ASC's History of Sustainable Communities

A ten-minute history of sustainable communities

In 2008, for the first time in human history, the number of people living in cities was expected to equal the number living in rural areas. From now on, most of the world’s population will be urban. In the UK, more than 75% of people live in cities.

The problems of our towns and cities are seemingly infinitely complex and intractable – and environmental dereliction, like this 1990s picture of the Rochdale Canal, is just the most obvious of them. But we’re finding better ways to think about these issues. Concepts like the ‘Egan wheel’ allow us to look at what we’ve done and assess what worked and what could have been better. This slideshow shows how sustainable communities have been a human aspiration throughout history – and relates that experience to the Egan wheel’s eight aspects of place shaping: governance; transport and connectivity; services; environment; equity; economy; housing and the built environment; and social and cultural activities.

The Zhou Dynasty: Governance and culture

The Zhou Dynasty, founded around 3000 years ago, ruled much of China for around 700 years. It was a period of philosophy, culture and invention: but the social and economic system was similar in many respects to mediaeval feudalism in western Europe.

The picture shows a gilt bronze chariot fitting in the shape of a dragon head, from the late Eastern Zhou Dynasty, at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Washington D.C.

Athens: Governance, culture

Athens, at its height in the fifth century BC, heralded many modern ideas of community. This city-state gave us democracy – as well as philosophy, theatre, and architecture like the Acropolis (above). But this edifice rested on the backs of slaves: one in four Athenians were in servitude.

Plato’s Republic: Governance, equity

Plato’s Republic, written in around 360 BC, debates philosophy and society by creating an imaginary city ruled by philosopher-kings. There is much discussion of what a ‘just city’ would look like – the forerunner to current debates about governance and equity, two spokes of the Egan wheel.

The picture shows an image of Plato from the Nuremberg Chronicle.

Rome: Governance, equity

The Roman Republic, from 509BC-31BC, was one of the first attempts to challenge the authoritarian rule that characterised most early civilisations. Executive power lay with two consuls, elected every year and advised by a Senate. But economic success led to military expansion – and a reversion to despotism under the Caesars. The picture shows a depiction of the founding of the Republic after the expulsion of the Tarquin kings.

The Silk Road: Economy, connectivity, culture

The famous trade route from China to the eastern Mediterranean was opened in the second century, and flourished for several hundred years, allowing the exchange of goods like silk, technologies including paper-making, and philosophies such as Buddhism.

The picture shows a Tang Dynasty carving of a western traveller on a camel, from the Shanghai Museum.

The Incas: Built environment, connectivity

The Incas, who dominated much of western South America during the fifteenth century, were known for their monumental architecture, extensive road-building, and regional administrative system – but also for their brutality and rigid social structure. The picture shows the Inca mountain retreat of Machu Picchu, now a World Heritage site.

Mughal India: Connectivity, culture, equity

The Mughal Empire, which spread from northern India and lasted from 1526 to 1857, was characterised by a vibrant culture, religious freedom (for much of the period) and advances in communication. Akbar the Great, a contemporary of Shakespeare, established a uniform system of weights and measures.

The picture shows Akbar receiving Queen Elizabeth I’s envoy, Sir John Mildenhall.

Utopia: Equity, governance

Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, wrote his Utopia in 1516 as a vision of a perfectly governed and (largely) tolerant society. Interestingly, it is one without lawyers. The title is a pun on the Greek ou-topos (no place) and eu-topos (good place). The book has lent its name to numerous subsequent visions of an ideal sustainable society.

The picture shows Hans Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas More, painted in 1527.

The Amish: Equity, culture, environment

The Amish, Swiss Anabaptists who emigrated to Pennsylvania in the 18th century, practise what many would regard as sustainable living. Conservative Amish refuse to use motor transport or mains electricity, eschew state benefits and practise non-violence. There are around 165,000 ‘Old Order’ Amish, living in tightly knit religious communities – but those who fail to observe their strict rules face expulsion.

Edinburgh’s New Town: Built environment

Edinburgh’s New Town, built between 1765 and 1860, is a classic example of the use of town planning to tackle overcrowding and squalor. A World Heritage site, its architects included Robert Adam. But while it was a haven for the well-off, the poor remained in the unsanitary Old Town.

The US declaration of independence: Governance, equity

Thomas Jefferson’s declaration of 4 July 1776 is probably the most famous statement ever made about how we aspire to live in communities. It begins: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…’

The illustration is taken from an engraving made in 1823.

