Abstract
This chapter examines the various planning practices that stand behind the generic term ‘garden cities’ through an analysis of the inclusiveness and flexibility that are rooted in the term. While garden cities rhetoric and modes of planning in the western world are well covered in research literature, their counterparts in the southern hemisphere or in colonial contexts have gained relatively little attention. In scholarly works, in which comparative studies are rare, garden cities notions and practices have been considered simplistic at best, mere distortions of the original British models. The chapter traces and expands on the dissemination of garden city ideas in the early twentieth century from Britain to French Senegal and Ottoman Palestine. By bringing together Dakar and Tel Aviv (Ahuzat Bayit) our aim is not only to contribute to garden city historiography by an in-depth consideration of ‘other’ geographies. The aim is also to acknowledge the inherent dynamism that is rooted in both garden city terminology and implementation, which corresponds to a rich variety of vernacular contexts (including the global South-East). Semantically and practically, these contexts therefore constitute an integral and essential part of the global history of the garden city planning phenomenon.
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Notes
- 1.
This contribution is based on three chapters that were written by these authors in: Liora Bigon and Yossi Katz (eds),Garden Cities and Colonial Planning: Transnationality and Urban Ideas in Africa and Palestine, ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series, eds John MacKenzie and Andrew Thompson (Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 2014). The chapters were merged together (by permission of MUP) and reoriented to meet the toponymic question. We have also used original visual evidence concerning both case studies that has yet to be published in the research literature.
- 2.
For a partial list of high quality publications in English, in chronological order, see:
Walter Creese, The Search for the Environment: The Garden City Before and After (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992 (1966)); Stanley Buder, Visionaries and Planners: The Garden City Movement and the Modern Community (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Peter Hall and Colin Ward, Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard (Chichester: John Wiley, 1998); Standish Meacham, Regaining Paradise: Englishness and the Early Garden City Movement (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1999); Kermit C. Parsons and David Schuyler (eds), From Garden City to Green City: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard (Baltimore, London: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002). For biographies or other works related to Howard see: Robert Beevers, The Garden City Utopia: A Critical Biography of Ebenezer Howard (London: Macmillan, 1988); Gordon E. Cherry, Town Planning in Britain since 1900 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996); Kenneth Kolson, Big Plans: The Allure and Folly of Urban Design (Baltimore, London, 2001); Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996 (1988)).
- 3.
‘New towns’, for example, and related terms: Frederick J. Osborn, Green-Belt Cities: The British Contribution, London (Faber and Faber, 1946); Ministry of Housing and Local Government, The Green Belts (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1962); Hazel Evans (ed.), New Towns: The British Experience (London: Charles Knight, 1972); College of Estate Management, The Future of the Green Belt (Occasional Papers in Estate Management, no. 5, 1974); Martin J. Elson, Green Belts: Conflict Mediation in the Urban Fringe (London: Heinemann, 1986); John Herington, Beyond Green Belts: Managing Urban Growth in the 21th Century (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1990).
- 4.
See, for instance: Hall and Ward, Sociable Cities; Parsons and Schuyler (eds), From Garden City to Green City.
- 5.
Stephen V. Ward (ed.), The Garden City: Past, Present and Future (London: Spon, 1992).
- 6.
Scholarly attention to the ‘garden city’ phenomenon in Ottoman Palestine is considerable in comparison to its counterpart in Senegal – the latter in fact hardly exists. See especially: Yossi Katz, ‘The Extension of Ebenezer Howard’s Ideas on Urbanization Outside of the British Isles: the Example of Palestine’, Geo-Journal, 34 (1994), pp. 467–473; Yossi Katz, ‘Garden City in Theory and Practice: the Example of Palestine in the Final Stages of Ottoman Rule’, in Zeev Safrai, Yvonne Friedman and Joshua Schwartz (eds), Studies on the Land: Studies in the History of the Land of Israel Dedicated to Prof. Yehuda Feliks (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1997), pp. 343–353; Yossi Katz, ‘Ideology and Urban Development: Zionism and the Origin of Tel Aviv’, Journal of Historical Geography, 12 (1986), pp. 402–429; Liora Bigon and Yossi Katz (eds), Garden Cities and Colonial Planning; Liora Bigon, A History of Urban Planning in Two West African Colonial Capitals: Residential Segregation in British Lagos and French Dakar (1850–1930) (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009), esp. pp. 243–266. See also: Ines Sonder, Gartenstädte für Erez Israel: Zionistische Stadtplanungsvisionen von Theodor Herzl bis Richard Kauffmann (Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2005); Miki Zaidman, ‘Garden City – the Land-of-Israel Version: A Survey of Hebrew Garden Cities and Quarters, 1900-1948’ (Ph.D thesis, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010) [in Hebrew].
- 7.
For example Robert Owen, Charles Fourier and Saint-Simon. See Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960), p. 6; Peter Batchelor, ‘The Origin of the Garden City Concept of Urban Form’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 28 (1969), pp. 184–200.
- 8.
Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow, edited with a preface by Frederic J. Osborn, introductory essay by Lewis Mumford (London: Faber and Faber, 1970 (1902, 1946)). Originally titled To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898).
- 9.
Howard, Garden Cities, p. 138.
- 10.
A. Sutcliffe, ‘Le contexte urbanistique de l’oeuvre de Sellier: la transcription du modèle anglais de la cité-jardin’, in Katherine Burlen (ed.), La Banlieue-oasis, Henri Sellier et les cités-jardins (1900–1940) (Saint-Denis: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 1987), pp. 67–79.
- 11.
Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment (Cambridge, Mass., London: MIT Press, 1989); Annie Fourcaut, ‘Débats et réalisations de l’entre-deaux-guerres ou le lotissement comme anti-modèle’, in Danièle Voldman (ed.), Les Origines des villes nouvelles de la région parisienne, 1919–1969, Cahiers de l’Institut d’histoire du temps présent, 17 (1990), pp. 11–22.
- 12.
Jean Pierre Gaudin, ‘The French Garden City’, in Stephen V. Ward (ed.), The Garden City: Past, Present and Future (London: Spon, 1992), pp. 52–68.
- 13.
Gaudin, ‘The French’, pp. 55, 57, 61, 63.
- 14.
For the generic toponymy of the Plateau in the French colonies see: Liora Bigon and Ambe Njoh, ‘The Toponymic-Inscription Problematic in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa: From Colonial to Postcolonial Times’, Journal of Asian and African Studies, 50, 1 (2014), pp. 25–40.
- 15.
The AOF, i.e., the federation of French West Africa, was created in 1895, alongside the federation of French Equatorial Africa (AEF), to facilitate the centralist decision-making process in Paris. The AOF’s overall territory amounted to 4,633,985 km2, and included eight colonies: Senegal, French Sudan (today’s Mali), French Guinea, Ivory Coast, Dahomey (Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Niger and Mauritania.
- 16.
For the ‘pacification’ of anti-colonial metropolitan critique see: Alain Sinou, Comptoirs et villes coloniales du Sénégal: Saint-Louis, Gorée, Dakar (Paris: Karthala, ORSTOM, 1993), p. 300.
- 17.
Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, ‘À propos de la cité-jardin dans les colonies’, in Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch and Odile Goerg (eds), La Ville Européenne outre Mers (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1996), pp. 105–126; Sinou, Comptoirs, pp. 307–308.
- 18.
Jean Royer (ed.), L’Urbanisme aux colonies et dans les pays tropicaux, vol. 1 (La Charité-sur-Loire: Delayance 1932).
- 19.
E. Weithas, ‘Rapport général sur l’urbanisme en Afrique tropicale’, in Royer (ed.), L’Urbanisme aux colonies, vol. 1, pp. 111–14 (p. 112).
- 20.
Weithas, ‘Rapport’, p. 113.
- 21.
René Schoentjes, ‘Considérations générales sur l’urbanisme au Congo belge’, in Royer (ed.), L’Urbanisme aux colonies, vol. 1, pp. 170–88 (p. 178).
- 22.
R. de Andrade, ‘L’Urbanisation de Beira en Afrique orientale portugaise’, in Royer (ed.), L’Urbanisme aux colonies, vol. 1, pp. 141–5 (pp. 144, 145). In this report the cité-jardin expressed colonial dreams as it had not yet been materialised.
- 23.
For instance: Archives Nationales du Sénégal (hereafter ANS), 4P 169, Urbanisme au Senegal: services des parks et jardins, 1923; 4P 1461, Jardins publics de Dakar et Gorée: construction, 1921–22.
- 24.
ANS, 4P 75, Plan d’aménagement de la cité jardin de Hann: pièces écrites et plans, 1957.
- 25.
ANS, 4P 1461, Jardins publics de Dakar et Gorée: construction. Inside: Jardin des compagnies disciplinaires à Hann, 1870 (Génie, direction du Sénégal, petit atlas des batiments militaires); P167, Urbanisme de Dakar, rues et places, etc. 1901–18. Note par l’inspection de l’agriculture sur la plantation des avenues de Dakar, 28 Septembre 1907.
- 26.
For more on the Office see Sophie Dulucq and Odile Goerg, Les Investissements publics urbains en Afrique de l’ouest, 1930–1985 (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1989), p. 119. For the special conditions given by the administration to French contractors see ANS, 4P 272, Plateau, villas, 1922–23.
- 27.
David Smilanski, With My Fellow Countrymen and Townsmen (Tel Aviv: Yedidim, 1958), pp. 482–4 [in Hebrew]; Yossi Katz, ‘Ideology and Urban Development: Zionism and the Origins of Tel Aviv, 1906–1914’, Journal of Historical Geography, 12, 4 (1986), pp. 402–424.
- 28.
Central Zionist Archives (hereafter CZA), L51/52, Letter from the Ahuzat Bayit Association to the Keren Kayemet (The Jewish National Fund), 19 February 1907.
- 29.
