New Towns are back

From today's BBC, the next UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is proposing to build 100,000 houses in five new towns (20,000 each) to help address the rise in housing costs in southeast England: Brown outlines 'eco towns' plan.

These towns would be "carbon neutral", showing how each generating infuses its ideals into its plans. Hopefully these will be more like Ebenezer Howard's Garden Cities (Letchworth, Welwyn), or the first generation of post-war new towns (e.g. Stevanage) than that monstrosity of mega-scale suburban automobility, Milton Keynes. Given their scale, they sound more similar to the early Garden Cities.