Planned Communities, Part 1:

Garden Cities

A plan of Miletus, Greece. Source: Professor Simon Atkinson's Urban Design Theory Seminar Web Page.     Ebenezer Howard, author of Garden Cities of To-Morrow. Source: George Mason University Planned Community Archives..     Plan of Letchworth Garden City. Source: Professor Simon Atkinson's Urban Design Theory Seminar Web Page, University of Texas.     Radburn, New Jersey, 1929. Source:George Mason University Planned Community Archives.     The groundbreaking of Greenbelt, 1935. Source: Virtual Greenbelt.

The idea of planning entire communities prior to their construction is an ancient one. According to Greenbelt: History of a New Town, one of the earliest such cities on record is Miletus, Greece, which was built in the 4th century B.C. Throughout the Middle Ages and Rennaisance, various planned communities, both theoretical and actual, were conceived. Leonardo da Vinci designed several cities that were never constructed. Following the great fire of London in 1666, the architect Christopher Wren created a new master plan for the city that incorporated parkland and urban space. Several 18th century cities, including Washington D.C., New York City, and St. Petersburg, Russia, were built according to comprehensive planning. Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City Movement One of the most important planned city concepts, the Garden City Movement, arose in 19th century England as a reaction to the pollution and crowding of the Industrial Revolution. In 1898, Ebenezer Howard published the book To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform in which he laid out his ideas concerning the creation of new towns. Howard believed that these towns should be limited in size and density, and surround with a belt of undeveloped land. The idea gained enough attention and financial backing to lead to the creation of Letchworth, in Hertfordshire, England, the first such "Garden City." After the First World War the second town built following Howard's ideas, Welwyn Garden City, also in Hertfordshire, was constructed. The Movement Comes to America: Radburn, New Jersey In the early 1920's, American architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright, inspired by Howard's ideas and the success of Letchworth and Welwyn, created the city of Radburn, New Jersey. Conceived as a community which would be safe for children, Radburn was intentionally designed so that the residents would not require automobiles. Several urban planning designs were pioneered at Radburn that would influence later planned communities, including the separation of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and the use of "superblocks," each of which shared 23 acres of commonly held parkland.

The New Deal Towns

Following the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression, there was great demand both for affordable housing and employment for workers who had lost their jobs. In response the Resettlement Administration, created in 1935 by President Roosevelt, brought about a total of three greenbelt towns: Greenbelt, Maryland; Greenhills, Ohio; and Greendale, Wisconsin. These towns contained many of the elements of the Garden City Movement developments, including the use of superblocks and a "greenbelt" of undeveloped land surrounding the community.

See Planned Communities, Part 2: Levittowns and Beyond for a discussion of utopian communities from the Post-WWII era to the present.

Archival Resources

George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia maintains the Planned Community Archives. Their website contains more information on the collection: http://www.gmu.edu/library/specialcollections/planned.html.

Related Websites

The Effect of Sir Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City Movement on Twentieth Century Town Planning.

This is the electronic version of a 1973 book by urban planner Norman Lucey on Ebenezer Howard and his influence on Twentieth Century urban planning.

Urban Planning, 1794-1918: An International Anthology of Articles, Conference Papers, and Reports.

This is a collection of primary source material from Cornell University, for the study of urban planning. It includes detailed subject, chronological, and alphabetical bibliographies on the subject and links to excerpts from relevant texts.

Letchworth Garden City.

This is the home page for Letchworth, the first Garden City designed according to Ebenezer Howard's ideas. It contains a number of articles on Letchworth's history and the Garden City movement as a whole.

Virtual Greenbelt.

This webpage was created as a joint project between the American Studies Department of the University of Maryland and the city of Greenbelt. It details the history of the city and provides access to photographs, special exhibits, and student projects about Greenbelt. A virtual Greenbelt Museum is in the planning stages.

Radburn, Fair Lawn.

This is an article from the July 19, 1999 Bergen Record, a newspaper in Suburban New Jersey. It describes the author's decision to move to Radburn and, in the process, recounts the history of Radburn and the Garden City movement.

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