The story of Ebenezer Howard and Letchworth Garden City and its resilience to the Covid Pandemic

Letchworth Garden City is the brainchild of Ebenezer Howard, who promoted a new social, community and economic model that sought to capture value from the land for community benefit, incorporating community governance, long term stewardship and beautiful well-designed places for all. 

This was by a series of principles set out in his book published in 1898.  It is the world’s first garden city and was developed as a living experiment of these principles.  It went on to influence hundreds of Garden Cities and Suburbs across the world and despite being nearly 120 years old, is the closest example of Howard’s principles in practice in the world. 

The Letchworth Garden City Estate is administered by Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, which is a community benefit society that owns the freehold and is successor to First Garden City Ltd that developed the town.  Letchworth continues to evolve and provides homes for 35,000 people and 15,000 jobs and has a living and vibrant local community and economy. 

As with all places, Covid has presented significant challenges for Letchworth and we examine how the Garden City model has performed, from a spatial context, the needs of the community, commercial implications and the lessons to be learnt when planning new places.