THE IMPACT OF THE GARDEN CITY CONCEPT
ON URBAN PLANNING IN CANADA
Comprehensive
Exam Question
Written
by
Chris
Fullerton
for
Professor
Avi Akkerman
Friday,
October 27, 2000
INTRODUCTION
Ebenezer
Howard’s Garden City concept had a profound influence on urban planning. Many
plans have attempted to directly emulate Howard’s original ideas, while others
have been revised over the past one hundred years. Two major modifications of
Howard’s ideas, Perry’s “Neighbourhood Unit” design and Stein and Wright’s
plans for “New Towns,” involve the modification of Howard’s ideas regarding the
design of residential areas so as to accommodate the growing influence of the
automobile. Together, the Garden City
concept, the notion of the Neighbourhood Unit, and the “New Town” idea,
influence urban planning to this day.
The integration of town and country, the separation of conflicting land
uses and modes of travel, and the ideas of growth management are all elements
of the Garden City concept that have made their way into plans of most major
Western cities.
The purpose of this brief paper is to review
the key elements of the Garden City concept, the Neighbourhood Unit, and the
New Town idea. Secondly, I will discuss
the application of these concepts in Canadian cities. In particular, I will
focus on the great influence that these ideas have had on planning in the
Ottawa area.
EBENEZER HOWARD AND THE GARDEN
CITY CONCEPT
Ebenezer Howard
introduced the Garden City Concept in an 1898 book entitled, Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Howard’s motivation for developing this
scheme was primarily the deterioration of living conditions in the urban and
rural areas of England. In urban areas,
Howard was concerned about the increasing prominence of overcrowded neighbourhoods
and unsanitary living conditions. These
conditions developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution, which had
encouraged a great deal of rural-to-urban migration as rural residents sought
to find employment and a better life in the industrial city (Aalen 1992). Howard was also concerned about living
conditions in rural areas, where residents had to contend with a lack of proper
drainage and proper sanitary facilities (Meacham 1999).
Nonetheless, Howard
knew that the city and country each possessed attributes conducive to a high
quality-of-life. His solution then, lay
in the development of Garden Cities, new towns that would be planned in advance
of their construction so as to ensure that all that was good about cities and
rural areas could be combined. The
Garden City Concept would thus represent a “marriage of town and country.” Howard’s vision involved the development of
a system whereby a number of independent garden cities would surround a central
city (Figure 1). The central city would
have a maximum population of approximately 58,000, while the garden cities
would each be expected to grow to a population of about 32,000. Together, they would form an urban system
that would have a combined population of about 350,000. The system would be tied together by an
efficient, electrically powered rail transit system.
Howard’s ultimate goal
was to develop socially and economically balanced cities, places that would
accommodate all classes of people and provide a range of employment in primary,
secondary, and tertiary sectors. The
form of the garden city included several innovations for its time. In order to
provide a healthy living environment, Howard’s plan called for the orderly
arrangement of land uses through the use of zoning techniques (Figure 2).
Service activities and public buildings, such as the town hall, theatre, public
library, museum and hospital, would be located at a well-defined town centre,
which would act as the focal point of the community. Surrounding the town centre would be a series of planned
residential neighbourhoods, each of which would have its own schools,
playgrounds, gardens, and churches. Howard hoped that this would lead to the
development of a strong sense of community (Aalen 1992). The outer edges of the city would be the
location of factories and railways, thus ensuring the separation of
incompatible uses.
Figure 1. The Garden City Concept. Several “garden cities,” each surrounded
by a greenbelt, would encircle a larger central city.
Source: Ward 1992, p. 4
Surrounding the garden city would be a
greenbelt measuring about 4,000 acres in size.
Within this area Howard proposed the development of facilities such as
farms, hospitals, convalescent homes, and agricultural schools, for example. The
greenbelt would also act as a growth boundary for the garden city, which would
thus eliminate the risk of urban sprawl.
Figure 2. Howard’s diagram of the internal
structure of the Garden City.
