The Garden cities were used as the model for many suburbs. Howard Ebenezer (in his book « a Peaceful Path to Real Reform » in 1898) believed that such Garden Cities were the perfect blend of city and nature.Howard believed that a new civilisation could be found by marrying the town and the country. The towns would be largely independent, managed by the citizens who had an economic interest in them, and financed by ground rents on the Georgist model. The land on which they were to be built was to be owned by a group of trustees and leased to the citizens.
Source : Wikipedia
Howard proposed and defined as a garden-city a model of settlement that he believed would solve the human habitat problem in the industrial age. This solution responds to a triple political, social, hygienic and cultural critique of industrial society whose flaws and contradictions can be summarized in the antagonism of the city and the countryside. The garden city allows the « healthy, natural and balanced combination of urban and rural life, and this on land owned by the municipality »; it offers all the respective advantages of the city and the countryside (enjoyment of nature and lively social life, high salaries and cheap life, many jobs and nearby work, absence of pollution and entertainment) without their disadvantages (exploitation of the worker, slums, under-equipment, industrial centralisation).
The garden-city, designed by Howard, is an ex nihilo creation on virgin ground. Its surface area and population are limited: the collectivized domain must have 2,400 hectares; the city itself occupies only 400 hectares for a population that should not exceed 30,000 inhabitants. A system of gardens and planted avenues structures the urban core, organizing the grouping and distribution of public buildings in the centre, then shops and dwellings and finally schools, and making it possible to locate industries on the periphery where they are in direct contact with the electric railway line that surrounds the urban area.
Source: Encyclopedia Universalis