Abstract
In this chapter we will present Howard’s idea. The fulcrum of Howard’s proposal is a particular form of organisation of life in common: Garden City. Howard’s Garden City is original not so much for the presence and the function of the green areas as, above all, for the organisational model that was proposed. Howard imagined that the organisational form of Garden City would be structured like a “large and well-appointed business”. In fact, Garden City is not a public municipality but a private voluntary organisation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Ward (1992). Howard had first thought of “Unionville” and “Rurisville” as alternatives for the term “Garden City”, but then abandoned them. Howard did not invent the term “Garden City”, which had been in use for some time, for example, in the United States, where Howard had lived for several years.
- 2.
This chapter covers Howard's theoretical proposal only. It does not cover the first tentative attempts to put it into practice (Letchworth and Welwyn)—which Howard himself took part in. For this see Hardy (1991, pp. 46–55, 150–58); Hall and Ward (1998, pp. 29–39). The experiences of Letchworth and Welwyn are well known, but go against various aspects of the original proposal.
- 3.
“The social reformism of the garden city idea was quickly converted into an environmental reformism which was in turn technicalised and dissembled to form part of the emergent professional practice of town planning” (Ward 1992, p. 24). “There was no doubt in Howard’s mind that the garden city was the path to a higher plane of living, not merely ‘a town on a background of open country’, as Raymond Unwin later described Howard’s physical arrangement. These heroic social objectives were rarely fully grasped, and often curiously ignored. Howard’s ideas have continued to reverberate in planning circles in many countries but it is the practical dimensions of his work that have been emphasised, while the vital socio-political ideals were barely understood, much less put into effect” (Aalen 1992, p. 28). Howard’s “principal innovation, financing the community from private land rents and thereby dispensing altogether with local taxation, has been forgotten in the literature of city planning…. The purely physical innovations of his cities, on the other hand, such as design and density control, functional zoning, and the greenbelt, are remembered and widely imitated. But what Howard himself considered his lasting contribution to civilisation is worse than ignored; it is simply forgotten” (MacCallum 1997, p. 295). The “physical and design-related aspects of the Garden City project were far from being central to Howard’s vision” (Sadoux et al. 2008, p. 59). “Howard’s primary goal was the reform of economic arrangements rather than mere architectural innovation… His emphasis was on the city rather than the garden… with a view towards decentralising government” (Foldvary 1994, p. 101).
- 4.
- 5.
We do not go into this point in detail because it is marginal to our general topics: see Howard (1898, pp. 12 ff.).
- 6.
The building of a Crystal Palace (a “great shopping centre”: Howard 1898, p. 73) is called for very close to the centre.
- 7.
A circular tree-lined Grand Avenue is proposed about halfway between the centre and the rest of the city. It would cross the six sections of the city and be the site of buildings for collective use like schools and churches. Howard specifies that the churches should be of all faiths, according to the religious convictions of the residents.
- 8.
This is a point that is often repeated in the book as, for example, in the following passages. Garden City “shall receive all rate-rents, and expend them in those public works which the migratory movement renders necessary or expedient” (Howard 1898, p. 114). The rate-rents “will suffice … to carry on such undertakings as are elsewhere for the most part carried out by means of rates compulsorily raised” (p. 64). The rate-rents “are amply sufficient to discharge all public burdens without any resort to the expedient of compulsory rates” (p. 67).
- 9.
From the beginning of his book, Howard (1898) informs us that when he uses the term “municipality”, he is not using it in the technical and traditional sense of the term as an indication of a public agency.
- 10.
See Sadoux et al. (2008, p. 59): “Howard seemed convinced that the British industrial revolution was inevitable and, somehow, beneficial. Building upon the economic, social and political transformations inherited from the revolution, he proposed a new way of living, working and governing within the context of industrial Britain”.
- 11.
- 12.
Interestingly, Spence may have been the first Englishman to use the expression “the rights of man”.
- 13.
