本帖最后由 满仓 于 2014-10-16 09:13 编辑
【中文标题】机械花园
【原文标题】THE MACHINE IS A GARDEN
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】AMANDA KOLSON HURLEY
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/26/the_machine_is_a_garden_cities_britain_china
1898年，一位不知名的英国速记员构想出“花园城市”的概念，把它作为解决伦敦肮脏、拥挤状态的解决方案。今天，这个思想复兴了，从英国传播到中国和印度，有些人甚至认为这个思路可以拯救地球。
纽约森林山皇后区南部的第71大街，有一条小小的购物街，看起来就和这座城市数不清的街道没什么区别。银行、鞋店、熟食店鳞次栉比，让人们回想起不那么久远之前，购物不仅仅意味着塔吉特（译者注：美国连锁超市）。但是继续向南走，穿过一条高架铁路，你好像进入了另外一个时空。突然之间，沥青路面变成了方砖，铺满一个宽阔、洒满阳光的小广场。红瓦的原木房屋是一个中世纪英格兰风格的意大利比萨饼店，树荫覆盖的曲折人行道从广场上延伸出去。唯一提醒人们这还是21世纪的纽约的，是头顶上呼啸而过的长岛铁路火车。
这种似城市而又非城市的感觉，恰恰是林山花园设计者要实现的目的。1909年，罗素塞奇基金会买下了142英亩开阔地，之后聘请了建筑师格罗夫纳•艾特博瑞和景观设计师弗雷德里克•劳•奥姆斯特德——著名的中央公园设计者之子——来建造一个城郊的样板。它应当成为铁路和有轨电车爆发式增长的一个新的榜样，结合了城镇和乡村最优越的因素。艾特博瑞和奥姆斯特德为了获取灵感，借鉴了来自英国的一种据说混搭效果超赞的风尚：花园城市。
花园城市的概念，来源于19世纪社会改革人士，他们希望提供大城市所缺乏的一切因素：有限的居民数量、自己拥有土地、宽广的空间、多元化的建筑风格、清新的空气和大量的绿地，工作、教育和文化中心都在步行范围之内。这个概念的姊妹产品——花园郊区——也拥有花园城市的基本因素：居民街道精美地环绕着一条主干道，或者是一片绿地，这一概念已经在远离市中心的郊外得以实现，包括遍布英国和其它一些国家的地区。例如，继森林山花园之后，1913年在巴西圣保罗修建了优美的亚美利加花园社区，以及7年之后东京郊区的田园都市。
在流行了几十年之后，花园城市的概念逐渐淡出了人们的视野，但是最近又出现了回归的趋势。为数不多但逐渐在壮大的建筑师、城市规划者和政策制定者都把花园城市作为让现代化城市不宜居因素的解药，从拥挤的居住条件，到环境恶化和贫富分化。
罗伯特•斯特恩就是花园城市的支持者之一。2013年12月，身为耶鲁建筑学院院长的斯特恩和另外两个人合著了《规划天堂：花园郊区和现代城市》。这本书重达12磅，有1000多页，包含了很多照片和图画，并列举了花园城市和城市郊区的久远历史，包括森林山花园。这本书并不仅仅是一部历史，三个人还写道，它为“现在和可预见的未来提供了发展的模版”。
找到一个可供效仿的城市化进程样板是件功德无量的事情。到2030年，10亿人（地球上八分之一的人口）将居住在中国的城市中，印度城市也将容纳大约2亿新居民。与此同时，环境变化是悬在所有城市头顶的一柄利剑，城市占据了全球80％的温室气体排放量，并且尤其易受空气污染、热浪，以及暴风带来的飓风和洪水侵害。
埃比尼泽•霍华德和他在1898年出版的书《明天：真正改革的和平进程》中有关城市花园的示意图。
花园城市可以解决这些问题吗？支持者给出了肯定的回答。他们认为，花园城市可以造就地球和人类所需要的友善的、可持续的、平等的社会，方法是削减污染物排放、保护绿地、鼓励友好的互动。
今天，花园城市的建设项目从英国到印度和柬埔寨迅速蔓延。尤其是在中国，那里的基础设施建设从2000年开始呈爆发式增长，中国已经成为花园城市的孵化舱。其中一个建设中的项目是位于厦门的湖心岛，由斯特恩的公司筹建。斯特恩说：“我们被要求在中国其它城市复制这种做法。”
但是，大部分这些新型的花园城市都和森林山花园完全不同，它们更大、更高、更密。例如，湖心岛把200万平米的建筑压缩在25英亩的土地上，还包括高层公寓。我们尚不明了这些项目是否会沿袭花园城市的核心价值观，包括土地的所有权和社会阶层的混合。而且，目前没有任何数据可以确凿地证实花园城市是应对城市疾病的正确解决方案，我们很难得到环境、
社会和其它方面影响的数据，因为没有任何两个项目看起来是一模一样的。
简而言之，21世纪的花园城市概念是非常模糊的。斯特恩说，在中国，让政府去拥抱一个新的城市理念，“就像是让一艘远洋巨轮调头”。但真正的问题在于，无论是在哪个国家，调头转向花园城市的方向是否真正值得。
