CNU 22: The Redemption of Ebenezer Howard

A couple of posts back, in my effort to educate a commenter about the breadth of urbanist study, I noted that Ebenezer Howard was a difficult person to place in the history of urbanism.  Although never a professional planner, Howard nonetheless made significant contributions.  But at the same time, he became known, at least in some circles, as the father of suburbia.  He’s a contradictory figure who deserves a closer look.

My initial introduction to Howard was largely negative.  It may be that my early readings about urbanism, perhaps highlighted by James Howard Kunstler, weren’t in the mainstream, but my initial impressions of Howard and his book “Garden Cities of To-morrow: Experiments in Urban Planning” were derogatory.  But over time, I learned that the reality was more complex.

Howard (1850-1928) was career stenographer who spent much of his leisure time considering the problems of the city.  As did others of the same era, he decided that the urban problems were insurmountable.

In place of city life, he proposed mixed demographic towns a train ride away from the urban cores.  His towns were to be moderately dense, walkable communities, permanently separated from the city by dedicated agricultural preserves.  He believed that his garden cities would be healthier places for people to live, largely because of a renewed connection to nature.

Initially, his ideas were implemented much as he had envisioned.  Hampstead Heath, north of London, was developed in line with the concepts he laid out, as were many of the streetcar suburbs in the U.S.  (I have a cousin who recently lived contentedly in Hampstead Heath for several years.  I regret that I was unable to visit her during those years.)

But with the end of World War II, nearly two decades after Howard’s death, his concepts began to be distorted.  Levittown on Long Island is generally considered the death knell for Howard’s garden cities, with Levittown’s absence of walkability, transit orientation, and agricultural buffers.  Despite the lack of historical precedent (the fact that causes StrongTowns to describe suburbia as an “experiment”), the Levittown configuration quickly spread and became the default land-use form for much of the U.S.

And with that spread, the reputation of Ebenezer Howard declined, at least among the authors with whom I began my urbanist readings.

My first hint that Howard’s reputation might not be beyond redemption came in Ross Chapin’s book “Pocket Neighborhoods”.  Chapin made a good argument that his small, clustered homes with common grounds and communal buildings were consistent, albeit on a small scale, with Howard’s ideal.

But it was at CNU 22, the annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism held in Buffalo in early June, that the reputation of Ebenezer Howard was fully expunged of guilt for Levittown and its spawn. 

First, Andres Duany, in partnership with Professor Emily Talen, proposed a unified theory of urbanism based on Howard’s “Garden Cities of To-morrow”.  He also noted that Howard’s masterwork, unlike any other book on urbanism of which Duany knew, has never been out of print since its initial publishing.

I’m still not sure I accept the Duany/Talen unified theory.  In particular, the effort to align it with a unified theory of economics seems a dubious pairing.  I’d like to think that urbanism deserves a better partner than the “dismal science”.   But it was nonetheless significant that Duany and Talen harkened all the way back to Howard to find a complete urbanist strategy that they found worth of emulation.

An even more significant endorsement of Howard at CNU 22 came from architect Robert A.M. Stern who used the conference to launch his most recent book “Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City”.  (It was an odd book to push at a conference.  At 14 pounds, it was presumably of interest only to the attendees who didn’t need to check bags on their way home.)

Stern and his co-authors trace the garden suburb concept throughout history, including Howard in the lineage, and try to prove that the garden suburb still has a role in the modern world, particularly if configured more along the Howard lines than the Levittown model.

Ultimately, it was my personal knowledge of organizations that gave me a framework for grasping Howard.  As many of us know who have worked with organizations, whether public, private, or non-profit, sometimes we toss out proposals that seem inspired and on-point, only to have others, well-intended but confused, distort the implementation until we regret having raised the idea.  It’s the nature of organizations.

My final decision is to view Howard in that light.  He was truly concerned about the urban form and put forth ideas that were worthy and have stood the test of time.   Perhaps we can criticize him for his naiveté for failing to foresee that his ideas might be corrupted into a less-beneficent form, but that’s a criticism that can, with equal justification, be leveled at many of us.

At the bottom line, Howard was a dilettante, but a dilettante who put forth ideas that have stood the test of time.  I can only wish that some of us do as half as well.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Book Review: “Pocket Neighborhoods”

A friend recently suggested “Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World” by Ross Chapin.  During an upcoming vacation, I’ll be near several of the projects that Chapin cites and am hopeful of convincing my travel companion to make some detours.  To prepare for the trip, I read the book.  I’m glad I did.

