Garden-cities, utopia and reality

The garden-city idea was created in Great Britain in the end of the 19lh century, when in London and in other industrial cities, problems related with housing and employment have distinctly intensified. They were mainly resulting from the lack of balance between population growth and urban and institutional development of the cities areas. On the one hand progressing industrialization was drawing people in masses into the cities, causing its overcrowding, lack of houses, water, epidemics and increasing expenses of living. On the other hand, migration from peripheries and rural areas was depriving it of man-power, capital and sources that could contribute to the local economic growth. As a consequence of that standard of life of the local communities suffered substantial degradation. The recipe on this situation was suppose to be an Ebenezer Howard s idea of the city and garden connection — the area of intensive development with the green area that distinctly stands out from the surrounding space. The idea was creating a new model of the city and was aiming to increase the quality of urban life and also counteract risk factors and problems of the industrial cities. First garden-eities (Welwyn and Letchworth Garden City) were founded in the beginning of the 20'11 century, and in the short time the idea itself achieved significant popularity all over the World, including Poland. Here garden-cities were created in the surrounding of the large urban centres, amongst others: around Warsaw (e.g. Podkowa Leśna), Katowice (e.g. Giszowiec), Częstochowa (e.g. Żarki) and Łódź (Kolumna-Las, Tuszyn-Las, Grotniki, Sokolniki). However, there were many differences between English and Polish interpretation of the Howard’s idea. Mostly they were resulting from different political and social situations in these two countries but also from a different purpose of its erection. The aim of the article is to elucidate the origins of the garden-city idea and to present and compare the development of an idea on the British and Polish ground, based on the examples of the pioneer Welwyn and Letchworth City Garden and those founded in the surrounding of the city of Łódź. In the paper the attempt was made to investigate and define on what scale the idea of garden-cities was accomplished on the research area, what evolution it went through, and in which degree its effects are distinguished in the contemporary cultural landscape of analysed estates.Celem artykułu jest wyjaśnienie genezy koncepcji miast-ogrodów oraz przedstawienie i porównanie jej rozwoju w Wielkiej Brytanii i w Polsce na przykładzie pionierskich osiedli Letchworth i Welwyn Garden City oraz podłódzkich jednostek powstałych zgodnie z założeniami analizowanej idei. W artykule dokonano próby zbadania i określenia, na ile idea miast-ogrodów została zrealizowana na badanym obszarze, jaką przeszła ewolucję i w jakim stopniu jej efekty odznaczają się w obecnym krajobrazie kulturowym analizowanych osiedli.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę