"--If Greenhills should ever be held up to the public as an exemplar it should be on the basis of its effort and accomplishments to secure balance in all community facilities and requirements and to preserve, always a close relationship between urban life and open-space environment -- If these characteristics are lost - this community may enjoy no more distinction than that of being a nice town."

                                                                                 JUSTIN HARTZOG

WELCOME TO GREENHILLS —THE PLANNED COMMUNITY!

You know, a lot of towns proclaim to be a planned community, but how many can say they were planned by the President of the United States and Congress? It even took an act of Congress  for Greenhills to become one of the three planned Greenbelt cities. We can definitely say with authority that we are a planned community!

Greenhills wasn't built overnight. A lot of thought and research went into planning our town. This  is how it began:

In the mid-1930's, the country was in the middle of an economic depression. Men needed work, also someplace to live which they could afford. President and Mrs. Roosevelt had the idea to build garden cities which the middle income man could afford.

The general plan for Greenhills and the other greenbelt towns was an American adaptation of  the garden city plan first adopted in England nearly one hundred years ago.

Ironically  this idea, that the English have so successfully developed, springs from a great American catastrophe - the Chicago Fire of 1871.

Ebenezer Howard, a young Englishman, lived through the fire. It set him to thinking about  building towns in a way to eliminate the hazards so greatly responsible for the destruction of Chicago.

He felt a town should be planned with areas definitely set aside for business, industry, residences, parks and public buildings. He believed there should be open spaces to provide people with pleasant and spacious living. His ideas have had a deep influence on town planners throughout the world

                       above Copyright 1976 - GREENHILLS CIVIC FOUNDATION HISTORY - Carol A. Lippmeier

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