Green Towns and Cities - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 112

Chapter 4
Green Towns and Cities

Wayne K﻽D﻽ Davies

Our old views of cities, towns, and communities are incomplete
and must be substantially expanded to incorporate ecology and
more ecologically responsible forms of living and settlement.
T. Beatley 2000, p. 5

4﻽1 Introduction

The words 'green' and 'greening' are often used today as a synonym for policies
stressing environmental issues and sustainability in economies and life-styles, rath-
er than its original, literal use referring to the addition of grass, trees and other natu-
ral features to urban places. Although there can be no doubt that this wider use of
the term 'greening' is now part of the sustainability agenda, and is a short-hand for
these ideas, there is a sufficient coherence of the features associated with this older
literal meaning of the term to deal with it separately in this chapter. Of course, the
explicit idea of developing greener towns is not new. It was popularized by How-
ard's ( 1898 ) Garden City ideas as well as the Broadacre City suggestions of Lloyd-
Wright ( 1932 ) and to the Regional Planning of Geddes ( 1915 ). All were designed
to seek new and greener forms of urban centres by incorporating natural features
into the built-up areas (Mumford 1961 , Bacon 1974 , Hall 1988 , Stephenson 1999 ).
Unfortunately, many of these ideas were watered down, distorted or even lost in the
development of twentieth century planning practices. Certainly these pioneering
examples led to increasing amounts of green space in the suburbs of western cities
that adopted some of their ecological principles. But the resultant low density de-
velopments, especially when based on widespread car use from the mid-twentieth
century, led to a new set of problems, such as sprawl, road congestion, limited
social contact with neighbours, increased energy and resource use, and increased
pollution. By the late 1980s criticism of this type of development led to pleas by
planners for greater concern for the environment (Steeley 1991 ), the growth of the

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