Garden Cities and their

Legacies
 Reading
Read the first part of chapter ten pages 201-216
in Building Suburbia and answer the following:
In this chapter the author talks about two
towns; one called Seaside, the other
Celebration: how do they compare to the
ideas of the Garden City movement
addressed in this lecture?
What characterizes their basic organizational
layout?
 Questions for you
In this lecture I will be talking about the
way garden cities renewed attention to
the role parks play in cities: How have
parks affected your perception of the city:
How do you use them as a civic entity?
I will also be talking about the connection
between commerce and community in
garden cities: Do you think that an outfit
like Walmart can fit the garden city
movement-if so how?
 What sparked
interest in Garden
Cities?
The desire for a just and
ideal society.
Finding an appropriate
balance between home
and work in an age in
which the factory had
become a pervasive
component of the
physical and labor
landscape.
To curb unmitigated
growth.
 Ebenezer Howard
and the Garden City
Movement
Dissatisfied by the way cities
were growing and the
alienating conditions of
industrial work; Howard would
in 1902 write Garden Cities of
Tomorrow, proposing a new
balance magnet between
country and city.
This city would take on a radial
scheme, starting with the core
where a symbolic garden was
to unite the entire city.
The organizational
layout of Howards
Garden City
The basic shape of
Howards garden city was
the circle, a self-
sustaining nucleus.
Organizing this circle
were a series of
concentric circles, each
defined by a certain
function and each
separated from the other
by a green belt.
 The functions of
the circles
In the concentric layer after
the first central garden
Howard proposed locating
public buildings such as: City
hall; Library; Hospital. In the
following circles he proposed
the following
Crystal palace: a covered
public market
Houses with ample ground
Grand Av. Park:
Schools/churches
At the outer level
of the circle
At the outer layer of the
circle Howard placed the
more industrial functions
of the city.
Factories, Warehouses,
coal yards, timber/lumber
yards.
Also here were placed
transportation hubs for
the easy import and
export of materials and
food items.
Beyond the circle
One of the reasons that
Howard thought of the
garden city had to do with
the preservation of
farmland.
Each circle then
represented an attempt to
control growth.
Whenever one garden
city reached its capacity
another one would be
started somewhere
nearby.
Letchworth: Howards
first garden city
application (1903 - )
With the help of
individuals in positions of
power, Howard was able
to build on his garden city
ideals.
While Letchworth did not
accommodate the social
reforms that had been
intended, it did serve as a
model for how industry,
residences, civic
structures can all come to
work in unity.
Letchworh: a balance
between beauty and
functionality
Letchworth clearly
illustrated how beauty in
living can inspire people
to become more
industrious and work
together
Of the more noteworthy
successes of Letchworth
is the fact that all the
proceeds generated in
the community (real
estate / taxes) are
returned to the
community,
The migration of
the Garden City
from England to
America
The ills that had defined the
English city were in many
ways the same as those that
had affected the American city.
John Nolen would adopt
Howards principles in solving
the problems of the American
city and in making his
proposals for new
developments
Plan of Venice, FL, by John Nolen, 1925.
Examples: Venice, FL;
Commissioned by the Brotherhood of
Mariemont, OH; the City of Locomotive Engineers.
San Diego
The objectives of
Venice, FL
To preserve natural boundary
To Improve traffic and
establish a civic center.
Establish mixed use centers to
protect against unsightly
sprouting of commerce.
Adequate control of private
property: discourage
speculative development; for
each cluster of private land
there needs to be public
buildings.
Seaside, Florida
 Radburn, NJ
Even more than
Venice, Radburn is
considered to be the
one development that
most resembles in
principle Howards
garden city.
But while Howards
city did not explicitly
address the car, Radburn, NJ, 1929, By
Radburn did. Clarence Stein and Henry
Wright
Preservation of
green space in
Radburn
By clustering housing
units in pods and
assigning each its
own street and cul-
de-sac, Radburn
sought to preserve
large green spaces
between the pods for
walking and general
recreation.
Superblocks, driveways and Cul-
de-Sacs
 Housing at
Radburn
Following in the principles
of garden cities, Radburn
introduced into the
scheme of things, a
variety of housing types.
469 single family homes,
48 townhouses,30 two
family houses, and 93
unit apartment.
Commerce and
Governance at
Radburn
Radburn included a
business district, mostly
located at the town plaza
but sufficient enough to
allow residents basic
needs.
It was also based on self-
governance where
residents of the town
could elect their trustees
and form control
covenants and other
regulations.
 The legacy of Garden City finds
expression in Urban Renewal
In the 50s and 60s when
the city was neglected in
favor of the suburbs,
leaving behind blighted
neighborhoods, city
officials along with
businessmen looked to
ideas for solutions and
found it in what has since
been called urban
renewal.
The answer to blight,
slums, congestion, lack of
sanitation.
What is Urban
Renewal?
A joint effort between
state and federal
agencies to clean the city
and give it a new life.
It often tore down whole
neighborhoods and
turned them into parks.
Subsidized private
developers, empowering
them to build new
housing.
Urban Renewal : Ball Parks in
place of housing
Spokanes Urban
Renewal
To illustrate the basic
points about Urban
renewal, I will use
Spokane as an example
Having little money of its
own to resolve its own
urban problems, Spokane
sought an event that
would bring in federal
money.
This event came in the
form of Expo 74.
 Expo 74
After years of planning,
city leaders were
successful in using the
cause of Expo 74 to
erase a whole section of
downtown and turn it into
a park.
Huge railroad structures
had divided the river from
the downtown; by taking
them away, new life and
color was returned to the
setting.
Expo and the Park
it left behind
While a far cry from
Howards original plan for
garden cities, expo did
displace an ugly industrial
site and leave behind a
park that today continues
to humanize the city.
By saving a prime
property of the city and
turning it to public use,
Spokane gave expression
to the notion of equality
which is what Howard
ultimately wanted.
 River Park as an
expression of human
unity
Today the park in
Spokane is the site of
great communal
events such as pig-
out-in-the-park and
Hoopfest.