From Garden City to Eco-urbanism: The quest for sustainable neighborhood development

• Literature on five major neighborhood planning movements has been reviewed.
• Urbanization and climate change have affected the evolution of neighborhood planning.
• There is a mismatch between rhetoric and reality of neighborhood planning.
• Neighborhood planning movements have been influenced by market mechanisms.
• Planning needs a paradigmatic shift from physical determinism to pluralism.

Since the early 20th century various planning movements have been developed. It would be useful to trace the evolution of these movements to see how their underlying principles have changed and how successful they have been in addressing the requirements of sustainable development. Literature on five selected movements is reviewed. These are, namely, Garden City, Neighborhood Unit, Modernism, Neo-traditionalism, and Eco-urbanism. Results show that evolution of neighborhood planning is characterized by the progressive inclusion of different dimensions of the sustainability concept. However, there are still many difficulties in terms of translating the rhetoric into action.