The Garden City and Modernist Ideal Cities

 

 

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The Garden City and Modernist Ideal Cities

1. Introduction

As the world embraced urbanization and industrialization in the early 1900s, certain realities began setting in the minds of philosophers. Negative social issues became clearer as the society was segregated into the poor and rich, and the environment pouted by industrial activity. While idealism is not achievable in practice, it acts as a benchmark to push society into achieving the best. Such is the idea behind utopia, which is an imaginary ideal of society and city. In pursuance of utopia, Ebenezer Howard created ‘The Garden City’, which was built in Hartwoodshire, near London. While the city did not achieve the ideals presented by Howard, it attained remarkable improvement in the urban setting as a result of the introduction of rural elements in the city.

This paper is a case study of Letchworth City, which was built along Horward’s Garden City Utopian model. However, the study begins by presenting the background of the subject which includes a historical review of the development of various Utopian concepts. An examination of the core components that led to the Utopian ideas including the motivating factors of early urban life is made after which the Garden city Utopian Model is examined. The study then involves a detailed examination of the Garden city model after which the first city to be built along the Garden City model (Letchworth city) is examined.

2. Background Information

2.1 Social, Political, and Economic Influential Factors

The term utopia was coined by Thomas More in his work ‘Utopia (1516)’ which was followed by significant works on the subject by Marx and other philosophers in the late 1800s. The great interest in social sciences was at that time driven by the urge to formulate a socialistic framework to explain the formation of society. The main school of thought about socialization centred on two sociological formations namely capitalism and socialism. While capitalism suggested individual ownership of property and autonomy in economical activities, socialism fronted the communal ownership of property where individuals were mere caretakers rather than autonomous owners of the property.

2.2 Purpose

Thomas More’s concept of utopia envisioned a society where society owns property such as farms, land, and businesses. As such, the society would function as a whole to make important decisions regarding the property. The government would then play an important role in coordinating activities and overseeing the ownership of the property. Proponents of decentralization believed that communal property should be controlled more by those people that would be directly affected by the property. As such the decisions concerning the property should be taken at the lowest level possible by the affected people. The conflict in ideas among socialists persisted throughout the period where socialism formed a major point of political activity.

2.3 Social and Capitalist Ideas

Social and capitalist ideas have great importance in the society and-and in the ideas of early philosophers such as Plato, who presented an idea where men and women of the guardian class share everything between them including spouses and other relatives (Foucault, 1984, 5). Notably, early Christians were also asked to share their belongings with the poor. While wealth belonged to individual in the Christian communities, people were urged to consider themselves as just stewards, and that all wealth belongs to God. As such, those who hold large amounts of wealth do so for the benefit of the poor and needy and should share it with them. Today, some monastic orders continue the practice of sharing the wealth and consider wealth ownership as a duty of individuals on behalf of the entire community (Foucault, M., 1984, 4).

 

 

3 Case Study: Letchworth Garden City 1903

The first Garden City was Letchworth that was built in Hertfordshire that was approximately 34 miles from London. The City was built in the Garden city model developed by Ebenezer Horward. Before the building of the city, Howard actively lectured around London to gain support from prominent people who helped facilitate its building. Significantly, Ralph Neville (a prominent lawyer); George Cadbury ( a prominent businessman); and William lever, supported the idea resulting in the Garden City Association buying 3,800 hectares of unoccupied land in Hertfordshire. Contrary to Howard’s expectations, the dynamics of the garden city did not play out as he had envisioned (Howard, E., 1946). Firstly, the communal land ownership was not implemented, the creation of the rail transport network resulted in a new segment of residents who adopted both urban and rural lifestyle, the English people within the city failed to adopt to the rural life after having been used to urban life. However, the project had a positive impact in that it introduced the concept of a garden within the city, which brought rural elements into the urban life. As a result, the city combined the architecture of urban cities and the natural beauty of the rural countryside.

3.1 Howard’s Garden City Model

Ebenezer Howard envisioned an ideal city that was filled with natural attributes and architectural beauty. In his 1898 concept, he sought to offer a solution to social problems of poverty and political upheaval. Howard was concerned about the overcrowding in cities and sought to offer a design that would address the problem even in the event of population growth. Also, he offered to address social issues and political reforms through his concept. His major focus was on social transformation rather than architectural or physical issues (Howard, E., 1946).