Source: Ward 1992, p. 5
The Garden City movement quickly garnered the excitement of urban reformers and the acceptance of the early town planning movement. The international community embraced Howard’s ideas of creating a well-planned community from the ground up, of separating land uses, and of limiting growth through the use of greenbelts (Aalen 1992: 49-50). Thomas Adams noted that the primary significance of the Garden City concept was not so much that towns be built to a prescribed form, but rather to show “the advantage of planning communities in all their features from the beginning” (Adams 1935: 275).
The first two garden cities built according to
Howard’s ideas were located in England: Letchworth, started in 1903, and
Welwyn, begun in 1920. These were followed by a number of garden city projects,
including Välingby in Sweden, Hellerau in Germany and Cumbernauld in Scotland.
GARDEN SUBURBS
The Garden City concept spawned the idea of the
Garden Suburb. This derivation of
Howard’s idea entailed the development of residential areas similar to those of
the Garden City (Aalen 1992). Rather than being built far from a central city,
however, Garden Suburbs were located adjacent to, or just beyond, the built-up
urban area. They were also restricted to residential uses and thus relied on
the nearby central city for employment and opportunities, again contrary to the
Garden City idea. The first Garden Suburb was Hampstead Garden Suburb in
London, England, which was designed by Sir Raymond Unwin.
THE GARDEN CITY CONCEPT IN THE
UNITED STATES
In the United States, interest in the concept
of the garden city was particularly strong during the 1920’s (Ward 1992). Two
important innovations that drew their inspiration form Howard’s ideas were
developed during this period. These were the “neighbourhood unit” concept
developed by Clarence Perry in 1929 and the “Radburn Idea” conceived by
Clarence Stein and Henry Wright in 1926.
Each of these would have a significant impact on urban planning around
the world, much the way Howard’s garden city concept did at the turn of the
century. A critical difference between Howard’s plan and those developed by the
American planners had to do with the primary means of transportation available
within the community. While the Garden City concept was developed during the
railway era, Perry, Stein and Wright were forced to accommodate a different
mode of transportation: the automobile.
Clarence
Perry and the “Neighbourhood Unit”:
Planners in the United
States during the 1920’s had a great
interest in the Garden City idea of residential neighbourhoods replete with
local services such as schools, parks, and churches. However, by this time planners were also seeking means to address
the traffic and safety issues that coincided with increasing automobile
traffic. A widely accepted solution
came in the form of a modification to the residential layout found in Howard’s
concept, proposed by Clarence Perry in 1929.
Perry’s proposal for “the neighbourhood unit” involved an attempt to
develop school-oriented, traffic-insulated areas. As with Howard’s Garden City,
the neighbourhood unit represented an attempt to build a strong sense of
community (Ward 1992).
Perry’s concept had several unique elements
(Figure 3). First, residential neighbourhoods were to be organized into units
of about 64 hectares, and each would hold a population large enough to support
one elementary school (Hodge 1986). No
child would be required to walk farther than 500 metres to their school, which
was to be located at the centre of the neighbourhood along with a community
centre, a library, and other community services.
Clarence
Stein, Henry Wright and the “New Towns”:
Yet another planning concept devised in the
United States during the 1920’s and heavily inspired by Howard’s Garden City
concept was the “new town” idea developed by planners Clarence Stein and Henry
Wright (Figure 4), often referred to as the “Radburn Idea”. The Radburn project was built between 1926
and 1929 in rural New Jersey. In
discussing Radburn’s Garden City roots, Stein wrote: “We believed thoroughly in
green belts, and towns of a limited size planned for work as well as for
living” (Stein 1966: 37). However, the
construction of Radburn was interrupted when the Great Depression began in
October 1929. The bankruptcy of its developers meant that only one
neighbourhood was ever completed. In
the end, the greenbelt was not created, nor was industry attracted to the
community. Instead, “Radburn had to accept the role of a suburb” (Stein 1966:
41).
Despite its failure to become an independent
Garden City, Radburn nonetheless represented a dramatic advance in community
planning. First, it introduced a
hierarchy of roadways. Secondly, its design deliberately separated pedestrian
and automobile traffic. Thirdly, it introduced the concept of the residential
“superblock”. Finally, houses in Radburn were oriented toward parkland rather
than onto streets. Like Perry, Stein
and Wright were concerned with the impact of the automobile on residential
areas, which led them to introduce a hierarchy of specialized roads and
pathways throughout the community. Smaller roads were
built for exclusive uses, including service lanes and culs-de-sac that provided
access to houses. Secondary collector
roads ran around the superblocks, while main thoroughfares linked the different
neighbourhoods and provided access to the expressways that connected Radburn to
the outside world. Also notable in
Radburn was the separation of pedestrians and automobiles. Walks and paths were built to run separately
from roads in order to prevent conflict between pedestrians and cars. Overpasses and underpasses were built where
these routes intersected.
