Anticipating Municipal Parks

Book excerpt: Adelaide is well known for its encircling park lands and beautiful gardens. They have been the site of many prestigious events and at times the source of much contention. In Anticipating Municipal Parks, Don Johnson contests the accepted understanding that Colonel William Light was the sole architect of the city of Adelaide, revealing the often-ignored role of Light's Deputy Surveyor, George Strickland Kingston. Johnson also investigates the role and influence of John Arthur Roebuck and John Claudius Loudon on the course of town-planning theory, and the political and theoretical influences leading to the economic and social ideas of Ebenezer Howard and his Garden City. This is a fascinating look at how Adelaide helped define city planning ideas in the nineteenth century.