Parktown reveals its historical pathway
PARKTOWN – Delve into a short history of the historic suburb.
Since its founding in 1892, Parktown has been known as one of the oldest garden-city suburbs in Johannesburg. It is often described as a luscious green setting, boasting a wide array of brush and trees.
The garden-city movement, which was an English concept adopted in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom, was a method of urban planning geared towards beautifying the suburban setting using nature’s tools.
Howard, in his book titled, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, described a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature. With that, garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by greenbelts which contain proportionate areas of residences, industry and agriculture. In other words, houses were designed to be set back in order for garden views to be shared among neighbours.
Interestingly – around the same period in the 1890s – every property in Parktown had hedges and street trees planted before it was sold off. This resulted in a tremendously green neighbourhood. And although property owners were bent on selling property with already planted trees, some street trees died, such as pine trees dying off completely some 25 years ago. This fact is perfectly intertwined with the idea that Johannesburg does not boast a single indigenous tree.
Similarly, during its formative years as a garden-city suburb, Parktown had no town-planning scheme to oversee development in the area. As a result, the area was put onto a title deed which stipulated, in the case of the area on the east side of Jan Smuts Avenue, that the houses ought to have been 50 feet from the road.
“There were building lines in place.You had to have a front garden – you could not do as is being done nowadays, that is, build on the road,” Flo Bird, vice-chairperson at the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation told the paper.
“That included garages. Every time anybody got a garage in the street in Parktown, they had to get relaxation of the building line because there were building lines in place to stop that.”
