Creating Fantasy Communities

Ersatz "communities" were declared open by politicians cutting ribbons. Each generation of towns prayed in aid some planning maxim. Those of the 1960s and 1970s, over-engineered by their architects, not only damaged the social fabric of urban Britain but induced an alienation, a "new town blues", recounted in every analysis from Lionel Esher's Broken Wave to Lynsey Hanley's recent Estates. Though rooted in the genteel Edwardian garden suburb, the movement grew brutalist and dark, and its other half was a depopulated and demoralised inner city.

Throughout history, nothing has appealed to the authoritarian mind so much as creating fantasy communities.

Simon Jenkins, Guardian, Eco-towns are the greatest try-on in the history of property speculation.