1.
Frank Lloyd Wright
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Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures,532 of which were completed. Wright believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment and this philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater, which has been called the best all-time work of American architecture. Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home and his creative period spanned more than 70 years. In addition to his houses, Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums and he often designed interior elements for these buildings as well, including furniture and stained glass. Wright wrote 20 books and many articles and was a lecturer in the United States. His colorful personal life made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire. Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as the greatest American architect of all time, Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright in the farming town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, United States, in 1867. His father, William Carey Wright, was an orator, music teacher, occasional lawyer, William Wright met and married Anna Lloyd Jones, a county school teacher, the previous year when he was employed as the superintendent of schools for Richland County. Originally from Massachusetts, William Wright had been a Baptist minister, Anna was a member of the large, prosperous and well-known Lloyd Jones family of Unitarians, who had emigrated from Wales to Spring Green, Wisconsin. One of Annas brothers was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who would become an important figure in the spread of the Unitarian faith in the Western United States, both of Wrights parents were strong-willed individuals with idiosyncratic interests that they passed on to him. According to his biography, his mother declared when she was expecting that her first child would grow up to build beautiful buildings and she decorated his nursery with engravings of English cathedrals torn from a periodical to encourage the infants ambition. In 1870 the family moved to Weymouth, Massachusetts, where William ministered to a small congregation, in 1876, Anna visited the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia where she saw an exhibit of educational blocks created by Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel. The blocks, known as Froebel Gifts, were the foundation of his innovative kindergarten curriculum, Anna, a trained teacher, was excited by the program and bought a set with which young Wright spent much time playing. The blocks in the set were geometrically shaped and could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions, the Wright family struggled financially in Weymouth and returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin, where the supportive Lloyd Jones clan could help William find employment. They settled in Madison, where William taught music lessons and served as the secretary to the newly formed Unitarian society, although William was a distant parent, he shared his love of music, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with his children. Soon after Wright turned 14, his parents separated, Anna had been unhappy for some time with Williams inability to provide for his family and asked him to leave. The divorce was finalized in 1885 after William sued Anna for lack of physical affection, William left Wisconsin after the divorce and Wright claimed he never saw his father again. At this time he changed his name from Lincoln to Lloyd in honor of his mothers family
2.
Taliesin (studio)
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Taliesin /ˌtæliˈɛsᵻn/, sometimes known as Taliesin East, Taliesin Spring Green, or Taliesin North after 1937, was the estate of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Located 2.5 miles south of the village of Spring Green in Iowa County, Wisconsin, United States, Wright designed the Taliesin structure two years after leaving his first wife and home in Oak Park, Illinois with a mistress, Mamah Borthwick. The structure was completed in 1911, Wright rebuilt the Taliesin residential wing in 1914 after a disgruntled employee set fire to the living quarters and murdered Borthwick and six others. This second version was used sparingly by Wright as he worked on projects abroad. He returned to the house in 1922 following completion of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, a fire caused by electrical problems destroyed the living quarters in April 1925. The third version of the quarters was constructed by Wright by late 1925. In 1927, financial problems caused a foreclosure on the building by the Bank of Wisconsin, Wright was able to reacquire the building with the financial help of friends and was able to reoccupy it as of November,1928. Taliesin III was Wrights home for the rest of his life, although he began to winter at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, many of Wrights acclaimed buildings were designed here, including Fallingwater, Jacobs I, the Johnson Wax Headquarters, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Wright was also a collector of Asian art and used Taliesin as a storehouse. Wright left Taliesin and the 600-acre Taliesin Estate to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation upon his death in 1959. Taliesin mostly operates as a museum, however it is occupied by former students of Wrights in addition to students at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture on a seasonal basis. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and is being considered as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, jones Valley, the Wisconsin River valley in which Taliesin sits, was formed during Pre-Illinoian glaciation. This region of North America, known as the Driftless Area, was surrounded by ice during Wisconsin glaciation. The result is a hilly landscape with deeply carved river valleys. By the 1870s, Richards sons had taken over operation of the farm, Wrights aunts Jennie and Nell began a co-educational school, Hillside Home School, in the family valley in 1887 and let Wright design the building, this was Wrights first independent commission. In 1896, Wrights aunts again commissioned Wright, this time to build a windmill, the resulting Romeo and Juliet Windmill was unorthodox but stable. In the winter of 1900, Wright compiled a portfolio of photographs he took of the area for a promotional brochure for the Hillside School. Unsatisfied with his design for the Hillside School, Wright replaced the school in 1902 with a Prairie School design
3.
