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Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier
The utopian visions of three of urban planning’s greatest visionaries.
Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, hated the cities of their time with an overwhelming passion. The metropolis was the counter-image of their ideal cities, the hell that inspired their heavens. In this book Robert Fishman examines the utopian visions of three of urban planning’s greatest visionaries. Howard created the concept of the “garden city” where shops and cottages formed the center of a geometric pattern with farmland surrounding; Wright conceived of “Broadacre City,” the ultimate suburb, where the automobile was king; and Le Corbusier imagined “Ville Radieuse,” the city of cruciform skyscrapers set down in open parkland.
Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, hated the cities of their time with an overwhelming passion. The metropolis was the counter-image of their ideal cities, the hell that inspired their heavens. In this book Robert Fishman examines the utopian visions of three of urban planning’s greatest visionaries. Howard created the concept of the “garden city” where shops and cottages formed the center of a geometric pattern with farmland surrounding; Wright conceived of “Broadacre City,” the ultimate suburb, where the automobile was king; and Le Corbusier imagined “Ville Radieuse,” the city of cruciform skyscrapers set down in open parkland.
332 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 2, 2026
This is a great and surprisingly timely book to read in 2026. I came to it looking for something that would illuminate the “other side” of the city-planning story framed by Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs offers a compelling defense of complex urban life - but what, exactly, was she reacting against? Why did so many planners and thinkers come to reject traditional urban living, ultimately helping to produce the fragmented and often peculiar American cities we have today? Well, Fishman’s book shines the light on the people that believed deeply in very different kind of solution to Jacobs’ perspective.
Urban Utopias also feels newly relevant in the age of software and AI. The utopian thinkers Fishman examines - Howard, Wright, and Le Corbusier - were living during a period of rapid technological transformation in the wake of industrialization. Much like today’s techno-optimists, they saw emerging technologies as tools for improving people’s lives through the design of their lived environments. In one way or another, they rejected nostalgia and backward-looking models, distinguishing themselves from contemporaries aligned with the Arts and Crafts movement, whose resistance to technological change, in hindsight, seems more defensive than durable. I feel like this is encapsulated perfectly in this excerpt from Frank Lloyd Wright:
Similar to the theme of technological change, there is also a recurring tension between centralization and decentralization running through the book. I found this especially resonant in the context of current debates around crypto, blockchain, and other technologies that promise to “decentralize” industries and liberate individuals from large institutions. Fishman shows that the railroad and the automobile were once framed in similar terms: as technologies that would disperse populations, weaken the grip of centralized cities, and enable a more liberated, self-directed way of life. In hindsight, as we of course see now, the outcome is more ambiguous. Cities have not disappeared, and if anything, they have become even more economically and culturally important, all while the automobile has produced a different kind of spatial and cultural centralization via chain stores, national builders, and repeatable landscapes that are standardized across vast distances.
Despite this book being published aimed squarly at Urban Studies undergraduate students, it’s very readable. It’s clear, engaging, accessible, and even fun to read throughout. I’m actually surprised there aren’t more reviews of it here on Goodreads (which is what prompted me to write this one). If you find yourself looking at reviews for this book to begin with, you should read it. Highly recommeded.
Urban Utopias also feels newly relevant in the age of software and AI. The utopian thinkers Fishman examines - Howard, Wright, and Le Corbusier - were living during a period of rapid technological transformation in the wake of industrialization. Much like today’s techno-optimists, they saw emerging technologies as tools for improving people’s lives through the design of their lived environments. In one way or another, they rejected nostalgia and backward-looking models, distinguishing themselves from contemporaries aligned with the Arts and Crafts movement, whose resistance to technological change, in hindsight, seems more defensive than durable. I feel like this is encapsulated perfectly in this excerpt from Frank Lloyd Wright:
"My God is machinery," he told the English handicraftsman Charles Ashbee in 1901. "The art of the future will be the expression of the individual artist through the thousand powers of the machine, the machine doing all the things that the individual worker cannot do, and the creative artist is the man that controls all this and understands it."
Similar to the theme of technological change, there is also a recurring tension between centralization and decentralization running through the book. I found this especially resonant in the context of current debates around crypto, blockchain, and other technologies that promise to “decentralize” industries and liberate individuals from large institutions. Fishman shows that the railroad and the automobile were once framed in similar terms: as technologies that would disperse populations, weaken the grip of centralized cities, and enable a more liberated, self-directed way of life. In hindsight, as we of course see now, the outcome is more ambiguous. Cities have not disappeared, and if anything, they have become even more economically and culturally important, all while the automobile has produced a different kind of spatial and cultural centralization via chain stores, national builders, and repeatable landscapes that are standardized across vast distances.
Despite this book being published aimed squarly at Urban Studies undergraduate students, it’s very readable. It’s clear, engaging, accessible, and even fun to read throughout. I’m actually surprised there aren’t more reviews of it here on Goodreads (which is what prompted me to write this one). If you find yourself looking at reviews for this book to begin with, you should read it. Highly recommeded.
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October 15, 2012Excellent comparison of the ideal cities of the three planners with commitment for social change.
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