Urbanization in America

• The increasing crowding, pollution, and disease in the central city produced a growing desire to
escape to a healthier environment in the suburbs.

• The upper classes had always been able to retreat to homes in the countryside. Beginning in the
1830s, commuter railroads enabled the upper middle class to commute in to the city center.

• Finally, during the 1890s electric trolleys and elevated rapid transit lines proliferated, providing
cheap urban transportation for the majority of the population.
The extraordinary growth of
Chicago in the 19th century
was a global marvel

1833 vs. 1870

Urbanization in America
• The central business district of the city
underwent a radical transformation with
the development of the skyscraper
between 1870 and 1900.

American architectures of modernity: steel-framed ‘skyscrapers’

The Home Insurance Building (Chicago, 1885); the Flatiron Building New York (1902)
 Skyscrapers reflect the dynamics of the real estate market; the tall building extracts
the maximum economic value from a limited parcel of land. These office buildings
housed the growing numbers of white-collar employees in banking, finance,
management, and business services, all manifestations of the shift from an economy
of small firms to one of large corporations.

Nation’s Three Largest Cities by 1850

• New York, pop. 1,000,000 due to being a seaport and commercial center

• Philadelphia, pop. 565,529 due to industry

• Baltimore, pop. 250,000 due to trade with central U.S. and foreign markets.

• New cities emerge as a result of transportation routes.

Slums by railroad tracks.
Pictures of Slums, circa 1890’s
Wealthy live in mansions with access to private
parks
•
Reform Movement: Reasons
Problems arising from urban growth: Pressure for Reform
• Sanitation and public health
• The disappearance of urban open space
• Housing quality and overcrowding
• The ugliness and grimness of the nineteenth-century
industrial city (aesthetics)
• Traffic congestion
• The problem of providing urban populations with
adequate mobility and Infrastructure
Urban Public Health as a Focus of Concern
Physician Benjamin Ward Richardson wrote Hygeia, City of Health (1876) envisioning:

• air pollution control

• water purification
• sewage handling
• public laundries
• public health inspectors
• elimination of alcohol & tobacco
• replacement of the gutter with the park as the site of children’s play

such concerns motivated the Parks Movement

Frederick Law Olmstead: Parks
Movement
1822-1903
with Calvert Vaux (1847) won
the competition & went on to
design:

• Prospect Park (1865-

1873),
• Chicago's Riverside
subdivision
• Buffalo's park system
(1868-1876),
• the park at Niagara Falls
(1887)
Olmsted’s parks were not
natural but they were
“naturalistic” or “organic”
in form
This form was seen as
uplifting urban dwellers
and addressing the social
and psychological impacts
of crowding

determinism
Riverside, Illinois
• designed by
Olmsted, 1869
• a prototype
suburb
• 9 mi. from
Chicago
• fashionable
location for the
wealthy to live
• often copied
Ebenezer Howard
Sir Ebenezer Howard is known for his
Publication Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1898),
the description of a utopian city in which
people live harmoniously together with
nature.

•no training in urban planning or

design
•1850-1928
•opposed urban crowding/density
•hoped to create a “magnet”, people
would want to come to

The publication resulted in the founding of the

garden city movement that realized several
Garden Cities in Great Britain at the beginning
of the 20th century.
 Garden Cities

• would combine the

best elements of
city and country
• would avoid the
worst elements
of city and
country
• formed the basis
of the earliest
suburbs,
 FEATURES OF GARDEN CITY OF HOWARD

 accommodate 32,000 people

 6,000 acres (2,400 ha),

 planned on a concentric pattern with open spaces, public parks and
six radial boulevards, 120 ft (37 m) wide, extending from the centre.
 The garden city would be self-sufficient and when it reached full
population, another garden city would be developed nearby.
7

