History New settlements were planned in Europe at least since Greek antiquity (see article
History of urban planning). The Greeks built new colonial cities around the Mediterranean. The ancient Romans also founded many new colonial towns through their empire. There are, however, also traces of planned settlements of non-Roman origin in pre-historic northern Europe. Most planned settlements of medieval Europe were created in the period of about the 12th to 14th centuries. All kinds of landlords, from the highest to the lowest rank, tried to found new villages and towns on their estates, to gain economic, political or military power. The settlers generally were attracted by fiscal, economic and juridical advantages granted by the founding lord, or were forced to move from elsewhere from his estates. Most of the new towns were to remain rather small (as for instance the
bastides of southwestern France), but some of them became important cities, such as
Cardiff,
Leeds,
's-Hertogenbosch,
Montauban,
Bilbao,
Malmö,
Lübeck,
Munich,
Berlin,
Bern,
Klagenfurt,
Alessandria,
Warsaw and
Sarajevo.
Roman Empire The
Romans built a large number of towns throughout their empire, often as colonies for the settlement of citizens or veterans. These were generally characterised by a grid of streets and a planned water-supply; and many modern European towns of originally Roman foundation still retain part of the original street-grid.
Albania During the communist period under Enver Hoxha, many towns and industrial centers were planned and built from scratch. The government aimed to distribute population and industry evenly across the country. Some notable examples: •
Laç, built in the 1960s as an industrial town focused on chemical and construction materials production. •
Ballsh, developed around its oil refinery; designed as a compact socialist industrial city. •
Patos (municipality), expanded in a planned manner around oil extraction sites. •
Rrëshen, created as the administrative center of Mirditë District; planned in the 1950s–1960s. •
Pogradec (partially), had elements of socialist urban planning (wide boulevards, public housing, industrial zones).
Belarus Belarus has several planned towns, all built during the 1950s – 1970s from
Komsomol rapid construction projects. These planned towns include: •
Salihorsk, built anew to host the population of
Belaruskali workers •
Svietlahorsk, built on site of
Shatsilki village to host population of Svetlahorsk power plant, Svetlahorsk chemical textile plant and Svietlahorsk cellulose-cardboard combinate. •
Navapolatsk, built to host the population of
Naftan Oil Refinery workers •
Novalukoml, built to host workers of
Lukoml power plant Belgium As many Roman army camps, the settlement of
Atuatuca Tungrorum, on the site of the modern town of
Tongeren, grew into an important regional centre, laid out along a
grid plan and supplied with water by an
aqueduct. While Tongeren's administrative and military functions were moved to Maastricht in the wake of
Germanic invasions in the 350s, given the latter's better strategic position, remains of the Roman town are visible up to this day. Named after king
Charles II of Spain, the town of
Charleroi (or
Caroloregium, in Latin) was founded in 1666 as a stronghold near the French border, to fend off potential invasions. A few years before, in 1659, the border between
France and the
Spanish Netherlands had shifted northward due to the
Treaty of the Pyrenees. This shift, and the consequent loss of fortified border towns such as
Cambrai and
Avesnes had sparked the need to found new forts to defend the border. The original fortifications were destroyed between 1867 and 1871, making place for a quickly expanding industrial centre. In 1923, the city of
Antwerp annexed the sparsely populated, marshy lands known as Vlaams Hoofd, with the intention of using the area for urban development. Over the following decades, the terrain was elevated and a new urban community, now called
Linkeroever (literally 'Left Bank'), was created. Notably,
Le Corbusier submitted a plan along the lines of his
Cité radieuse but neither his plan nor those of his colleagues were accepted. Instead, Linkeroever was developed gradually over the 20th and 21st centuries, inspired by a mix of
modernist and later ideas. When the
Catholic University of Leuven was split along linguistic lines in 1968, it was decided to move its French-speaking division, the
Université catholique de Louvain, from
Leuven (in the
Flemish Region) to a new location, some 30 kilometers south, in the
Walloon Region. Construction on the town of
Louvain-la-Neuve (literally 'New Louvain') began in the 1970s, in what had previously been the mostly empty countryside near the village of
Ottignies. Its city centre is supported by a concrete structure, allowing car traffic to pass underneath and making the city centre a pedestrian zone.
Bosnia and Herzegovina •
Slobomir is a new town in Republika Srpska and its name means: "the city of freedom and peace". It is located on the
Drina river near
Bijeljina. It was founded by Slobodan Pavlović, a Bosnian Serb philanthropist. It aims to be one of the major cities of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, the city will be located in two countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, although majority of it will be in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The city is named after its founder, Slobodan Pavlović, and his wife, Mira. •
Andrićgrad is a town under construction by the famous Serbian director
Emir Kusturica, and will be located in
Višegrad,
Republika Srpska.
