Taking a Look at Garden Cities

Through a multitude of significant changes physically, conceptually, economically, and more, the societal reformation of cities in the Progressive Era had set themselves as the foundations of American civilization. The juxtaposition between the rich and poor statuses in these urban areas show the drastic separation within developing cities. Through this division caused a wide variety of living conditions, the majority of which held the overcrowded sections of cities where the population mostly stayed while the higher end communities had more luxurious lives. Through this success of entrepreneurship and economic growth from all aspects in cities, the entire landscape, both physically through innovative architecture and the perspectives outside rural and suburban areas had on them, had transformed for the better in these areas.

Urban sustainability is the idea that an urban area can be organised without excessive reliance on the surrounding countryside and be able to power itself with renewable sources of energy. The aim of this is to create the smallest possible environmental footprint and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently use land, compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and to make the urban area overall contribution to climate change minimal. Therefore allowing the next generations and future generations to have the required resources without compromising them. However sustainably needs to focus also on other issues such as crime and economic factors.

As rural workers – the female, the poor, the disenfranchised – made their way to cities like New York and Boston en bloc in search of work and one of the earliest versions of the “American Dream”, the divide between country and urban life was never more apparent. When cities saw an increase in quality of life and opportunity, rural jealousy

The Industrial Revolution not only changed business and economics, but urban lifestyle. The changes occurring were mostly negative, however, and constructed a need for reform. These were times where the product and consumer demand drove business, not socialist working reforms This is all best seen in Manchester where worker’s living conditions deteriorated to improve the business until they were initially met with meager reform, all while the city kept expanding to accomodate. The worker’s living conditions largely deteriorated as Manchester was forced to expand.

According to the essay “ Nature Through the Looking Glass”, the author believes that people should be part of nature, but most of the time people do not have real touch activity of nature. Under the strong competition society, it is not easy for a normal worker to go outside and interact with the nature. Those green plants on two sides of the city sidewalk is one of the chances for people to get touch to nature. More importantly, walking in the city sidewalks is easier than having a travel, which can satisfy most of the city people’s working requirement . Also, nature world will bring quiet life for people I always ask myself, if I can live without business area, after reading the essay “ The Forged City”. And I get a response, which is people need to get out of business activities and come back to nature even a short time in each day. Without interest relationship, people’s life will become simple and pure. Shopping malls cannot replace traditional city centers because people have large limitations in business malls. In contrast, people can observe different levels people in the society with equality ideas in traditional city centers. City sidewalks can fit for this requirement and provide a comfortable area for all of us. When children go

This shows that if planning is not stable or management planning - urban good also affect the sustainability of the project.

While it can’t be guaranteed that a rural individual will act one certain way and an urban individual will act another, there are some actions and reactions that can be assumed. By looking at urban and rural life during the 1900s, one can distinguish the tendencies of people who resided in the city as opposed to people who settled in the country. First of all, in the early 1900s urban and rural life were both challenging but in different ways. According to the writers of the Dictionary of American History, “Life for rural women during this period was very difficult and physical. Women were called upon not only to keep the home and rear children, but also to help in the fields and to process the raw commodities of the farm” (Rural Life 5).

Pollan opens his article by describing the place of Urban Agriculture dating back to the nineteenth century, stating that, “Through the nineteenth century, vegetable gardens and farm animals were common features of city life in the United States.” In fact he goes on to say that over time agriculture died out in cities, and that now “a slow resurgence” has begun to restore agriculture in urban areas which he supports by describing the growth in many urban hubs. This technique of beginning with the history of Urban Agriculture allows Pollan to not only start with a broad and understandable aspect of the topic but also to introduce the reoccurring theme of urbanization to the article. The writer continues his introduction through the definition of the topic as a whole. Urban Agriculture as defined by Pollan is “a variety of economic and social activities related to food production, distribution, processing, eating, and disposal.” he follows this up by listing examples of Urban Agriculture in action all of which have the common