Rockefeller Center
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Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 high-rise commercial buildings covering 22 acres between 48th and 51st Streets in New York City. Commissioned by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan and it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It is famous for its annual Christmas tree lighting, Rockefeller Center was named after John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who leased the space from Columbia University in 1928 and developed it beginning in 1930. Rockefeller stated, It was clear there were only two courses open to me. One was to abandon the entire development, the other to go forward with it in the definite knowledge that I myself would have to build it and finance it alone. The initial cost of acquiring the space, razing some of the existing buildings and it was the largest private building project ever undertaken in modern times. Construction of the 14 buildings in the Art Deco style began on May 17,1930, principal builder and managing agent for the massive project was John R. Todd. The construction of the project employed over 40,000 people and it was the public relations pioneer Ivy Lee, the prominent adviser to the family, who first suggested the name Rockefeller Center for the complex, in 1931. Rockefeller, Jr. initially did not want the Rockefeller family name associated with the commercial project, what could have become a major controversy in the mid-1930s concerned the last of the four European buildings that remained unnamed. Ivy Lee and others attempts to rent the space to German commercial concerns. Rockefeller ruled this out after being advised of Hitlers Nazi march toward World War II and this subsequently became the primary location of the U. S. In 1985, Columbia University sold the land beneath Rockefeller Center to the Rockefeller Group for $400 million, in 1989, Mitsubishi Estate, a real estate company of the Mitsubishi Group, purchased the entire Rockefeller Center complex, and its owner, Rockefeller Group. In 1996, the complex was purchased by a consortium of owners that included Goldman Sachs, Gianni Agnelli, Stavros Niarchos, and David Rockefeller. Tishman Speyer, led by Jerry Speyer, a friend of David Rockefeller. The landmark buildings comprise over 8,000,000 square feet on 22 acres in Midtown, bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues and these are co-owned by Tishman-Speyer, and open to the public. 1 Rockefeller Plaza – The original Time–Life Building, a tenant was General Dynamics. 10 Rockefeller Plaza – Originally the Holland House, then the Eastern Air Lines Building, currently home of Today Show studios. 30 Rockefeller Plaza – Originally the RCA Building, in 1988 it was renamed the GE Building, headquarters of NBC, the Rainbow Room restaurant is located on the 65th floor
4.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
5.
Apotheosis
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Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, in theology, apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature. In art, the term refers to the treatment of any subject in a grand or exalted manner. Before the Hellenistic period, imperial cults were known in Ancient Egypt, from the New Kingdom, all deceased pharaohs were deified as Osiris. From at least the Geometric period of the ninth century BC, in the Greek world, the first leader who accorded himself divine honours was Philip II of Macedon. Such Hellenistic state leaders might be raised to an equal to the gods before death or afterwards. A heroic cult status similar to apotheosis was also a given to a few revered artists of the distant past. For this reason hero cults were chthonic in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate and Persephone than those for Zeus and Apollo. Two exceptions were Heracles and Asclepius, who might be honoured as either gods or heroes, sometimes by chthonic night-time rites and sacrifice on the following day. Apotheosis in ancient Rome was a process whereby a deceased ruler was recognized as having been divine by his successor, usually also by a decree of the Senate and popular consent. In addition to showing respect, often the present ruler deified a popular predecessor to legitimize himself, at the height of the imperial cult during the Roman Empire, sometimes the emperors deceased loved ones—heirs, empresses, or lovers, as Hadrians Antinous—were deified as well. Deified people were awarded posthumously the title Divus to their names to signify their divinity, traditional Roman religion distinguished between a deus and a divus, though not consistently. Temples and columns were erected to provide a space for worship. The Ming dynasty epic Investiture of the Gods deals heavily with deification legends, numerous mortals have been deified into the Daoist pantheon, such as Guan Yu, Iron-crutch Li and Fan Kuai. Song Dynasty General Yue Fei was deified during the Ming Dynasty and is considered by practitioners to be one of the three highest ranking heavenly generals. Various Hindu and Buddhist rulers in the past have been represented as deities, especially after death, even several Sultans of Yogyakarta were semi-deified, posthumously. Instead of the apotheosis, Christian theology uses in English the words deification or divinization or the Greek word theosis. Traditional mainstream theology, both East and West, views Jesus Christ as the preexisting God who undertook mortal existence, for He was made man that we might be made God
6.
