Why Garden Cities Aren't Enough ft. Andrew

of my channel. And I thought i'd share a bit about a bit more about one particular historical urban planet movement that I talk about in that video, and that is Ebanez A. Howard's Garden Cities movement and his book Garden Cities of Tomorrow. Are all familiar with either, No,

I don't think so. Yeah, so Ebane's A Howard. Side note, by the way, I don't know who looks at a child and names them Abnez A. Howard, But he presented this idea of the garden city concept in eighteen ninety eight in a book called Tomorrow, A Peaceful Path through Real Reform. Later he republished in nineteen or two under the name of Garden Cities or Tomorrow, and take notes in the title of the book of the use of reform and peaceful path because it does highlight a noticeable

lack within Howard's vision that will discuss later. He wants to provide access to the benefits of both town living and a country living. As he describes, a town and country are like magnets drawing people to them, you know. So, According to him, town offers vibrant society and opportunity and transportation, but it lacks the beauty of nature. It has pollution, and has crowded, it has disease. I mean, this is

Victoria and era cities. He's talking about place with stink um in contrast, and the country and country offers the space and the beauty of nature and it's abundance, but it lacks society and it can feel isolated, and it really spread out. So you wanted to create a hybrid of both concepts, a third magnet of town country, the combined the benefits of both. I believe the secret. Sorry, I have to. I have to jump in here and make a secret, secret third thing. Yes, yes, thank you, Yeah,

that country, but a secret third thing. We fulfilled our We fulfilled our contractual obligations. One joke, all right, I'm got a side optical, Andrew, you take it from here. So yeah, a secret third thing, how I would believe that the ideal living conditions for people of all economic backgrounds could be created by establishing these town country cities with very specific parameters, run by strong government institutions. And Ebenezer Howard's context. Again, no offense to the ebenez As

the world. But jeez, I can't. I can't let go of those amplications. I think I think we need to bring back the name Ebenezer. Actually it's it's it's been too long since I've seen an infant named Ebenezer, meaning I've never seen one. I think I feel like we should see more. Just absolutely absurd. All the timing names. What do you what do you call the baby? Do you call them ebby or something like? How do you call the baby Ebenezer? The baby's name? Why would you

you call it the baby's name? You could call it Nieza. You could eventually call it Weezaks, horrible nickname. That is awful. Oh yeah, that is okay. I'm here on the amplications. I do never I never want to hear that again. Yeah,

I digress Howard's writing. I'm just gonna call them. Howard Howard's Rights in Journey Revolution was in response to well the Industrial Revolution, response to the urban slums, the pollution, the lack of access to the countryside, and much of his book is dedicated the idea that cities as they existed in his time were not sustainable in the long run. By the middle of the nineteenth century, over half of Britain's population lived in towns, and in nineteen hundred that

proportion had a resun to over three quarters. But English towns and cities presented social environmental problems of an unprecedented scale, and much of Britain's history in that period could be connected with the efforts to ameliorate the frightening conditions that a lot of people lived in. When it comes to the design, Howard wanted to create these highly structured, carefully laid out communities to provide the best conditions possible for

every kind of person he saw. He wanted to put just like large areas of land from aristocratic owners as a setting up garden cities that would house up to thirty two thousand people in individual homes on six thousand acres.

And that whole vision of individual homes is I think it belies a limitation the imagination there, but it's it's someone understandable considering the historical conditions at the time, where people were living in these overcrowded slums and stuff, and the dream was really to have a home of your own that you didn't have to crowd out. It didn't be crowded, you couldn't have to share with others. But anyway, I think a sustainable city should trade the sprawl that

single family homes generate for more dense development. For the most part, that is, but I digress once again. That's

not all his plan entailed. His garden cities would also include a huge public garden with public buildings like a town hall, lecture halls, theaters, and a hospitepital, an enormous arcade called the Crystal Palace not arcadies in video game, where residents would browse covered market and enjoy a winter garden, neighborhoods with cooperative kitchens and shared gardens, schools, playgrounds and churches, factories, warehouses, farms, workshops,