As does Thompson (1963), for example. See Bonnett (2007, p. 8) for a critique of this type of interpretation of Spence's thought: “Spence was not a grunting Neolithic ancestor of the more sophisticated and long-winded radicals of later years”. Specifically, “Spence is not a good enough proto-Marxist; he is too wild in his determination to bang on about freedom, liberty and democracy, too localist, too contemptuous of authority” (pp. 10–11). In brief, “what Spence wants is the return of the land to a free, self-governing, people” (p. 9). See also Beer (2001, p. viii): Spence is “against nationalisation, his ideal being a nation consisting of a loose federation of autonomous communes”. And Ashraf (1983, p. 123): “Spence was not unaware of the alternative of nationalisation but specifically rejected it in favour of parish ownership and autonomy”.
- 14.
The central state remains in Spence's hypothesis, but it only is there to guarantee a general framework leaving wide space for local organisations.
- 15.
At times Spence suggested that the state requisites all the land and parcel it out among the parishes, which were to become the owners.
References
Aalen, F. H. (1992). English origins. In S. V. Ward (Ed.), The garden city. London: E and FN Spon.
Armstrong, K. (Ed.). (2007). The hive of liberty. The life and work of Thomas Spence. Whitley Bay: Thomas Spence Trust.
Ashraf, P. M. (1983). The life and times of Thomas Spence. Newcastle: Frank Graham.
Beer, M. (2001). Introduction. In M. Beer (Ed.), The pioneers of land reform: Thomas Spence, William Ogilvie, Thomas Paine. Honolulu: The University Press of the Pacific.
Bonnett, A. (2007). The awkward radical: Spence in and against revolutionary history. In K. Armstrong (Ed.), The hive of liberty. The life and work of Thomas Spence. Whitley Bay: Thomas Spence Trust.
Buckingham, J. S. (1849). National evils and practical remedies, with the plan of a model town. London.
Foldvary, F. (1994). Public goods and private communities. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
Hall, P., & Ward, C. (1998). Sociable cities. The legacy of Ebenezer Howard. Chichester: Wiley.
Hardy, D. (1991). From garden cities to new towns. London: E and FN Spon.
Howard, E. (1898). To-morrow: A peaceful path to real reform. London.
Howard, E. (1902). Garden cities of to-morrow. London.
MacCallum, S. H. (1997). The quickening of social evolution. Perspectives on proprietary (entrepreneurial) communities. The Independent Review, 2(2), 287–302.
Mumford, L. (1938). The culture of cities. San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Co.
Mumford, L. (1961). The city in history. San Diego: Harcourt Brace and Co.
Rudkin, O. D. (1966). Thomas Spence and his connections. New York: Augustus M. Kelley.
Sadoux, S., Cantaroglou, F., & Gloor, A. (2008). The governance of new communities in Britain, France and North America, 1815–2004: The quest for the public interest? In S. Body-Gendrot, J. Carré, & R. Garbaye (Eds.), A city of one’s own. Blurring the boundaries between private and public. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Spence, T. (1775). The real rights of man. Newcastle. In M. Beer (Ed.), The pioneers of land reform: Thomas Spence, William Ogilvie, Thomas Paine. Honolulu: The University Press of the Pacific 2001.
Spence, T. (1782). A supplement to the history of Robinson Crusoe being the history of Crusonia or Robinson Crusoe’s Island down to present time. Newcastle.
Spence, T. (1795). The end of oppression. Being a dialogue between an old mechanic and a young one concerning the establishment of the rights of man. London.
Spencer, H. (1851). Social statics. New York: Kelley 1962.
Spencer, H. (1891). Justice. Memphis: General Books 2010.
Thompson, E. P. (1963). The making of the English working class. New York: Vintage Books.
Wakefield, E. G. (1849). A view of the art of colonization. London.
Ward, S. V. (1992). The garden city introduced. In S. V. Ward (Ed.), The garden city. London: E and FN Spon.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brunetta, G., Moroni, S. (2012). The Proposal of Ebenezer Howard. In: Contractual Communities in the Self-Organising City. SpringerBriefs in Geography. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2859-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2859-2_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-2858-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-2859-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)