The Town & Country Planning Association and Land Securities have put out a report calling for creation of new settlements on garden city principles - reimagined for a new century.
It was the garden cities movement inpsired by Ebenezer Howard and pursued by the Association he founded that created the 20th century's low-density suburban development paradigm.
Its garden cities, garden suburbs, new towns and general sprawl gave the country more than a century of wasteful greenfield sprawl.
The new report, Re-imagining Garden Cities for the 21st Century, says these principles must be rediscovered to overcome the stigma it admits has engulfed such developments.
It looks at the movement's two garden cities and two of the new or expanded towns - Stevenage and Peterborough - and puts the blame for their unpopularity on poor quality development and inadequate infrastructure.
It has little or nothing to say, however, on the destruction of farmland they wrought or their unsustainable transport demands.
"We must find a way to move forward into a new era of building attractive, resilient and sustainable places," said TCPA chief planner Hugh Ellis.
"Where better to start this journey than to rediscover and re-imagine the high-quality, collaborative and pioneering spirit of the garden cities for the 21st century?"
The report stresses the importance of holistic master planning and utilizing new financial models to pay for new developments.
It says councils and communities should be at the heart of the process, but strong political support is needed.
The paper urges a strong vision of sustainability but has little to say about the identified weakness of the low-density sprawl model followed by garden cities, new towns etc. - their fatal dependence on the motor car.
It says the new houses and jobs should have good local transport "while acknowledging the need for and inevitability of wider commuting and movement".
"The new communities which have performed best are those that have good external road and rail links," says the report.
"Self-containment must be re-imagined for the 21st century, with a view to delivering a balanced community which has a robust cultural and economic centre, but which is also linked to other town and city centres."
It says local identification of need for major housing development should attract central government support to secure financial support and expertise from developers.
"We should not underestimate the economic growth and job creation that new communities can generate through their delivery and in creating new business hubs," said Land Securities development director Emma Cariaga.
