"The original (and still most weighty) reason for building new towns, in the minds of their advocates and pioneering experimenters, was the necessity of reducing the concentration of people and workplaces in very large towns, which otherwise cannot be relieved of congestion, disorder and squalor and rebuilt on a fully healthy, socially satisfactory or efficient pattern. A complementary motive was that new towns based on modern industry, in agricultural regions declining in populations owing to mechanization and other technical changes in farming, would bring fresh vitality and better services into such regions. This double intention should be kept in mind. Too often the new towns are discussed as if they were meant only to be ends in themselves, almost irrelevant to the redemption or renewal of the existing cities, and ruthlessly indifferent to rural interests. They were never thus disassociated in the minds of their proponents."
—Sir Frederic Osborn
The first edition of this highly-regarded book was published in 1963. For this new edition, the text has been thoroughly revised and updated throughout. Chapters have been added on the new towns started in Great Britain since 1963, and the descriptions of the earlier towns have been extended. Whereas in the earlier edition the towns were placed in the order of their dates of designation, they have now been grouped geographically: London region, North-East, North-West, Midlands, Wales, and Scotland.
The purpose of the book remains the same: "...to give a broad account of the new towns created in Great Britain and of the circumstances and lines of thought from which they arose, and an evaluation of their significance for the future of urban development."
The work is divided into two parts: the first, by Osborn, concerns the background of the new towns movement and the questions of policy and planning that apply to new towns generally. Among his considerations are data patterns of town growth, the functions and failings of towns, policies of governmental intervention, legislation for new towns and their financing, antagonisms toward new towns, regional plans, and the influence of the new towns movement in Europe and America.
Part Two, by Whittick, considers various new towns one by one. Descriptions are given of the first twenty-three of the thirty towns authorized in Great Britain up to 1968, and a selection of plans, maps, and photographs sufficient to indicate their form and character are provided for each town. For ease of comparison between towns, the order of sections within each chapter is the same: reasons for designation; features of the site; analysis of the outline plan; the course of construction; descriptions of residential areas, neighborhoods, town center, and industrial zones; and an appraisal of social aspects.
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