1898年，一位不知名的伦敦速记员埃比尼泽•霍华德借来50英镑，印刷了一本小册子，名为《明天：真正改革的和平进程》。在这本书中，霍华德设计了一种方法来阻止人们涌入像伦敦这样的大型工业中心，那里充满污秽和疾病的贫民窟让他深恶痛绝。他写道：“令人极为惋惜的是，人们依然在继续涌入已经拥挤不堪的城市，同时让农村地区愈加荒凉。”
让我们详细了解他的花园城市理念。霍华德根据主张土地公有制的美国经济学家亨利•乔治的政治思想绘制了一张图表，据此来描述一个位于大城市之外的社区规划，其中既包括了城市中的社会和金融机会，也带有农村的“自然健康”因素。这是一些比较简单的同心圆图表，霍华德描绘的这座城市有3.2万居民，这些人享受着新鲜的空气、绿地，以及购物和休闲的场所。城市基本自给自足，有住宅、学校和被农田环绕的工厂。
霍华德建议，利用投资者提供的社会信托基金可以购买建造一座城市所需要的土地。收取的租金将用来进行设施改造和提供服务，也可以让居民逐步购买自己的土地。霍华德坚信，如果采取这种方法，整个社区会因土地价值的增长而受益——也就是所谓的“土地溢价回收”。
霍华德在14岁之后就没有接受过正规的教育，他是维多利亚时代典型的手艺人，但他具有惊人是游说天赋。1903年，他得到了足够的支持来建造莱齐沃斯花园城市，位于伦敦北部30英里。几年之后又建造了韦林花园城市。莱齐沃斯成为了今天的伯克利，思想进步的中产阶级纷纷搬入这片惬意的街区。它还吸引了工业，这是霍华德原本的设想，他知道，一座花园城市必须具备像伦敦一样的工作机会。
这个思路很快引发了诸多的效仿。莱齐沃斯建成几年之后，一位名叫亨瑞塔•巴尼特的慈善家聘请了这座城市的建筑师，设计了伦敦的汉普斯特德花园郊区。新的建设项目借鉴了花园城市的理念，除了它的自我限制因素。正如我们所了解的，花园郊区被证明尤其适合私人开发，它的概念传播到美国、墨西哥、澳大利亚、日本、埃及、法国和德国。
但是，这其中也存在着一些问题。说服有能力的人来建造一座真正的花园城市并非易事。而且在实践中，有些期望一直没有达到。霍华德的目标是给穷人提供高品质的住房，但是莱齐沃斯的工人小屋对大部分人来说还是太昂贵了。城市的产业主要是内衣工厂，永远无法与伦敦的产业巨擘相竞争。一段时间之后，莱齐沃斯被纳入了英国首都经济圈。今天那里的人口数量与霍华德的期望大致相符，而且地产价格昂贵（但一半的房屋通过政府调控的手段使其价格可以被工薪阶层接受）。
花园城市和郊区花园在20世纪中期逐渐淡出了人们的视野，当时，勒•柯布西耶所引领的“园中之塔”在英国和世界各地备受推崇，掀起了一阵大规模住宅建设的浪潮。同时，汽车时代兴起，人口密集的郊区逐渐被城市兼并。但是在近代，城市的蔓延形成了一种威胁，包括人们不得不乘坐汽车往来，增加了碳排放量。高层建筑物也逐渐失宠，因为妨碍人们的社交和滋养犯罪行为而受到批判。
今天，英国的一些政府官员和城市规划者借用花园城市的概念来补救这些问题。他们认为这是发展绿色科技的好时机，包括高效能的建筑物和采用清洁能源的大型运输设备，同时还能解决这个国家的住房短缺问题。（英国在2001年到2011年之间，建造了140万所房屋，但这个国家的人口同期增长了400万。）
今年，英国的沃尔夫森经济学奖把25万英镑的奖金授予最好的“富有远见、具有经济性，并受居民欢迎的新型花园城市”建议。5项方案从279个参赛作品中脱颖而出。其中一个使用金融模型来论证小型花园城市的可行性，另一项建议是把目前现存的花园城市规模扩大一倍。
4月，英国副首相尼克•克莱格宣布，政府将就三座新型花园城市的建设接受投标。克莱格在1月份的《每日电讯报》上撰文称：“我们需要营造精心规划的社区，全新的城镇提供居民所需要的基础设施和舒适条件。那是人们真正喜欢居住的环境，地点规划在需求最高的地区。”每个花园城市至少要有1.5万户家庭。具体地点尚未选定，但是很可能在英国东南部。另外，政府还曾经宣布计划在肯特郡的埃布斯弗利特建造另一座花园城市。
一些批评人士认为，对花园城市的热衷模糊了真正存在的问题，即在欧盟人口最密集的大都市——伦敦——市内及其周边住房的稀缺问题。来自非营利组织“城市中心”的亚力桑德拉•琼斯说，城区改造要比建造新型的花园城市有更好的效果。她6月份在Planning Resource网站上撰文称：“或许你不会反对在一片不毛之地上建造一座花园城市，但你恐怕也不会搬到那里去。”她说花园城市是“昙花一现的时髦概念”。批评人士还对花园城市相对较低的人口密度持怀疑态度，说这会消耗更多的资源，而且增加汽车的使用量。
政府下定决心要让民众看到花园城市的好处，甚至还对那些同意在自己住宅附近建设花园城市的居民给予减税。即使如此，地方的反对意见和官僚流程也会让它的发展拖延许久。与此同时，霍华德的设想已经在世界其它的角落找到了立足之地，包括中国。然而，花园城市的美好愿景和潜在的缺陷在那里同时暴露无遗。
罗伯特•斯特恩与人合著的《规划天堂》一书封面，和亚美利加花园社区的航拍图。这个社区完全按照花园城市的理念建造，位于巴西圣保罗市郊外。
