I came across an interesting article from 1908, with what strikes me as a well-described concept:
http://archive.org/stream/worldswork17gard/worldswork17gard_djvu.txt
November, 1908
MUTUAL TOWN-BUILDING IN ENGLAND
"GARDEN CITIES" OF INDIVIDUAL, DETACHED HOMES BUILT WITHOUT THE AID OF PHILANTHROPY — A BETTER PLAN THAN REBUILDING THE SLUMS
BY WILHELM MILLER
(who visited these cities to make a first hand study of them)
LETCHWORTH, "the perfect city," less than five years old but with 6,000
inhabitants, is thirty-four miles north of London and is reached by the
best trains in fifty minutes. It has 3,818 acres and its population is
limited to 35,000 inhabitants, so that there will never be any crowding.
The factory quarter can never be enlarged; it is situated as far as
possible from the residence quarter and the prevailing wind carries the
smoke away from the homes. Nearly one-sixth of the town site, or two
hundred acres, is perpetually reserved for open spaces, including parks,
jjlaygrounds, and a golf course.
And even if the surrounding country should build up as solidly as
London, the people of Letchworth are always sure of enjoying a beautiful
rural scene because a large belt is perpetually reserved for
agriculture. This belt comprises 2,500 acres, or 65 percent of the
whole estate. It will undoubtedly be occupied by market gardeners and
dairymen, for gardens yield about eleven times as much profit per acre
as farms.
A man can buy a house at Letchworth or he can rent one, but he cannot
buy the land. He cannot even lease it for 999 years, because that would
enable him to sell or lease his property in such a way as to make a
profit from the unearned increment. He can lease the land for
ninety-nine years without revaluation and the improvements will not
revert to the landowner. In any case, he has every advantage enjoyed by
the man who owns the land outright — save one. He cannot get rich from what Henry George called the "unearned increment" but which in Letchworth is called the "collectively earned increment."
Even if he rents his house and land from week to week he cannot be
dispossessed by some one who offers more money. In the agricultural
belt, the tenant is allowed to continue in occupation as long as he is
willing to pay as much as anyone else, less 10 percent, in favor of the
present tenant.
Letchworth has been built upon a plan whereby people in any part of the
world can make a city that is practically perfect without asking any
rich man to give money, and without facilities for borrowing any large
amount. The essence of the scheme is to preserve to the people the
"collectively earned increment." The Letchworth people take some pride
in the use of this phrase, and justly. For, merely by moving to
Letchworth and living there they created in four and a half years a net
increase of half a million dollars. They do not get that half million
now, but some day they will get 95 percent of it in the form of
abolition of taxes. And that day, in my opinion will come in about
twenty years, for by that time the city should be able to pay back all
that its public works have cost.
THE TWO OTHER "GARDEN CITIES "
There are two other successful "garden cities," Bourneville, a suburb of
Liverpool built by the Cadbury Cocoa Works, and Port Sunlight near
Birmingham created by the Lever Brothers, soap manufacturers, solely for
their employees.
Port Sunlight is the most beautiful because the Messrs. Lever have gone
to the unnecessary extreme of making no two houses alike. Also, they
have spent more upon ornamentation of
houses than is necessary and they plant and care for all the front yard gardens.
The tenants at Port Sunlight get more for their money than elsewhere for
two reasons. First, the rents are too low, because they are calculated
only to pay expenses. Second, the social institutions, though more
elaborate than elsewhere, cost the people nothing originally and they
can and do manage them so as to keep expenses down to the mininum.
THE "taint" of philanthropy
The one great drawback to the Port Sunlight idea is that it involves too
great an expenditure on the part of one man or one firm, and it is hard
to prove to a factory owner that the investment is worth while. In this
case, the factory owners disclaim all idea of philanthropy and are
positive that it pays, because their employees are healthier, happier,
more prosperous and therefore more efficient.
The Lever Brothers rejected all direct profit-sharing schemes because
they thought this the only plan that would benefit the wives and
children of the men. There is the keenest competition for a chance to
work in that factory and live in one of those houses. But all the
profits to the firm are indirect. Rarely, if ever, can they be expressed
in dollars and cents and indirect profits can never be expected to
weigh in the mind of the average employer against the appalling fact
that Lever Brothers have put about $1,700,000 into their paradise at
Port Sunlight and have never directly gotten back one cent.
In other words, if this is not philanthropy, it is too much like it to
be generally copied. Humanity cannot look to great employers for the
solution of the housing problem. And employees do not want philanthropy.
And at Bourneville there is less of the philanthropic spirit. The
employees of the Cadbury Cocoa Works get a normal social life, which the
people of Port Sunlight do not have. The cocoa workers are not obliged
to live in Bourneville and only 42 percent of the tenants at Bourneville
are employed at the Cadbury factory. Thus Bourneville is a mixed
community and the ideal community must be mixed — not merely industrial,
or suburban, or composed exclusively of any one class. It is sad to see
the magnificent clubs, lecture halls, baths, and other social features
at Port Sunlight languish for attendance, but it is only human nature.
On getting home after a day's work, a man wants to forget thoughts of
his work. And if he lives in a city where every house and every person
he sees on the street suggests the workroom, he is bound to escape to
the next town where he can get a drink or otherwise forget his daily
routine. The only serious complaint which the tenants at Port Sunlight
have any right to make is that they live in the atmosphere of a single
class.