Bulgaria The cities of
Stara Zagora and
Kazanlak, in central Bulgaria, were rebuilt as planned cities after they were burnt to the ground in the
1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War. Also the city of
Dimitrovgrad in south Bulgaria, that was planned as a key industrial and infrastructure center.
Croatia Červar-Porat is a
resort town in western Croatia, located on the east coast of the
Adriatic Sea on the Červar lagoon. It was built as a planned town in the 1970s, although the area was inhabited in Roman times. During the War of Independence it was used as a
camp for refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Vukovar. It was planned to house 6500 people.
Raša in Istria was built as a "new town" during 1936–1937 as part of
Mussolini's urban colonization of Istria and other Italian territories. The capital of
Zagreb underwent major expansion during the 1960s. By that time, the city's official boundary was the river
Sava, since nothing was built over it. After a flood in the 1960s, many residents were moved and some other districts were created for the residents, such as
Dubrava, which was the interconnection between the Zagreb's old part and
Sesvete. During the 1960s and 1970s, a planned part of Zagreb,
Novi Zagreb (
New Zagreb), was constructed, which is on the other, previously uninhabited part of the river Sava, and is now one of major districts consisting of purely residential buildings and blocks. It is still under expansion and some new landmarks were built in it, the most famous one being the recent one,
Arena Zagreb, built in 2008.
Czechia The
New Town of
Prague was founded in 1348 by the King and Emperor
Charles IV. This expansion made Prague, the new imperial seat, the third largest city in Europe by area at that time.
Poruba and
Havířov were established in the 1950s as new satellite residential towns for workers of coal-mining, steel-mill and other heavy-industry complex in the Ostrava region. Prague was extended by large
housing estates – "new towns" in the 1970s and 1980s:
Severní Město (Northern Town),
Jižní Město (Southern Town),
Jihozápadní Město (South-Western Town) were the largest, with population around 100.000 each. Their remote position to the city centre was compensated for by underground lines constructed usually a decade after the completion of the housing projects. A new housing estate called
Západní Město (Western Town) is currently (2017) partly under construction (Britská čtvrť) and partly in planning stage.
Denmark Fredericia was founded in 1650 as a combined
market town and
military town following the
Thirty Years' War. Similarly, the
North Sea port city of
Esbjerg was constructed in 1868 following the loss of
Altona (now
part of Hamburg). More recent examples are
Græse Bakkeby in
North Zealand, and
Ørestad (a
district of Copenhagen), planned and built to strengthen development in the
Copenhagen/
Malmö region. The suburb of
Albertslund was also built from scratch in the 1970s, merging the villages
Vridsløselille and
Herstedvester. In 2017, plans for a new 20,000-inhabitant town outside
Frederikssund named
Vinge were approved by the Danish authorities.
Finland The city of
Helsinki, previously a town of 5,000 inhabitants, was made the capital of the new
Grand Duchy of Finland in 1812 by decree of
Alexander I, Emperor of Russia. The city center was rebuilt with the lead of the German architect
Carl Ludvig Engel. However, the last town in Finland that was ordered to be built on a previously completely uninhabited land was
Raahe, founded by governor general
Per Brahe the Younger in 1649. The city of
Vaasa was rebuilt about seven kilometers northwest of its original location in 1862, after a fire which destroyed the city in 1852. The new town was planned by
Carl Axel Setterberg. The disastrous consequences of the fire were considered as the design included five broad avenues which divided the town into sections and each block was divided by alleys.
Hamina is an old Finnish Eastern trade capital, founded during the Swedish reign. The star-shaped fortress and the circular town plan are based on an Italian Renaissance fortress concept from the 16th century. Finland also has various "ekokylä" communities or "ecological villages". For example,
Tapiola is a post-war
garden city on the edge of
Espoo.
Hervanta in
Tampere is a satellite city built starting from 1970s to accommodate a growing number of urban residents. It was built far from the city centre due to lower land prices. The district was intended to be as independent as possible. It includes a large
university campus, the
Police University College of Finland and offices of many technology companies.
France Many new cities, called
bastides, were founded from the 12th to 14th centuries in southwestern France, where the
Hundred Years War took place, to replace destroyed cities and organize defence and growth. Among those,
Monpazier,
Beaumont, and
Villeréal are good examples. In 1517, the construction of
Le Havre was ordered by
Francis I of France as a new port. It was completely destroyed during the
Second World War and was entirely rebuilt in a
modernist style, during the
Trente Glorieuses, the thirty-year period from 1945 to 1975.
