The Garden City, a reference for the requalification of the diffuse city

Conceived at the end of the 19th century by Ebenezer Howard and implemented in Letchworth then Welwyn, the garden cities model is based on the desire to offer quality housing to the working classes. Since then, this model has been used throughout the world and adapted to local institutional contexts. The garden city concept was recently promoted by David Cameron's government to deal with Britain's housing crisis that had been worsening for several decades. This news renewed interest in the garden city as an economic, social and political alternative to the current model of the manufacture of the city. By mobilizing collective governance, non-speculative management of land and experimental urban forms, the new garden city is an object of study in its own right. The originality of our communication is to propose cross-disciplinary views between several disciplines of the social sciences (history, urbanism, economy) on the model of the garden city and to build this reflection between researchers and professionals. The hypothesis is that this model incorporates principles that invite renewal of territorial action. First, history shows us the durability and adaptability of the model. Moreover, the rules of operation, management of land resources and collective action anchor garden cities as Commons in the sense of Ostrom (1990). The model of management of the garden city by the community of inhabitants is thus a form of local welfare state (Hardy, 2010). Finally, the model of the garden city seems to us to offer relevant elements for the construction of a project of restructuring of the città diffusa in different European countries as it allows an urbanism answer to issues particularly related to the consumption of agricultural land, to mobility, the cost of housing and to living together.