GARDEN CITY

CONCEPT
Sir Ebenezer Howard, who is well known for his book Garden Cities of Tomorrow,
was the founder of the Garden City Movement (1898). It shows an ideal metropolis in which
people live together peacefully with nature. He was also the one who came up with the idea
for Garden City. The concept called for small communities that were self-contained and
surrounded by greenbelts. He said that they would be able to provide all of a person's daily
needs while yet preserving a connection to the natural world.

He labelled these areas "magnets," locations where people would desire to live and
work. His garden towns were planned, with villages surrounded by a green belt (parks) and
proportionate areas of residential, industrial, and agricultural zones. The garden city
movement was started in response to the urban difficulties that affected the industrial cities
of the time. The Garden City Concept was a successful approach to improve the quality of
life in congested and polluted industrial cities that had destroyed the environment and posed
a significant health concern. Howard proposed a number of additions, many of which were
related to green and open places. The greenbelt was included in the urban design and
country planning of the garden city model.

These three magnets are often known as the principles of a garden city. Howard's concept
prioritized open spaces, including Central Park and green spaces.
Town: The options for job and high earnings, social opportunities, amusements, and well-lit
streets all draw people to ‘Town Magnet.' Natural beauty, fresh air, and healthfulness are all
draws to ‘Country Magnet.' It was a retreat from nature that provided solitude from crowds
and a break from labour. But everything came at a price: stale air, poor drainage, a hazy sky,
and slums.

Country: It featured natural beauty, low rents, fresh air, and a meadow, but it also had low
wages and no drainage. Dullness, a lack of society, poor incomes, a lack of amusements,
and general degradation characterize the country.

Town- Country: It was a hybrid of city and countryside with the goal of combining the
advantages of both. It offered natural beauty, social opportunities, fields with easy access,
affordable rent, good wages, and a field of enterprise. As a result, the solution was found in
combining the advantages of town and country; it was offered as a town in the country, with
natural beauty, pure air, and healthfulness within it. As a result, the benefits of both the city
and the country are seeded to be free of the disadvantages of both.

The garden city is a neighbourhood in which people from all walks of life can live and work
together in peace. A garden city is a sort of community or urban design that was constructed
employing a comprehensive planning and architecture approach. The term "garden city"
refers to a community where people live, work, and play. Garden City's green landscapes
and public amenities are its distinguishing features.
 A perfect garden city is a small town of 6000 acres, with 5000 acres set aside for
agriculture. It has a maximum capacity of 32,000 people. Everywhere you look, there are
parks and private lawns. Furthermore, the roads are circumferential rather than linear, with
widths ranging from 120 to 420 feet for Grand Avenue. Functional zoning is essential within
the town. Commercial, industrial, residential, and public uses are spatially distinct from one
another. There were no individual land ownership co-operatives, and there were united land
ownership co-operatives. The local community was also involved in the development
decision-making process. There is a central park with public buildings, as shown in the
diagram. It is surrounded on all sides by shopping streets, which are in turn encircled on all
sides by residential apartments. Factory and industry are located in the outer circle. The
town is bypassed by rail lines, which meet at a tangent.

New connecting nodes can be constructed when a city reaches its goal population. A
Garden City has been established, with a population of 32,000 people. How will it expand? It
will expand by building a new city a little distance beyond its own zone of ‘country,' allowing
the new town to have its own zone. However, residents of one town could go to the other in
a matter of minutes, thanks to special rapid transit infrastructure, and the two towns'
residents would effectively form one community. There will be a cluster of cities so grouped
around a Central City that each inhabitant of the entire group, though in one sense living in a
small town, would be in reality living in, and enjoying all the advantages of, a great and most
beautiful city.
Ebenezer Howard proposed a set of principles for Garden Cities that are still applicable
today:

 Strong vision, leadership and community engagement

 Land value capture for the benefit of the community

 Community ownership of land and long-term stewardship of assets

 Mixed-tenure homes and housing types that are affordable for ordinary people

 Beautifully and imaginatively designed homes with gardens in healthy communities

 Strong local jobs offer in the Garden City itself and within easy commuting distance

 Opportunities for residents to grow their own food, including allotments

 Generous green space, including: surrounding belt of countryside to prevent

unplanned sprawl; well-connected and biodiversity-rich public parks; high quality
gardens; tree-lined streets; and open spaces

 Strong cultural, recreational and shopping facilities in walkable neighbourhoods

 Integrated and accessible transport systems

Garden City has many unique features, including:

• 1000 acres of cities built for healthy living and industry

• 12 families per acre density
• A huge central park with public structures.
• restricted population (about 32000 people), planned ahead of time, and land in single
ownership to avoid overpopulation
STRENGHT

1. PROVIDE PARK AND OPEN SPACE

The Garden City provides more parks and open space. These can improve our
physical and psychological health, strengthen our communities, and make our cities and
neighborhoods more attractive places to live and work. Parks serve as the heart of their
communities. As such, these recreation areas should be a high priority for community
planners. The importance of parks and recreation goes beyond adding green space to
beautify the community. Residents, kids, and the local government all benefit from having a
nearby park or play space. In addition, Homebuyers prefer homes close to parks, open
spaces, and greenery.

The spreading of the park and open spaces contributes to the creation of a new layer
of urban biodiversity. The presence of this new layer with plants that create habitat and food
for species has a direct impact on the generation of wildlife corridors, which are essential for
improving the quality of life and well-being in today’s cities. This Park and open space
planted with many trees provide more green space in the city which can help to mitigate the
effects of global warming and pollution and can reduce a phenomenon known as the urban
heat island effect, which refers to heat trapped in built-up areas.

