The History of Utopia

Utopia can mean "no place" or also "happy place".

Utopia is sort of a dream, a hope.

500 years ago, Thomas More, who was Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, created the idea of a Utopia, and ever since people have imagined better places for humans to live, fairer places.

Places that are more equal for everybody.

For hundreds of years people tried to create societies that were fairer.

Even During the creation of the United States of America, there were many attempts at "starting afresh" to create new ways of living. William Penn, was an English Quaker, who created Penn-sylvania, a new type of community with religious toleration and political freedom, which was very unlike the other areas in the U.S.

After 1900, the Russians had a revolution, aiming to create a communist state where everybody was equal. That didn't turn out well.

But in the UK, Ebeneezer Howard's designed Garden Cities, such as Welwyn Garden City, making nicer towns for people to live in.

Later, in the 1940s and 50s, modern Tower Blocks were created to solve the problems with derelict housing.

Our govt created Social Security to look after unemployed people and the NHS (seen by many the best thing our country has ever done)

And the University of York itself, was created to challenge the old stuffy universities, like Oxford and Cambridge. It was designed to bring staff and students and different departments together.

In 1960s the hippy counter culture movement, imagined living differently, and not working for "the man".

There was The Space Race, moon landings and Star Trek. People were really positive about the future.