Topic 6A: Cities of Tomorrow: The Origins of City Planning

6A - Cities of Tomorrow: The Origins of City Planning

Rebecah Wiesner

In the twentieth century planning became a major governmental function and the field is continuing to expand today.  With the need for better facilities and infrastructure due to the outbreak of diseases in the city, some form of planning became necessary to create a more sanitary environment for people to live in. The need for more comfortable and attractive place to live also became a big concern with the expansion of cities, towns and suburbs especially in the slums along railway lines. One solution to this issue was the inclusion of more green space throughout the city to add more leisure areas and create a more appealing atmosphere. One influential plan that helped to shaped the cities we live in today was Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City ideal.

Garden Cities

Howard’s garden city concept was based on the social issues that were based on the physical form of cities. His emphasis on the open and agricultural land around the town or city was a concept that was widely taken on board by many planners and designers and this concept of the green belt is still evident in many of our cities today but not necessarily in the same way that Howard intended it to be used. With this idea came the inclusion of wedges of green space, which brought the openness and more natural elements much closer to the central city. These ideas that were implemented in new cities aimed to create a city that would supplant all the existing cites by making a place so attractive, beautiful and functional that living anywhere else was no longer desirable.

With the garden city, the idea of expansion was also heavily considered. Howard’s garden city did not simply expand how our cites do today, by adding directly on to what we already have, but instead once the city had reached it’s ideal population smaller towns or miniature cities were built on the outskirts of the green belt. These towns were connected to the central city by a mass transit system and were never more than a few minutes away. Expanding in this way ensured that all the fresh delights and woodlands of the country, not just perfect parks and gardens, were never more than a few minutes walk or ride way (Howard, 1902). The three magnets used by Howard were a way of combining the most ideal aspects of both towns and the country into one to create the best possible city, which has all the essential components of the city and the desirable aspects of the country.

One example of Howard’s garden city idea is the city of Letchworth, laid out by Raymond Unwin in 1903, becoming the first city of its kind. The physical for of the city was based on the English vernacular cottage tradition, meaning that instead of the long terrace housing the Howard had imagined, shorter groups of detached and semidetached housing were used (Ward, 2002). This approach proved very attractive and was soon used elsewhere.

Figure 1. Ebenezer Howard’s idea of city growth and expansion (Howard, 1902) 

Garden Suburbs

Similar to the garden cities, garden suburbs were about creating a comfortable and attractive place to live. The garden suburbs however, were not about planning completely new places but more about making the existing cities, suburbs and living spaces that already existed more bearable, healthy and desirable. The garden suburb, with its application of garden city principles, became more successful than the garden city itself.

In North London, the Unwin-Parker for the new Hampstead Garden Suburb had one of the biggest impacts (Ward, 2002). The suburb was founded and promoted by Henrietta Barnett, who broadened her objective to create a garden suburb for all social classes. Unwin and Parker’s plan made Barnett’s visions become reality. The aim of the Hampstead Garden Suburb was to build affordable housing, promote a better understanding between the classes, and preserve the natural beauty of the Heath and landscape features (Davidson, 2014). Rather than the garden city ideals, however, Henrietta Barnett was more interested in replacing the slums with an abundance of space, beauty and village living where all classes live in harmony (Toker, 2006).

Figure 2. Hampstead Garden Suburb in 1923 (hgs.org.uk, 1998)

Figure 3. Hampstead Garden Suburb in 2002 (hgs.org.uk, 2003)

Another planner who focused on creating a better social atmosphere in the city, particularly focused on slum life, was Patrick Geddes. He contributed a wider social and cultural perspective on the new activity of planning as he aimed to improve the slum areas of London in particular; by having better hygiene, more open recreational space and a more beautiful city.

City Planning Today

Town and city planning in the 21^st Century still has some of the ideas of the garden suburb to a certain extent. Much of our planning is about creating a better aesthetic and more beautiful cityscape by adding more green spaces and open areas. Clearing space for these purposes however, comes with the problems of where to build new housing. Although current planning is making the city more dense with many options for compact and high-rise living, the idea of living away from the city is still very common. With the amount of urban sprawl in our cities today, our green belt is continually pushed further and further away from the city centre, leaving our cities and inner suburbs more urbanised. This can be seen in the push for more urban development outside the city of Melbourne.

Figure 4. Pressure for new development and urban sprawl (Buxton, 2011)

One of the current ideas to bring more natural life into our city is the addition of new parks, the replanting of tress throughout our streets, and most recently the idea to uncover the creek that runs under Elizabeth Street. All these ideas relate to bringing more open space, greenery and appealing elements into our existing cities; similar to the ideas of Howard’s garden city with his town-country magnets that aim to create a city with the most appealing qualities of both.

References

Buxton, M., Alvarez, A., Butt, A., Farrell, S., Densley, L., Pelikan, M., O’Neill, D. (2011). Scenario Planning for Melbourne’s Peri-Urban Region. RMIT University. Retrieved from http://mams.rmit.edu.au/r7bqnzelwnjm.pdf

Davidson, A. (2014). One hundred years in the making: the creation and protection of Raymond Unwin’s legacy at Hampstead Garden Suburb. Taylor & Francis Online. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02665433.2014.948487#.VTCANlwxGT8

Hampstead Garden Suburb: Addison Way. (2003). Retrieved from http://www.hgs.org.uk/mystreet/index.html

Hampstead Garden Suburb: Historical Background. (1998). Retrieved from http://www.hgs.org.uk/history/index.html

Howard, E. (1902). Garden Cities of To-Morrow. Eastbourne, Sussex: Attic Books

Toker, U., & Toker, Z. (2006). Revisiting Hampstead Garden Suburb: A (Cautionary) Tale of Spatial Determinism. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1064&context=focus

Ward, S. (1992). The Garden City: past, present and future. London, New York: E & FN Spon