There has been much talk of town-building in the last year, and the themes and concepts of a ‘garden city’ have been invoked on a number of occasions.
In September 2024, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner struck a deal with Barratt Developments and Lloyd’s Bank to begin a joint venture worth £150 million to lead the development of a modern generation of “garden village style communities”.
In November last year Rayner took control of plans for a “new garden town” near Sittingbourne in Kent, blocking Swale Borough Council from voting on the proposals.
This is all part of the Labour government’s ambitious commitment to building 1.5 million new homes, which we’ve discussed previously here, and in which they have committed to building environmental sustainability into the hearts of new development projects.
But what are garden cities? When did the idea emerge? And why are they relevant now?
The Garden City Movement
The concept of the ‘garden city’ emerged as a plan for an ideal residential community and the brainchild of parliamentary stenographer Ebenezer Howard.
His 1898 book To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Social Reform laid out Howard’s vision for a new kind of town. Writing in the late 19th Century, a time by which industrial Britain had produced large urban centres overwhelmed by poverty, overcrowding, pollution, and congestion, Howard sought to communicate a revolutionary, new vision of urban planning – one which combined rural and urban elements.
In his book, Howard states that “Town and Country must be married“, further claiming that from this marriage will “spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilisation.”
In 1902, To-morrow was reissued as Garden Cities of To-morrow, a revised and more detailed version, which became more influential.
Howard’s vision of a ‘garden city’ laid out these towns in a radial, concentric pattern incorporating a museum, a theatre, a library, a hospital, a city hall, and significant plots of green space to be used for agriculture and recreational purposes.
The cities would feature six large boulevards to streamline traffic and be surrounded by a permanent belt of countryside called a ‘greenbelt’. This directly inspired the now-commonplace planning concept of the greenbelt.
A diagram included in his book can be viewed here.
Although Howard had previously worked as a parliamentary stenographer, he was heavily influenced by the socialist ideals of his contemporaries and these translated into his conception of the garden city. For example, it was intended that the cities would be collectively run, similar to a worker cooperative, whereby all residents were shareholders and the city would be without out-of-town landlords and absentee investors.
Howard’s Garden City Movement centred on various key principles, these being:
- well-designed, affordable homes
- robust sense of community
- green infrastructure
- integrated industries, transport, and recreational facilities
In 1899, Howard founded the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) in order to seek funding to construct the first garden city and bring his vision to fruition.
The development of Letchworth, in north Herfordshire, began in 1903 to become the first garden city. Designed by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, the city comprises low-density homes, various kinds of industries and services (exemplified by the Spirella Building), and prioritises green spaces. It sought to implement Howard’s key concepts of beauty in design, social justice, health, and efficiency, as inspired by the works of John Ruskin and William Morris. Thus many tree-lined streets in Letchworth are adorned with arts-and-crafts and neo-Georgian style homes and buildings.
With the success of Letchworth, Howard and the TCPA sought to create a second garden city.
Buying land near the village of Welwyn, 1920 saw construction of Welwyn Garden City begin 32 kilometres north of London.
Designed by Louis de Soissons, Welwyn Garden City implemented many of the same characteristics as Letchworth Garden City, such as large, open park spaces, tree-lined streets, and neo-Georgian homes and buildings.
Additionally, although not a garden ‘city’, Hampstead Garden Suburb was constructed in 1907 and was strongly influenced by Letchworth. It was laid out by Raymond Unwin with help from architect Edwin Lutyens.
While the garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn did not exactly mirror the visions and drawings of the ideal garden city originally conceptualised by Howard in 1898, nor successfully incorporate many of the socialistic aspects which Howard had intended, the towns developed into profitable, successful communities which placed a harmonious marriage of town and country – and human and environment – at the centre of their construction and existence.
Due to their relative success, the Garden City Movement has had an enduring and widespread legacy since the early 20th Century.
The Legacy of Garden Cities
Following the Second World War, garden cities continued to influence British town planning in fundamental ways.
The TCPA played a central role in influenced the British New Towns programme. Similar to the issues of urban overcrowding which prompted Howard’s To-morrow in 1898, the post-war New Towns were an attempt to relocate large numbers of people out of cities.
