A Garden City is a fair, just and harmonious community. It is not
restricted to new cities or towns or those built following traditional garden
city town planning, architectural or design principles. A Garden City is about
community not merely about architecture and urban design.
It is about building a harmonious community balancing the best of
town and country together to community where the measure of success is
ultimately the happiness of the people who live in it. Below are listed twelve
principles that we believe underline a Garden City. Some are methods and others
are objectives. In effect these
principles represent doorways into the Garden City, you can enter using one of
the many doorways, but contradict or deny any of the principles then they will
also prove themselves to be exits.
We declare that any town or city or neighbourhood can be considered
as a Garden City if it embraces, where possible, the following
principles:
1. Residents are Citizens of the
Garden City. Residents consider themselves to be citizens of the Garden
City. They are aware that the town truly belongs to them. There is a culture of
rights, duties and responsibilities that comes through citizenship. The town is
run for the common good, reflecting and representing the common will with a
belief in equality and fraternity as the city is run for the benefit of the
many not the few.
2. The Garden City owns itself : The Garden City is ultimately owned
by itself not a series of landlords. This ownership and governance is derived from the people who live in the city and
who are its citizens acting for the common good. If the Garden City is its own landlord then
it is answerable to and controlled by its citizens ideally as a Community Land
Trust through democratic structures that make it inclusive and accountable.
3. Energy efficient and zero carbon.
A Garden City has a harmonious relationship with nature and is energy efficient.
A Garden City is a zero carbon city and does not pollute. It’s planning, design
and resources are deployed to achieve this goal. Citizens and the Government in
the Garden City have a collective responsibility in their daily lives to design
and implement such policies. This could be ensuring the provision clean, safe
and efficient public transport, the ability to navigate the Garden City by
walking or bicycle on one hand and the ability to reduce waste, recycle and
reuse resources by Citizens on the other.
4. Provides access to land for living
and working to all : The Garden City promotes urban agriculture, the
ability for citizens to grow their own food even in an urban area. There is a
right of free and fair access to the land for all residents to grow their own
food whether it through common allotments, common land, farms, productive
streets and parks or private gardens. Alongside this is the right for
affordable housing and also the right of access to resources in urban areas to
build or run their individual or collective businesses or workshops. It is a
productive city that aims at its own self-sufficient providing opportunities
for agricultural work, crafts, commerce and industry. Rents are provided to
encourage self-sufficiency and regeneration, provided in partnership with
tenants not just for tenants. The goal is for the City to be productive and
sustainable in its own right not as a dormitory settlement.
5. Fair Trade principles are practiced:
The Garden City is committed to the practices and ethics of fair trade
declaring and believing; and in practice
implementing the credo that it’s prosperity is not built upon the suffering of
others, whether inside its own city limits, inside its own country or
internationally.
6. Prosperity is shared. The
prosperity of the Garden City is shared in practice among all its citizens but
not just among the rich, wealthy and establishment. Participatory budgeting
through which citizens decide on the priorities for public and community
investment is one of the key mechanisms in practice. To secure the wealth and trigger
jobs among the community it can create local or community currency and set up community banks like the Swiss Wir
.
7. No special privileges for anyone.
All citizens are equal regardless of how long they have lived there or how many
generations of their family have. A Garden City will provide support and treat
with dignity those with mental and physical disabilities.
8. Fair Representation and direct democracy. A Garden City can be made up
of many cities and towns, but each of these will be comprised of different
neighbourhoods and communities, each with differing needs and aspirations. The
prosperity of the Garden City is employed to help those in greatest need. Each
community and neighbourhood should be empowered and encouraged to form its own
free and open association, council or forum to represent and engage the views
and needs of that local community. The Garden City will share its decision
making. It will devolve some to representatives but by also by engaging
directing and meaningfully with the citizens so all can have an informed say
and collective decision making power on the priorities for the Garden City. One
example could be participatory budgeting.
9. Participatory design and public
spaces. Space and design of the city is in harmony with the landscape
and nature. New developments and housing in the
town have Garden City space and design characteristics and aim to promote the
health and wellbeing of its citizens, current and future and are developed
through participatory methods on fundamental issues not just cosmetic ones. Public
spaces are widely available as an important concept as it provides the means
for people to meet and share views and to integrate. These public spaces and facilities
bring together young and old, rich and poor, those of different races,
religions and backgrounds as a community that celebrates and rejoices in its
diversity and exercises tolerance and freedom.
10. A City of Rights and the right to the
City. In the Garden City there are universal rights for citizens such as
the right to clean air, the right to nutritious food, the right to adequate
housing, the right to fair wages and work. There are not only individual
rights, but collective rights too. Such as the collective right to enjoy the
city and its majesty as well as collective civic and political rights. In
traditional terms as the City is held in common there is a collective right to
these commons. The Right to the City is a superior Right as it is both
individual and collective.
11. Knowledge is held in common, shared and
enhanced. A Garden City is a mutual city that builds a
culture of production, sharing and co-operation not just in terms of its
prosperity and governance but also in terms of the knowledge it acquires and
generates. It shares and co-operates for the good of the City while still
operating competition to create innovation and development.
12. Wealth and harmony measured by
happiness. The wealth and harmony of the Garden City is measured in the
happiness its citizens. It is the only true measurement of a successful city.
Their happiness is not based upon the suffering or expense of others.
These are the characteristics of a Garden City, not all can be
present. But the guiding principles of a new Garden City will be to: Share,
Enjoy and Prosper.
What turns the sharing of
the Garden City’s prosperity from an act of paternalism or charity to one of
empowerment and citizenship?
It is people not just having share in the City’s prosperity but a
share – an active say – in how it is spent and what and where it is spent on.
It means people having a chance to participate and speak for themselves and
make informed decisions.
Importantly to share prosperity, enjoy its prosperity and to enjoy
sharing.
The key tenets are :-
- A productive city
- Accountable and controlled
and governed by the community for
community benefit
- Sustainable design and
management and as such will have a low carbon foot print
Philip Ross, Yves Cabannes
May 2012