and access to a train line. In its ideal form, the garden city to become a network of smaller garden cities built around the larger central town. The idealized vision of the garden city contained very specific utopian elements, like small communities planned on a concentric pattern that an accommodated housing industry and agriculture surrounded by green belts that would limit their growth. Now, there's a diagram that he did up for his book that has been popularized that represents

like a sort of a concentric circle design. But he didn't believe that that necessarily had to be the shape of the garden city. He still wanted the city to be adapted to the local layout somewhat. And these elements of garden city design were all into dependent you know. He wanted strong community engagement, he wanted community ownership of land. Although he wasn't a socialist, mind you. He was a Georgeist. Oh god, wait, that explains it. That explains so much

about all of his politics. Of course, he was a Georgist. Yeah, quite an interesting crew of characters. He wanted mixed ten year homes and homes in types that were generally affordable. You know, to go on another digression, I find georgis Owe to be such an interesting fixation of a philosophy. It's like, you know, looking all the problems in society, and you know what, we need a land tax. That'll

salt thing. I mean, obviously that's not all it is, to the to the that political philosophy, that economic approach. But I just found I just find it every time I think about it. I find it funny that it was just really like the whole movement was basically this one like um tax proposal. It's really that was the whole focus of it. Yeah, it's really funny too, because I mean it has one of the sort of largest like collapses of any ideology ever. Like it is like

it was just a very like very it was. It was a big It was a big ideology. You know, it literally helped to develop the game, the board game and plea, you know what. It's like, it was a huge thing. This is something I've actually been looking into a lot. But I've been trying to track down some of the original like nineteen twenties copies of Monopoly that's

more based on the second game. Yes, I've been trying to find the ones that were like pre pre pre Parker Brothers um and I've I've I found I found a few, a few, I found a few like two months ago, but before I could order them, it was sold to somebody else on eBay. So I've been trying to track down another another one in the UH in the past few months, and it's been a bit more challenging,

just because I'm kind of a monopoly freak. Yeah, it's um it's really interesting to see how um that game was developed and then changed over time, and how Hasbur was stepped in? Isn't Hosbur Poker Brothers without was stepped in? And did there do to kind of basically rewrote the

history of the board game entirely. Yeah, but anyway. Elements to the Garden City strong community engagement, communitytionship with land, mixed tenure homes, homes in type so generally affordable, a wide range of local jobs with easy commuting distances of homes, well designed homes with gardens combining the best of town and country, and green infrastructure that enhances a natural environment, with strong cultural, recreational and shopping facilities in addition to

integrated and accessible transportation. It's not all sunshine and roses, though, I Mean you could look at the sort of the cream washing elements of the Garden City design and even in the time they were criticized. I mean, they were praised for being an alternative to the overcrowed industrial cities, but they were also criticized for damage in the economy, being destructive to the beauty of nature, and being inconvenient.

You know, they weren't able to be Furthermore, because they had this sort of top down design philosophy, they weren't able to truly reflect the natural and organic developments of a town or a country, you know, so secretly thing couldn't do either other things that the original two stuff could do. And then of course you have the mustached man himself, Marie Bucchin, stepping in in the limits of the city to evicerate the idea of the garden city.

He talks about how Howard's scheme was basically a system of benevolent capitalism that presumed to avoid the extremes of communism and individualism, and as a result, his entire book was quote permeated by an underlying assumption. So typically British that are compromise going to be struck between an intrinsically irrational material reality and a moral ideology of high minded conciliation. Microst Yeah, I feel like the most brutal part of

that is just the typically British. Yeah, I mean anything learning. Look at really the plan that Howard had, you know, the offices and industrial factories and shopping centers that he intended to provide the garden city with. Those spaces are battlegrounds of conflicting social interests. You know, there's alienated labor, their income differences, their disparities of work time and free time. All all that conflict is not addressed just because you

make a pretty city. You know, there's no resolution to the problems created under a capitalist factory office or shopping center just because you have a nice transit system and a green belt. I feel like some of some of these same problems to crop up on some of the solar punk stuff online as well. I mean we've an attacked him definitely greenwashing throughout the solar punk aesthetic and stuff.

