Ebenezer Howard
Ebenezer Howard (1850 - 1928) was a prominent British urban planner.
Early life
Howard travelled to America from England at the age of 21, moved to Nebraska, and soon discovered that he was not meant to be a farmer. He moved to Chicago and worked as a reporter for the courts and newspapers. In the U.S. he became acquainted with, and admired, poets Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Howard began to think about ways to improve the quality of life.
By 1876 he was back in England, where he found a job with Hansard, which produces the official verbatim record of Parliament, and he spent the rest of his life in this occupation.
Influences and ideas
Howard read widely, including Edward Bellamy's 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward and thought deeply about social issues.
One result was his book (1898) titled To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, which was reprinted in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-Morrow. This book offered a vision of towns free of slums and enjoying the benefits of both town (such as opportunity, amusement and high wages) and country (such as beauty, fresh air and low rents). He illustrated the idea with his famous Three Magnets diagram (pictured), which addressed the question 'Where will the people go?', the choices being 'Town', 'Country' or 'Town-Country' - the Three Magnets.
It called for the creation of new suburban towns of limited size, planned in advance, and surrounded by a permanent belt of agricultural land. These Garden cities were used as a role model for many suburbs. Howard believed that such Garden Cities were the perfect blend of city and nature. The towns would be largely independent, and managed and financed by the citizens who had an economic interest in them.
Action
In 1899 he founded the Garden Cities Association, now known as the Town and Country Planning Association and the oldest environmental charity in England.
His ideas attracted enough attention and financial backing to begin Letchworth Garden City, a suburban garden city north of London. A second garden city, Welwyn Garden City, was started after World War I. His contacts with German architects Hermann Muthesius and Bruno Taut resulted in the application of humane design principles in many large housing projects built in the Weimar years.
The creation of Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City were influential in the development of "New Towns" after World War II by the British government. This movement produced more than 30 communities, the first being Stevenage, Hertfordshire and the last (and largest) being Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Howard's ideas also inspired other planners such as Frederick Law Olmsted II and Clarence Perry. Walt Disney used elements of Howards's concepts in his original design for EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow).
Howard was an enthusiastic speaker of Esperanto, often using the language to give speeches.
External links
- Town and Country Planning Association
- Ebenezer Howard at the Open Directory Project
Garden city movement
The garden city movement was founded by Ebenezer Howard in England in 1898 as an approach to urban planning. Garden cities were to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by greenbelts, and containing carefully balanced areas of residences, industry, and agriculture.
Inspired by the Utopian novel Looking Backward, Howard published To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1898 (reissued in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-morrow), organized the Garden City Association in 1899, and founded two cities in England: Letchworth Garden City in 1903, and Welwyn Garden City in 1920. (Letchworth is commonly referred to as such, and Welwyn called by its full name.) Both designs are durable successes and healthy communities today, although not a full realization of Howard's ideals.
The idea of the garden city was influential in the United States (in Sunnyside, Queens, Radburn, New Jersey, Jackson Heights, Queens, the Woodbourne neighborhood of Boston, Garden City, New York, on Long Island) and Baldwin Hills Village (the Village Green) in Los Angeles), in Canada in Walkerville, Ontario, in German worker housing built in the Weimar years, and again in England after World War II, when the New Towns Act triggered the development of many new communities based on Howard's egalitarian vision. The garden city movement also influenced the British urbanist Sir Patrick Geddes in the planning of Tel-Aviv, Israel.
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