Robert Owen: Economy, services, equity

Robert Owen, born in 1771, was a successful Industrial Revolution capitalist – but his belief that human beings are shaped by their environment led to a more philanthropic approach, creating the industrial village of New Lanark (pictured) in the early 19th century – a model society where workers were well housed and provided with healthcare and education.

St Kilda: Governance, culture

The Hebridean islanders of St Kilda lived a life many regarded with envy. As Lachlan Maclean wrote in 1838: ‘Well may the pampered native of happy Hirt refuse to change his situation - his slumbers are late - his labours are light - his occupation his amusement. Government he has not - law he feels not - physic he wants not - politics he heeds not - money he sees not - of war he hears not.’ But this idyll was undone as the economy collapsed, and the last islanders asked to be evacuated to the mainland in 1930.

Blackwood: Built environment, services

Monmouth industrialist John Moggridge adopted some of Robert Owen’s ideas when he encouraged South Wales coalminers to rent plots of land from him and build their own homes. The first cottages at what is now Blackwood were built in 1820; by 1828 there were 260 houses, as well as shops, a school and a market house. Blackwood could be seen as a forerunner of today’s self-build movement. The picture shows a new bridge in Blackwood that commemorates the Chartists of South Wales.

Friedrich Engels: Economy, equity

While Manchester’s economy was booming during the Industrial Revolution, Friedrich Engels was one of the most detailed chroniclers of its seamy side.

He showed how industrialisation damaged health and was one of the first to base arguments for economic change on detailed social research. His classic work is The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.

Industrialisation: Economy, environment

Charles Dickens was another chronicler of the downside of industrial expansion. Here’s his description of Coketown in Hard Times, published in 1854: ‘It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of buildings full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.’

The Rochdale Pioneers: Economy, equity

The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers was formed in 1844, when local weavers and artisans banded together to open a foodstore selling items they could not otherwise afford. From those beginnings grew the British cooperative movement, paying its members a dividend from the stores’ earnings. Cooperatives continue to challenge the dominance of large corporations.

The London Underground: Connectivity

Getting around the burgeoning nineteenth century cities was a nightmare. In 1860 work began on a farsighted attempt to solve the problem: an underground railway. The Metropolitan Railway was designed to link three of London's main line termini with the City. The first section, from Paddington to Farringdon, opened in 1863. Other cities followed suit: Budapest and Glasgow in 1896, Boston in 1897, Paris in 1900, and Berlin in 1902.

Joseph Chamberlain: Services, environment

From 1873 to 1876 Joseph Chamberlain was mayor of Birmingham. He banned the construction of back-to-back slums, put the supplies of water and gas under municipal control and began the construction of a sewer system. But his city centre improvement scheme, including the construction of Corporation Street, displaced 9,000 slum dwellers.

Edward Bellamy: economy, equity

The American lawyer Edward Bellamy envisaged a society where material goods were plentiful, wealth was equally distributed and there was no distinction between rich and poor neighbourhoods. His novel, Looking Backward 2000-1887, is set in a fictional future Boston where everyone retires on full benefits at the age of 45.

William Morris: Economy, environment, culture

Many of the visions of sustainable communities put forward in the 19th century were a reaction against the squalor and injustice noted by writers such as Engels and Dickens. In News from Nowhere, published in 1890, William Morris paints a picture of an agrarian idyll based on socialist principles where work is pleasurable, private property has been abolished, and children’s education is self-directed.

The picture shows a portrait by George Frederick Watts from 1870.

Lady Florence Dixie: Equity, governance

In the same year a rather different take on the ideal society was offered by Lady Florence Dixie, an early advocate of women’s suffrage. Her novel, Gloriana, concludes with a description of Britain in 1999, prosperous, peaceful and governed by women. The illustration is from Vanity Fair magazine, 5 January 1884.

New Earswick: Environment, housing, equity

The idea of garden communities as an antidote to industrial squalor began to find its way into mainstream thinking at the turn of the 20th century. Joseph Rowntree, the Quaker confectioner and social reformer, developed the village of New Earswick in York, planned by Raymond Unwin and architect Barry Parker. Affordable homes, open space and generous gardens with fruit trees were provided. The picture shows the newly built Chestnut Grove, New Earswick, in 1915.

