The garden city tradition re‐examined

The garden city idea emerged in the late nineteenth century, but was quickly changed to become a diversified tradition. Ebenezer Howard's original reformist project was soon subordinated to largely environmental concerns, which in turn became important aspects of an emergent practice of town planning. The original co‐operative mode of development was also eclipsed by private speculative and governmental modes. The second part of the article briefly reviews the papers presented at the 1989 Bournville Conference, ‘The Garden City Tradition Re‐examined’, detecting nine areas of interest in the historical study of the garden city tradition. These are: the origins of the garden city idea; its development and realisation; industrial villages; garden suburbs; modern variants of the tradition; other variants; garden cities in colonial/resettlement programmes; specific national experiences, and the garden city and other traditions of planning. The prevailing impression is one of diversity of interest and approach in this re‐examination of the garden city tradition. However, a very general overarching theme is detected in the notion of transformation of idealism which pervades all the papers presented at the Conference.