Chapter 7 - From the Reformation to Garden Cities–a Danish perspective on the development of urban agriculture in Europe

Abstract

The Protestant Reformation in 1536 and its expulsion of the Catholic clergy and expropriation of its huge landholdings in northern Europe laid the legal foundation and subsequent rise of urban agriculture. Parts of the land were namely transferred to the boroughs and provided as a payment to the mayors, aldermen, brewers, etc., for upholding their duties and loyalty to the King. In the same period, the fiction ‘Utopia’ (1516) became a landmark and a change in the western literature of visions for a new ideal society. Together with the persecutions of Protestants in the rest of Europe, and many refugees following in the wake, the book gave inspiration to the establishment of new religious and urban agriculture–based communities in both Europe and America. The Enlightenment period (18th century), with its idea of progress, provided new perceptions on society that the existing social and world order was no longer God-given. Poverty and misery of the poor were remediable and no longer accepted as part of a natural order. Hence, poverty gardens were established around Europe, and later in the wake of early industrialization utopian socialist visions of ideal work and community organization started to emerge around company towns parallel with allotment gardens in the periphery of the expanding cities of Europe and growing working classes. Model company towns such as Port Sunlight (1888) and Bournville (1895) were influential in regard to their building and planning innovation and had a significant impact on the Garden City movement from 1902. The Garden City's mix of social and urban planning, with a perfect blend of city and nature, provided an alternative to the slums and social misery of capitalism and became an important part of the Labor movement's community housing policies during the 20th century. Their visions and heritage of creating new urban agriculture–based utopias lends inspirations to present-day “eco-villages, agrihoods, and city architecture integrating climate resilience with local food production and new modes of sustainable living.”