garden city (redirected from Garden Cities)

garden city, in city planning

garden city, an ideal, self-contained community of predetermined area and population surrounded by a greenbelt. As formulated by Sir Ebenezer Howard, the garden city was intended to bring together the economic and cultural advantages of both city and country living, with land ownership vested in the community, while at the same time discouraging metropolitan sprawl and industrial centralization. The garden city was foreshadowed in the writings of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, and James Silk Buckingham, and in the planned industrial communities of Saltaire (1851), Bournville (1879), and Port Sunlight (1887) in England. The term garden city was introduced in Howard's book To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898); it was revised (1902) under the title Garden Cities of To-morrow (reedited by F. J. Osborn, 1946). Howard organized the Garden-City Association (1899) in England and secured backing for the establishment of Letchworth (1903), designed by the architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, and Welwyn Garden City (1920), designed by Louis de Soissons. Neither community, however, was an entirely self-contained garden city. The idea spread rapidly to Europe and the United States, but it commonly resulted in residential suburbs of individually owned homes. Under the auspices of the Regional Planning Association of America, the garden-city idea was more fully realized in the community of Radburn, N.J. (1928–32) outside New York City designed by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. Most of these satellite towns, however, failed to attain Howard's ideal, since local industries were unable to provide employment for the inhabitants, many of whom commuted to work in larger centers. The congestion and destruction accompanying World War II greatly stimulated the garden-city movement, especially in Great Britain, where the passage of the New Towns Act in 1946 led to the development of over a dozen new communities based on Howard's idea. The open layout of garden cities has had a great influence on the development of modern city planning.

Bibliography

See F. J. Osborn, Green-Belt Cities: The British Contribution (1946). M. H. Smith, History of Garden City (1963); W. L. Creese, The Search for Environment (1966).

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Garden City, cities, United States

Garden City.

1 City (1990 pop. 24,097), seat of Finney co., SW Kans., on the Arkansas River; inc. 1887. A trade center in an irrigated farm and dairy region growing wheat, sugar beets, and alfalfa, it has a gas and an oil field, cattle feedlots, and hide-processing and meatpacking plants. Farm machinery, cultured marble, and fertilizers are produced. The city has an agricultural experiment station, a zoo, and a wild game refuge.

2 City (1990 pop. 31,846), Wayne co., SE Mich., a suburb of Detroit; inc. as a city 1934. Chiefly residential but with a noted population decline, the city produces gauge systems and aluminum extrusions.

3 Village (1990 pop. 21,686), Nassau co., SE N.Y., on Long Island; inc. 1919. It is a high-income residential community, with printing, publishing, and retailing as the major industries. Garden City was founded in 1869 and planned by the merchant Alexander Stewart. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh began his historic transatlantic flight from the nearby former Roosevelt Field. Adelphi Univ. and Nassau Community College are in the city, as is the Museums at Mitchel complex, including a children's and an aviation museum.

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garden city

Ideal planned community as envisioned by the British town planner Ebenezer Howard (1850–1928). It was to be a small city that combined the amenities of urban and rural life; it would be compact, with contained growth. At the center would be a garden ringed with a civic and cultural complex, a park, housing, and industry, the whole surrounded by an agricultural green belt. Traffic would move along radial avenues and ring roads. The first garden city was built at Letchworth, England, in 1903. Though Howard's ideas have been widely influential, imitators have often ignored his stipulation that the town be a self-contained, true mixed-use community.

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garden city

Brit a planned town of limited size with broad streets and spacious layout, containing trees and open spaces and surrounded by a rural belt