Richard in his publication offers a clear and concise on the urban reforms in the society of America. He depicts the numerous social, political transformation that takes place in the society. The urban set up takes a different shape during the era. Richard brings to light that challenges that come with urbanization, and industrialization. He makes an effort in his text to make clear of how some cities came to place during the era. New building emerges during the period. The cities were a focal point for the growth of the America population. Rivalry among cities such as Baltimore and Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis is clearly in his text. In his text, the growth of the railway and major highways connecting different cities is

A sustainable city is when harmony is reached between the environment, economy and society. Environmentally, sustainable cities are ecologically friendly by using alternative sources of energy such as solar or wind power. Economically, governments should share a similar decision-making process with institutions and with the public by having a common belief in what should be done by improving sustainability. Sorensen, Marcotullio, and Grant (2004), find that a good decision making process consists of planning and control at the municipal and national political levels which would allow local level functions to become reinforced. Socially, sustainable cities are classless, meaning that there are no social divisions which serve as limits; leading to a more equal society. One of the many ideas would be using mixed housing to remove the class divisions between people. Also, city streets would be walkable, with businesses and services located at close proximity to promote a healthier lifestyle and serve as an alternative to using cars for transportation. The writers differ in their analysis when examining the approaches to improving sustainability in cities. This section will analyze four important ideas on how cities can become more sustainable.

Ebenezer Howard created revolutionary concepts with his “Town-Country Magnet” idea. This idealistic paper combines the healthy amenities of the country with the economic machine of the city; two entities that were, at the time, completely segregated. He reinvented this space and called it the “Garden City” (Howard 373). This urban decentralization used a circular plan and designated each ring to a different use, separated by expansive avenues and

“The best that can be said of the conception is that it did afford a chance to experiment with some physical and social planning theories which did not pan out. “ This quote reflects Jane Jacob’s philosophical ideas in an attempt to criticize the social housing’s design approach and its associated urban planning in modern era. “The physical and social theories” outlines the urban planning idea of social housing (Utopian idea) and according to Jane’s statement, such experiment of these theories were deem to be unsuccessful. It is inevitably certain to some extent that a provocative statement towards modern era social housing approaches would hold true due to the minimal success the plans brought to the city, such as solving the working class commendations temporarily. Nevertheless, it is a failure to deliver long-standing social improvements corresponded with the increasing suspicion of modernism, one cannot simply attribute ill fate to its “innovative physical features” (As Jane said, the Utopian and Utopia), but should rather considered a range of other elements in the larger aspect of society: factors such as difficulty of racial integration, problems of financing and management, lack of bridging between architecture and planning, as well as the increasing preference of suburban lifestyle from the rising mid class. These problems reflected evidently in some stereotypes of social housing communities built in the modern era such as Pruitt-Igoe, sunny side Gardens, Paul

Sustainability, a common vocab being used in design industry nowadays. It is mean to design something with a well consideration of improve environment, people and economic, which has become the fundamental aspect when comes to initiate the design thinking. According to Oxford Institute for sustainable development, the tools to measure and construct sustainable urban development are prejudicial focus on environmental and economic aspects. Most of the time, ecological and economical sustainability are well concerned but Social sustainable, which merely shown or mentioned on any press or architect’s forum. This essay will talk about the social sustainability in design, by defining the social sustainability in design, the key elements of the

The garden city movement, a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard, had a significant influence on urban planning. The theory of urban planning has envolved over the past hundred years, some have attempted to emulate theories from the garden city movement, while others have been revised based on Howard’s original ideas. The Garden City concept spawned many ideas of urban planning. Among these ideas, the Garden Suburb, Satellite City, the New Towns Movement and the New Urbanism are all significant theories in the history of urban planning and had their influence to this day. The integration of town and country, the separation of conflicting land uses and modes of travel, and the ideas of growth management are all elements of the Garden City concept that have made made their ways into plans of most major Western cities.

In this book Lynch defines that performance of the city can be measured by reference to its spatial form. But the quality of a place is depends upon combined effect of place and the society which occupies that place. Here Lynch sets up new dimensions for performance in his own criteria. Author also expresses his approach on size of the city, conservation and growth, planning practices and utopian models. The dimensions which are demonstrated in this book may not be fully perfect but of course they combine all social values as well as physical values. Lynch believed that these described dimensions must cover all features of all forms of the settlements and all these dimensions should be usable where values are different.