Cardinal Richelieu founded the small Baroque town of
Richelieu, which remains largely unchanged. A program of new towns (French ''
) was developed in the mid-1960s to try to control the expansion of cities. Ten villes nouvelles'' were created. • Near Paris:
Cergy-Pontoise,
Marne-la-Vallée,
Sénart (former Melun-Sénart),
Évry,
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines • Near
Lille:
Villeneuve d'Ascq (Former Lille-Est) • Near
Lyon:
L'Isle-d'Abeau • Near
Marseille:
Rives de l'Etang de Berre • Near
Rouen:
Le Vaudreuil • Near
Grenoble:
L'Isle-d'Abeau La Défense, in the
greater Paris area, could also be considered a planned town, though it was not built all at once but in successive stages beginning in the 1950s.
Germany Planned cities in Germany are: •
Bayreuth: an example of a medieval new city •
Bremerhaven: founded as a seaport in the 19th century •
Berlin – Friedrichstadt: founded in 1691 •
Eisenhüttenstadt: the "first socialist town" in Germany •
Freudenstadt: the roads follow the layout of the
nine men's morris game •
Glückstadt: founded in 1617 by the Duke of Holstein, King
Christian IV of Denmark •
Halle-Neustadt: a "Stadtteil" or borough in
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt •
Hellerau: first German garden city founded in 1909, today part of
Dresden •
Karlsruhe: the roads follow the layout of a hand-held fan with the castle being at the juncture •
Ludwigsburg: planned new capital for the duke of Württemberg •
Mannheim Quadratestadt: squares named like ranks and files on a chessboard •
Munich Maxvorstadt: the first planned city expansion of
Munich was realized from 1805 to 1810 according to a raster •
Neu-Isenburg: founded in 1699 as a town of exiles by French
Huguenots •
Neustrelitz: founded in 1733 with streets spreading from an octagonal market place •
Neuwied: founded in 1653 •
Putbus: built around a circular centre with radially aligned streets •
Sennestadt: founded in 1956, today part of
Bielefeld •
Wilhelmshaven: founded as a naval base by the
Kingdom of Prussia •
Wolfsburg: founded in 1938 to host the factories for the newly built Volkswagen
Welthauptstadt Germania was the projected renewal of
Berlin as a planned city, although only a small portion was constructed between 1937 and 1943. After World War II, several expellee towns were built like
Espelkamp,
Neutraubling and
Traunreut.
Greece Planned cities in Greece are: •
Lakki: planned and built in the 1930s by the Italians to house members of its military stationed on the island of
Leros; its initial name was Portolago •
Nea Alikarnassos: founded in 1925 to house
Greek refugees from
Halicarnassos,
Asia Minor •
Orestiada: founded in 1922 to house
Greek refugees from
Orestiada,
Eastern Thrace •
Paralia Distomou: planned and built to house workers of
Aluminium of Greece •
Piraeus, planned to be the major port of
Athens. •
Sparta: planned and built next to the ancient city, in 1834 after a decree issued by King
Otto of Greece Hungary All Hungarian planned cities were built in the second half of the 20th century when a program of rapid industrialization was implemented by the communist government. • The area of
Budapest was designed in a unique geometrical fashion. •
Dunaújváros, built next to the existing village Dunapentele to provide housing for workers of a large steel factory complex. Once named after Stalin, the city maintains its importance in heavy industry even after the recession following the end of Communist era. •
Tiszaújváros, built next to the existing village Tiszaszederkény and was named after Lenin for decades. A significant chemical factory was built simultaneously. •
Kazincbarcika, created from the villages Sajókazinc, Barcika and Berente (the latter has become independent since then) in a mining area. The city and its population grew fast after the founding of a factory. •
Tatabánya, created from four already existing villages was developed into a mining town and industrial centre and shortly after its elevation to town status became the county seat of its county, a status it still maintains despite the presence of historically more significant towns in the area. •
Beloiannisz (although not a town, only a village) was planned and built in the 1950s to provide home for Greek refugees of the
Civil War. • The
Wekerletelep was developed between 1908 and 1925 as a result of planned state construction in the area of
Kispest in a unique lacy layout.
