Garden City Movement a

concept by Sir Ebenezer

Howard

What was Garden City Movement by Sir

Ebenezer Howard ?
Sir Ebenezer Howard is known for his Publication Garden Cities of To-
morrow (1898), the description of a utopian city in which people live
harmoniously together with nature. Garden City Concept was also given by him.
The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement that
realized several Garden Cities in Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th
century. He had no training in urban planning or design but excelled in creating
places which he called “magnets” where people would want to come to reside
and work. His garden cities were planned, contained communities surrounded
by a green belt (parks), containing proportionate areas of residences, industry
and agriculture. Garden city movement aimed at addressing the urban problems
plaguing the industrial city of that time. Garden City Concept was an effective
response for a better quality of life in over crowded and dirty industrial towns
which had deteriorated the environment and posed serious threat to health.

Garden city movement had The Three Magnets to addresses the question
‘Where will the people go?’ the choices being ‘Town’, ‘Country’ or
‘Town Country’.

1. Town – The pull of ‘Town Magnet’ are the opportunities for work and high
wages, social opportunities, amusements and well – lit streets. The pull of
‘Country Magnet’ is in natural beauty, fresh air, healthfulness. It was
closing out of nature, offered isolation of crowds and distance from work.
But it came at a cost of foul air, costly drainage, murky sky and slums.
2. Country – It offered natural beauty, low rents, fresh air, meadow but had
low wages and lack of drainage. Country has dullness, lack of society, low
wages, lack of amusements and general decay.
3. Town- Country – it was a combination of both town and countryside with
aim of providing benefits of both and offered beauty of nature, social
opportunity, fields if easy access, low rent, high wages and field of
enterprise. Thus, the solution was found in a combination of the
advantages of Town and Country – the ‘Town – Country Magnet’ – it was
 proposed a Town in the Country, and having within it the amenities of
natural beauty, fresh air and healthfulness. Thus advantages of the Town
– Country are seed to be free from the disadvantages of either.

How cities were supposed to be developed as per Garden City

Movement
An ideal garden city is a compact town of 6000 acres, 5000 of which is
permanently reserved for agriculture. It accommodates a maximum population
of 32,000. There are parks and private lawn everywhere. Also the roads are
wide, ranging from 120 to 420 feet for the Grand Avenue, and are radial rather
than linear. Within the town, functional zoning is basic. Commercial, industrial,
residential, and public uses are clearly differentiated from each other
spatially. Additional elements include unified land ownership –co-operatives,
there was no individual ownership of land. Local community also participated in
the decision making regarding development. As we can see in the diagram,
there is a central park containing public buildings. It is surrounded by shopping
streets which are further surrounded by dwelling units in all directions. The outer
circle contains factories and industries. Rail road’s bypasses the town, meeting
the town at tangent.

After a city reaches its target population, new interconnected nodes can be
developed. A Garden City is built up and its population has reached 32,000.
How will it grow? It will grow by establishing another city some little distance
beyond its own zone of ‘country’, so that the new town may have a zone of
country of its own. But the inhabitants of the one could reach the other in a very
few minutes; for rapid transit would be specially provided for, and thus the
people of the two towns would in reality represent one community. There will be
a cluster of cities so grouped around a Central City that each inhabitant of the
whole group, though in one sense living in a town of small size, would be in
reality living in, and would enjoy all the advantages of, a great and most
beautiful city; and yet all the fresh delights of the country; field, hedgerow, and
woodland not prim parks and gardens merely would be within a very few
minutes’ walk or ride. And because the people in their collective capacity own
the land on which this beautiful group of cities is built, the public buildings, the
churches, the schools and universities, the libraries, picture galleries, theatres,
would be on a scale of magnificence which no city in the world whose land is in
pawn to private individuals can afford.