 Howard envisaged a cluster of several garden cities as satellites of a

central city of 50,000 people, linked by roads and rails.
 depicts 3 magnets

1.advantages and
disadvantages of town life

2.advantages and disadvantages

of country life

3.town-country life, incorporating

advantages of town and country
life
 CONCEPTUAL LAYOUT OF A GARDEN CITY

•a compact town of 6000 acres, 5000 of

which is reserved for agriculture.
• It accommodates a maximum population
of 32,000. There are parks and private lawn
everywhere.
• Roads are wide, ranging from 120 to 420
feet for the Grand Avenue, and are radial
rather than linear.
•Within the town, functional zoning is 21

basic.
• Additional elements
include unified land
ownership .
•Central park contains
public buildings.
• It is surrounded
by shopping streets
which are further
surrounded by
dwelling units in all
directions.
•The outer circle
contains factories and
industries.
•Rail road’s bypasses
the town, meeting the
town at tangent.
Thus the main components of Howard’s Garden city movement were:

1. Planned Dispersal

2. Limit of Town Size

3. Amenities

4. Town and Country Relationships

5. Planning control

6. Neighbourhoods 23
GARDEN CITY CONCEPT IN PRACTICE

1. The first Garden City evolved out of Howard’s principles is

Letchworth Garden City designed by Raymond Unwin and
Barry Parker in 1903.

2. The second one to evolve was Welwyn Garden City designed

by Louis de Soissons and Frederic Osborn in 1920.

3. Another example was Radburn City designed by Clarence

Stein and Henry Wright in 1928. 24
 LETCHWORTH, ENGLAND, UK

The first garden city developed in 1903 by

Barry Parker & Raymond Unwin after
having won the competition to build first

town planning and architecture

garden city.

It is 34 miles away from London. It has an

area of 5000 acres with 3000 acres of
green belt.

It had an agricultural strip at periphery to

check the invasion of urban area i.e. the
sprawling.
25
Its plan was based on population of 30000 with living area of 1250
acres and 2500 acres of rural green belt.

Communities ranged from 12000 – 18000 people, small enough which

required no vehicular transportation.

Industries were connected to central city by rapid transportation.

26
 WELWYN
Welwyn – It was the second Garden City founded by Sir Ebenzer Howard and designed by
Louis De Soissions in 1920 and was located 20 miles from Kings Cross. It was designed for
4000 population in 2400 acres. It was a town visually pleasing and was efficient
technically and was human in scale.

•It started with area of 2400 acres and 4000 population

•Had a parkway, almost a mile long central mall

•Town laid out along tree-lined boulevards with Neo Georgian town center

•Every road had a wide grass verge

Garden City Legacy in the U.S.
 • Garden City idea spread rapidly to Europe and the United States
 • Under the auspices of the Regional Planning Association of America,
the garden-city idea inspired a “New Town,” Radburn, N.J. (1928–32)
outside New York City

• The congestion and destruction accompanying World War II greatly
stimulated the garden-city movement, especially in Great Britain.

• Britain’s New Towns Act (1946) led to the development of over a

 dozen new communities based on Howard's idea.

 • The open layout of garden cities also had a great influence on the
development of modern city planning.
Failure of Garden Cities
• Letchworth slowly attracted more residents because it was able to attract
manufacturers through low taxes, low rents and more space.
• Despite Howard’s best efforts, the home prices in this garden city could not remain
affordable for workers to live in.
• Although many viewed Letchworth as a success, it did not immediately inspire
government investment into the next line of garden cities.
• In frustration, Howard bought land at Welwyn to house the second garden city in
1919.
• The Welwyn Garden City Corporation was formed to oversee the construction. But
Welwyn did not become self-sustaining because it was only 20 miles from London.
• Even until the end of the 1930s, Letchworth and Welwyn remained as the only
existing garden cities.

The movement succeeded in emphasizing the need for urban planning

policies that eventually led to the New Town movement.
-Concentric zone model (Burgess model)
• Sector model (Homer Hyot model)
Are models relevant in Indian context
Next
• Origins of the planning profession in the US
• New Town Movement
• The birth of land use zoning
• Giants of Planning: Edward Basset, Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford
• Le-corbusior and Frank Lloyd Wright