Mr. Cadbury gave Bourneville to the people. How then does it escape the "taint" of philanthropy?"
A GREAT FUND FOR PROPAGANDA
It is true that Mr. Cadbury gave the property to a trust which
administers it for the benefit of the people, but eventually this trust
will be able to finance hundreds of other garden cities that will be
purely cooperative. For instance, people wishing to live in a "garden
city," where all the "collectively earned increment" benefits all alike
instead of going to the building up of individual fortunes, can form a
stock company with shares as low as $25. If the Bourneville trust
approves of their plan, it will lend them enough money to start a town.
But the company must pay it back, so that the Bourneville trust can use
it again and again.
How does the Bourneville trust hope to get this fund? Its income, which
is almost wholly rent, doubles every five years. At this rate, in fifty
years it will have an annual income of five million dollars. Long before
that, Bourneville will have reached its limit of population. And since
the trust never has to pay back the cost of the houses, roads, or other
public works, it will be able to roll up a vast sum for the propagation
of the "garden city" idea.
The all-important point is that the Bourneville trust will never give
anyone something for nothing. It will merely lend money to people who
are building "garden cities."
THE HEALTH AND BEAUTY OF THESE CITIES
These are far healthier and more beautiful than cities that have grown
up normally; healthier because crowding is prevented by a limit to the
population and because more and better provision is made for outdoor
sports — to say nothing of architecture in which health is the first
thought. The average town death-rate in England is 15 per 1,000.
Letchworth has cut this down to 2.75. The birthrate at Port Sunlight is
twice the average for the rest of England.
The greater beauty of these garden cities lies chiefly in the
architecture and gardening. The houses and stores all conform to one
general style of architecture, but are never monotonous. Every building
must be approved by the city's architect. The houses are all of brick
and built to last. There are no long rows of houses just alike. The
first idea was to have no two houses alike but that is a needless waste
of money. For poor people it is impossible to get good houses cheap
enough without building three or four in a row and this row can be
duplicated in another part of town without harming the total effect.
Moreover, Bourneville has shown how much can be saved on ornamentation.
The plainest houses are transformed in three years by the use of
climbers. Bourneville's head gardener sees that every house has a
different set of vines. Not merely is the plainness soon hidden thereby,
but also the individuality of each home is notably increased.
Gardening is compulsory at Bourneville and Letchworth. If a tenant
neglects his garden at Bourneville and will not hire some one to weed
it, the estate notifies him that he will forfeit his lease unless he
makes his place look decent. But there have been only two cases of
neglect.
The estate plants a hawthorn hedge all round each man's place, digs and
manures his vegetable garden, lays down the lawn, sets out dwarf fruit
trees, plants the climbers on his house, and digs his flower-beds. These
expenses are considered part of the cost of building and the rent is
based thereon. The tenant must keep it in good condition but he can buy
plants from the estate cheaper than from a nurseryman and he gets
instruction for nothing. There is no chance for a beginner to get
discouraged.
A FIVE-ROOM HOUSE FOR $7.80 A MONTH
I am almost afraid to tell how much a tenant gets for his money at one
of these garden cities. The cheapest houses at Bourneville rent for only
$7.80 a month, which includes taxes and water rates. Such a house
contains five rooms and a wonderful "folding bath" which stands up like a
cabinet when not in use. Clerks and artisans, however, generally pay
about $12.30 a month for seven rooms and an eighth of an acre.
The ideal amount of land at Bourneville is one-eighth of an acre, and
the average value of the fruits and vegetables produced on such a plot
is about $32.24 a year, or sixty-two cents a week the year round. The
smallest lots at Letchworth are a twelfth of an acre, which is the same
as 25 x 145 feet, and is 45 percent larger than the typical New York
lot, on which many families are allowed to live. In addition to these
direct benefits the tenant gets a chance to play cricket, tennis, bowls,
quoits, and hockey near by at no expense or at less cost than in an
ordinary club.
All rents at Bourneville are figured at 8 percent of the cost. Taxes,
insurance and repairs cost 3 percent, leaving a profit to the
Bourneville estate of 5 percent. With this 5 percent, it employs a
permanent staff of about one hundred builders and has about fifty houses
under construction all the time.
OBSTACLES OVERCOME AT LETCHWORTH
The Letchworth company had its hands full with public works, for it had
to construct eight miles of road, eleven miles of sewers, and seventeen
miles of water main. Also it had to build a reservoir for water, a gas
making plant, and an electric power station to supply the factories, of
which it now has twenty-four. Another difficulty overcome was
transportation. The company has cooperated with the railroad so well
that its "commuters" can make their thirty-four miles to and from London
daily in less than an hour, though most trains require an hour and a
quarter.
The income of the land company is partly from the sale of water, gas,
and electricity, but chiefly from ground rent. It never sells any land
or houses. Ground rent may seem a very small source of revenue, but
every man, woman and child in England contributes for ground rent an
average of $10.50 a year. The Letchworth company can, and doubtless
will, raise the ground rent as its limit of population approaches, but
even if it should raise it as high as the average for England, the
tenant will pay less than elsewhere, for taxes will eventually be
abolished.
Postscript -- a few hours after I posted this, a google alert on ground rent brought me a story about Letchworth, at http://www.thecomet.net/news/letchworth_businesses_finally_land_meeting_over_rent_rise_1_2311500