花园城市在中国生根发芽有一系列的原因，尤其是因为城市在迅速发展的同时，需要控制其规模，比如像北京和上海。政府在3月份发布了新的城市化计划，目标是把农村流动人口从“超大型”城市转移到小型城市。但城市的占地空间在90年代和21世纪依然在持续扩张。麦肯锡中国的一位分析师华强生说：“我们即将看到一个相反的进程，中国人口的密度会越来越大，”有更多的作为交通枢纽的城市和卫星城镇，它们之间用轨道交通和高速公路连接。
位于中国西南部的成都和重庆市被指定为城乡结合战略的特别试验区。当地领导人或许发现了这个国家的城市发展目标与霍华德在本世纪初对英格兰城市建设的设想之间的相似之处，他们采用了城市花园的建设理念。成都政府官员在2013年11月访问伦敦，与城乡规划协会——前身是“花园城市协会”，于1899年由霍华德成立——会面。他们还参观了莱齐沃斯。
与此同时，私人开发商已经开始具体实施花园城市的理念。成都市郊外的一片土地用来进行“天府生态城市”的建设，设计公司是来自芝加哥的亚得里安史密斯和戈登吉尔建筑公司（他们最广为人知的作品是迪拜和阿布扎比的高层建筑物），投资方是北京万通立体之城投资有限公司，这是一家专门进行城市可持续化开发的房地产企业。霍华德说，一座花园城市中建筑物的占地面积不可以超过六分之一，大部分地区应当规划为绿地。吉尔说，而天府的建筑物只会占用城市中七分之一的面积，“缓冲景观”将会包围这些建筑物，以保护耕地，防止城市扩张。天府的宏观计划甚至与霍华德的同心圆图表相似，其中心也有一片绿地。
类似的项目如雨后春笋般出现。杨薇是一名华裔英国城市设计师，她专门从事花园城市规划，是沃尔夫森经济学界的最终入围者之一。她最近得到一项任务，与江苏省合作进行花园城市规划，她的公司还为湖南省设计了两套整体规划方案。（杨受命于英国政府，要为中国的住房和城乡建设部详细描述可持续的城市化进程。）其它与花园城市有关的建设项目还包括湖心岛、重庆的溉澜溪，两者都由斯特恩的公司设计，以及由加利福尼亚州公司卡尔索普事务所设计的重庆北部悦来生态城。
但是，这些计划与霍华德在一个世纪之前所提出的标准在多大程度上相符？从早期迹象来看，它们之间没有什么相似之处。因此就出现了一个显而易见的问题，这些项目可以被称为是花园城市吗？
先看看居住的密度。在充分使用的情况下，天府将有8万人口居住在灌木丛生般的建筑物中，这比霍华德所设想的人口密度高了一倍。而且，天府没有单独的商业区，住宅近邻，甚至就在办公室和商场的上面——这种商住混合模式在中国越来越普遍。
接下来是住宅类型土地的管控问题。中国的土地属于国有，杨说，地方政府通常会买下农民手中的地契来建造城镇，同时一次性支付给农民现金。如果花园城市的规划不按照这样的规律行事——例如设立长期管理的公共基金，居民作为股东，这将完全是对现行政策的颠覆。这当然会给城市管理注入新鲜的思想，就像中国城市所涌入的越来越多的新思维，但是地方政府必须要接受信任的理念，这完全无法保证。
另外一个不利因素是社会经济的平衡性。天府项目计划提供廉价的住宅，这在中国绝对是凤毛麟角，廉价住房永远和宜居的环境无缘。但是天府项目的总设计师之一戈登•吉尔承认，开发商没有任何理由实现这个目标。（毕竟哪里的开发商都一样，逐利是唯一的目标。）
最重要的是，中国城市规划中常见的失败做法会让花园城市沦为牺牲品。由于施工的速度相当快，因此有时会不参照图纸，导致不合乎规格的建筑成品。而且，中国那些著名的“鬼城”证明了“只要盖楼就会有人来”的愚蠢假设。华强生说，缺少临近的工作机会，新城很难吸引居民，即使是那些富有远见的中产阶级。
当然，中国并不是唯一一个给花园城市的概念改头换面的国家。距离程度2000英里外的印度城市艾哈迈德巴德，居民们搬进了戈德瑞花园城市第一期的住宅。这里将容纳5000人口，有自行车道、公园和快速公交网络。但这个“花园城市”仅仅是做市场宣传的一个噱头，居民不能拥有土地，目标买家是中产或高产阶级，那些人大都拥有不止一辆汽车。（但是项目经理也在强调，有数百套住房将提供给中低收入人群。）
回到英国，克莱格有关新型花园城市的文件中提到了城乡规划协会的原则，基本沿袭了霍华德在1898年的著作内容，但并非强制性的。文件中写道：“政府不会给花园城市强加任何明确的定义，而是希望与地方合作，支持他们按照自己的设想进行开发。”他也没有规定廉价住房的最低标准，但城乡规划协会曾经建议，至少60％的住房将会享受市场价格的折扣。
这些风险最终会导致，新的建设项目无法达成那些让花园城市变得与众不同所需要的品质。但是，一些支持霍华德观点的人似乎认为这并不重要，或者至少说明他们愿意在生活品质上做一些妥协。
由亚得里安•史密斯和戈登•吉尔设计并主持建造的天府生态城，坐落在中国重庆市的郊外。
毫无疑问，随着全球人口的膨胀，花园城市的规模和外观必然会发生一些变化，否则，这个概念就会变成陈腐和不切实际的代名词。新的建设项目从各个角度体现了霍华德所设定的原则，或许并不是所有的建筑物，也或许没那么精准，但依然以某种方式收获了社会、环境和其它方面的收益。
