From a series written for ABC Radio National’s Blueprint for Living. First aired on 4th November 2023 (you can listen to the audio here).

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The idea of planned cities is as old as cities themselves and there are many significant moments in their evolution. Like the moment when Ebenezer Howard came up with the concept of the garden city. Howard wasn’t an architect or even trained as an urban planner but his interest in social reform was deep and considered. In 1898 he published a slim volume titled ‘Tomorrow: A peaceful road to real reform’ which was revised in 1902 and called ‘Garden cities of tomorrow.’ Its impact was enormous, coming at a time when many felt the uncontrolled sprawl of industrial cities was not just ugly but socially catastrophic. This was, after all, the age of the slum. What Howard proposed is familiar to us today with zones separating housing from industry, and buildings that were appropriately scaled. There would be gardens and allotments, and the town would be encircled by agricultural land, fertilised by the waste of the town itself. What was more radical was how this town was for people of all classes, and everyone, from labourers to professionals, would have a hand in the running of it. A more equal society was a happier society, thought Howard.

His ideas came through experience. Born to a London baker, he left school at fifteen and worked in offices before an uncle suggested he try his hand at farming in America. The five years he spent there clearly showed that this wasn’t his vocation but it awakened an interest in planning. Chicago was being rebuilt after its devastating fire of 1871 and new towns were rising in other areas. Already interested in the work of British writer John Ruskin, now he fell under the influence of poets and philosophers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, who urged the importance of a democratic society. He returned to Britain in 1876 and became a stenographer for Hansard, recording the work of Parliament. His own convictions were deepened by witnessing the political discourse of the day, confirming in his mind that a social revolution was necessary and that improving living conditions was its best starting point.

Howard’s publication achieved widespread attention. It chimed with ideas already popular from the Arts and Crafts movement, like William Morris’s desire to create communities based on medieval villages. There had been schemes for housing communities built by the Quaker chocolate manufacturers Cadbury and Rowntree as well as by industrialist Lord Lever, with gardens and cottage-style housing so important but these were still ruled by a single industrial master. Key to Ebenezer Howard’s vision was the idea that the town was self-sufficient, not simply a means to put factory workers in better homes. In 1903, the first garden city was built at Letchworth, not far from London, with another at Welwyn starting in 1920. They were popular and affordable, at first. The idea was taken up in America, South Africa and Germany, and Canberra incorporated some of Howard’s principles. In the meantime others, like French architects Tony Garnier and Le Corbusier, came up with alternative ideas for new towns, which war and mass migration made increasingly important.

The blueprints changed but common to most is the idea of proximity. Just as Howard thought, easy access to everything from workshops and offices to schools and social life makes it a happier, easier place to be. Today, the idea of the 15 minute city is finding traction (except with those who see it as a means of government control) and is not far removed from Howard’s Garden City approach. The ideal city remains elusive but the conversation continues. Without Ebenezer Howard that conversation would definitely be a little less informed.