Urban Utopias In The Twentieth Century

In the recent past, almost every discussion of urban development has ended with an attempt to find sustainable alternatives to the “functional city” inherited from the twentieth century. The events of September 11, 2001, in the United States reinforced the centrality of this discussion. The two books under review give us the occasion to revisit the two main discourses on urbanism of the past hundred years: the idea of the “garden city” and the “modern urbanism,” centered on the figures of Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier, respectively. Both discourses were responsible, directly or indirectly and for better or worse, for most of the urban design of the twentieth century. Even the recent discourse of “new urbanism” not only is based to a large extent on the garden city principles but also is defined as a reaction to CIAM’s discourse. Both the publications reviewed here focus on issues of urban design, through the historical analysis of organized groups of professionals who sought to implement a utopian discourse on urbanism. Sociable Cities: The legacy of Ebenezer Howard, by Peter Hall and Colin Ward, commemorates the centenary of Howard’s book Tomorrow! A Peaceful Path to Real Reform and the establishment of the Garden City Association, later known as the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA). It is organized in two main parts, each with six chapters. The first part deals with the development of the garden cities movement during the twentieth century, and the second part discusses future prospects of these ideas as part of the sustainable development paradigm, arguing that Howard’s proposals are still relevant to the creation of a sustainable urban environment. In the first three chapters, the authors present a brief biography of Ebenezer Howard, with references to influences that inspired him. They also dissect the model in its different forms—physical, social, financial, and institutional—and show what sorts of problems it was supposed to solve. Moreover, they give an account of