Garden Cities
Read about Garden Cities in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Garden Cities. Instead of being a community in which gardens are the dominant feature, the garden- city form of urban dwelling-place implies primarily an industrial town of limited size and of definitely advanced economic ideals. While there were in England, where the idea originated, several prior developments, the example which has best typified the aims and practicability of the garden city is that sometimes known as Letchworth, but actually named Garden City, in Hertfordshire, about thirty-five miles from London. The genesis of this enterprise appears to have been in the reception given to a little book entitled "To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform," issued in 1898, and written by Ebenezer Howard, then a London stenographer. The stated purpose was "to organize a migratory movement of population from our over-crowded centers to sparsely settled rural communities." In detail, Howard proposed "to find for our industrial population work at wages of higher purchasing power, and to secure healthier surroundings and more regular employment. To enterprising manufacturies, cooperative societies, architects, engineers, builders and mechanicians of all kinds, as well as to many engaged in various professions, it is intended to offer a means of securing new and better employment for their capital and talents, while to agriculturists it is designed to open a new market for their produce close to their doors. Its object is, in short, to raise the standard of health and comfort of all true workers of whatever grade, the means by which these objects are to be achieved being a healthy, natural and economic combination of town and country life, and this on land owned by municipality." It will be observed that this is not a proprietory enterprise. Howard considered that people aggregated themselves into the cities because of the "attractions" there, of various kinds. In the nature of the case, certain magnets attract to the town or city, and certain other magnets attract to the country. He would combine these magnets into a town-country habitation. He expressed the idea in a chart, Fig. 1621. The reception given to this idea was so favorable that in 1902 a corporation was organized "to promote and further the distribution of the industrial population upon the land upon the lines suggested in Ebenezer Howard's book," which in 1904 began operations. It is interesting to note that among the subscribers to this company's stock were George Cadbury and Sir W. H. Lever, both of whom had previously established with success industrial villages upon a proprietary plan—Bournville and Port Sunlight. While it is not the province of this sketch to discuss in detail the sociological features either of Garden City in England, or of its German prototype at Hellerau, near to and dependent upon the great German enterprise of the Krupps at Essen, it is proper to report the steady growth of the Letchworth scheme (so called because of the name of the largest estate purchased for establishing the Garden City), and to note the removal thither of several large industries, of which it is said that "printing, book-binding and various branches of engineering are the chief industries, and there are at least a dozen others." Garden City had, in 1912, eight years from its beginning, a population of 7,912, scattered comfortably and working happily in 1,761 buildings in the developed part of its 4,500 acres, and the effect of living eight years in its designed wholesomeness had been to give it a death rate of eight in the thousand, as compared with 14.1 for the larger English communities from which it drew its inhabitants and its industries. It is quite within the scope of this book to register the sober conclusion of the Royal Commission on Canals and Inland Navigation (England), in 1909, that "If industries are widely distributed, workers can have better houses at lower rents, can breathe less vitiated air, and they and their families can in many cases combine with factory work the healthy and profitable work of small agricultural production." "The gardens of Garden City are . . . the small individual gardens of its houses and cottages. . . . The garden is inevitable in Garden City. . . . You will not find a house without one—a real practical garden. . . . The majority keep their gardens well. . . . Most of the residences are detached, with gardens all around them." Such are comments on this feature of the successful Garden City found in a book on the enterprise, itself an evidence of the quality of the printing product of the community. (The Garden City, by C. B. Purdom; "printed in the Garden City at the Temple Press and published by J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London, 1913.") In addition to the prevalence of gardens, this industrial community enjoys other features not usual in hit-or-miss development. The houses in Garden City are not in blocks or "rows," are not monotonously similar, include careful provision for health and cleanliness, and range m cost from $1,000 to more than $10,000. There are many outdoor recreational facilities, and a strong community spirit helps to provide entertainment and amusement. The town plan takes account of the contour of the land, and the houses of whatever character are touched or approached by the green of vine or tree or plant. In the United States there are as yet no garden cities so thoughtfully designed and so capably worked out. There is a "Garden City" near New York, but it is merely a well-handled real estate promotion enterprise. Pullman near Chicago, was an attempt at mitigating the rigors of the congested city, and Gary, in Indiana, is a later and slightly more advanced industrial town. Neither approximates the efficiency of the English example. There are building in northern Michigan several industrial towns in which there is both planting and the retention of some native growth, but these are proprietary enterprises, and not cooperative as is the Letchworth Garden City. It is certain that there will come into existence many more communities of the type of Garden City, because it is coming to be generally known that the influences of the garden and of wider living areas upon an industrial population are economically favorable and tend to contentment, permanence and prosperity, especially if intoxicating liquors are either kept out or are made available only under sharp J. Horace Mcfarland. CH
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Garden Cities. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
- Garden Cities QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)