Wartime bombing, slum clearance, a slow rate of housebuilding in the 1940s, and a huge demographic change brought about by the baby boom necessitated the drive for housing after the Second World War, prompting the New Towns Act 1946 and the subsequent Town and Country Planning Act 1947.
Many of the Garden City Movement’s central principles were brought forward and incorporated into the design and construction of the post-war New Towns.
Green spaces like those in Bracknell, Corby, and Milton Keynes were built into their construction, emphasising the low-density principles of the earlier garden cities, and green spaces like Town Centre Gardens in Stevenage were developed amidst a second wave of New Towns in the 1960s.
Other post-war New Towns which feature tree-lined streets and open green spaces that mirror the principles of the Garden City Movement include: Basildon, Essex; Crawley, West Sussex; Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire; Glenrothes, Fife; Harlow, Essex; Redditch, Worcestershire; and Telford, Shropshire.
Key Garden City principles guided many of the objectives and characteristics of these New Town developments, such as affordable housing, community engagement, integrated industries and transport, and accessible, recreational green spaces.
Nevertheless, the Garden City Movement’s legacy was not just confined to urban planning projects in Britain. Its ideas spread rapidly around the world from the early 20th Century, reaching locations thousands of miles away from the first garden cities at Letchworth at Welwyn.
In the United States for example, a number of communities have been explicitly influenced by the principles of the Garden City Movement. These include: Forest Hills/Woodbourne in Boston, Massachusetts; Hilton Village in Newport News, Virginia; Residence Park in New Rochelle, New York; and Chatham Village in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In the 1920s, influenced by the Garden City Movement, Scottish urban planner Sir Patrick Geddes designed much of what would become Tel Aviv, Israel. With a population of around 25,000 in 1925, Geddes was instructed to design the city to house 100,000. His design, elements of which can still be visited in modern Tel Aviv, emphasised expansive boulevards lined with trees and numerous parks and public green space.
Although it didn’t meet the standards of Howard’s garden cities, the neighbourhood of Römerstadt in Frankfurt, Germany, constructed in the 1920s, was influenced by the Garden City Movement. It functioned as a satellite town of Frankfurt in which residents commuted into the city-centre for work, therefore failing to meet Howard’s ideal of a self-sufficient community. Despite this, Römerstadt incorporated plentiful green space and communal allotments to enhance the connection of the residents with nature and facilitate community engagement.
Howard’s Garden City concepts reached as far away as Japan, where in 1918 the construction of Den-en-chōfu began within the boundaries of Tokyo. The industrialist behind the project, Eiichi Shibusawa, was inspired by the principles of the Garden City Movement and sought to build a Japanese garden suburb upon socialistic foundations, as Howard had done. The neighbourhood has since become one of Japan’s most exclusive communities, known as the ‘Japanese Beverley Hills’.
Overall, Howard’s Garden City Movement inspired town planning projects across the world, with city planners from America to Japan taking inspiration from the garden cities of Britain and implementing them within their own unique cultural contexts.
But why are garden cities still relevant today? And how are they still influencing town planners and policymakers alike?
The Enduring Relevance of Garden Cities
It has been more than a century since the publication of To-morrow and the conception of the Garden City Movement, yet its principles and themes continue to influence developers, town planners, and policymakers in the early 21st Century.
In 2014, then-Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced plans for the development of ‘Ebbsfleet Garden City’. Located on the Thames Estruary just west of Gravesend, it was claimed to be the ‘first garden city for 100 years’.
Indicative of its Garden City influence, Ebbsfleet has been developed with numerous parks and tree-lined streets, exemplified by its ‘Garden Grid’. The new town also incorporates a commercial centre and integrated public transport infrastructure, notably an international high-speed railway station, Ebbsfleet International.
Principles of the Garden City Movement have permeated contemporary discussions of urban development through climate change and sustainability discourse, most obviously in the form of ‘green cities’.
An increased global focus on the climate crisis has enhanced the importance of examining and considering garden cities and their underlying concepts and principles.
2016 saw the mainstream emergence of the ’15-minute city’, a model for urban development which emphasised the idea that everything in the daily life of a resident should be accessible within a 15 minute walk or cycle. While initially devised in Paris by Carlos Moreno, local governments in Britain such as those in Oxford, Canterbury, and Sheffield put forward plans to incorporate it in their respective towns and cities.
