Town planning in new societies in the nineteenth century: A comparative perspective

Abstract

Many towns on the nineteenth‐century urban frontier in the United States were given a basic ground plan at their inception. But there was little regulation of their subsequent growth. This article argues that there was an anti‐planning bias in the development of new towns because of fear that controls on development would interfere with the operation of ‘natural laws’ of social evolution which boosters claimed made success for their towns inevitable. Australia is referred to as an example of a new country in which there appears to have been a greater emphasis on ensuring that settlers had available to them the sort of amenities that only towns can provide. Governments were seen as having to plan urban settlement in some detail in order to fulfil basic objectives of colonisation. The paper surveys the early attempts at systematic planning for and of towns in Australia. Eventually a situation not unlike that which prevailed in America was established in Australia whereby governments took responsibility for ...