But yeah, I mean it is it is an interesting, an interesting, interesting aspect that keeps propping up, and it's just intriguing that it like dates back over a hundred

years ago, like this same exact thing. Yeah, exactly, and funny enough, you know, his garden cities we even fallen short of utopias that were thought of before his time, you know, like not even just utopias, but also actual historical political experiments that you try to address various social problems, you know, Like unlike the Greek polis, which had some basis of face to face democracy, Howard just had a

central council and a department structure based on elections. Unlike in Thomas Moore's utopia, there's no proposal for rotating agricultural and industrial work. Unlike the Paris Commune of eighteen seventy one, which was established long before Howard wrote his book, he had no sort of incorporation of that sort of political

experimentation in the Garden city development. The criticism really is how superficial a lot of howards ideas are, right, Like, there was just a lack of social analysis analysis in favor of just design. Yeah, Georgism, Like sure it would probably be like better than what we have now. Well yeah, but but it by no means like fixes all of the systemic issue. It's like Amsterdam, right, I would rather

have capitalism while riding a bike. But Bokchin also talks about how these communities not encompass the full range of possibilities a human experience again quote because you know Bukchen is Loki a boss. Right. Neighborliness is mistaken for organic social intercourse and mutual aid. Well manicured parks for the

harmonization of humanity with Nietzsche. The proximity of workplaces for the development of a new meaning for work and its integrasement play, an eclectic mix of ranch houses, slab like apartments, and bachelor type flats for spontaneous architectural variety, shopping mark plazas in a vast expanse of lawn for the agora, lecture halls for cultural centers, hobby classes for vocational variety,

benevolent trusts, so municipal councils for self administration. One can add endlessly to this list of misplaced criteria for community that saved to offer skate rather than clarify the high attainment of the urban tradition. Indeed, the appearance of community serves the ideological function of concealing the incompleteness of an intimate and shared social life. Again boom, you know, and

people are brought together. You know, they have all these conveniences in these pleasant trees, but they're still culturally impoverished, they're still atomized, they still deal this stark reality of capitalism in the spaces that they're they're gonna inevitably spend

most of their day at work. Like it's nice that the city is well designed, but how much of it are you going to get to see if you still have to go to work for eight hours plus a d. I mean, if anything, at least you know, the commune will probably be shure to But that's about it, and that's me if you get a job in the city itself. This is interesting because in some ways, the invention of the suburb in the in the years after this kind of tried to solve for this issue while also just

doing it in an incredibly racist way. Like you can you can you can see the invention of the suburb of trying to create these little nestled communities but also getting away from the the the urban center, which was seen as this like scary place full of people who were non white. So you have like this white flight thing that developed this notion of the suburbs, which in some ways kind of does this but in a in

a much worse way. Actually, it makes it makes the idea of the Garden City look like a much better alternative to what the suburbs did. And it's it's just interesting that even the version of this that got implemented was just done in a way that it's so much more dystopian and depressing. Yeah, I mean, and Bookchin addresses

that that comparison to the suburbs as well. Right, he said, in the best of cases, the new towns differ from suburbs primarily because job commuting is short and most services can be supplied within the community itself. In the worst of cases, they are essentially bedroom suburbs of the metropolis and add enormously to its congestion during wook and hours. I can't I can't believe Bookchin beat me to the

punch on this one. I'm devastated. This is the first time booctions ever has has ever has ever beaten me. This is this is this is truly terrible. So but despite some of these flaws and criticisms, how it was passionate about his idea, all right, I mean, he published the book. He also organized like he's actually he's not sitting on Twitter, right, He's actually doing something about his ideas.

So he organized this Garden City Association in eighteen ninety nine in England to promote the ideas of social justice, economic efficiency, beautification, health and well being in the context of City Planet. That Garden City Association later became the Town and Country Plan and Association, which still exists to this day. Women played a very active role and continue

to play very active role in the organization. I mean, as Howard says himself in his book, women's influence is too often ignored here that ladies, this guy's a feminist. But when the garden city is built as a chokey will be woman's share. And the work he found to have been a large one. Women are among our most active missionaries. And so he's doing some Abdullah shit now that yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, he's liberating life, you know.

