The book contained a detailed proposal for the establishment of a self sufficient towns of 32,000 people and laid down all the financial arrangements required the realization of the proposal.
Howard had worked out also a detailed structure of the local government and a regional network of garden cities (Batchelor, 1969).
Howard's garden city was conceived as answer to the problems: the encroachment of contemporary cities on adjacent rural areas; the drift of agricultural population to large urban centers and the subsequent decline of rural life; the growth of slums in large cities and the ensuing overcrowding; the fluctuation of economic activity particularly in the agricultural sector of the economy; the growth of land values without benefit to the community; the exclusion of the benefit of city life from residents of rural areas, and vice versa; and the unsanitary conditions of life in contemporary metropolises (Batchelor, 1969).
The town with a population of 32,000 was to be built on an estate held in trust for the benefit of the residents, planned and residential development, recreational open space, civic and commercial buildings, schools and churches and a planned industrial estate on the periphery (Miller, …show more content…
Howard described his ideal city as a completed and finite entity, but pragmatically stated that his diagrams were not to be taken literally and that the actual plan must be depend upon the selection of a specific site (Miller, 1983).
Howard had indicated that the smaller towns could have some degree of functional specialization but the central city would provide high degree of cultural and specialized commercial functions found only in large cities (Batchelor, 1969). The three general ideas particularly relevant to the garden city are the notion of self-sufficiency, the agricultural belt or green belt, and public ownership of