Building food places and resilience: Social, economic and urban design lessons from recent projects in Letchworth Garden City and Hatfield New Town

In the late 19th century, Sir Ebenezer
Howard shared a vision for Garden Cities
where the local food supply and consumption
chain was shaped as an holistic rural-urban
economic resource for new ‘garden city’ communities.
While the Garden City movement has
had a major influence on urban planning history
and practice in garden suburbs and new
towns, Howard’s emphasis on integrating the
town and country in food terms has often been
overlooked. This short paper reports on three
recent research projects on food and urbanism
in Garden City and New Town contexts in England
where building food resilience in planned
settlements is the focus. These projects share
common ground; reflecting to varying extents
garden city principles relating to food, emphasising
spatial methods, and undertaking community
engagement, to explore land use, urban
design and stewardship possibilities for food
today. The three projects suggest a significant
interplay between rural and urban realms in
relation to food is critical to underpin placemaking
by communities, and to support food
governance to create resilient food cities.