Between 2021 and 2023, local councils such as these published plans or proposals to implement aspects of the 15-minute city idea, including low-emission zones in town centres and more integrated public transport and pedestrian-centric and cycle infrastructure.
The idea of 15-minute cities is directly influenced by the principles of the Garden City Movement.
A key feature of Howard’s garden city vision was their self-contained nature, something which became difficult to ensure in many garden city and new town developments like Welwyn, Römerstadt, and Vallingby, Sweden whereby, rather than be self-sufficient and contained, these communities became commuter-oriented with residents travelling out of their neighbourhood for work and leisure.
15-minute cities have sought to reverse this flaw by ensuring that industry and recreational facilities are well-integrated into the towns themselves. Further, 15-minute cities seek to mitigate the impacts of climate change and help meet commitments to net-zero by emphasising accessible green space and urban greening, reminiscent of the green infrastructure principles of the Garden City Movement.
More recently, the 2024 manifesto of the incumbent Labour government placed considerable emphasis on incorporating climate sustainability into the housing development projects it hopes to set in motion as part of its ambitious commitment to building 1.5 million homes over the course of the next 5 years.
As mentioned in this article’s introduction, much of the subsequent talk of ‘garden towns’ has come from Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who is also Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Many of Rayner and her department’s actions have aroused relevance of garden city principles, in positive and negative ways.
Positively, Rayner’s advocacy for the development of a ‘garden village’ near Sittingbourne in Kent in November last year highlights ways in which garden city ideas are influencing and align with the objectives of incumbent politicians. The ‘garden village’ would incorporate plentiful green space and ‘green infrastructure’, focusing on its benefits to human well-being and wider ecological sustainability, in line with Labour’s manifesto and net-zero commitments.
However, the sidelined Swale Borough Council argued that the 8,400-home development would infringe upon the Kent Downs National Landscape, harming ancient woodland, heritage assets and archaeological remains, and protected habitats and landscapes. The development has reportedly so far received over 700 letters of objection.
Further, Rayner’s department has more recently overseen the revision of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in December last year which saw the re-implementation of mandatory housing targets for local authorities, and – most relevantly – a requirement for local councils to designate areas of ‘grey belt’ land. You can read more about the new NPPF here.
Discussion of ‘grey belt’ land, referring to under-utilised rural land, and Labour’s commitment to prioritising its development, contradicts the green belt advocacy of Howard and the Garden City Movement.
This reflects the continued relevance of its principles in debates about urban planning and reinforcing ways in which the Labour Party’s headstrong drive for 1.5 million new homes might be sidelining commitments to biodiversity and environmental sustainability.
Without question, the legacy and continued importance of the Garden City Movement shows no signs of dissipating. Its principles have so far endured for over one hundred years within not just discourse on urban planning but political and social discussions of the climate and ecological sustainability.
Conclusion
Emerging from humble beginnings, the Garden City Movement has had monumental, global, and lasting impacts.
From the utopian, socialistic visions of Ebenezer Howard came the first garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn in the early 20th Century, demonstrating a new way of imagining residential communities in Britain and combining the accessibility of built environments – such as industry and commerce – with the tranquility and well-being of rural environments.
In post-war Britain, garden cities continued to permeate the minds of city planners. New Towns like Milton Keynes sought to incorporate many of the environmental aspects of the Garden City Movement into new developments, resulting in wide, tree-lined boulevards, integrated transport and recreational facilities, and accessible green spaces.
The legacy of the Garden City Movement was not confined to Britain. With the success of Garden Cities of To-morrow, Howard’s ideas went global, resulting in garden city projects in the United States, Israel, Germany, and Japan, among many others throughout the 20th Century.
Yet garden cities have continued to hold significant influence over contemporary development projects into the 21st Century, whether that be through 15-minute cities or Labour’s new ‘garden villages’. Furthermore, recent changes to the NPPF and evolving conceptualisations of green belt land indicate the persistent importance of talking about the Garden City Movement.
Overall, the Garden City Movement has been one of, if not the most, influential movements in the history of British town planning in the last one hundred and twenty-five years, and it shows no signs of going anywhere.
In a context of worldwide climate crisis, the principles of garden cities are more important than ever, and it is important that we continue to remain aware and talking about them.