The Peaceful Path: Building Garden Cities and New Towns

Abstract

Ebenezer Howard’s visionary tract, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, was published in 1898 as a manifesto for social reform to be achieved by creating entirely new places to live, Garden Cities. These would combine town and country living for all classes of the community. They would be realised by collective land ownership, ensuring that the increase in land value that occurs when urban development takes place did not became a source of private profit. The benefits would be attractive, affordable homes with gardens, healthy, verdant surroundings and a rich community life. The Peaceful Path shows how this vision came into being. It also recounts how the New Towns programme was later a different way to realise Howard’s vision. In all these places ordinary people were able to find a better and healthier setting for their lives. The story of each one is also detailed in this book.