Suburb
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A suburb is a residential area or a mixed use area, either existing as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city. In some areas, such as Australia, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and a few U. S. states, new suburbs are routinely annexed by adjacent cities. In others, such as Arabia, Canada, France, and much of the United States, Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting. Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land, the English word is derived from the Old French subburbe, which is in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub and urbs. The first recorded usage of the term in English, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, in Australia and New Zealand, suburbs have become formalised as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In rural areas in both countries, their equivalents are called localities, the terms inner suburb and outer suburb are used to differentiate between the higher-density suburbs in proximity to the city center, and the lower-density suburbs on the outskirts of the urban area. The term middle suburbs is also used, Suburbs, in this sense, can range from areas that seem more like residential areas of a city proper to areas separated by open countryside from the city centre. In large cities such as London, suburbs include formerly separate towns and villages that have been gradually absorbed during a growth and expansion. In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality or unincorporated area outside a town or city. The earliest appearance of suburbs coincided with the spread of the first urban settlements, large walled towns tended to be the focus around which smaller villages grew up in a symbiotic relationship with the market town. The word suburbani was first used by the Roman statesman Cicero in reference to the large villas, as populations grew during the Early Modern Period in Europe, urban towns swelled with a steady influx of people from the countryside. In some places, nearby settlements were swallowed up as the city expanded. The peripheral areas on the outskirts of the city were generally inhabited by the very poorest, by the mid-19th century, the first major suburban areas were springing up around London as the city became more overcrowded and unsanitary. A major catalyst in suburban growth came from the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in the 1860s, the line joined the capitals financial heart in the City to what were to become the suburbs of Middlesex. Harrow was reached in 1880, and the line extended as far as Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 miles from Baker Street. Unlike other railway companies, which were required to dispose of surplus land, in 1912, it was suggested that a specially formed company should take over from the Surplus Lands Committee and develop suburban estates near the railway. However, World War I delayed these plans and it was only in 1919, with expectation of a housing boom. The term Metro-land was coined by the Mets marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide and this promoted the land served by the Met for the walker, visitor and later the house-hunter
7.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
8.
Transit-oriented development
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In urban planning, a transit-oriented development is a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. A TOD typically includes a transit stop surrounded by a high-density mixed-use area. A TOD is also designed to be more walkable than other built-up areas, through using smaller block sizes. Many of the new towns created after World War II in Japan, Sweden, in the United States, a half-mile-radius circle has become the de facto standard for rail-transit catchment areas for TODs. A half mile corresponds to the distance someone can walk in 10 minutes at 3 mph and is an estimate for the distance people will walk to get to a rail station. The half-mile ring is a more than 500 acres in size. Another key feature of transit-oriented development that differentiates it from transit-proximate development is reduced amounts of parking for personal vehicles, many cities throughout the world are developing TOD policy. One of the earliest and most successful examples of TOD is Curitiba, Curitiba was organized into transport corridors very early on in its history. Over the years, it has integrated its zoning laws and transportation planning to place high-density development adjacent to high-capacity transportation systems, the source of innovation in Curitiba has been a unique form of participatory city planning that emphasizes public education, discussion and agreement. This is simultaneously being implemented along with a bus transit system called Transmetro. Calgary is home to a very successful TOD community called The Bridges, the Bridges is home to a diverse range of condos, shops, services, and parks. Some other TODs currently being constructed are London and Westbrook, both high rise condo and retail communities in areas of the City. The City continues to create TOD policy for other Calgary communities, Calgary City Council has allocated funding for the creation of six Station Area Plans around the city, to guide increasing development pressure around some of the light rail transit stations. On June 9,2008, Calgary City Council approved the first station area plan in Calgarys history, most of the suburban high rises were not along major rail lines like other cities until recently, when there has been incentive to do so. Century Park is a growing community in southern Edmonton at the south end of Edmontons LRT. It will include low to high rise condos, recreational services, shops, restaurants, Edmonton is also looking into some new TODs in various parts of the city. In the northeast, there are plans to redevelop underutilized land at two sites around existing LRT, Fort Road and Stadium Station, according to the Metropolitan Development and Planning Regulation of late 2011, 40% of new households will be built as TOD neighbourhoods. Toronto has a policy of encouraging new construction along the route of its primary Yonge Street subway line
9.