Ireland In the Republic of Ireland the term "new town" is often used to refer to planned towns built after World War II which were discussed as early as 1941. The term "new town" in Ireland was also used for some earlier developments, notably during the
Georgian era. Part of
Limerick city was built in a planned fashion as "Newtown Pery". In 1961 the first new town of
Shannon was commenced and a target of 6,000 inhabitants was set. This has since been exceeded. Shannon is of some regional importance today as an economic centre (with the
Shannon Free Zone and
Shannon Airport), but until recently failed to expand in population as anticipated. Since the late 1990s, and particularly in the early 2000s, the population has been expanding at a much faster rate, with town rejuvenation, new retail and entertainment facilities and many new housing developments. It was not until 1967 that the Wright Report planned four towns in
County Dublin. These were
Blanchardstown,
Clondalkin,
Lucan and
Tallaght but they were subsequently reduced to Blanchardstown, Lucan-Clondalkin and Tallaght. These areas had previously contained small semi-rural villages on the edge of the city of Dublin, but were greatly expanded throughout the 1970s. Each of these towns has approximately 50,000 inhabitants today. The most recent new town in Ireland is
Adamstown in County Dublin. Building commenced in 2005 and it was anticipated that the occupation would commence late in 2006 with the main development of 10,500 units being completed within a ten-year timescale. As of 2017 Adamstown is complete but currently only has 3,500 out of the 25,500 planned. , Italy, founded in the 16th century
Italy A famous example of renaissance planned city is the walled star city of
Palmanova. It is a derivative of ideal circular cities, namely of
Filarete's imaginary Sforzinda. In the early 20th century, during the fascist government of
Benito Mussolini, many new cities were founded, the most prominent being
Littoria (renamed Latina after the fall of the Fascism). The city was inaugurated on 18 December 1932. Littoria was populated with immigrants coming from Northern Italy, mainly from
Friuli and
Veneto. The great
Sicilian earthquake of 1693 forced the
complete rebuilding on new plans of many towns. Other well-known new cities are located close to
Milan in the metropolitan area.
Crespi d'Adda, a few kilometres east of Milan along the Adda River, was settled by the Crespi family. It was the first Ideal Worker's City in Italy, built close to the cotton factory. Today Crespi d'Adda is part of the
Unesco World Heritage List.
Cusano Milanino was settled in the first years of the 20th century in the formerly small town of Cusano. It was built as a new green city, rich in parks, villas, large boulevards and called Milanino (Little Milan).
Lithuania In 1961
Elektrėnai was established as planned city for workers in
Elektrėnai Power Plant and in 1975
Visaginas was established as planned city for workers in
Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant.
Malta • The fortified cities of
Senglea and
Valletta were both built on a
grid plan by the
Knights of Malta in the 16th century. • The town of
Paola, also known as
Raħal Ġdid (New Town), is built on a grid plan by the Grand Master
Antoine de Paule. • The towns of
San Ġwann and
Santa Luċija were built as planned cities in the 1960s and 1970s
Netherlands One of the 12 provinces of the Netherlands,
Flevoland (pop. 437,000 in 2022), was reclaimed from the
Zuiderzee (Southern Sea). After a flood in 1916, it was decided that the Zuiderzee, an inland sea within the Netherlands, would be closed and reclaimed. In 1932, a
causeway (the
Afsluitdijk) was completed, which closed off the sea completely. The Zuiderzee was subsequently called IJsselmeer (IJssel Lake), and its previously salty water became fresh. The first part of the new lake that was reclaimed was the Noordoostpolder (Northeast Polder). This new land included, among others, the former island of Urk, and it was included with the province of Overijssel. After this, other parts were also reclaimed: the eastern part in 1957 (Oost-Flevoland) and the southern part (Zuid-Flevoland) in 1968. The municipalities on the three parts voted to become a separate province, which happened in 1986. The capital of Flevoland is
Lelystad, but the biggest city is
Almere (pop. 219,000 in 2022), which was founded in 1975. Apart from these two larger cities, several 'new villages' were built. In the Noordoostpolder, the central town of
Emmeloord is surrounded by ten villages, all in cycling distance from Emmeloord since that was the most popular way of transport in the 1940s (and it is still very popular). Most noteworthy of these villages is
Nagele which was designed by famous modern architects of the time,
Gerrit Rietveld,
Aldo van Eyck,
Willem Wissing and
Jaap Bakema among them. The other villages were built in a more traditional, or vernacular, style. In the more recent Flevolandpolders, four more 'new villages' were built. Initially, more villages were planned, but the introduction of cars made fewer but larger villages possible. New towns outside Flevoland are
Hoofddorp and
IJmuiden near Amsterdam,
Hellevoetsluis and
Spijkenisse near Rotterdam and the navy port
Den Helder.
Elburg is an example of a planned city in the medieval period. The cities of
Almere,
Capelle aan den IJssel,
Haarlemmermeer (also a reclaimed polder, 19th century),
Nieuwegein,
Purmerend and
Zoetermeer are members of the European New Town Platform.
North Macedonia within the
City of Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia The
Municipality of Aerodrom within the
city of Skopje is a planned community.
