To fully understand what garden cities are and the reasons why they should be put into place, we have to go back – – in actuality, more than 100 years. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, Ebenezer Howard envisioned the creation of towns in a series, each of which would have around 32,000 inhabitants. A famously formulated plan in the form of diagrams showed these towns as largely autonomous places to reside and work. They would be situated close to industrial cities such as London that, in time, would be reorganized into smaller, garden city-like settlements. Each of these areas is connected via electric rail and canals to allow for the smooth movement of goods and people.
Howard was determined to stop what he referred to as Howard wanted to control what he called the “smoke fiend” of polluting transport, which was ruining cities by the time of the turn into the 20th century. The goal was to give people the opportunity to move away from the squalor of London and provide them with the best of city and country, which included healthy air, affordable, high-quality housing and (mostly) local services, food and jobs. Howard’s goals were fulfilled in two gardens: Letchworth Garden City, which was built in 1903, as well as Welwyn Garden City, built-in 1920.
The concept of garden cities – particularly towns and gardens began to take off all over the world, including Scandinavia, Australia, the US, South America, and Japan. In many areas, hybrids that emerged, building on the garden city concept and the related tradition of Utopian settlements, industrial villages, and The City Beautiful movement. Between World Wars I and II, there were a lot of gardens and garden suburbs that were built in the UK, such as the well-known, beautiful, and stunning examples of Hampstead Garden Suburb. However, there were no other garden cities constructed in Britain after Letchworth or Welwyn.
What was the cause?
Following World War II, a number of “new towns” were built as a result of the New Towns Act of 1946, which included Stevenage, Hatfield, Telford, Runcorn, and Milton Keynes. The towns that have been built, however, are receiving a more mixed reaction than the garden towns that came before them. Although often criticized for being a place to live, some of the towns are enjoying large backing by residents and advocates of their aesthetics and social function.
Recently, in the wake of rising concerns about the sustainability of new buildings and sustainable, a former Labour administration tried to create some ecotowns built on former airbases as well as other leftover pieces of land However, most of these were not constructed after local communities refused to accept the idea. In the past 40 or 50 years, there’s also been plenty of very ordinary homes built by the builders of dormitory estates. These have resulted in areas that are merely residential, not towns.
Milton Keynes: bleak or beautiful? Ian Halsey/flickr, CC BY-NC
A lot of people don’t like the way postwar residential estates in cities have been wiped out; it was evident in the prime minister David Cameron’s announcement regarding developing the 100 “worst” housing estates. The result is that most people aren’t keen to learn that new homes are being constructed close to them, as a look at local newspapers will make evident.
One thing that has stood out, however. People still love gardens and cities. They love those Arts and Crafts houses designed by Barry Parker and others at Letchworth as well as the elegance and elegance in the red brick neo-Georgian style of a lot of Welwyn’s homes and public structures. They are enthralled by the many avenues and trees that make the city’s gardens appear fresh, green and spacious to walk through.
In Letchworth, they are proud of the way in which money that is derived through the landholdings of Letchworth (things like shops, farms, offices, buildings for office use, and the like) returns to the local community through the town’s governors in the context of an exclusive arrangement that allows residents in the town receive additional health facilities and other valuable services.
What next?
With this in mind, the UK announcement on funding, announced by the country’s chancellor, George Osborne, starts to seem more rational. England is experiencing a house crisis. in the southern part of the country, in which the economy is booming, there aren’t enough housing options to choose from. The north has difficulties that are caused by the lack of supply of housing due to the fact that economic conditions there have been struggling for quite a while.
For any government it’s clear that promoting new garden cities is becoming an ideal option to provide homes – and also to create towns that are comfortable that people can live in and work in as opposed to sprawling estates of housing that people need to travel to for work and other services. It is crucial that the brand of garden cities is a positive one. There is a greater likelihood that people will be less averse to developments that are based on gardens than they are to other types of settlements. They may even embrace these developments.
