Avoiding the mistakes of the mother country: the New Zealand garden city movement 1900-1926

An anxiety that the urban problems of Britain might become entrenched in New Zealandʹs cities led to widespread middle class support for the ideas of the garden city movement in New Zealand during the 1910s. The New Zealand movement reached its zenith at the 1919 Town Planning Conference, where many delegates declared that the construction of garden city-type developments would solve pressing social problems. However, improved economic conditions and a public reluctance to embrace the movementʹs social agenda led to waning of support for the movement during the 1920s. Even so, a few garden suburb-type developments were constructed in New Zealand. Another success was the introduction of a Town Planning Act in 1926. The movement went into abeyance in the late 1920s.