Norway •
Oslo: After a great fire in 1624, it was decided by King
Christian IV that the city would be moved behind the Akershus fortress. The new town, named Christiania, was laid out in a grid and is now the downtown area known as "Kvadraturen" (
the Quadrature). The original town of Oslo was later incorporated into Christiania, and is now a neighborhood in eastern Oslo;
Gamlebyen or "The Old City". • The city of
Kristiansand was formally founded in 1641 by King Christian IV. The city was granted all trade privileges on the southern coast of Norway, denying all other towns to trade with foreign states. As Oslo/Christiania before it, the city was behind a fortress, with a grid system allowing cannons to fire towards the two ports of the city and the river on the eastern end.
Poland Four cities stand out as examples of planned communities in Poland:
Zamość,
Gdynia,
Tychy and
Nowa Huta. Their very diverse layouts are the result of the different aesthetics that were held as ideal during the development of each of these planned communities. Planned cities in Poland have a long history and fall primarily into three time periods during which planned towns developed in Poland and its neighbors that once comprised the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. These are the
Nobleman's Republic (16th to 18th centuries), the interwar period (1918–1939) and
Socialist Realism (1944–1956).
The Nobleman's Republic of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The extreme opulence that Poland's nobility enjoyed during the
Renaissance left Poland's elites with not only obscene amounts of money to spend, but also motivated them to find new ways to invest their hefty fortunes out of the grasp of the Royal Treasury.
Jan Zamoyski founded the city of
Zamość to circumvent royal tariffs and duties while also serving as the capital for his mini-state. Zamość was planned by the renowned Paduan architect
Bernardo Morando and modeled on
Renaissance theories of the 'ideal city'. Realizing the importance of trade, Zamoyski issued special location charters for representatives of peoples traditionally engaged in trade, i.e. to
Greeks,
Armenians and
Sephardic Jews and secured exemptions on taxes, customs duties and tolls, which contributed to its fast development. Zamoyski's success with
Zamość spawned numerous other Polish nobles to found their own "private" cities such as
Białystok and many of these towns survive today, while
Zamość was added to the
UN World Heritage list in 1992 and is today considered one of the most precious urban complexes in Europe and in the world.
Interwar period The preeminent example of a planned community in interwar Poland is Gdynia. After
World War I when Poland regained its independence it lacked a commercial seaport (
De iure Poles could use
Gdańsk, which was the main port of the country before the War and is again today, but
de facto the Germans residing in the city made it almost impossible for them), making it necessary to build one from scratch. The extensive and modern seaport facilities in
Gdynia, the most modern and extensive port facilities in Europe at the time, became Poland's central port on the
Baltic Sea. In the shadow of the port, the city took shape mirroring in its scope the rapid development of 19th-century Chicago, growing from a small fishing village of 1,300 in 1921 into a full blown city with a population over 126,000 less than 20 years later. The
Central Business District that developed in
Gdynia is a showcase of
Art Deco and
Modernist architectural styles and predominate much of the cityscape. There are also villas, particularly in the city's villa districts such as Kamienna Góra where
Historicism inspired
Neo-Renaissance and
Neo-Baroque architecture.
Socialist realism After the destruction of most Polish cities in World War II, the
Communist government that took power in Poland sought to bring about architecture that was in line with its vision of society. Thus urban complexes arose that reflected the ideals of
socialist realism. This can be seen in districts of Polish cities such as
Warsaw's
MDM. The City of
Nowa Huta (now a district of
Kraków) and
Tychy were built as the epitome of the proletarian future of Poland.
Portugal Vila Real de Santo António was built after the
1755 Lisbon earthquake, on the same model that was used for rebuilding
Lisbon, Portugal's capital city (also destroyed in the earthquake), and on a similar orthogonal plan.
Romania The cities of
Brăila,
Giurgiu and
Turnu Severin were rebuilt, according to new plans, in the first part of the 19th century and the cities of
Alexandria and
Călărași were built completely new the same time. The town of
Victoria, located in
Brașov County, was built by the communist government starting in the late 1940s. The town of
Motru in
Oltenia dates to the 1960s.
Russia in 1807 •
Saint Petersburg was built by
Peter the Great as a planned capital city starting in 1703, particularly due to his interests in seafaring and the pursuit of maritime affairs with Europe, as well as the inconvenient locations of both Moscow and
Arkhangelsk, which were two important trade centers at the time. •
Magnitogorsk is an example of a planned industrial city based on
Stalin's 1930s five-year plans. • The Avtozavodsky district of
Tolyatti is a planned industrial city of Soviet post-war modernism. •
Kostomuksha was built as a mining town in a Finnish-Russian cooperation in the 1970s–1980s. •
Zelenograd was planned as a center for textile industries and was re-oriented as the center for Soviet electronics and microelectronics. Today, it hosts a computer industry known as the "Soviet/Russian Silicon Valley", and remains an important center of electronics in modern Russia. , 1965. Multiple new towns, such as this one, were mainly built near old small villages in Romania.