Thus the main components of Howard’s Garden city

movement were:

1. Planned Dispersal: The organized outward migration of industries and

people to towns of sufficient size to provide the services, variety of
occupations, and level of culture needed by a balanced cross – section of
modern society.
2. Limit of Town – size: The growth of towns to be limited, in order that their
inhabitants may live near work, shops, social centers, and each other and
also near open country.
3. Amenities: The internal texture of towns to be open enough to permit of
houses with private gardens, adequate space for schools and other
functional purposes, and pleasant parks and parkways.
4. Town and Country Relationship: The town area to be defined and a large
area around it reserved permanently for agriculture; thus enabling the farm
people to be assured of a nearby market and cultural center, and the town
people to have the benefit of a country situation.
5. Planning Control: Pre – planning of the whole town framework, including
the road – scheme, and functional zoning; the fixing of maximum densities;
 the control of building as to quality and design, but allowing for individual
variety; skillful planting and landscape garden design.
6. Neighborhoods: The town to be divided into wards, each to some extent
a developmental and social entity.

Some of the important features of Garden City are –

 1000 acres of towns designed for healthy living and industry

 5000 acres if permanent green belt which surrounds the whole town
 Density of 12 families per acre
 A large central park having public building.
 limited size of approx 32000 people, planned in advance and land in single
ownership to eliminate overcrowding.

Garden cities examples as a result of garden city movement

Two garden cities were built using Howard’s garden city movement concept are
Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City, both in Hertfordshire,
England.

Letchworth Garden City – The first garden city developed in 1903 by Barry
Parker & Raymond Unwin after having won the competition to build first garden
city. It is 34 miles away from London. It has an area of 5000 acres with 3000
acres of green belt. It had an agricultural strip at periphery to check the invasion
of urban area i.e. the sprawling. It showed Howard’s general principles,
including the communal ownership of the land and the permanent green belt
has been carried through. It was a town of homes and gardens with ample open
spaces and a spirited community life. A great attention was paid to landscaping
and planting.

 Its plan was based on population of 30000 with living area of 1250 acres
and 2500 acres of rural green belt.
 Communities ranged from 12000 – 18000 people, small enough which
required no vehicular transportation.
 Industries were connected to central city by rapid transportation.

Welwyn – It was the second Garden City founded by Sir Ebenzer Howard and
designed by Louis De Soissions in 1920 and was located 20 miles from Kings
Cross. It was designed for 4000 population in 2400 acres. It was a town visually
pleasing and was efficient technically and was human in scale.

 It started with area of 2400 acres and 4000 population

 Had a parkway, almost a mile long central mall
 Town laid out along tree-lined boulevards with Neo Georgian town center
 Every road had a wide grass verge

Garden city concept spread to various parts of world and influenced and all
English, American, Canadian & Australian planning but housing was most
influenced. Other example include Glenrother, Bedford Park, Milton Keyns in
United Kingdom, Village Homes, Reston in United States, Helleran in Germany,
Tapiola in Finland.

Failure of Garden cities:

Letchworth slowly attracted more residents because it was able to attract

manufacturers through low taxes, low rents and more space. Despite Howard’s
best efforts, the home prices in this garden city could not remain affordable for
workers to live in. Although many viewed Letchworth as a success, it did not
immediately inspire government investment into the next line of garden cities.
In frustration, Howard bought land at Welwyn to house the second garden city
in 1919. The Welwyn Garden City Corporation was formed to oversee the
construction. But Welwyn did not become self-sustaining because it was only
20 miles from London. Even until the end of the 1930s, Letchworth and Welwyn
remained as the only existing garden cities.

Conclusion on garden city movement

The idea of garden city, which has economic and social advantages that urban
aggregation had destroyed, was seen in the first two garden cities only. It was
seen as the “marriage of town and country, in an increasingly coherent urban
and regional pattern”. These new town towns offer a pleasing environment than
crowded and squalid quarters in old cities. The movement succeeded in
emphasizing the need for urban planning policies that eventually led to the New
Town movement.