From town—country to town planning: Changing priorities in the British garden city movement, 1899–1914

Abstract

The Garden City movement has often been accused of departing from the clarity and single‐mindedness of Howard's theory to engage in general planning issues. To plan existing cities, albeit at lower densities, merely perpetuates an urban phenomenon which Howard had rejected, it is argued. The article strives to identify and account for the British Garden City Association's early steps along this path, before 1914. It suggests that the key decisions were taken in 1903/4, and that they were a product of the success rather than the failure of the Garden City idea. Neither the Association nor Howard himself sensed a contradiction or a betrayal, and the Association played a significant part in creating a climate favourable to the passing of the Town Planning Act of 1909.