Serbia Novi Beograd, meaning
New Belgrade in
Serbian, is a municipality of the city of
Belgrade, built on a previously undeveloped area on the left bank of the
Sava river. The first development began in 1947, the municipality has since expanded significantly and become the fastest developing region in Serbia.
Drvengrad, meaning
Wooden Town in
Serbian, is a traditional village that the
Serbian film director
Emir Kusturica had built for his film
Life Is a Miracle. It is located in the
Zlatibor District near the city of
Užice, two hundred kilometers southwest of Serbia's capital,
Belgrade. It is located near
Mokra Gora and
Višegrad.
Slovakia •
Partizánske was established in 1938–1939, when
Jan Antonín Baťa of
Zlín,
Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) and his powerful network of companies built a shoe factory in the cadastral area of Šimonovany municipality. The newly created settlement for workers carried the name of Baťovany and was part of Šimonovany. With the growth of the factory, so grew the settlement. The whole municipality was renamed to Baťovany in 1948 and given town status. As a sign of recognition of local inhabitants fighting in the
Slovak National uprising, the town was renamed Partizánske on 9 February 1949. •
Svit was established in 1934 by business industrialist
Jan Antonín Baťa of
Zlín,
Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) in accordance with his policy of setting up villages around the country for his workers. •
Nová Dubnica is the town planned by architect
Jiří Kroha, according to his concept of the ideal town. The construction of the town started in 1951, and while only one third of the original project was finished, the town center still remains one of the prime examples of
Stalinist architecture in Slovakia.
Slovenia Nova Gorica, built after 1947 immediately to the east of the new border with Italy, in which the town of
Gorizia remained.
Spain During the 16th and 17th centuries, the population of Spain declined due to emigration to the Americas and later kings and governments made efforts to repopulate the country. In the second half of the 18th century, King
Charles III implemented the so-called New Settlements (Nuevas Poblaciones) plan which would bring 10,000 immigrants from central Europe to the region of
Sierra Morena.
Pablo de Olavide was appointed superintendent and about forty new settlements were established of which the most notable was
La Carolina, which has a perfectly rectangular grid design. Later kings and repopulation efforts led to the creation of more settlements, also with rectangular grid plans. One of them was the town of La Isabela (40.4295 N, 2.6876 W), which disappeared in the 1950s submerged under the waters of the newly created artificial lake of
Buendía but is still visible just under the water in satellite imagery. Under
Francisco Franco, the
Instituto Nacional de Colonización (National Institute of Colonization) built a great number of towns and villages.
Tres Cantos, near
Madrid, is a good example of a successful new town design in Spain. It was built in the 1970s. Newer additional sections of large cities are often newly planned as is the case of the
Salamanca district or
Ciudad Lineal in Madrid or the
Eixample in Barcelona.
Sweden Gothenburg was planned and built as a major fortified city from nothing from 1621.
Karlskrona was also planned and built as a major city and naval base from nothing, beginning 1680.
Vällingby, a suburb, is an example of a new town in Sweden from after 1950.
Kiruna was built because of the large mine, from 1898.
Arvika was also a planned city, in 1811. Most old planned cities have grown far outside the original planned areas. The new areas were usually (but not always) also planned, but later and separately.
Majorna is a near suburb of Gothenburg that was not planned, but grew more ad-hoc, with irregular curvy streets following the topography.
Ukraine city (built after the
Chernobyl disaster) for nuclear scientists
Odesa was built as a planned city according to 18th-century plans by the Flemish engineer Franz de Wollant (also known as François Sainte de Wollant). The same engineer also planned the following municipalities in Ukraine in the late 18th century: •
Voznesensk (
Ukrainian: Вознесенськ), in
Mykolayiv Oblast •
Ovidiopol (
Ukrainian: Овідіополь), in
Odesa Oblast During its Soviet period, there were number of projects carry out in Ukraine as part of the All-Union urban development programs. In 1920s-1930s cities throughout the Soviet Union were "redeveloped" and had new neighborhoods created known as "Sots-gorodok" or "Sots-misto". After the
World War II that program was discontinued, but number of cities still have some of their neighborhoods named after that program. Some city neighborhoods were developed as hubs for science development and were named as Akademgorodok which could be traced among many cities of the former Soviet Union. There also were built special cities like "Atomgrad" (cities of nuclear scientists), "Goroda Energetikov" (cities of power installers), city-satellites of hydropower plants, etc. (
Teplodar,
Enerhodar,
Pivdennoukrainsk,
Svitlodarsk,
Svitlovodsk and many others).
