Ecological Control and the Garden City: Utopia for Whom?


Aerial view of church and residential areas in Pinelands, Cape Town,. Image © Jean van der Meulen via Shutterstock

Aerial view of church and residential areas in Pinelands, Cape Town,. Image © Jean van der Meulen via Shutterstock

At the turn of the 19th century, a British publishing house would release a book written by an English urban planner – a book with an optimistic title. The title of this book was To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, later reprinted as Garden Cities of To-morrow. The English urban planner in question was Ebenezer Howard – and this book would lay the foundations for what would later become known as the Garden City Movement. This movement would go on to produce green suburbs praised for their lofty aims, but it would also produce satellite communities that only catered to a privileged few.

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