A third innovation in Radburn was its
introduction of a series of “superblocks”, long and narrow rectangular blocks
of housing. Superblocks measured 12 to
20 hectares in size and were free of any through roads, except on their outside
perimeter. Within the superblocks, and
fronting every house, were large open areas of parkland. Houses had two fronts: living and sleeping
rooms faced the parkland; kitchens and bathrooms faced the automobile-oriented
access roads (Stein 1966: 44).
THE INFLUENCE OF GARDEN CITY
IDEAS ON URBAN PLANNING IN CANADA
It has not been the garden city so much as its
derivatives that have influenced urban planning in Canada. The construction of Hampstead Garden Suburb
in 1907 prompted a great deal of interest in the development of several similar
neighbourhoods in Canadian cities.
Among those built were Shaughnessy Heights in Vancouver, Mount Royal in
Calgary, Lindenlea in Ottawa, Rosedale and Forest Hill in Toronto, and
Westmount in Montreal (Hodge 1986).
While Garden Suburbs gained only limited acceptance across Canada, the “neighbourhood unit” notion and the “new town” or “Radburn” idea have had a much greater impact on urban planning in the Canadian metropolis. Referring to Perry’s ideas, Hodge commented, “Community plans [across Canada] have repeatedly used the neighbourhood unit notion in a variety of formats […] the neighbourhood unit idea became one of the strongest physical organizing principles in modern community plans” (Hodge 1986: 65). Referring to the influence of Radburn, he stated, “there is hardly a metropolitan suburb planned since the end of World War II, from Fraserview in Vancouver to Churchill Park in St. John’s, that does not embody the principles of Wright and Stein” (Hodge 1986: 68). New towns have also been constructed based upon the principles embodied at Radburn, including Don Mills, Erin Mills, Meadowvale, and Pickering, all of which are located in Ontario.
The
Garden City and Urban Planning in Ottawa:
The Ottawa metropolitan
area represents an interesting case study regarding the influence of Garden
City planning in Canada. It is perhaps here more than in any other Canadian
city that Howard’s Garden City concept,
Perry’s notion of the “neighbourhood
unit”, and Stein and Wright’s “new town” idea have had an influence on planning
initiatives. This includes the federal government’s 1950 Plan for the National Capital, the 1974 Regional Municipality of
Ottawa-Carleton Official Plan, and
the design for Kanata, a “new town” located west of Ottawa.
The
1950 Plan for the National Capital:
The Plan
for the National Capital was written during the late 1940’s by the French
planner, Jacques Greber, and released in 1950. One of the primary goals of the
Plan was to deal with the problem of urban sprawl in the Ottawa area, and it is
in Greber’s proposed means of addressing this problem that the influence of
Howard’s Garden City concept is especially evident. In order to stop the encroachment of urban development on rural
areas, Greber proposed the creation of a greenbelt that would encircle the
entire Ottawa urban area. In delineating the greenbelt’s boundaries Greber
sought to leave enough room on its urban side for future development needs. It
was expected that this land would prove sufficient into the year 2000. The National
Capital Commission developed the Greenbelt by the late 1960’s.
The influence of the
Garden City concept is also evident in Greber’s proposal for accommodating
urban development once it was necessary to build beyond the confines of the
greenbelt. Once the greenbelt’s inner
areas were entirely developed, Greber proposed the development of a series of
satellite cities that would be located at some distance away from Ottawa. In
keeping with Howard’s concept, Greber assumed that the satellite cities would
develop their own independent economies and industries, thus avoiding reliance
on the central city of Ottawa as a source of employment. In the Plan he wrote, “Exterior to the rural
greenbelt and at a sufficient distance therefrom to ensure the permanency of a
rural frame to the future Capital, other nuclei of populations could be
established in the rural zone in the form of complete self-contained
communities comprising from 20,000 to 25,000 inhabitants […]” (Greber 1950:
191).