Horishni Plavni, founded in the 1960 as
Komsomolsk, is the most prosperous planned city in Ukraine, depending on the internationally important iron ore mining business. The city was built by method of "community effort" (Soviet Union unpaid labor) and Komsomol activism.
Prypiat is another new city in Ukraine built in 1970. The city was abandoned on 27 April 1986 after the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On 26 April the city had 50,000 habitants, the majority working at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Now the
abandoned town is highly contaminated by radiation. Most of the
Prypiat's former inhabitants were resettled to
Slavutych which was planned and built for that purpose.
United Kingdom The Romans planned many towns in Britain, but the settlements were changed out of all recognition in subsequent centuries. The town of
Winchelsea is said to be the first post-Roman new town in Britain, constructed to a grid system under the instructions of
Edward I in 1280, and largely completed by 1292. Another claimant to the title is
Salisbury, established in the early 13th century by the
Bishop of Sarum. The best known pre-20th-century new town in the UK was undoubtedly the
Edinburgh New Town, built in accordance with a 1766 master plan by
James Craig, and (along with Bath and Dublin) the archetype of the
Georgian style of British architecture.
England , the central business district of
Milton Keynes, the largest of the post-war "new towns". The term "new town" often refers in the UK to towns built after
World War II under the
New Towns Acts. These were influenced by the
garden city movement, launched around 1900 by
Ebenezer Howard and
Sir Patrick Geddes and the work of
Raymond Unwin, and manifested at
Letchworth Garden City and
Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire. Following
World War II, some 17 projected new towns were designated under the
New Towns Act 1946 (
9 & 10 Geo. 6. c. 68), and were developed partly to house the large numbers of people whose homes had been destroyed by the
Luftwaffe during
WW2 and partly to move parts of the population out of (mainly
Victorian) urban
slums. New Towns policy was also informed by a series of wartime commissions, including: • the Barlow Commission (1940) into the distribution of industrial population, • the Scott Committee into rural land use (1941) • the Uthwatt Committee into compensation and betterment (1942) • (later) the
Reith Report into New Towns (1947). Also crucial to thinking was the
Abercrombie Plan for London (1944), which envisaged moving a million and a half people from London to new and expanded towns. (A similar plan was developed for the
Clyde Valley in 1946 to combat similar problems faced in
Glasgow.) Together these committees reflected a strong consensus to halt the uncontrolled sprawl of London and other large cities. For some, this consensus was tied up with a concern for social welfare reform (typified by the
Beveridge Report), as typified in the motto
if we can build better, we can live better; for others, such as
John Betjeman it was a more conservative objection to the changing character of existing towns. Following the building of
Borehamwood,
Middlesex, 12 miles north-west of central London, the first in a ring of major "first generation" New Towns around London (1946) were
Stevenage, Hertfordshire, 33 miles to the north of London, and
Basildon, Essex, 32 miles east of London along the
River Thames. Hertfordshire built four other new towns, two in the vicinity of Stevenage (
Welwyn Garden City and
Hatfield), a third to the north called
Letchworth, and
Hemel Hempstead to the west. New Towns in the
North East were also planned, such as
Newton Aycliffe (which the social reformer and government adviser
William Beveridge wanted to be the "ideal town to live in"),
Washington,
Killingworth,
Billingham and
Peterlee which were in both
County Durham and
Northumberland (except Washington and Killingworth which are now in
Tyne and Wear).