Car
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A car is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation and a product of the automotive industry. The year 1886 is regarded as the year of the modern car. In that year, German inventor Karl Benz built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, cars did not become widely available until the early 20th century. One of the first cars that was accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the United States of America, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, cars are equipped with controls used for driving, parking, passenger comfort and safety, and controlling a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, examples include rear reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by a combustion engine. Both fuels cause air pollution and are blamed for contributing to climate change. Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles are also gaining popularity in some countries, electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, began to become commercially available in 2008. There are costs and benefits to car use, the costs of car usage include the cost of, acquiring the vehicle, interest payments, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance. The costs to society of car use include, maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, health care, road traffic accidents are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide. The benefits may include transportation, mobility, independence. The ability for humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies and it was estimated in 2010 that the number of cars had risen to over 1 billion vehicles, up from the 500 million of 1986. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China, India, the word car is believed to originate from the Latin word carrus or carrum, or the Middle English word carre. In turn, these originated from the Gaulish word karros, the Gaulish language was a branch of the Brythoic language which also used the word Karr, the Brythonig language evolved into Welsh where Car llusg and car rhyfel still survive. It originally referred to any wheeled vehicle, such as a cart, carriage. Motor car is attested from 1895, and is the formal name for cars in British English. Autocar is a variant that is attested from 1895
10.
Pedestrian
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A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using tiny wheels such as skates, skateboards. In modern times, the term refers to someone walking on a road or pavement. Walking has always been the means of human locomotion. The first humans to migrate from Africa, about 60,000 years ago and they walked along the coast of India to reach Australia. They walked across Asia to reach the Americas, and from Central Asia into Europe, during the 18th and 19th centuries, pedestrianism was a popular spectator sport just as equestrianism still is in places such as Great Britain and the United States. One of the most famous pedestrians of that period was Captain Robert Barclay Allardice, known as The Celebrated Pedestrian and his most impressive feat was to walk 1 mile every hour for 1000 hours, which he achieved between 1 June and 12 July 1809. This feat captured many peoples imagination, and around 10,000 people came to watch over the course of the event. During the rest of the 19th century, many tried to repeat this feat, including Ada Anderson who developed it further. Since the 20th century, interest in walking as a sport has dropped, racewalking is still an Olympic sport, but fails to catch public attention as it did. However major walking feats are still performed, such as the Lands End to John o Groats walk in the United Kingdom, and these feats are often tied to charitable fundraising and are undertaken by celebrities such as Sir Jimmy Savile and Ian Botham as well as by others. Regular walking is important both for health and for the natural environment. Frequent exercise such as walking tends to reduce the chance of obesity, general availability of public transportation encourages walking, as it will not, in most cases, take one directly to ones destination. Roads often have a designated footpath for pedestrian traffic, called the sidewalk in North American English, the pavement in British English, and the footpath in Australian and New Zealand English. There are also not associated with a road, these include urban short cuts and also rural paths used mainly by ramblers, hikers. Footpaths in mountainous or forested areas may also be called trails, pedestrians share some footpaths with horses and bicycles, these paths may be known as bridleways. Other byways used by walkers are also accessible to vehicles, there are also many roads with no footpath. Some modern towns are designed with the network of sidewalks and cycle paths almost entirely separate from the road network, the term trail is also used by the authorities in some countries to mean any footpath that is not attached to a road or street
11.
