The Development Of "Garden City Theory" In Modern China

The Garden City Theory which was founded by an English social reformer Ebenezer Howard, was a theory about city construction and society reform .It claimed to build a kind of garden city which had the merits of town and country ,use a new social configuration in which town and country were integrated to replace the separation between town and country .As the important West social reform theory in the late 1800s and early 1900s, The birth of the Garden City Theory had profound society and times background . It deeply affected the development of West modern city planning subject . This thesis studies such following questions: In Modern China, how was the Garden City Theory introduced to China by many municipal scholars, what influence did the theory exert on the municipal scholars' city idea and city planning and construction, and so on.After 1920s, municipal reform movement was generally actualized, lots of West original municipal system and city panning ideologies were the important theory source. The Garden City Theory was also spread into China as one of the most important theories. In this process, many advanced municipal scholars who studied municipal course or related and resemble course made much contribution. They actively introduced the Garden City Theory to China, wanting to improve the worse and worse city environmental sanitation, prevent city construction from following West's same disastrous road for radical development, break the isolate state between town and country to realize their harmonious development and handle city air defense in the new condition of war. While municipal scholars actively publicized and introduced the Garden City Theory, they put forward detailed execution program of garden city. However, their program was the result of assembling Howard's garden city pattern and else West municipal reform outcome on the base of partly understanding and rigidly using the Garden City Theory. They intentionally or unintentionally ignored Howard's socialreform idea--"social cities" whose centre was land institution reform. Naturally,the Garden City Theory and their municipal program of garden city influenced their municipal views. They made every effort to appeal to pay great attention to city planning in order to ensure Chinese cities' rational and healthy development. They emphasized decentralism and suburban planning. They began to pay attention to development balance between town and country, opposing the deformed stage in which town was prosperous, while country fell into decay. Additionally, they began to attach importance to planning and building park, square and other public places in city.Under the "join forces" of West advanced municipal ideologies on Chinese municipal reform movement, the Garden City Theory kept many partial and fragmental "Garden City" seals on city planning and construction in Republic of China. They mainly involved the establishment of big cities' planning and construction projects, building of New Village, inauguration of park and other public places in cities. By and large, the influences of the Garden City Theory on city planning of Republic of China mainly had two aspects. The first was planning of new district in city. This was exactly the same with the means by which Howardbuilt two garden cities--Letchworth and Wewyn in suburb in order to avoidincreasingly expansive London. The second was the decentralism of Chinese city planning after the War of Resistance Against Japan. This was tightly correlated with some West decentralization planning theories such "satellite city", "organic decentralization", "neighborhood unit" which rooted in the Garden City Theory. The effects of new village building, construction of "exemplar uptown", particular planning and collocation of city greenbelt system were the result of partial understanding and imitating the Garden City Theory.