Paradise Planned

From the same team that produced the monumental five-volume architectural history of New York comes the definitive work on the development of the garden suburb, a phenomenon that first emerged in England in the 1830s and still dominates residential architecture today. As malls are abandoned and mortgages are foreclosed, the retrofitting of the suburbs is a central issue in urban planning today. New strategies are emerging – creating walk-able communities with social and retail centres – that hark back to the original concept of the suburb. These bucolic settings, first developed in the mid-nineteenth century, offered an ideal lifestyle outside the city but accessible by streetcar, train, and ultimately automobile. The Garden City movement originated in England, was quickly adopted in the United States and northern Europe, and gradually proliferated throughout the world. Paradise Planned is a comprehensive, encyclopaedic record of this development, a vital contribution to architectural history.