It is worth remembering that Utopian thought in the modern era, at least in the sense of the Renaissance, was born out of Europe's encounter with the Americas. Then America seemed to have all the features needed to host the construction of a new world that might match the requirements of art and reason: a world whose towns would be planned in accordance with a geometrical and social order that would leave nothing to chance. The story of European utopian thought and the ideal city whose aim was to ensure happiness for all moved away from communitarian ideas and clearly favoured individual values. Those values included respect for nature, promotion of pragmatic experience, confidence in human knowledge, but they were above all dedicated to building great cities, taking account of the needs of community life and all the questions that raises in a context where the individual takes precedence over the collective.