Ebenezer Howard: Environment, housing, services

In 1902 Ebenezer Howard published his seminal work on town planning, Garden Cities of To-Morrow. His famous diagram of the ‘three magnets’ explains his concept of a sustainable community, surrounded by a green belt of open land. His work is continued by the Town and Country Planning Association, and lives on in Letchworth Garden City, the first new town built on his principles.

Patrick Geddes: Built environment, services, equity

Another influential thinker of the time, Patrick Geddes, was one of the first to bring together the ideas of community and planning. His Cities in Evolution of 1915 emphasised the connections between the forces that create settlements and the people who live in them. His legacy includes the centre of Tel Aviv, a city for which he produced a masterplan in 1925.

Le Corbusier: Built environment

For much of the 20th century, the ideals of technology and of progress through industry were dominant. The French architect Le Corbusier allied this with classical ideals of order and geometry, declaring in the introduction to his 1929 work, Urbanisme, ‘Decorative art is dead. Modern town planning comes to birth with a new architecture. By this immense step in evolution, so brutal and so overwhelming, we burn our bridges and break with the past.’ The picture shows a Le Corbusier-designed apartment block in Marseille.

New brutalism: Built environment

While Le Corbusier saw ‘baton brut’ (geometric, unembellished concrete design) as a thing of beauty, its manifestations were often experienced as soulless, inhuman prisons for their inhabitants. His ideas of space and order became, in the hands of penny-pinching municipalities, tower blocks such as Liverpool’s infamous ‘Piggeries’.

The modernist ideal: Built environment, services

Large-scale building was not always a disaster. Karl Marx-Hof in Vienna, built between 1927 and 1930, is more than one kilometre long and is the longest residential building in the world. Designed for 5,000 residents, it includes community facilities such as gardens and play areas, a library and doctors’ surgeries.

The New Towns: Built environment, connectivity

The UK’s New Towns, built to house residents of London and other major cities in better conditions after the second world war, combined many of the best modernist ideas – pedestrianised shopping centres, public art – with poor community development, an emphasis on car use, and dubious build quality. Some are now seen as in need of regeneration.

The picture shows the famous concrete cows of Milton Keynes.

Rosa Parks: equity

Rising living standards and democracy in the 20th century did not automatically mean a fair and sustainable society. Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up a seat on a bus to a white man in Alabama in 1955 led to the end of segregated travel – and was a catalyst for the US civil rights movement.

Lewis Mumford: Environment, governance

The American historian and thinker Lewis Mumford was strongly influenced by Patrick Geddes – and a keen critic of Modernists like Le Corbusier. His book, The City in History, (1961) argues for a balance between technology and nature and presages many of the environmental concerns of the late 20th century.

Jane Jacobs: Economy, social and cultural, services

While new town planning was at its peak, Jane Jacobs was emerging as one of the fiercest critics of modernist architecture and development, arguing the merits of traditional neighbourhoods with a wide mix of uses in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961. Her classic example of a sustainable community is New York’s Greenwich Village; her writing has influenced many community-based campaigns against inner-city redevelopment.

E.F. Schumacher: Environment

Another profound influence in the late 20th century was E.F. Schumacher, author of Small is Beautiful (1973) and campaigner for alternative technology. His concern was for economic systems that could exist in harmony with the environment, with an emphasis on local production for local needs.

Porto Alegre: services

‘Think global: act local’ became the slogan of the environmental movement of the late 20th century. One example of local action was the delegation of decision-making about local services. Residents of Porto Alegre, Brazil, led the way in developing the idea of ‘participatory budgeting’.

The Brundtland Report: Environment

By 1987 sustainable development was becoming a global concern, as the effects of increased population and demands for resources were becoming apparent. The Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, laid the ground for the 1992 Earth Summit. It defined sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.

Sustainable communities

Brundtland was a major step forward, showing how the thinking of visionaries and the practice of planners and developers can be brought together for the common good. The need to bring together a wide range of thinking – on economics, the environment, housing, transport, services such as health and education, culture, social justice and governance – underlies the UK’s Egan Review of 2004 and the Bristol Accord signed the following year. The Accord commits EU states to a common approach to sustainable communities and underpins the work of the Academy for Sustainable Communities. The picture shows neighbourhood wardens patrolling Liverpool’s Eldonian Village.

credits and acknowledgements

This presentation was prepared by Julian Dobson of NS+ Ltd, www.nsplus.co.uk, on behalf of ASC.

