British New Towns

Preplanned cities are big business for the English Government. Ten small towns are growing into old communities around London. Twelve new towns of 100,000 each are going up on the outskirts of Birmingham. Liverpool, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Now, Milton Keynes, a city of 250,000, is on the Government's drawing boards.

The purpose of the London new towns was twofold. They were supposed to alleviate the post-World War II housing shortage and to mitigate industrial concentration in London. But the London ring achieved neither of these purposes. The development of the towns was retarded by so many battles between different levels of government and local interest groups that most of them took ten years to get off the ground. Moreover, while some London industry moved out to the new towns, other companies just replaced them.

Actually, the London ring achieved other goals. In the best planned towns like Harlow, all of Ebeneezer Howard's ideas in Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1902) were finally implemented. Harlow has a surrounding greenbelt, separation of housing and industry inexpensive garden apartments, and a high level of community facilities. Some of the other new towns, however, resemble housing projects more than Howard's ideal city.

Since the Government sunk millions into the London ring without any immediate profits, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government did not designate any new towns in England until a few years ago. Now profits from increased land values in the London ring, together with the development of the town center concept by a prominent architect, has led to the designation of another ten towns.

This new group, caled the Mark 11 new towns, must overcome two main problems. According to the New Towns Act, the Ministry can establish public corporations "to acquire, hold, manage, and dispose of land and other property, to carry out any business or undertaking in or for the purpose of the new town." The breadth of the corporational mandate usually alienates local politicians. They resent the intrusion of highly educated administrators and architects into their districts. And since the corporation must consult local authorities at each planning stage, fierce fights often occur. For example at Hemel Hempstead the local residents brought the Ministry into court because they felt the corporation was ignoring their desires.

On the other hand the corporation must depend on local authorities to supply schools, playing fields, and civic auditoriums. The Corporation is allowed to spend only $14 per person on these projects. Since most town councils are reluctant to raise taxes, the corporations must constantly pressure local officials to fulfill their obligations. Usually local authorities remain hostile for about five years until new town people take over the elected offices and new factories begin supplementing local revenues.

The second main problem facing Mark 11 towns is the establishment of a viable human community. Since the corporations have the power to put up houses and factories, but not social facilities, new towns have tended to be social wastelands in their early stages. Shops, cinemas, and pubs do not want to move in until the population has reached 20,000. Up to that time, new town inhabitants must travel long distances by infrequent transportation to enjoy the social attractions they were used to in London, Liverpool, or Birmingham.

Even in a town's later stages, the corporation is often unresponsive to the population's needs. The bulk of corporation employees are middle-class, while most town residents are working-class. This social gap, highlighted by corporation executives' reluctance to live in the new town, may lead to a breakdown of communications between the two groups. In many towns, residents have had to fight furiously to acquire facilities as elementary as public telephones or street lighting.

The Ministry must also resolve regional and country-wide problems. In the Midlands, the North, and Scotland, the Government wants to bolster depressed areas. But in some places like Glasgow, the Government has set up only two towns, both too small to relieve central city congestion. In other regions like Liverpool, the Ministry is building so many new towns, both too small to istry is building so many new towns and expanded cities (about eight) that the construction industry cannot possibly carry the load.

England's faltering economy makes decisions about new towns tough for the Government. The country has a limited amount of farmland and a severe housing shortage. But if new towns are to be built, farmlands must be lost. In addition, England's balance of trade deficit has forced Wilson to freeze wages and tighten money. But these measures make investors less willing to move or expand into new towns.

Although England's national economy is unlikely to improve quickly, the Government could take certain moves to help solve the other problems facing new towns. Sociologists as well as architects and engineers could be part of new town planning teams. Corporations could be given to power to build social facilities, while local authorities could be better represented on corporation boards. The Government could insist that each corporation have a Social Development Office, of equal status to the Architectural office, that would respond to the inhabitants' needs. To help bring the corporation in closer contact to the residents and improve the social balance of the community, the Ministry would insist that corporation executives live in the new towns. Finally, the Government could put several large new towns in each depressed area and at the same time could subsidize the regional building industry.