New Towns
Overview
The term “new towns” generally refers to those towns created in Great Britain after World War II. These towns were built on the outskirts of major cities, on the model of Garden Cities advocated by Ebenezer Howard. These towns were designed to be self-contained, providing housing, jobs, and recreational facilities to residents, and to help draw people away from existing urban centers, which were seen as overpopulated. New towns in the UK were developed by public commissions, with government loans authorized by the New Towns Act of 1946.