Abstract of the thesis
Today's Meaning of Howard's 'Garden City' Concept and Its Influences on Town and Country Planning
Akinobu Murakami
Ebenezer Howard is famous because he invented a solution to urban and country problems which came to be called 'garden cities'. The inventor's talent is to synthesise -- to put together disparate ideas, techniques and inspirations in such way that they create something which is so original that most of us can not see what it is until we see it working and even then do not fully understand how it works. Howard is unusual among inventors because he put forward his ideas, not in terms of products or patents, but in the form of a book first published in 1898. The impact of this book is difficult to overestimate. Howard's book led to the creation of the profession of town and country planning, it stimulated urban programmes in Britain and other countries which house millions of people, and it has encouraged several generations to take more care of the physical environment than they would otherwise have been insipired to do.
Ebenezer Howard's Garden City is today often identified with the 'garden suburb' style development that followed in the wake of Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker's designs for Letchworth, but the implications of Howard's ideas on physical form were very different. In this paper, examined Howard's thinking on the garden city, the real style of garden city was discussed.
The way to reverse the flow of migration from rural area to town, Howard argued, was by creating a 'Town-Country' magnet -- a totally new town in the middle of the countryside, outside the sphere of the big city, where land could be bought at depressed agricultural land values. This Garden City would have a fixed upper limit -- Howard suggested 32,000 people, living on 1,000 acres of land, about one and a half times the size of the historic City of London.
It would be surrounded by a much larger area of permanent green belt, bought and owned by the Garden City management as part of the purchase package ? Howard proposed 5,000 acres -- containing not merely farms, but also all kinds of quasi-urban institutions, like reformatories and convalescent homes, that could benefit from a rural location.
Sustainability, to use the overworked 1990s term, was what Garden City was all about. The astonishing fact about Howard's plan is he suggested to establish self-contained city by uniting town and country. How faithfully it follows the precepts of good planning a century later; this is a walking-scale settlement, within which no-one needs a car to go anywhere; the densities are high by modern standards, thus economising on land; and yet the entire settlement is suffused by open space both within and outside, thus sustaining a natural habitat.
Self-containment is not a phrase used in the book, but it is still one of the main elements of his idea. This goal has been thought, to be more or less applied to Britain's new towns. The new towns have been the only major centers of employment growth in Britain in recent decades and with regard to employment and population they are relatively balanced in comparison with other towns of similar size. They are also relatively self-contained with regard to the journey to work pattern, thus indicating that many people do decide to live and work in the same town when given the opportunity. But the setting of the goal of self-containment and balance for the new towns, and not for other urban areas, has encouraged both a perception of the new towns as a separate solution, and the idea that new towns are in some way for 'other people'.
It was found, through this paper, the development of these views and attitudes indicates what is perhaps the biggest weakness in Howard's ideas. Howard saw the new towns as a separate solution though not as a partial solution. His invention comprises a new form of urban development. But the method of getting to that form was crude and simple -- migration from old cities. Howard did not express any substantial theory about how old cities or country areas would other relate to new towns. His diagram 'Correct principle of city growth' refers to his social cities not old cities nor country areas.
The social reformism of the garden city idea was quickly converted into an environmental reformism which was in turn technicalized and dissembled to form part of the emergent professional practice of town planning. As a collection of technical-environmental planning concepts it was added to, adjusted and reassembled in different guises. The garden village, garden suburb, satellite town and new town were international variants that were built on the conceptual foundations of the garden city. Other, specifically national, variants can also be identified, like the Australian garden town. The 'new country town' may prove to be a further British variant of the 1990s.
However, beyond the detail of a changing tradition of planning thought, what comes through in this paper is the tremendous potency of the garden city idea during the twentieth century. That it spread so widely across the world and influenced the thinking of planners and reformers in so many countries, albeit in ways that were partial and incomplete, remains extraordinary. Peter Hall is surely correct to see Howard, the inventor of the garden city, as the most important figure in the international history of town planning. The ability of his conception to withstand and indeed flourish, despite an almost continuous process of mistranslation, misunderstanding, misrepresentation and countless conscious and unconscious adjustments of the idea in theory and practice, is eloquent testimony to its coherence and robustness. Indeed the vitality of the original conception has been seemingly reinforced by its many hybrids, many of which have made powerful positive contributions to the quality of urban living. And when such hybrids have run their course, Howard's original stock always seems to have been capable of generating others.
Regarding present and future prospects, it was obtained that opinions are divided. In America for example, the pessimism apparent. But from a British perspective, things look very different. After WWII, planning system in Britain shifted from planning only for urbanized areas to comprehensive planning for town and country through Town and Country Planning Act. of 1932 and 1947. Now, British planning system covers all over the nation, including town, country and even national parks. In this respect, British planning has been evolving from large-city-planning to town and country planning, there the crucial element of Howard's garden city theory, that is to unite town and country, has been realized. It could be said, that town-country was took as new paradigm for planning in Britain in this century.
In Japan, the English expression "garden city" is translated as den-en toshi. This has been an established Japanese expression for nearly seventy years and is now used in everyday conversation. Most people know the expression originated with "garden city" of Ebenezer Howard, although the concrete image may differ from person to person. And they usually think it is a little bit mistranslation because the meaning of the word "den-en" differs from original meaning of the word "garden". "Den-en" arouses a great nostalgia for the countryside in most Japanese. It suggests images of wide green paddy fields, quite rural villages and a comfortable breeze. In fact, the Japanese word "den-en" is the equivalent of the English country or countryside. In this sense, some researchers maintain "garden city" should have been translated as tei-en toshi. "Tei-en" means garden, so it sound appropriate for translation apparently. However, looked carefully at not the term "garden city", but the garden city theory in its original meaning, "den-en toshi" proved to express the crucial element of garden city theory; the unity of town and country.
The term "den-en toshi" was used first in the book titled Den-en Toshi published by the Local Bureau of the Home Ministry in 1907. The Home Ministry, which stood on the side of agricultural villages, interpreted garden city theory firstly in terms of an ideology for praising agricultural villages, and secondly for its countryside image. Althogh their concrete image of den-en toshi was different from the image of Howard' garden city in some points, their vision was based on the unity of town and country that is the element of Howard's. In the very fast period of 20th century, town-country conception was took as fundamentals of social reform in Japan and Britain concurrently. The same vision was also suggested by an agriculturist, Tokiyoshi Yokoi. Although Yokoi thought his vision was definitely different from Howard's garden city, his contention was same as Howard's in the point of insisting to unite town and country.
In Japan, the vision of the Home Ministry and Yokoi never have been developed, while the vision of "town-country" has been realized in the system of planning with technical means evolving in Britain. We have no efficient actual term in town-country planning now. On the other hand, we can see such issues always discussed and the need for it increasing in the field of national planning. It is clearly asserted that we now have to develop the vision of "town-country" conceived by Howard, the Home Ministry and Yokoi and to generate actual means to realize it.
To the list of recent thesis
To the top page