This collection is a study of the process by which European planning concepts and practices were transmitted, diffused and diverted in various colonial territories and situations. The socio-political, geographical and cultural implications are analysed here through case studies from the global South, namely from French and British colonial territories in Africa as well as from Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine. The focus on the extra-European planning history of Europe - particularly in Africa and Palestine in the context of the garden city - is unprecedented in research literature, which tends to concentrate on the global North.
The book focuses on the transnational aspects of the garden city, taking into account frameworks and documentation that extend beyond national borders, and includes contributions from an international network of specialists including Alain Sinou, Garth Myers and Ruth Kark. The comparative views and geographical focus exhibited here challenge the conventional, Eurocentric approach to garden cities and show that the spread of garden city ideas into colonial territories was not uni-directional. This was an uncontrolled, diffusive process that crossed complex and multiple frontiers, and sometimes moved in quite unexpected directions. In considering this transnational aspect, and recognising the difference between metropolitan and colonial planning cultures, this volume will interest students and scholars of planning history and colonial history.