Bracknell in Berkshire, to the south-west of London, was designated a New Town in 1949 and is still expanding. Other London new towns from this era include
Harlow in Essex and
Crawley in West Sussex. Later, a scatter of "second-generation" towns were built to meet specific problems, such as the development of the
Corby Steelworks. Finally, following the
New Towns Act 1965, five "third-generation" towns were launched in the late 1960s: these were larger, some of them based on substantial existing settlements such as
Peterborough. Probably the most well-known was
Milton Keynes designed from the outset to be a new city midway between London and Birmingham, known for its
grid network of distributor roads between rather than through neighbourhoods, its
G2 listed central park and "covered high street" shopping centre. The 1960s saw new towns being designated around England's second-city
Birmingham, namely
Redditch,
Tamworth and
Telford. Other towns, such as
Ashford in Kent,
Basingstoke in Hampshire and
Swindon in Wiltshire, were designated "Expanded Towns" and share many characteristics with the new towns. Scotland also gained three more new towns:
Cumbernauld in 1956, noted for its enclosed
'town centre',
Livingston (1962) and
Irvine (1966). In spite of the relative success of new towns in the London Metropolitan green belt, London continued to suffer from a chronic housing shortage, especially in the south-east. Another small New Town,
Thamesmead, was developed adjacent to the Thames in the early 1960s but suffered from poor transport links. Some improvement in infrastructure has been seen subsequently. All the new towns featured a car-aware layout with many roundabouts and a grid-based road system unusual in the old world. Milton Keynes in particular has a
grid-based distributor road system, designed to minimise traffic in residential areas. The earlier new towns, where construction was often rushed and whose inhabitants were generally plucked out of their established communities with little ceremony, rapidly got a poor press reputation as the home of "
new town blues". These issues were systematically addressed in the later towns, with the third generation towns in particular devoting substantial resources to cycle routes, public transport and community facilities, as well as employing teams of officers for social development work. The financing of the UK new towns was creative. Land within the designated area was acquired at agricultural use value by the development corporation for each town, and infrastructure and building funds borrowed on 60-year terms from the UK Treasury. Interest on these loans was rolled up, in the expectation that the growth in land values caused by the development of the town would eventually allow the loans to be repaid in full. However, the high levels of retail price inflation experienced in the developed world in the 1970s and 1980s fed through into interest rates and frustrated this expectation, so that substantial parts of the loans had ultimately to be written off. All New Towns designated under the New Towns Act of 1946 were serviced by a secretariat, the New Towns Association, a
quango that reported to the New Towns Directorate of the Department of the Environment. It coordinated the work of the General Managers and technical officers, published a monthly information bulletin and provided information for visitors from around the world. As each New Town reached maturity, the town's assets were taken over by the
Commission for New Towns. Set up in 1948, the New Towns Association was dissolved in 1998. All papers held by it and the Commission for New Towns are held in The National archives: From the 1970s the first generation towns began to reach their initial growth targets. As they did so, their development corporations were wound up and the assets disposed of: rented housing to the local authority, and other assets to the Commission for New Towns (in England; but alternative arrangements were made in Scotland and Wales). The Thatcher Government, from 1979, saw the new towns as a socialist experiment to be discontinued, and all the development corporations were dissolved by 1992 (with the closure of
Milton Keynes Development Corporation), even for the third generation towns whose growth targets were still far from being achieved. Ultimately the Commission for New Towns was also dissolved and its assets – still including a lot of undeveloped land – passed to the English Industrial Estates Corporation (later known as
English Partnerships). Many of the New Towns attempted to incorporate
public art and cultural programmes but with mixed methods and results. In
Harlow the architect in charge of the design of the new town,
Frederick Gibberd, founded the Harlow Art Trust and used it to purchase works by leading sculptors, including
Auguste Rodin,
Henry Moore and
Barbara Hepworth. In
Peterlee the abstract artist
Victor Pasmore was appointed part of the design team, which led to the building of the
Apollo Pavilion. Washington New Town was provided with a community theatre and art gallery. The
public art in Milton Keynes includes the
Concrete Cows, which resulted from the work of an '
artist in residence' and have gone on to become a recognised landmark. In the 1990s, an experimental "new town", developed by
the Prince of Wales to use very traditional or vernacular architectural styles, was started at
Poundbury in Dorset.
Northern Ireland In Northern Ireland, building of
Craigavon in County Armagh commenced in 1966 between
Lurgan and
Portadown, although entire blocks of flats and shops lay empty, and later derelict, before eventually being bulldozed. It was intended to be the heart of a new
linear city incorporating
Lurgan and
Portadown, but this plan was mostly abandoned and later described as having been flawed.
Derry was the first ever planned city on the island of Ireland. In 1613, Work began on building the new city across the River Foyle from the ancient town of Derry ( or ). The walls were actually completed five years later in 1618. The central diamond (plaza) within a walled city with four gates was thought to be a good design for defence.
Scotland Two "post-war new towns" were planned at
East Kilbride (1947) and
Glenrothes (1948), then the late 1950s and early 1960s saw the creation of
Cumbernauld,
Irvine and
Livingston. Each of these towns is in Scotland's list of 20 most populated towns and cities.
Glenrothes was the first new town in the UK to appoint a town artist in 1968. A massive range of artworks (around 132 in total) ranging from concrete
hippos to bronze statues, dancing children, giant flowers, a dinosaur, a horse and chariot and crocodiles, to name but a few, were created. Town artists appointed in Glenrothes include
David Harding and Malcolm Robertson.
Wales The only new towns in Wales have been
Newtown and
Cwmbran. Cwmbran was established to provide new employment in the south eastern portion of the
South Wales Coalfield. ==North America and the Caribbean==