ABSTRACT
Patrick Geddes considered his applied sociology a form of ‘concrete politics’, and in this chapter we will examine how it served as an impetus to modern British town planning. With the intention to create ethical idyllic regions and virtuous, intelligent and engaged citizens he introduced the regional survey, which synthesised the methods of Comte, Le Play and Booth. Here citizen-sociologists would compile an ‘Encyclopaedia Civica’ of the realms of town and country to create a ‘Policy of Culture’ for uniting them as garden city-states. The chapter thus demonstrates how Geddes carried Positivist town planning theory and practice in the direction of City Design.