卡尔索普事务所的负责人彼得•卡尔索普说：“向公共交通、步行和自行车的转化是必经之路，但是如果没有正确的城市规划，一切都是空谈。这是关键所在。”他继续说，不但如此，“当一个街区有5000户人，人们彼此是陌生的。当一个步行范围内的街区只有500户人时，突然之间，你和你的邻居又成了熟人。”
实际上，步行能力是霍华德所认可的一个重要特点，并且在今天的花园城市中得到了强调。步行范围内的社区已经展示出更高的社会凝聚力、相对较低的肥胖和糖尿病发病率，以及更低的驾车比例。尤其在中国，这个特点可以带来更多的收益。目前中国有1.4亿辆汽车，到2040年这个数字将达到5亿。但是，我们有机会把汽车排除在未来发展之外，或者至少不在居民的日常活动中。大部分中国人目前还没有汽车，城市中大约50％到60％的出行依然是依靠步行和自行车。麦肯锡的华强生说：“我们在规划这些项目时，有机会影响人均的能源消耗情况。”
从这个角度来说，湖心岛上只有步行街。天府生态城的每个地点都在步行15分钟的范围内，这降低了车辆的使用率，并且还有一个公共交通枢纽直达成都。（天府的设计者预测，这座城市要比一个面积相同的传统城市减少48％的能源消耗和60％的二氧化碳排放量。）
同样，现代科技也印证了霍华德对绿色环境滋补效果的畅想。最近的一项研究显示，树木仅在2010年一年间，就预防了美国大约要耗费70亿美元治疗的疾病。苏格兰的研究人员发现，在绿植附近生活弥补了贫富之间的“健康差异”。今天的花园城市普遍推崇绿色空间，例如，戈德瑞花园城有一座中央公园和几座小公园，而天府有15％的面积预留给绿地。
坦率地说，证明花园城市裨益的证据尚不明确，而仅仅是来自很多城市背景条件下特定的变数分析。城乡规划协会意识到这个问题，他们强调要专门针对规划中的社区进行相关的研究。与此同时，一些批评人士在问，为什么不能在现有的大都市中增加一些公园，在交通繁忙的街道上施划自行车道，重新开发城市中的空地，而不是去建设一个全新的城市？
类似这样零零碎碎的改造方案具有局限性。例如，协调就是一个问题，而且它过分依赖于现存的或好或坏的基础设施条件。而新城市的整体计划可以在一张白纸上，为大量人口一次性满足多重需求。花园城市的构想出现的年代，有无数的英国人挤在肮脏的贫民窟里，缺少良好的住房，而其他人在渴望一种伦敦无法提供的安静、平和的环境，这并不是没有原因的。同样，今天有数百万中国人在寻找居住的场所和经济机会，其他人在渴望更加舒适的中产阶级生活方式。支持人士指出，花园城市让规划者可以从零开始安置这些人，他们可以集中精力思考如何建造一座健康、高效的城市。
这并不是说花园城市与市区改造是相互排斥的两个方案，其实他们是城市发展战略中并行的两条道路，其内容类似。城乡规划协会的支持者凯特•卢克在电子邮件中写道：“简单的答案是两者都有必要。目前面临的危机让我们不能通过单打独斗的方式满足需求……一个新的社区需要整体规划和规模经济来真正体现可持续发展的原则。”
17岁的森林山花园居民乔治•霍班住在中央广场，那里原来是个小酒馆，现在是一个合作农场式的公寓楼。听霍班描述他所居住的社区，顺便请他在7月份阳光灿烂的一天带你随意参观一下，就会明显察觉到，这个地方与埃比尼泽•霍华德的设想并不完全一样。这里一所房子售价高达400万美元，没有绿化带，也没有固定的工业企业。但霍班所提到的这里具备的吸引力似乎很耳熟：长岛铁路近在眼前；地铁站在两个街区之外；年轻的家庭在城市中的活动不需要借助汽车；霍班住在一个相对便宜、只有一张床的公寓中；旁边就是高楼大厦。
霍班说：“出门向右拐是农村，向左拐是城市。”当人们第一次来到这里，惊讶于美好的环境时，他说：“让我感觉住在这里很骄傲。”
或许从《明天》这本书里照搬下来的纯粹的花园城市从未出现过，也永远不会建成。但即使霍华德的乌托邦野心被打了一些折扣，花园城市依然具有足够的潜力，来为改善地球和人们的生活做出重要的贡献。
在谈到这项工作的价值和紧迫性时，戈登•吉尔提到了里奥•马科斯的一本书《机械花园》，这本书探讨了现代科技与田园理想之间的矛盾。吉尔说，它反映出一个现实，长久以来，人们渴望脱离机械（城市），回归花园（乡村）。但现在不是这样了。
“机械本身，必须要变成一个花园。”他说。
原文：
In 1898, an unassuming British stenographer hatched the idea of "garden cities" as an antidote to dirty, crowded London. Today, a revival of that idea is spreading from the U.K. to China to India -- and some people think it just might help save the planet.