Picture credits: Slides 2, 13, 15, 16, 29, 36, www.istockphoto.com; slide 3, New Start magazine; slide 4, Eric Connor; slide 5, Aaron Logan; slide 6, Beloit College, Wisconsin; slides 7, 10, 18, 28, Mary Evans Picture Library, www.maryevans.com; slide 8, PHG; slide 9, Martin St-Amand; slide 11, www.digitale-bibliotek.de; slide 12, Utente; slide 14, US National Archives; slide 17, Steven Lindon; slide 19, University of Texas, Austin; slide 20, Hulton Archive/Getty Images, www.gettyimages.com; slide 22, George Grantham Bain Collection, US Library of Congress; slide 23, Kean Collection/Getty Images, www.gettyimages.com; slide 26, Joseph Rowntree Archive; slide 30,© Crown Copyright, NMR; slide 31, Anotoly Terentiev; slide 32, David Manning; slides 33, 34, 35, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, www.gettyimages.com; slide 37, Eurivan Barbosa; slide 38, NASA; slide 39, Liverpool City Council.

sources and further readingSlide 2: World Urbanization Prospects, United Nations, February 2008 - www.un.org/esa

Slide 4: Xuequin, L. (1986). Eastern Zhou and Qin Civilizations, Yale University Press

Slides 5 & 6: Hall, P. (1998). Cities in Civilization, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Slide 7: Matyszak, P. (2003). Chronicle of the Roman Republic: The rulers of ancient Rome from Romulus to Augustus, Thames & Hudson.

Slide 8: Tucker, J. (2003). The Silk Road: art and history, Philip Wilson Publishers.

Slide 9: Conrad, G.and Demarest, A. (1984). Religion and Empire: The dynamics of Aztec and Inca expansionism, Cambridge University Press.

Slide 10: Foltz, R. (1998). Mughal India and Central Asia, OUP Pakistan.

Slide 11: More, T. (2004). Utopia, Penguin Classics.

Slide 12: Hostetler, J. (1993). Amish Society, Johns Hopkins University Press.

Slide 13: Varga, S. (2007). Edinburgh New Town (Images of Scotland), The History Press Ltd.

Slide 14: US National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html

Slide 15: Owen, R. (1991). A New View of Society and other writings, Penguin Classics.

Slide 16: National Trust for Scotland, http://www.kilda.org.uk/

Slide 17: Utopia Britannica, http://www.utopia-britannica.org.uk/pages/moggeridge.htm

Slide 18: Engels, F. (1987). The Condition of the Working Class in England, Penguin Classics.

Slide 19: Dickens, C. (2007). Hard Times, Penguin Classics.

Slide 20: Brown, W.H. (1950). The Rochdale Pioneers: A century of co-operation, Co-operative Union.

Slide 21: London Transport Museum, http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/

Slide 22: Power, A. and Houghton, J. (2007). Jigsaw Cities, The Policy Press.

Slide 23: Bellamy, E. (2007). Looking Backward 2000-1887, Oxford University Press.

Slide 24: Morris, W. (1993). News from Nowhere and other writings, Penguin Classics.

Slide 25: Douglas History website, http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/florencedixie.htm

Slide 26: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, http://www.jrf.org.uk/housingandcare/newearswick/

Slide 27: Howard, E. (2001). Garden Cities of To-Morrow, Books for Business.

Slide 28: Geddes, P. (1968). Cities in Evolution, Benn.

Slide 29: Le Corbusier (2000). The City of To-Morrow and its Planning, Dover Publications.

Slide 30: Banham, R. (1966). The New Brutalism: Ethic or aesthetic? Architectural Press.

Slide 31: See http://www.talkingcities.co.uk/destinations/home/vienna-guide/vienna-sightseeing/karl-marx-hof/

Slide 32: English Partnerships, http://www.englishpartnerships.co.uk/newtowns.htm

Slide 33: The Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University, http://montgomery.troy.edu/rosaparks/museum/

Slide 34: Mumford, L. (1968). The City in History: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects, Harcourt Brace International.

Slide 35: Jacobs, J. (1997). The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Random House.

Slide 36: Schumacher, E. F. (1993). Small is Beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered, Vintage.

Slide 37: People and Participation website, http://www.peopleandparticipation.net/display/Methods/Participatory+Budgeting

Slide 38: World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our Common Future, Oxford Paperbacks.

Slide 39: McBane, J. (2008). The Rebirth of Liverpool: The Eldonian way, Liverpool University Press.