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Anon makes a good point. If you replace Garden Cities with New Towns you have a similar objective. I am a townie - I grew up in an industrial town, I did my time in London and I now live in a small (100k) town. Cities are indeed efficient, but you need to address the human in all this (which is what I thought architecture was about).

Given the choice most people would prefer to live in a house, with garden, with low density accommodation. Outside London and the South East there are in fact many suitable locations that enable this within an urban context. Perhaps that is what needs to be addressed? Perhaps the core of the issue is that the UK is too South East centric?

It would be interesting to see what the brand architects would do with masterplanning growth in a smalltown from 100k to 150k population, or, indeed, the reverse (as indeed is happening in many places). These, I think, are the true issues of the day rather than building new cities and towns.