News and Events
2026 Five New Towns Presentations by Prof. Peiser
Korean Educational Broadcast System – Great Minds Series
A five-part lecture series led by Professor Richard Peiser for Great Minds, a program by the Korean Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), explores the history, planning, governance, and future of new towns around the world. The series examines the modern origins of new towns through Ebenezer Howard, early British and American new towns, three generations of new towns in England, planning and design approaches, common economic challenges, governance structures, and key lessons from the past century.
Special segments on new towns in Shanghai and Seoul are presented by former GSD doctoral alumni, now professors: ChengHe Guan of NYU Shanghai and Kyung-min Kim of Seoul National University. The lecture series features case studies and perspectives from Great Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, China, South Korea, and Africa.
Presentations
Episode 1 – Origins and Definition of New Towns.
Episode 2 – Basic Principles of New Town Design.
Episode 3 – Why Do New Towns Go Bankrupt?
Episode 4 – Design, Planning, and Governance.
Episode 5 – Best Practices, Global Examples, and Promise for Tomorrow.
2020 Book Update
June 18, 2020
Professors Peiser and Forsyth continue to lead the research on new community planning, with a specific emphasis on how they can preserve and create social ties. Further research seeks to establish the feasibility and potential benefits of new towns for communities impacted by environmental change, particularly sea level rise.
The New Towns initiative team is excited to announce the pre-release of New Towns for the Twenty-First Century: A Guide to Planned Communities Worldwide.
International New Towns Workshops 2016
September 23, 2016
A major product of the New Towns Initiative at Harvard University is a book on the past and future of new towns. As part of the work to create that book the initiative held an international workshop in September, 2016. While much for the program involved working sessions for the authors there was also a public panel described below.
6:30-8:00 – Public Panel, Thursday, September 22, 2016, Piper Auditorium, Harvard Graduate School of Design
James Von Klemperer – President and Design Principal, Kohn Pedersen Fox
Steve Kellenberg – Senior Vice President of Community Planning, Irvine Company
Paul Buckhurst – Principal, BFJ Planning
Alex Garvin – Professor Adjunct, Yale University
Pascaline Gaborit – Former Director, European New Towns and Pilot Cities
Ann Forsyth – Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Planning Co-Director of the Master in Urban Planning Program
Rick Peiser – Michael D. Spear Professor of Real Estate Development Co-Director of the Master in Urban Planning Program.
China: New Towns Class 2015
May 12, 2015
Professor Richard Peiser led a research seminar on new towns at Harvard GSD in the Spring 2015 semester. This seminar is the first phase of a 2 ½-year research project on new towns, sponsored by the China Vanke Co. Vanke is the largest homebuilder in China and has developed a number of large-scale communities and several new towns. The class focused on Vanke’s new towns, as well as other new towns in China, with particular emphasis on new towns in China’s central region, including Wuhan, Zhengzhou, and Chengdu. The class met weekly and included a one-week site visit to China from March 7-14, 2015.
Students examined best practices and innovative solutions to address their research questions based on study of both new towns and other forms of large-scale urban development and redevelopment around the world. While students focused on answering specific research questions, they studied a number of aspects of new town and large-scale community development. These included planning, urban design, economics, phasing, transportation, governance, social organization, and other aspects of creating and building both successful and unsuccessful new towns.
Each student selected one of the topics below as the focus of their research. Students’ research papers addressed the following research questions that are relevant to new town developers everywhere:
- How to add parking and automobile access to existing communities that were designed for lower car ownership.
- How to design and build playgrounds, both for children and the elderly, that are safe, attractive, and create the best possible amenity.
- How to manage and maintain hi-rise and low-rise apartments, including how to apply the U.S. experience of multiple levels of homeowner and condominium associations.
- How to integrate people from widely different backgrounds in order to create a greater sense of community.
- How to design and enhance the quality of open space, the built environment, and landscaping.
- How to improve community management, enhance customer services between the new town developer and the residents, and incorporate lessons from communities in other countries such as the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the U.S. with respect to long-term community management.
- How to jumpstart social services at the beginning of new town development; how to jumpstart the sense of belonging and community within the new town.
- How to maintain and enhance property values over time.
The site-visit to China in the spring focused on communities chosen to highlight the questions raised above. It included a cross-section of new towns and large-scale communities developed by Vanke and other major new town developers in China. The class culminated in a presentation at Harvard on May 11, 2015 and a written report that went to the Sponsor and contributors to the class.
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