Frederick Law Olmsted
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Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, in Washington, D. C. he worked on the landscape surrounding the United States Capitol building. The quality of Olmsteds landscape architecture was recognized by his contemporaries and his work, especially in Central Park in New York City, set a standard of excellence that continues to influence landscape architecture in the United States. Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on April 26,1822 and his father, John Olmsted, was a prosperous merchant who took a lively interest in nature, people, and places, Frederick Law and his younger brother, John Hull, also showed this interest. His mother, Charlotte Law Olmsted, died before his fourth birthday and his father remarried in 1827 to Mary Ann Bull, who shared her husbands strong love of nature and had perhaps a more cultivated taste. When the young Olmsted was almost ready to enter Yale College, after working as an apprentice seaman, merchant, and journalist, Olmsted settled on a 125-acre farm in January 1848 on the south shore of Staten Island NY, which his father helped him acquire. This farm, originally named the Akerly Homestead, was renamed Tosomock Farm by Olmsted and it was later renamed The Woods of Arden by owner Erastus Wiman. On June 13,1859, Olmsted married Mary Cleveland Olmsted, Daniel Fawcett Tiemann, the mayor of New York, officiated the wedding. He adopted her three children, John Charles Olmsted, Charlotte Olmsted and Owen Olmsted, Frederick and Mary had two children together who survived infancy, a daughter, Marion and a son Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. Their first child, John Theodore Olmsted, was born on June 13,1860, Olmsted had a significant career in journalism. In 1850 he traveled to England to visit gardens, where he was greatly impressed by Joseph Paxtons Birkenhead Park. He subsequently wrote and published Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England in 1852 and this supported his getting additional work. Interested in the economy, he was commissioned by the New York Daily Times to embark on an extensive research journey through the American South. His dispatches to the Times were collected into three volumes which remain vivid first-person social documents of the pre-war South. A one-volume abridgment, Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom, was published during the first six months of the American Civil War at the suggestion of Olmsteds English publisher. To this he wrote a new introduction in which he stated explicitly his views on the effect of slavery on the economy and my own observation of the real condition of the people of our Slave States, gave me. He argued that slavery had made the slave states inefficient and backward both economically and socially, the citizens of the cotton States, as a whole, are poor. They work little, and that little, badly, they earn little, they sell little, they buy little and their destitution is not material only, it is intellectual and it is moral
12.
Ebenezer Howard
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The publication resulted in the founding of the garden city movement, and the building of the First Garden City, Letchworth Garden City, commenced in 1903. Howard aimed to reduce the alienation of humans and society from nature, Howard is believed by many to be one of the great guides to the town planning movement, with many of his garden city principles being used in modern town planning. Howard was born in Fore Street, City of London, the son of Ebenezer Howard, a baker and he was sent to schools in Suffolk and Hertfordshire. Howard left school at 15 and began working as a stenographer in London, Howard subsequently had several clerical jobs, including one with Dr Parker of the City Temple. In 1871, at the age of 21, influenced partly by a farming uncle and he went to Nebraska, and after his farming efforts failed, discovered he did not wish to be a farmer. He then relocated to Chicago and worked as a reporter for the courts, in the US he became acquainted with, and admired, poets Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Howard began to ponder ways to improve the quality of life, by 1876 he was back in England, where he found a job with Hansard company, which produces the official verbatim record of Parliament, and he spent the rest of his life in this occupation. Howards time in parliament exposed him to ideas about social reform, in August 1879 he married Eliza Ann Bills. Howard has been described as a humble and practical inventor who used his time to create outlines of new cities. It was the milieu of the 1800s which led Howard to consider the social problems of the time. Howard mingled with free thinkers, anarchists and socialists, whose revolutionary, following the death of his wife Eliza Ann Bills in 1907 he married Edith Annie Hayward, who ended her days as Edith, Lady Howard, and with whom he is buried in Letchworth Cemetery. Howard read widely, including Edward Bellamys 1888 utopian novel, Looking Backward, and Henry Georges economic treatise, Progress and Poverty, and thought much about social issues. He disliked the way cities were being developed and thought people should live in places that should combine the best aspects of both cities and the countryside. The only publication he wrote in his life was titled To-Morrow, A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, Garden Cities of To-morrow was based on ideas of social and urban reform. This book offered a vision of free of slums and enjoying the benefits of both town and country. He illustrated the idea with his famous Three Magnets diagram, which addressed the question Where will the people go, the choices being Town, Country or Town-Country. Garden Cities of Tomorrow proposed that society be reorganised with networks of cities that would break the strong hold of capitalism. It proposed the creation of new towns of limited size, planned in advance
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