But yeah. The TCP in the Town Country Planet Association has continued to campaign for a new generation of garden cities based on modern modern garden city principles. They will cross sector and government influence policy in legislation. There is awareness through guidance and training. They promote affordable homes and inclusive, healthy and climate resilient places, and they try to create text world barriers opportunities and practical solutions necessary to make

new garden cities a reality. They also are genuinely interested in empowering people to have a real influence over decisions about the environments and to secure social justice within in between communities, or at least that is what their website says. Outside of the TCPA, the idea of goden City definitely sort of rooted itself in urban planning and the urban planning tradition, and it did sort of feed into this rise of green spaces within urban landscapes that we now

find around the world. The concept of the garden city is definitely still revisited today, but it's considerably different from the origin idea. It's also taken the garden city as an inspiration as an esthetic inspiration to create greater integration between urban areas and green spaces in a time though, going back to the late nineteenth early twentieth century, Howard was a successful fundraise again he was trying to get things going in the first years of the twentieth century.

He built two garden cities, Letchworth Garden City and Wellwyn Garden City, both in Hertfordshire, England, and both still exist today. Let's ruth was originally quite successful. It was first you know, an ancient parish from like the eleventh century and remained

a small rural village. And so the start of twentieth century when the land was purchased by a company called First Garden City Limited, which was founded by Howard and supporters, and they went on to establish the United Kingdom's first roundabout the Solar Shot Circus, a lot of urban like park land and open spaces, including a green space named

after Howard called Howard Park. But after Howard's passing, the First Garden City Limited was sort of taken over in nineteen sixty and the company so it changed how the

town was managed. The residents of the local council kind of lost some say the original Goden City ideals were reduced, and the corporation eventually became for the first the company created a cooperation transferred ownership to the corporation which was now called Letchworth Garden City Cooperation, and then that cooperation was replaced by a charter will body in the nineteen nineties called Letchworth god City Heritage Foundation, which continues to

own and manage the estate to this day. Leachworth was a sort of an interesting experiment. The people who were founded, who helped to found that town, were very much otherworldly as some people would described them. They for example, they had some people describe them as health freaks. They actually voted on a ban to set against the selling of alcohol, a ban on the selling of alcohol in public premises?

Oh boy, so which is I mean for a British village, right in the early nineteen hundreds to vote against having a pub? Unheard of? Right? They did eventually create a pub. That pub didn't serve any alcohol. Bumber bumber, hate to see it. Yeah, but lat truth was still like a

real pioneer, you know. It's approached to blend in Tallent country was used in the Australian capital Canberra, in hell Rao, in Germany, in Tapanila and Finland, and in Messa Parks and that field, and of course in the other garden city well win. How what had arranged for that land to be purchased by a company called Second Gotain City Limited.

Real creative there, And of first they were going to call the city digs Well, but a couple of days later they changed their mind, probably because they realized as a dumb name, and then they decided to call Yeah. I wasn't gonna say anything, but yeah, that's not that's not a great name. Yeah. And so the town is laid out along these tree line boulevards. It's sort of a New George and Town Center. Um. There's a lot

of grass out of parks, as to be expected. And the planners had intended to create the Guarden City to have like one shop called Welwyn Stores, which was basically a monopoly that all the residents were expected to shop at. Lastly, I think I want to bring up one final inspiration. I was about to one on whether I would include this one or not, but I said, you know what I might be entertaining and I might want to talk about it further in the future. A certain character by

the name of Walt Disney. Oh no, this is Epcot. This is this is this is the extramental prototypical City of Tomorrow. Yes, no, this is the Florida Project. Oh no, Disney's Epcot was designed in concentric circles with radiats. This is the worst job scare. Oh, but it should be noted, or rather should be expected that, unlike Howard, mister Disney envisioned having a lot of personal control over the day

to day management of life in his city. So really, Epcot was only loosely inspired by Howard's idea of combining the populace with industry. Um, this city would have had a hotel at the center with more than thirty stories and a convention center. There would be an internationally themed town center. Um, there would be a mega mole. There would be themed restaurants, shops, and attractions. There would be a monorail. Yeah he was, he was a car free

community advocate of Disney. Yeah. Like his plan was that nobody would drive in Epcot. Delivery trucks and other autobiles and other automobiles that needed to enter the city were to be kept underground. So it's kind of like a fusion of Ebone's ah what an elon musk that sucks? That sucks. Yeah. Also, this city would be climb a controlled with a glass roof. Yes, I mean, And it's funny because like he couldn't even do this properly, Like

