Introduction

In Part 11 we present major contributions to the 'planning project' from the first part of the twentieth century. Authors such as Patrick Geddes and Ebenezer Howard belonged to a generation of international writers, thinkers and philanthropists who were critical of the social consequences of the Industrial Revolution. This was a period of, in Geddes' words, 'a new stirring of action, a new arousal of thought ... fraught with new policies and ambitions' (1968 [1915], p. 2) a period of vigorous hope for a future in which societies and cities could be reorganized to make them 'better' against a backdrop of urban slums, poverty, ill-health, exploitation of labour and the upheaval of the First World War. From the 1880s in Europe and the United States, several commissions, surveys and inquiries, together with various forms of philanthropic and faith-based social endeavour, had investigated and attempted to bring morality and improved living conditions to residents of inner cities. Many initiatives were founded by women, including Jane Addams in Chicago ('the face of compassion and dogoodism' according to Peter Hall (1988, p. 41)), although their contributions were not always appreciated.