ON 71ST AVENUE, JUST SOUTH OF QUEENS BOULEVARD, IN FOREST HILLS, NEW YORK, THERE’S A SMALL SHOPPING STRIP THAT LOOKS LIKE COUNTLESS OTHERS IN AMERICAN CITIES. Banks, shoe stores, and delis sit side by side, recalling a time not so long ago when going shopping meant more than a trip to Target. But keep heading south, crossing under an elevated railway, and it feels like entering a different kind of time warp: Abruptly, asphalt becomes brick and spills into a broad, sunny square. Red-tiled, half-timbered buildings suggest an Italian piazza by way of medieval England. Shady sidewalks curve away from the square. The only reminder that it's the 21st century, and that this is New York, is the rumble of a train on the Long Island Rail Road overhead.
This sense of being in a city, but not of it, is precisely what the designers of Forest Hills Gardens intended. In 1909, after buying 142 acres of open land, the Russell Sage Foundation hired architect Grosvenor Atterbury and landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. -- son of Central Park's famous creator -- to build a model suburb. It was to be an example of the new developments that the explosion of railroads and streetcars were producing, a place that combined the best of town and country. For inspiration, Atterbury and Olmsted looked to a new trend in England said to offer just this kind of mix: garden cities.
The concept of the garden city was devised by 19th-century social reformers to offer everything big cities didn't: a limited number of residents with ownership over their community's land; spacious, well-built homes for people of diverse means; clean air and ample green space; and centers of employment, education, and culture that could easily be reached on foot. Its slightly younger sister, the garden suburb, took the garden city's basic features -- residential streets gracefully enfolding a central avenue or green -- and transplanted them to the outskirts of urban centers. The idea caught on across England and in numerous other countries; after Forest Hills Gardens, for instance, came the chic neighborhood of Jardim América in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1913, and Denenchofu, a Tokyo suburb, seven years later.
After a few decades in the limelight, garden cities fell out of fashion. But recently, they've been making a comeback. A small but growing number of architects, urban planners, and policymakers are holding up garden cities as potential antidotes to everything that ails the modern city, from substandard housing to environmental degradation to the segregation of rich and poor.
Among these proponents is Robert Stern. In December 2013, Stern, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, and two co-authors released a book called Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City. At 12 pounds and some 1,000 pages, the book is bursting with photographs, drawings, and plans that chronicle the long tradition of the garden city and suburb, including Forest Hills Gardens. Yet the book is not just a history, the trio writes: It offers "a development model for the present and foreseeable future."
The stakes of finding such a model to guide urbanization are high. By 2030, 1 billion people (nearly one out of every eight on the planet) will live in Chinese cities, and Indian cities will swell with about 200 million new residents. Meanwhile, the specter of climate change hovers over all cities, which account for up to 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and are especially vulnerable to air pollution, heat waves, and wind and flooding brought by storms.
Ebenezer Howard and a diagram of garden cities from Howard's 1898 book To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.
COULD GARDEN CITIES HELP FIX THESE PROBLEMS? ADVOCATES THINK SO. They argue that garden cities can deliver the humane, sustainable, equitable communities that people want and the planet needs, by slashing emissions, preserving green space, and encouraging neighborly interaction.
Today, garden-city projects are popping up from England to India to Cambodia. In particular, China, where construction rates have exploded since the early 2000s, has become a petri dish for garden cities. Among several planned communities is Heart of Lake, designed by Stern's firm and currently being built on an island in Xiamen. "We are being asked to do interpretations of it in other Chinese cities," Stern says.
But many, if not most, of these new garden cities and suburbs will look nothing like Forest Hills Gardens. They will be bigger, taller, and denser. Heart of Lake, for instance, will pack 2 million square feet of construction into a mere 25 acres and include high-rise apartments. It's also unclear that these projects will adhere to core garden-city values, including community ownership and the mixing of social classes. What's more, there is little data to prove definitively that garden cities are in fact the right solution for urban ills; firm figures on their environmental, social, and other impacts are hard to come by when no two projects look alike.
In short, the garden city of the 21st century is a slippery concept. Stern says that, in China, getting the government to embrace a new urban form is "like turning a gigantic ocean liner around." But the real question, it seems, no matter the country, is whether a turn toward garden cities would truly be worthwhile.
IN 1898, AN UNASSUMING LONDON STENOGRAPHER NAMED EBENEZER HOWARD BORROWED 50 BRITISH POUNDS TO print a short book titled To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. In the book, Howard laid out a plan to arrest the flow of people into great manufacturing centers such as London, whose squalid, disease-ridden slums repelled him. "It is deeply to be deplored," he wrote, "that the people should continue to stream into the already over-crowded cities, and should thus further deplete the country districts."
Enter the garden city. Drawing on the political thought of American economist Henry George, who believed the value of land should be common property, Howard described a planned community outside a major city that would combine the social and financial opportunities of the city with the "natural healthfulness" of the countryside. In a handful of simple, concentric-circle diagrams, Howard drew a city that would be home to 32,000 people who would enjoy fresh air, green space, and places to shop and relax. The city would be largely self-contained, with homes, schools, and factories encircled by an agricultural estate.
Howard proposed that a community trust, backed by investors, would buy the land for such a city. Rents collected would fund public improvements and services but would also go toward residents' gradual purchase of the land. Howard was adamant that this be the case, so that the community could benefit from increases in land value -- a principle known as "land value capture."
Howard had no formal education past the age of 14 and was a classic Victorian tinkerer, but his powers of persuasion were remarkable. By 1903, he had won enough supporters to establish Letchworth Garden City, about 30 miles north of London. Welwyn Garden City would follow years later. Letchworth became the Berkeley of its day, with middle-class progressives moving into its cozy streets. It also attracted industry, which Howard wanted, knowing that a garden city had to provide viable alternatives to work in London.
The idea soon inspired a spinoff. A few years after Letchworth's birth, a philanthropist named Henrietta Barnett hired that city's architects to design London's Hampstead Garden Suburb. The new project shared garden-city ideals, except for self-containment. The garden suburb, as it became known, proved particularly well suited to private development, and the idea spread to the United States, Mexico, Australia, Japan, Egypt, France, and Germany.
There were problems, however. It wasn't always easy to get motivated groups of backers to establish true garden cities. Moreover, in practice, some ideals were never reached. Howard aimed to provide the poor with quality housing, but Letchworth's workers' cottages proved too expensive for many. And the city's industry, centered on a corset factory, could never really compete with London's draw. Over time, Letchworth was pulled into the capital's orbit; today it is home to about as many people as Howard intended, and property values are high (though about half the housing has been made affordable through mechanisms such as reduced rent).
Garden cities and suburbs faded from the scene in the mid-20th century, as Le Corbusier-inspired "towers in the park" came into vogue in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, resulting in a wave of mega-scaled housing projects. It was the age of the automobile too, and compact suburbs became obsolete, while sprawling subdivisions multiplied. More recently, however, sprawl became seen as a menace for, among other things, encouraging people to spew carbon by shuttling around in cars. Tower blocks also fell out of favor, criticized for creating social isolation and breeding crime.
Today, as remedies, some government officials and urban planners in the United Kingdom are resuscitating the idea of garden cities. They see it as an attractive way to deploy green technologies, such as high-performance buildings and clean mass transit, while addressing the country's housing shortage. (In England, between 2001 and 2011, 1.4 million homes were built, while the country's population increased by almost 4 million.)
This year, the United Kingdom's Wolfson Economics Prize awarded £250,000 to the entrant with the best proposal for a "new Garden City which is visionary, economically viable, and popular." Five finalists were selected from 279 entries; One uses financial modeling to show how a small garden city would be feasible; another proposes doubling the size of an existing urban locale along garden-city lines.
In April, British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced that the government would accept bids to construct up to three new garden cities. "[W]e need to create planned communities: whole new towns with the infrastructure and amenities they need, communities where people genuinely want to live, and built where demand is high," Clegg wrote in the Daily Telegraph in January. The garden cities will have at least 15,000 homes each. Their sites have not yet been chosen, but they will likely be in southeastern England. Separately, the government has said it wants to build another garden city at Ebbsfleet, in Kent.
Some critics argue that the fuss around garden cities obscures the real problem: the scarcity of housing in and around London, the European Union's most populous metropolitan area. Urban redevelopment would accomplish more than building new garden cities ever could, according to Alexandra Jones of the nonprofit group Centre for Cities. "You might not have objections to a garden city in the middle of nowhere, but you might not have demand to live there either," she wrote in June on the website Planning Resource, calling garden cities "the flavour of the month." Critics also take issue with the relatively low density of the garden-city model, saying it will consume too many resources and actually promote car use by spreading out development.
The government is determined to reassure citizens of garden cities' benefits and may even offer people tax breaks to accept construction near their homes. Still, local opposition and bureaucratic red tape could stymie development for some time. Meanwhile, Howard's big idea has already found new life in other corners of the globe, including China. It's here, however, that the promise and potential pitfalls of the garden city's renaissance are most glaringly juxtaposed.