The Garden City merged two problems to develop a unifying solution. Firstly, Howard considered the overcrowding that was occurring in the urban setting resulting in other social issues such as dispute for land, and political instability. Secondly, he considered the rate at which people were moving from the countryside to the urban places resulting in reduced population of the countryside. His Garden City concept merged the two situations to develop a solution in the form of a city where both countryside and urban life can be experienced, and wealth is distributed equally among these two country settings. Precisely, the Garden City represented a well-developed countryside; that would attract people from the urban back to the countryside.

Descriptively, the Garden city consisted of three magnets namely the Town, the country, and the town-country. The city would have the three major components achieved by allocating parcels of land for the three. Precisely, there would be land for the country- which would be agricultural land; land for the town, which would have industries and a township, then there would be land that accommodated both industry and agricultural land. As such, people would be drawn to the environment that they loved most.

3.2 Major Components of the Garden City

Howard’s concept was that each city would have 30,000 resident people and about 200 workers from the surrounding areas in the agricultural sections (Howard, E., 1946). Each town would be encircled by a rural estate and would be connected by electric railways to facilitate easy human transportation around the city. The city would operate through enforcing co-operative development, where the land would be owned collectively by citizens. As such, any increment in land value would be felt by the entire community, and this would serve as an attraction for people to occupy the rural areas.

The city would have an economical balance where there would be a range of employment opportunities. This would be facilitated by the presence of the industrial places with easy access and available transportation. Additionally, the city would have social balance because wealth will have been distributed equally among the people. Howard, focused more on the administration and development of the cities and his design relied on a set of diagrams that wee simplified. His plan was architecturally circular and encouraged cooperation (Howard, E., 1946).

3.3 Key Characteristics of the Garden City

Howard’s Garden City had regional systems that were divided by green belt with efficient transportation systems connecting them. The city had a circular formation with the public buildings and service areas contained in the central region. The public areas would be surrounded by the residential area, which would be followed by the industrial area that would be located at the edge. Finally, small holdings, farms, and allotments would form the periphery around the city.

The city is divided into equal parts by large boulevards, which also demarcate the city into its different zones. Effectively, the design of the city would bring many benefits to both urban and rural life with the civic and leisure activities bringing the people together, though the city did not offer much regarding cultural facilities.

3.4 Influence of the Movement in the 21^st Century

The Garden City movement had a significant influence on the planning of cities from the building of Letchworth Garden city in 1903. The concept of putting a garden in an urban setting became popular and soon other cities began putting up a garden that acted as a resting park for people during leisure time. City planners reviewed their plans and began incorporating the garden city movement in their plans.

Far and foremost, city planning emerged a social planning issue with no government or private sector involvement. However, in the City Garden movement, Howard sought the involvement of the government and prominent individuals in implementing the plan. After the achievements of the Letchworth Garden city, the British government formed the Town Planning Institute, which was entrenched in the British Law as the Housing and Town Planning Act in 1913 (Phillips, 1977) . The involvement of government in town planning became a planning model that got recognition from around the world and today Governments take an active role in Town Planning.

The British government did not only adopt town planning, but officially recognized Howard’s Garden City model as the basis for its city plans (Phillips, 1977). The Garden City movement became the primary concept behind the planning of New London. While the London city plan, and also the plans of other numerous city plans were not exact replicas of the Garden City plan, they borrowed from its major principles. Precisely, city plans consisted of identifiable demarcations such as the industrial area, residential area, central business district, and agricultural area. In addition, city plans included green belts that brought natural environment within the city. To date cities around the world have adopted elements from the garden city plan, and some built in full conformity to the model. For instance, most major cities around the world have resting parks within the central business area.

4. Conclusion

In conclusion, the concept of utopia represents an ideal in social achievement that is difficult to attain in practice. However, the concept offers valuable ideals that would drive social planning to achieve the best in social composition. The development of utopias was motivated by the need to address problems in urban life notably social issues such as overcrowding, economic imbalance, and political instability. From the results obtained by implementing the Garden City, it is clear that achieving these ideals is a complex matter. However, in trying to achieve the ideals, we can obtain the best in society. Probably an unforeseen phenomenon is where the Garden city concept would influence city planning all over the world. While many cities may have not adopted every detail about the Garden city they have incorporated elements of the movement in their planning such as putting resting parks, inclusion of segmented areas for industrial use, central business, agricultural use, and residential use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Foucault, M., 1984. Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias. Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité, pp. 1 – 9.

Howard, E., 1946. Garden cities for tomorrow. [Online] (updated 1946) Available at: <http://urbanplanning.library.cornell.edu/DOCS/howard.htm> [Accessed 18 Dec. 2015].