Chapin’s thesis, although somewhat buried by the way the book is organized, is that there are many ways to build better and stronger communities by how we organize our physical surroundings.  Chapin’s professional involvement has been as an architect, land planner, and developer.  Therefore, his primary focus is on new-built projects and on the inspirations that led him to doing his own pocket neighborhood projects.

But after mostly exhausting that topic, he continues into related topic such as co-housing (a pocket neighborhood with a common house for communal meals), community gardens, modifications to existing large lot single-family home lots to create infill neighborhoods, and removal of fences to join together the backyards of neighbors.  I could have wished for more details on most of the topics, but found every topic insightful and worthy of inclusion. 

To me, the test is whether his ideas can be applied to the North Bay.  The answer is that they can be and have been.

An early inspiration that Chapin describes is the bungalow court of Southern California, opposing rows of single family Craftsman-styled cottages facing a common court.

Sure enough, there’s a bungalow court in Petaluma, on Keller Street immediately behind Volpi’s.  It post-dates the initial bungalow court concept and reflects a trend toward economy.  The cottages have southwestern architecture and lack the Craftsman details.  Plus the individual cottages have merged into opposing rows of shared wall apartments.  But the concept remains much the same and an orange tree in the court give homage to its Southern California origins.

Similarly, another pocket neighborhood concept that Chapin describes is the Dutch “woonerf”, a narrow street detailed for pedestrian use and usable only by cars traveling at a walking pace.  Although not truly a woonerf, Coady Court in Petaluma has much of the appearance of one.  The couple of times that I drove into the street, the setting encouraged me to drop my speed to nearly a walking pace.  The absence of a cul-de-sac bulb further inhibits traffic.

With neat homes pressed close to the street, Coady Court has the appearance of a neighborhood that bonds together to celebrate holidays and to help in the daily life.  I’m sure that the City and the Fire Department would object if the residents tried to convert their street to a true woonerf, but I’d be on their side.

I don’t know anyone who lives in the bungalows or Coady Court, but I’d love to hear stories about either.  If you have information, please share.  And if anyone can point out other similar neighborhoods in the North Bay, please do so.  Summer evenings are great opportunities to tour interesting housing alternatives.

Then there is the question of whether Chapin’s ideas can be applied to future Petaluma situations, to which I offer an enthusiastic affirmative.  Without even considering new greenfield construction, I can point to several retrofit ideas that could be readily applied.

The backyards in my neighborhood adjoin in odd ways, but I’d still be willing to consider a back fence removal plan, similar to the one Chapin describes in Davis. 

A block away are a pair of unused alleys that should ripe for a neighborhood alley reclamation similar to Baltimore one presented by Chapin.

And I’m intrigued by the idea of converting the backyards of oversized but underutilized single-family lots into new pocket neighborhoods, similar to the Seattle area project described by Chapin.  I can’t point to any particular lots, but suspect there are numerous opportunities in the neighborhood along East D Street, near the future SMART station.

No book is perfect.  I can offer several criticisms of this one.  It was odd to have Ebenezer Howard described as the originator of many New Urbanism concepts.  In the standard New Urbanist dogma, Howard’s “Garden City” ideas were fatally flawed and opened the door to drivable suburbia.

As Jane Jacobs described Howard’s concepts in the “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, “His aim was the creation of self-sufficient small towns, really very nice towns if you were docile and had no plans of your own and did not mind spending your life among others who had no plans of their own.”  That doesn’t make him sound much like an originator of New Urbanism.

I don’t mind Chapin picking up and dusting off Ebenezer Howard.  Howard was a well-meaning if slightly daft English gentleman whose biggest problem was that people took his ideas and ran with them without considering the consequences.  But the speed with which Chapin moves Howard from gutter to pedestal is neck-snapping.

More significantly, Chapin’s subtitle is a more accurate description of his direction than the title itself.  Much of the book had more to do with creating communities that it did with pocket neighborhoods.  I had the sense that he’d promised his publisher a 200-page book and found himself struggling for topics after 120 pages, so began casting a bigger and bigger net.

But overall, those are quibbles.  The content was meaningful and thought-provoking.  And the inclusion of the topics beyond pocket neighborhoods felt appropriate even if slapdash.  Every few pages offered an “ah-hah” moment, although I was continually flipping back to the introduction to see if I’d misunderstood the roadmap.

“Pocket Neighborhoods” is recommended.  I’m looking forward to visiting a couple of examples.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)