The report provides a summary of activities and outputs from the Town and Country Planning Association’s (TCPA) ‘Tomorrow 125’ project, which began in 2021 with the aim of understanding how the Garden City idea can help the nation construct a pathway to a hopeful future based on a fairer society.

The TCPA describes the Garden City concept as “extremely ambitious”, setting out guiding principles about how society could operate, founded on progressive assumptions about human values, and playing out in the physical, social and economic relations of existing and new communities. This level of ambition is recognised by the TCPA’s view that nowhere has successfully adopted this holistic approach.

Through the Tomorrow 125 project, the TCPA sought to test whether the detail and mechanics of the Garden City idea still worked and, if not, identify what needs to be done to update them.

Using the 125th anniversary of Ebenezer Howard’s book To-morrow a peaceful path to real reform as a catalyst, the TCPA embarked on the three-year project to explore the background and practical application of the Garden City idea in modern times. The project provided insights into the true thinking of the Garden City pioneers, confronted the myths and misuse of the idea over time, and promoted better understanding of how the Garden City idea fits within the wider ecosystem of organisations and activities in the pursuit of social and environmental justice.

“The political question of our time”

The TCPA asserts that Howard would have recognised some of the modern world’s challenges, such as poverty and economic inequality; poor physical and mental health; poor housing conditions; an economy failing to meet the basic human needs of many; and technology making some people’s occupations redundant. However, other urgent problems, including racial inequality, the climate crisis, and a broken housing delivery model, are more relevant to the 21st century.

Consequently, says the report, “the question of how human beings can live together in peace and in harmony with the planet upon which they depend is the political question of our time”.

The project was based around three core themes: designing for social justice (equality), including health and climate justice (reducing carbon); democracy and governance – identifying who has power and the role of local people; and a new economy – exploring a mutualised/social/foundational economy to support the above themes. The project consisted of a programme of collaborative projects, events and interventions exploring the Garden City idea, culminating in the development of a roadmap of practical actions, disseminated in 2023 – the 125th anniversary of Howard’s manifesto.

Actions – short, medium and long term

The report includes key outputs and conclusions of the Tomorrow 125 project; the implications of these conclusions for the work of the TCPA; and opportunities and next steps for the ideas and concepts explored through the project. Necessary actions in the short, medium, and long term have been identified in a bid to move towards a vision for flourishing lives in thriving places.

Short-term actions include seeking to influence the next government in Britain. The report references the TCPA’s white paper for homes and communities, ‘Our Shared Future’, published in January this year, and which proposes an approach to the delivery of large-scale new settlements and unlocking local strategic growth – embedding elements of the Garden City development model within the parameters of a housing and delivery approach that is “politically palatable”.

“If a new government were to implement these approaches,” speculates the report, “the resulting development could, in theory, provide a precedent for further evolution of our current development model.”

Other short-term measures include the TCPA continuing to work with communities to embed the Garden City principles and development model; and delivering the first stage of new guidance and practical tools as part of a Garden City Repair Manual for England.

Medium-term actions include forging a new corporate strategy for the TCPA to provide an opportunity to further embed the principles in its objectives and activities; and promoting case studies through the repair manual to highlight opportunities and demonstrate what change looks like.

Long-term actions include building collaborative relationships with other organisations; empowering people to make change happen themselves; and demonstrating what good looks like through the development of place – including continuing to talk to the development community about the opportunities of a new model with a view to implementing these ideas in a real development.

According to the TCPA, the Tomorrow 125 project has left it with a renewed sense of urgency and confidence in the role of the Garden City idea in addressing today’s challenges, as well as a new way of organising how homes and communities can be created and nurtured.