The cover of Paradise Planned, co-authored by Robert Stern, and an aerial photo of Jardim America -- a community planned around the garden-city concept -- on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
GARDEN CITIES MAY TAKE ROOT IN CHINA WIDELY FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS -- NOT LEAST AMONG THEM THE RAPID growth of cities that are a step down in size from the likes of Beijing and Shanghai. The government's new urbanization plan, released in March, seeks to route rural migrants away from "extra-large" cities and toward smaller ones. Whereas cities expanded spatially in the 1990s and 2000s, "what we will see going forward is a reversal," says Jonathan Woetzel, a McKinsey analyst in the country. "China will move toward a denser model," with more hub cities and satellite towns, connected by railway and highway infrastructure.
The cities of Chengdu and Chongqing in southwestern China have been designated as special testing zones for urban-rural integration strategies. And, perhaps noting similarities between the country's urbanization goals and Howard's vision for turn-of-the-century England, local leaders are looking to garden cities for guidance. Chengdu officials traveled to London in November 2013 to meet with the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), the latter-day incarnation of the Garden City Association, founded by Howard in 1899. They also toured Letchworth.
Meanwhile, private developers are already putting the garden-city concept into practice. On the outskirts of Chengdu, development parcels are being sold for Tianfu Ecological City, designed by the Chicago firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (better known for its towers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi) and funded by Beijing Vantone Citylogic Investment Corp., a real estate company focused on sustainable urban development. Howard said a garden city should occupy about one-sixth of the property in an overall project; most of the area should be devoted to green space. Likewise, structures in Tianfu will take up one-seventh of its whole site, Gill said, and a "buffer landscape" will surround them to conserve farmland and prevent sprawl. Tianfu's master plan even has the telltale concentric pattern of Howard's diagrams, with a green zone at its heart.
Similar projects are spreading. Wei Yang, a Chinese-British urban designer whose firm specializes in garden-city plans and was a Wolfson Economics Prize finalist, recently won a commission to coordinate garden-city planning in Jiangsu province, and her firm has created two master plans for Hunan province. (Yang has also been detailed by the British government to advise China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on sustainable urbanization.) Other garden-city-inspired projects include Heart of Lake and Gai Lan Creek in Chongqing, both designed by Stern's firm, and Yuelai Eco-City in northern Chongqing, planned by the California firm Calthorpe Associates.
But just how closely will these ventures follow Howard's guidelines, set more than a century ago? Not very, by early indications -- raising the obvious question of whether the projects can even be called garden cities.
Take the issue of density. Once full, Tianfu will pack 80,000 people into a thicket of apartment buildings. That's more than twice as many inhabitants as Howard imagined in a location one-third the size. Additionally, Tianfu won't have a separate zone for industry. Rather, apartments will sit next to, and even on top of, offices and shops -- a mixed-use model becoming more common in China.
Then there is the matter of residential control of land. Chinese land is government-owned, and Yang explains that local authorities typically buy farmers out of their leases in order to build new towns and cities. This is often done with lump sums of cash. If garden-city projects did something different -- for instance, set up trusts for long-term management, with residents as stakeholders -- it would be a "policy breakthrough," Yang says, helping foster a fresh spirit of community engagement among new arrivals to China's urban communities. But local governments would have to accept the idea of trusts, which is anything but guaranteed.
An additional tripping point is socioeconomic balance. The plans for Tianfu call for integrated affordable housing, a rarity in China, where low-income housing is usually isolated from other habitations. But Gordon Gill, one of Tianfu's main designers, admits there is nothing to hold the developer to that goal. (After all, the developer is, like any other, eager to make a lot of money.)
On top of everything, there are common failures in Chinese urban planning to which garden cities could fall victim. Buildings are often constructed at warp speed, and designs aren't always followed closely, leading to shoddy end products. Moreover, China's famous "ghost cities" testify to the folly of assuming that if you build it, they will come. Without nearby jobs, Woetzel says, new cities will have a hard time attracting newcomers, even among the up-and-coming middle class.
Certainly, China isn't alone in posing problems that could undermine garden cities as they were intended to be. Two thousand miles away from Chengdu, in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, residents have moved into the first phase of Godrej Garden City, which will house 5,000 people and feature bike lanes, parks, and rapid mass transit. Here "garden city" is partly a marketing moniker: Residents won't own the land, and the target buyers are middle- and upper-middle-class people who may own more than one car. (The project manager emphasizes, however, that hundreds of units are planned for lower-income residents.)
Back in the United Kingdom, Clegg's prospectus for new garden cities mentions TCPA principles, which are rooted in Howard's 1898 treatise, but it doesn't make them binding. "The Government does not wish to impose any definition of what Garden Cities are, but instead intends to work with localities to support them in developing and delivering their own vision," the prospectus reads. There are no required affordable-housing minimums either, though the TCPA has recommended that at least 60 percent of housing be discounted from market rates.
The risk, ultimately, is that these new projects could wind up lacking the whole package of qualities meant to set garden cities apart. Some who support the revival of Howard's idea, however, seem to think this doesn't much matter -- or at least seem willing to live with compromise.
