Development of Suburbs

Required Reading
Textbook #2.
Newton, Design on the Land, pp.447-516.

Selected References
Chadwick, George F. The Park and the Town: Public landscapes in the 19th and 20th Century.
Howard, Ebenezer. The Garden City.
Stein, Clarence. Toward New Towns for America.

Key Words
Styles
American garden The discovery of the riches of North American Plants in the 18th century
sparked a fashion among British and Irish gardeners of “American gardens” which
were simply collections of American plants, in particular trees and shrubs.

Garden City The garden city was the invention of Ebenezer Howard, an English
visionary social reformer and pioneer town planner. In his book Tomorrow (1898) he
proposed a self supporting city in which the land would be held in common
ownership.

People of Power
Owen, Robert (1801-1877) American social reformer and politician.

Authors
Ebenezer Howard, an English visionary social reformer and pioneer town planner. In
his book Tomorrow (1898) he proposed a self supporting city in which the land
would be held in common ownership.
Designers
Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928), Designed a suburb for lower middle class in the early 20th
century.

Nolen, John (1869-1937) A pioneering practitioner, author and educator in modern city
and regional planning. The first American to identify himself exclusively as a town
and city planner.

Olmsted, Frederick Law (1822 - 1903) Landscape architect and principal

founder of the profession of landscape architecture in the United States.

Places
Radburn New town in Fairlawn, New Jersey designed in 1929.

Riverside, Illinois It has long been considered the best example of Olmsted's idea of
how suburbs should look.

Terms
cul-de-sac A cul-de-sac is a dead-end street with only one inlet/outlet and a
turnaround area at its closed end. Cul-de-sac literally means "arse/ass of a bag" or
"bottom of a sack" and has its roots in Catalan and French.
Key Slides

Letchworth
Date
Location Garden city diagram
Notes : Date
Location
Notes:

Mt. Auburn cemetery Plan Riverside Plan

Date Date
Location Location
Notes: Notes: