Garden City Movement - Garden Suburbs

Garden Suburbs

The concept of garden cities is to produce relatively economically independent cities with short commute times and the preservation of the countryside. Garden suburbs arguably do the opposite. Garden suburbs are built on the outskirts of large cities with no sections of industry. They are therefore dependent on reliable transport allowing workers to commute into the city.

Following Unwin’s participation in the Letchworth garden city project in 1907, he moved on to work one of the first garden suburbs, Hampstead. Years later, Unwin became very influential in government policy supporting garden suburbs as opposed to creating new independent cities. Many now view Unwin as turning his back on the garden city movement.

Garden suburbs were not part of Howard's plan and were actually a hindrance to garden city planning—they were in fact almost the antithesis of Howard's plan, what he tried to prevent. The suburbanisation of London was an increasing problem which Howard attempted to solve with his garden city model, which attempted to end urban sprawl by the sheer inhibition of land speculation due to the land being held in trust, and the inclusion of agricultural areas on the city outskirts.

Smaller developments were also inspired by the garden city philosophy and were modified to allow for residential "garden suburbs" without the commercial and industrial components of the garden city. They were built on the outskirts of cities, in rural settings. Some notable examples being, in London, Hampstead Garden Suburb and the 'Exhibition Estate' in Gidea Park and, in Liverpool, Wavertree Garden Suburb. The Gidea Park estate in particular was built during two main periods of activity, 1911 and 1934. Both resulted in some good examples of domestic architecture, by such architects as Wells Coates and Berthold Lubetkin. Thanks to such strongly conservative local residents' associations as the Civic Society, both Hampstead and Gidea Park retain much of their original character.

One unique example of a garden suburb is the Humberstone Garden Suburb in the United Kingdom by the Humberstone Anchor Tenants' Association in Leicestershire and it is the only garden suburb ever to be built by the members of a workers' co-operative; it remains intact to the present. In 1887 the workers of the Anchor Shoe Company in Humberstone formed a workers' cooperative and built 97 houses.

American architect Walter Burley Griffin was a proponent of the movement and after arrival in Australia to design the national capital Canberra, produced a number of Garden Suburb estates, most notably at Eaglemont with the Glenard and Mount Eagle Estates and the Ranelagh and Milleara Estates in Victoria.