Utopia Incomplete: British New Towns and Craigavon

The New towns initiative in the UK and Northern Ireland, enshrined in the Act of 1946, was derived out of a stream of philosophical thought that was a reaction to modernity, paritcularly Victorian industrialisation. This was developed through the writings of Ruskin and Morris and crystalised by Ebenezer Howard in his book Garden Cities of Tomorrow, which culminated with the design of Letchworth by Parker and Unwin (completed 1914). Letchworth however, was a more than just a physical and spatial entity: it was actually a policyscape, a novel economic and social policy landscape that regulated development in a modern and scientific way.

These themes of the scientification of urban design, and the regulation of urban development through policy, run through the whole New Town movement, right up to the development of the eco-towns of today. New Towns, in fact, can be seen as an embodiment of modernity, as well as a reaction to it .