William Lyon Mackenzie King, planning advocate

The article discusses the direct influence of Canada's longest-serving Prime Minister on town planning and the development of the national capital in the first half of the twentieth century. King flirted with the settlement house movement, interning Jane Addams at Hull House while a graduate student. He later included town planning and garden cities as a component of a broader programme of social reform. The article considers King's connection to four broad traditions in early North American planning: Social Planning, the Parks Movement, the City Scientific and the City Beautiful. King's greatest impact was as the political champion for the planning and development of Canada's national capital, much of which was completed in the two decades after his death.