Renderings and plans by design architects and master planners Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill for Tianfu Ecological City, which will be located on the outskirts of the Chinese city of Chengdu.
IT WAS VIRTUALLY INEVITABLE THAT, WITH THE EXPLOSION OF THE GLOBAL POPULATION, THE SIZE AND SHAPE OF GARDEN CITIES would change; otherwise, the concept would likely be wholly disregarded as quaint and impractical. And there are many ways in which new projects demonstrate Howard's principles -- perhaps not all of them simultaneously, and perhaps not as precisely as possible, but still in such a way as to reap important social, environmental, and other benefits.
"Moving more towards transit, walking, and biking is what has to happen, but you can't do that without the right urban form. It's a critical pivot point," says Peter Calthorpe, the principal of Calthorpe Associates. What's more, he adds, "when you have a superblock of 5,000 units, people don't know each other. You go to a walkable city block -- 500 units a block -- and all of a sudden you can know your neighbor again."
Indeed, walkability is a Howard-approved feature emphasized in many of today's garden cities. Walkable neighborhoods have been shown to have higher social cohesion, lower levels of obesity and diabetes, and lower rates of driving. And China, in particular, is a place where the feature could do a lot of good. Nearly 140 million passenger cars are on the road now, and the number could reach 500 million or higher by 2040. There's an opportunity, however, to design cars out of new developments, or at least from residents' day-to-day mobility. Most Chinese still don't have vehicles, and between 50 and 60 percent of trips in cities are still by foot or on bicycles. "There's a window, as we think about the planning of these things, to influence the energy usage per capita," McKinsey's Woetzel says.
To that end, Heart of Lake will have pedestrian-only streets. Every point in Tianfu will be reachable within a 15-minute walk, reducing the need for cars, and a transit center will connect it to Chengdu. (Tianfu's creators project that the city overall will use 48 percent less energy than a similar, conventional development and generate 60 percent less carbon dioxide.)
Similarly, modern science is corroborating Howard's zeal for the restorative power of green space. A recent study estimates that trees prevented about $7 billion worth of health problems in the United States in 2010 alone, and researchers in Scotland have found that living near greenery helps close the "health gap" between the rich and poor. Today's garden cities generally prioritize green space: Godrej Garden City, for instance, will have a central park and other small ones, while 15 percent of the land in Tianfu is reserved for green areas.
To be sure, evidence of garden cities' benefits is oblique, drawn from studies on particular variables in many urban settings. Recognizing this deficiency, the TCPA has highlighted the need for focused research on planned communities. Some critics, meanwhile, are asking why it wouldn't be better, say, to stitch new parks into existing metropolises, lay bike lanes down busy avenues, and redevelop vacant sites, rather than build entirely new locales.
Such piecemeal redevelopment has limitations. It's difficult to coordinate, for example, and it relies heavily on existing infrastructure, good or bad. Master planning of new cities, by contrast, can address many needs at once -- and from a clean slate and for a lot of people. It's no coincidence that the initial push for garden cities arose in an era when many thousands of Britons lived in cramped slums for lack of adequate housing, while others yearned for peace and quiet that London could not provide. Similarly, today millions of Chinese are seeking places to live and economic opportunity, while others want a more comfortable, middle-class existence. Garden cities, proponents point out, allow planners to place large numbers of these people in places that, from scratch, can concentrate on what has been shown to make cities both healthy and efficient.
This isn't to say that garden cities and urban renewal should be mutually exclusive. Rather, they could be part of a two-pronged urban development strategy, sharing similar features. "The simple answer is that we need both," Katy Lock, a TCPA advocate, wrote in an email. "The scale of the crisis means that we can't meet our needs on a plot-by-plot basis alone.… A new community provides opportunities for holistic planning and the economies of scale to truly embed the principles of sustainable development."
GEORGE HOBAN, A 17-YEAR RESIDENT OF FOREST HILLS GARDENS, LIVES ON THE CENTRAL SQUARE IN A FORMER INN THAT is now a co-op apartment building. It is clear from Hoban's description of his neighborhood, offered on an impromptu tour on a sunny July day, that the place isn't exactly what Ebenezer Howard had in mind. Property values can top $4 million, and there's no greenbelt or anchoring industry. Yet Hoban reels off local attractions that sound familiar: The Long Island Rail Road is on-site; the subway is two blocks away; young families can get by without a car; and Hoban lives in an affordable, one-bedroom apartment just a stone's throw from a mansion.
"If I turn right from my building, I'm in the suburbs. If I turn left, I'm in the city," Hoban says. When people arrive in the neighborhood for the first time and admire its aesthetic, he adds, "it gives me a great deal of pride to live here."
Perhaps a pure garden city, pulled straight from the pages of To-morrow, has never existed and never will. But even when shrunk down from Howard's utopian ambitions, garden cities still hold the potential to make crucial contributions to the planet and to people's lives.
Discussing the value and urgency of his work, Gordon Gill mentions The Machine in the Garden by Leo Marx. The book wrestles with the tension between technology and the pastoral ideal, and Gill says it reflects the fact that, for a long time, many people yearned to escape the machine (the city) for the garden (the country). But no longer.
"The machine itself," he insists, "has to become a garden."
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