Akiva Arie Weiss, The Beginning of Tel Aviv (Tel Aviv: Aynot, 1957), p. 66 [in Hebrew]; CZA, L2/71, Warburg to Ruppin, 6 November 1908; Jerusalem, vol. 1, Jaffa 1913, pp. 20–27 [in Hebrew]; A. Gabstein, ‘Urban Building in Palestine’, Eretz Israel, 7, 8 (1918), pp. 45–46 [in Russian]. Zaidman and Kark originally noticed the role of the German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer in introducing the term ‘garden city’ into the Zionist context: Miki Zaidman and Ruth Kark, ‘The Genesis of Tel Aviv’, Zemanim, 106 (2009), pp. 8–21 (p. 8) [in Hebrew].
- 30.
Willy Lange, Land und Gartensiedlungen (Leipzig: J. Weber, 1910), pp. 189–192.
- 31.
Alter Droyanov, Tel Aviv Book (Tel Aviv: The Book Committee, together with the Municipality, 1936), p. 75 [in Hebrew]; Weiss, The Beginning, p. 85; CZA, L2/578; Tel Aviv Municipality Archives (hereafter TAMA), the protocol file of the Ahuzat Bayit Association, 3 June 1907.
- 32.
TAMA, articles in Tel Aviv, vol. 2 (unpublished, in Hebrew); Smilanski, With My Fellow, p. 525; Weiss, The Beginning, pp. 115–123; HaOlam, 31 August 1909, p. 15 [in Hebrew]; Yossef Eliyahu Sheloush, The Story of My Life (Tel Aviv: published by the author, 1931), p. 139 (in Hebrew, reprinted by Bavel Publishers, Tel Aviv 2005).
- 33.
TAMA, the Prospectus of the Ahuzat Bayit Association, 31 July 1906; TAMA, the protocol of the meeting of 3 June 1907 [both in Hebrew]; Weiss, The Beginning, p. 85; Yechiel Tshlenow, Five Years of Our Work in Eretz Israel (Palestine) (Moscow: n.p., 1913), p. 55 [in Russian]; CZA, L18/105/4.
- 34.
See, for instance, the recent series of conferences, journal articles and books under the aegis of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.
- 35.
CZA, L51/52, Ahuzat Bayit Association to the Jewish National Fund, 19 February 1907; TAMA, Ahuzat Bayit protocols file, protocol from the 3 June 1907; Droyanov, Tel Aviv, p. 84.
- 36.
Droyanov, Tel Aviv, pp. 85, 92, 94; Smilanski, With My Fellow, p. 485; HaOlam, 4 May 1909, p. 15; Curt Nawratzki, Die Juedische Kolonisation Palästinas (Munich: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, 1914), pp. 380–381; Sheloush, The Story, p. 131; TAMA, file of Ahuzat Bayit Association, minutes of meetings, 9–20 October 1907, 16 January 1908 to 9 November 1908, 9 January and 4 March 1909; CZA, L51/52, Letter from Levontin to Ruppin, 24 May 1909.
- 37.
TAMA, Unit 1, file 40, Letter from Treidel to Weiss, 8 January 1909; and Letter from Treidel to Weiss, 9 January 1909; TAMA, file of Ahuzat Bayit Association, minutes of meetings, general meeting, 17 and 20 February 1909; CZA, L2/633, Letter from Ruppin to the Keren Kayemet, 15 February 1909; HaOlam, 4 May 1909, p. 15.
- 38.
Alain Dubresson, L’Espace Dakar-Rufisque en devenir (Paris: ORSTOM, 1979), pp. 105–106; Assane Seck, Dakar: Métropole ouest africaine (Dakar: IFAN, 1970), pp. 122–131.
- 39.
Nili Liphschitz and Gideon Biger, Green Dress for a Country: Afforestation in Eretz Israel, The First Hundred Years 1850–1950 (Jerusalem: KKL and Ariel, 2004), pp. 42, 47–49. See also Elli Schiller, Jaffa and its Sites (Jerusalem: Ariel, 1981), vol. 15 [in Hebrew].
- 40.
TAMA, Ahuzat Bayit Protocols File, protocols of meetings from the following days: 15 September 1909, 17 November 1909, 25 May 1910, 8 August 1910, 12 June 1912, 4 December 1913, 25 March 1913, 14 October 1913, 24 April 1914; HaPoel Hatsair, 1 November 1912, p. 21; HaPoel Hatsair, 26 December 1912, pp. 11–12; HaZman, 17 January 1914, p. 4; HaOlam, 5 February 1914; HaHerut, 27 May 1914, p. 1; HaHerut, 25 June 1914, p. 2 [all in Hebrew].
- 41.
For a different view, however, on the state of urban planning under the (late) Ottoman regime in Palestine, see Salim Tamari, ‘Confessionalism and Public Space in Ottoman and Colonial Jerusalem’, in Diane E. Davis and Nora Libertun de Duran (eds), Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Spaces (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), pp. 59–82.
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Bigon, L., Katz, Y. (2016). Generic Terminology in Colonial Urban Contexts: Garden Cities Between Dakar and Tel Aviv. In: Bigon, L. (eds) Place Names in Africa. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32485-2_9
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