Sunday Feature - Ideas - The British Version (Series 2) - The Garden City

Tristram Hunt follows the surprising journey of another idea that developed in Britain and then spread around the world: the 'Garden City'. The Garden City was the utopian brain-child of a humble British clerk, Ebenezer Howard. He imagined a new kind of settlement that would fuse the best of town and country, creating not just decent living places for ordinary people, but a new social harmony. Unlike many utopian schemes, in 1903 Howard managed at least a partial realisation of his dream - at Letchworth, amid the fields of Hertfordshire. But as Tristram discovers, the idea mutated, and rapidly migrated beyond our shores. He follows Howard's influence from Letchworth, to west and north London, to suburban Paris and on to New Jersey. And he finds out how a twisted version of the Garden City model may even have had an unwitting influence on Nazi plans for occupied Poland. Finally, he follows the trail back to Britain. Advocates of government-backed 'eco-towns' see them as a revival of Howard's Victorian dream of 'a peaceful path to real reform'. But, Tristram asks, can they really match Howard's achievements? This series was first broadcast in Autumn 2009.