planning Successes of All Time

The Roots and Origins of New Urbanism

By Houshmand E. Masoumi

New Urbanism is one of the most important approaches of the Neo-Traditional Development flow. Although New Urbanism looks almost new, it has roots in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the early 1980s, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk as two of the early leaders of the New Urbanism movement conducted a research on the urban form and architectural characteristics of the late nineteenth and twentieth century settlements of the east and northeast of America. It was before starting to work on the master plan of the most famous planning practice of New Urbanism: Seaside, Florida.
They extracted the main characteristics and formulated them as a number of guidelines, which in 1990s were developed into New Urbanism principles by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU).

Howard’s Garden City

The works of Duany and Plater-Zyberk along with Katz, Molle, Polizoides, Corbett, and others were quite influential in the formation of New Urbanism. Some believe that the idea of such neo-traditionalism was gotten from the first two decades of the twentieth century. As the most influential, Garden City movement was the main pattern of New Urbanist way of thinking.
The 6000-acre Garden City that Ebenezer Howard introduced in his well-known book: Garden Cities of To-morrow in 1902 was influenced by the neighborhood unit of Clarence Perry. The schools were the center of the neighborhood so that the children could easily go to school and get back. Garden City had important Anglo-American features like communality, mobility, individualism, and safety of children which can also be seen in New Urbanism (Lang, 1994).

A Garden City of 66000 acres for 250000 residents

Other Roots

Another source of inspiration of the New Urbanism was the City Beautiful movement. The City Beautiful movement idea originally comes from the neoclassical architectural movement of Beaux Arts (Municipal Arts) in the nineteenth-century France.
Although the shape of the buildings in Beaux Arts architecture is different from the new urban architecture, but there are similarities between the two movements. Human relationships, environmentalism, landscape architecture, and green spaces are basic features of City Beautiful. This is the point that some scholars think that it can be the starting point of the humanist ideology of New Urbanism.

San Francisco - Civic Center: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, a good example of City Beautiful movement's works, Image by Walley Gobetz

Many critics of New Urbanism believe that unlike its name, it is not so “new”. As we see in this article, the ideas are not new. However, the views that the new urbanists have, by which they try to change the form of the sprawling cities of the United States, look fresh to many people.

References

• Howard, E. (1898), “Garden Cities of To-morrow”, London, U.K.: Sonnensc
• Lang, J. (1994), “Urban Design, the American Experience”, New York; Van Nostrand Reinhold.hein.

Civic Center: Civic Center Park - Voorhies Memorial in Denver in another examples of City Beautiful. image by Wally Gobetz

 More readings on New Urbanism:

neo-traditional development: a post modern way in urban design

What Andres Duany and Peter Calthrope Beieved in 1995

Designing Community: The Utopia of New Urbanism

 

 

 

Top 20 Urban Planning Successes of All Time

Via Public Servant Blog

Planning a great yet functional urban area takes innovation as well as knowledge. The following top 20 urban planning successes of all time range from the Taos Pueblo to the current functionality presented by Camden Town, London. In between, you’ll discover plenty of examples of urban planning that stood the test of time or that successfully remedied the ravages of time.

Granville Island, Vancouver, source: Google Maps

1. Amsterdam, Netherlands: The capital and largest city in the Netherlands, Amsterdam has flourished from the 14th century. In the early 17th century, a comprehensive plan was developed that was based on four concentric half-circles of canals with their ends emerging at the IJ bay. Today, with little expansion, only 20 percent of trips around the city are in a car. Amsterdam is one of the most bicycle-friendly large cities in the world.
2. Billerica Garden Suburb, Massachusetts: Incorporated in 1914, Billerica offered the country’s first garden suburb designed specifically for workers. Modeled after Ebenezer Howard’s English garden city designs, Billerica combined a limited dividend corporation with co-partnership. Workers would own their homes by purchasing shares. The result was the construction of 70 new homes between 1914 and 1917.
3. Granville Island, Vancouver:    Read more