The Plan for the National Capital is also
influenced by Perry’s notion of the neighbourhood unit, as well as Stein and
Wright’s use of parkland to separate neighbourhoods (Figure 5). In the Plan,
Greber wrote, “Future development is envisaged in the form of neighbourhood and
community units, segregated within a system of local greenbelts” (Greber 1950:
194). Each neighbourhood unit would
consist of 5,000 to 7,000 inhabitants.
Several neighbourhood units would be combined to create a distinct
community of 25,000 to 45,000 people.
Figure 5. Neighbourhood Units in the Plan for the National Capital,
1950.
Source: Greber 1950: 193.
Figure 6. Proposed Satellite Cities for
Ottawa, 1974.
Source: Wright 1978.
The 1974 RMOC Official Plan:
When the province of
Ontario created the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton (RMOC) in 1969,
planners immediately set forth to create a new regional plan. The process would take five years and
culminate with the creation of the 1974 RMOC Official Plan. It was evident in
writing the plan that the land within the confines of the greenbelt would not
prove sufficient for urban development demands beyond 1984, rather than the
year 2000 as Greber expected.
In debating what form the expanded city should
take, it was decided that a modified version of Greber’s “satellite city” idea
would be pursued. The decision was to
direct urban development to three satellite communities located on the eastern,
south and western edges of the Greenbelt (Figure 6). These were not to be satellite communities as envisaged by Howard
or Greber, however. Rather than
building these communities at isolated locations where they could become
independent entities, these “new towns” would rely on the central city for
employment.
Much like Howard’s Garden City concept, however, planners recommended
the development of a rapid transit system to connect the new towns to the
central city of Ottawa.
The
Kanata “New Town” / “Greenbelt Town”
One of the satellite communities outlined in
the 1974 RMOC Official Plan and to which urban development would be directed
was Kanata. Construction of this
community as a Radburn-style “new town” had already been underway for almost
ten years by the time the RMOC Plan was written (Figure 7). The Kanata “new town” was the brainchild of
William Teron, who had originally intended for Kanata to grow into an
independent city with a maximum population of about 100,000 (Timusk 1975).
Figure 7. Aerial View of Kanata, 1975.
Source:
Timusk 1976.
It is clear that Teron was heavily influenced by the ideas incorporated at Radburn in designing Kanata. The community was to be composed of several clusters of housing, surrounded by parkland. As in Radburn, roads and walking paths would be segregated from one another. At the centre of each neighbourhood would be a strong community centre, while major local facilities would be located at an even larger town centre.
In keeping with Howard, Stein and Wright’s
philosophies, Teron had also hoped to attract sufficient industry to Kanata so
that the community could become an independent entity, rather than reliant on
Ottawa as a source of employment.
Several municipal-servicing problems prevented this vision from becoming
a reality (Wright 1978), and Kanata followed the same fate as Radburn by
becoming primarily a commuter suburb.
Today,
Kanata continues to grow in terms of both population and employment. Although it has not yet reached its maximum
population, Kanata is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada. Its population
rose by 28.3% between 1991 and 1996, from 37,344 to 47,909 (Statistics Canada
1999). In terms of employment, the
number of jobs in Kanata has risen from 2,953 in 1976 to 19,549 in 1996 (RMOC
1997). Although it is unlikely that
Kanata will become an independent community, it is certain that with continued
job growth more and more residents will likely live and work there.
CONCLUSION
It is quite clear in
looking at any suburban community in Canada that the ideas of Howard, Perry,
Stein and Wright have strongly influenced the urban planning profession. Although the advent of the automobile age
has somewhat hindered the possibility of developing independent “new towns” as
a means of managing urban growth, planners have nonetheless relied on the
principles of the Garden City, the Neighbourhood Unit and the Radburn idea in
their efforts to create strong communities in which individuals and automobiles
can co-exist in harmony. As planners
begin to adopt the ideas of sustainable urban development, with its focus on
mixed land use, increased residential densities, and better accessibility to
employment, stores and other required facilities, it is uncertain whether the
strength of this influence will remain as strong in coming years.
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