More Park and open spaces also can help improves our quality of life. Green
presence in our urban environment fosters our connection with nature and consequently can
lead us to better human well-being. Numerous studies show the beneficial effects of urban
green on people such as reducing stress, decreasing respiratory and cardiovascular
diseases, and improving concentration.

2. REDUCE CROWDING

In a Garden city, the downtown or central city is surrounded by a satellite city, which
can help reduce the central city's overcrowding. Because the city's population grows every
year, a satellite city was constructed to minimise overcrowding in the central city. This
satellite city or suburban area may serve as a deterrent to visitors visiting the central city.
Because some of the population has relocated to other places, the expansion of the urban
area is an organic process that results in less congested traffic in the main city. As a result,
traffic congestion in the city's central districts is less severe. Once a satellite city is created,
infrastructure and vital facilities will be put in place to make life easier for the residents.
People will migrate from the central city to the suburbs.

3. SUSTAINABLE CITY

Garden city designed with consideration for social, economic, environmental impact,
and resilient habitat for existing populations, without compromising the ability of future
generations to experience the same. The reason garden city also a sustainable city because
this city is pedestrian-friendly or Walkability, Factors influencing walkability include the
presence or absence and quality of footpaths, sidewalks, or other pedestrian rights-of-way,
traffic, and road conditions, land use patterns, building accessibility, and safety, among
others. this garden city is Interconnected parks, trails, sidewalks, and pathways, by an
increase in pedestrianization also can reduce car emissions.

Furthermore, this city is surrounded by a greenbelt, which provides agricultural open

area. Even though this open land is in the city, people can still farm there. Urban farming,
often known as urban agriculture, is the act of growing and distributing food as well as
raising animals in and near cities. Because it is integrated into the urban economic and
ecological system, urban farming differs from rural agriculture.

IMPACT ON TODAY’S DEVELOPMENT

Nowadays, the number of people live in the city increase by the year. This is also
called urbanization. Urbanization occurs mainly because people move from rural areas to
urban areas and it results in growth in the size of the urban population and the extent of
urban areas. More than half the world’s population now lives in cities. At a certain point, the
city where we live will be overpopulated. The cities regularly contend with coastal flooding,
storms, drought, air pollution, and1 natural disasters in addition to the impacts of dramatic
urbanization. Along with developing climate adaptation strategies, cities must reduce their
impact on the environment and build healthy communities that enhance liveability.

Even though the garden city was founded by Sir Ebenezer Howard in his 1898 book
“Garden Cities of To-Morrow” but it is still relevant nowadays. Many modern cities in the
whole world already adopted this garden city concept. Letchworth Garden City was the first
city to apply the garden city concept. In Malaysia, as we know Putrajaya was one of the
successful garden cities that we have and our neighbour, Singapore a city-state also
adopted this concept and became a role model for other cities. As we know previously
there many cities were based on industrialization because of the industrial revolution, people
live near the factory and start increasingly crowded and became smog-choked cities. These
kinds of cities are not suitable to live in and not sustainable. Hence, to overcome this
problem the garden city has become one of the solutions this problem.

This garden city concept influences today’s urban development. The garden city
concept makes people realized the importance to have a greenbelt (park) or open space for
communities in the cities. As you can see today’s many developing housing projects
provided an area for communities such as the park, playground, and so on. Moreover, you
can see garden city influence in design and layout of housing, neighbourhood’s area today
uses the almost same design and layout in garden city concept. For example, no dead-end
lane or road, have a back lane that is a necessity for better sanitation and have reserved
parks, playgrounds, or public gardens.

Nowadays we cannot simply build a building on a certain land because each land
has its zone. This is called zoning; Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a
municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones. This method
also applies to the garden city concept. Related to this method, one element of a garden city
is the allocation of special quarters or sites for each kind of building. Today you can see,
there are few buildings has special quarters or area for example factory. Factories were
allocated at industrial areas which are at the outer circle of cities.

Last but not least, if you watch the layout or the map of the garden city concept, you
will see the central city is surrounded by a satellite city or suburban. Each city was
connected by road and also public transport, this makes it easier for people to move from
one place to another. People can choose to ride their private transport such as a car or take
a public transport which more recommended. Singapore was one example; this country was
a small island state because the land here was quite limited so they had optimum public
transport facilities. The majority area in Singapore has access to public transport either MRT
or buses. The objective is to connected the communities and also increases socio-economic.

The idea of the garden city, which has economic and social advantages that urban
aggregation had destroyed. It was described as a "marriage of town and country, in a more
integrated urban and regional pattern." These new town towns provide a more pleasant
environment than the old city's crowded and filthy districts. The movement was successful in
underlining the importance of urban planning policies, which led to the New Town
movement.
References

Admin. (2021, January 22). Garden City Movement by Sir Ebenezer Howard. Planning Tank.
https://planningtank.com/planning-theory/garden-city-movement.

Ben. (2013, April 9). Do ‘Garden Cities’ Just Become ‘Cities’ Over Time? House Planning
Help. https://www.houseplanninghelp.com/do-garden-cities-just-become-cities-over-time/.

Siccardi, E. (2019, September 4). The Garden City Movement. Groundsure.

https://www.groundsure.com/resources/garden-city-movement/.