he couldn't even build this. Instead, instead they got turned into like a like a like a bare skeleton of his original plan. Was because Epcot will failed in so in so many ways, the reason being that he ended up dying right. Yeah, yes, Like even on his deathbed, he was still sketching up designs for epcots, so he

never really got to implement it. Pro life Dictator dies anyways. Yeah, actual, like the actual like living communities in in Disney World Florida are are so different and in many ways they're They're just like another suburb, um, except you're in a suburb owned by Disney. Yeah yeah, And I mean it's gonna be a peek into what life would have been like on the epcot. Right, your home would have been pre fabricated and modula certain materials and technologies could be

tested as soon as they were viable. By the way, why they have nothing against free fab homes. I think they could be very useful, um, But Disney's idea was basically, your home is pre fab so that any time he wanted to install an update on it, he could. It's great, you know, like the entire city was basically like a

guinea pig for any technologies he came up with. UM, and so he wants to really retain absolute control of the city, Like they wouldn't even own anything Disney alone would own the land so that he and his successes can make updates and changes without ever being snowed down by this pesky thing called citizens votes and rights and all that. It's funny because this is actually now under attack by Ron de Santis in Florida. The sovereignty of Disney may like change a lot, and I think already

stripped it. Yes, but but how this plays out in actuality is yet to be determined. But it is funny that this is actually like this is a very very recent thing, Like it's just like a week or so. But see what we can see here is one of the inevitable transitions as as as we as we saw in British colonial rule in India, which is that direct corporate rules always replaced by injurrect corporate rule via the state. Yeah,

pretty much. Yeah, it's in some ways we will probably learn that it was better to live under Disney than run Descantis. But that's not saying much. Next time he opens up a discentist would No, no, it's just it's just it's literally just like eighteen Giitmo exhibitions. Oh lord, I mean, descentist world will just be the United States when descents poidential election. True, sad but true. But let me tell you a bit more about Epcot. Right, if you were eighteen, you know older, you have to have

a job. Well, so you don't get to retire. Nobody's allowed to retire. You only get to stop working if you either die or leave amazing one way out. Also, and the reason being, he believed this would prevent slums or ghettos from foremen in any part of his magical city, because I mean, if everyone has a job, then nobody will be struggling to pay rent or eat. Right. Funnily enough, of course, a lot of Disney workers today can't afford to pay rent or eat. But hey, the theoretically everybody

in Epcot would have their basic needs met. Also, though in exchange for that, they wouldn't have any privacy because Epcott was also supposed to be like a tourist attraction. You know, you look outside you were new, and tourists are like looking inside you were new. That was a thing that was Epcot thankfully doesn't it wasn't fully implemented. I mean, some people have said that Singapore is like a dystopian city state run by Disney. But we could talk about that him at the time. That's the basic

rundown on garden cities, past, present, and future. The idea of it, I think was, you know, notable, admirable, good effort, but flowed um and because it lacks a strong ideological foundation and economic foundation and analysis that took into a county contentions speak within society that you know, manifests in the urban landscape. And I think it's a clear warning that for solo punks and for really people who are interested in urban planet as a whole, that you know,

aesthetics is not everything. Design is not everything. You know, they asked me some some meat to those um, let's say some meats underneath that flesh. It's a really weird analogy, but yeah, yeah, no, but like yeah, the principle of Okay, I'm just gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna abandon the Walter Benjamin thing I was gonna do there, but no, try it, keep keep going, keep We're gonna Benjamin thing I have

I have. I haven't actually read any of his stuff in like five years, but one of Benjamin's things was when politics is sort of displaced, you're converted into esthetic, it becomes fascism. So don't do that. In fact, have actual politics and not simply reduce your politics too an aesthetic or to aesthetics, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, true, true.

All right, Well that's it for me. You can follow me on YouTube dot com slash Andreism, on Twitter at er School of Saying True, and on picture dotcom slash Andreism. You can find us at happen here pod or cools on Media on Twitter and Instagram. Um, and you can find me tweeting about my desire to understand the mechanics of how Disney World operates at Hungry Boutie, mostly on Twitter. Yeah. It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.

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