Cultural planning strategy linked to a specific urban thesis when cities are threatening to become too large for social and economic cohesion to be upheld
When cities become too large, and it was already a worry in the thirties of the twentieth century, then new solutions are sought. At that time the garden city movement or 'New Town' movement meant recreating entire new cities, in order to take the pressure away from urban conglomerations no longer unified as one community. Such a cultural planning strategy around the concept of ‘green space’ went together with the idea of curtailing urban expansion by having green belts around these cities so as to prevent land being build on. Naturally cities leapt over them and continued to expand but green space was saved for generations to come. Out of such a constraint developed a certain type of community with some typical features having an imprint on not only the social and personal life of people living there, but also on what urban culture meant in terms of having cities with green belts. It drew simply attention to the importance of nature and to the need for some breathing spaces insofar as it is recognized the human being cannot be surrounded only and always by built up areas but has to have access to nature, trees, parks, with children able to run over the grass while others just sunbathe or go for a walk with no particular goal in mind. The respite gained from such spaces makes it clear as a cultural demand that physical planning takes such needs into consideration.