ALAN CASH - web pages
Welwyn Garden City
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ALAN CASH - web pages Welwyn Garden City |
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Author:
C. B. Purdom and
others. First published: 1921 by Benn Brothers, Limited, London. Format: Hardback 7¼" x 5" with 139 pages.
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| TOWN
THEORY BY W. R. LETHABY GEORGE
L. PEPLER EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY C. B. PURDOM
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| CONTENTS AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
I. THE TOWN ITSELF
II. THE TOWN PLAN
III. THE TOWN AND THE BEST SIZE FOR GOOD SOCIAL LIFE
IV. THE TOWN AND AGRICULTURE
V. THE TOWN AND LAND
BIBLIOGRAPHY |
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| LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
2. MAP OF LETCHWORTH (1921) 3. TOWN PLAN OF WELWYN GARDEN CITY 4. DIAGRAM OF SATELLITE TOWNS AROUND LONDON 5. PLAN OF PART OF AN EXISTING TOWN 6. MAP OF AN ENGLISH TOWN THAT WAS NOT PLANNED |
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| CHAPTER I THE TOWN ITSELF A Garden City is a Town By W. R. LETHABY
A garden city should manifestly not be too large; but concentration up to a point is of the essence of its being: there must in every given case and set of circumstances be a point of maximum efficiency beyond which a law of diminishing returns is encountered. The city should be industrial to the point of producing its due share of commodities, but again it should not be industrialised and commercialised. Balance is the aim, and a garden city should be balanced in all its functions and relations. We need some studies of the laws which govern cities considered as healthy organisms. The ordinary "scientific" political economy hardly anywhere seems to give clear indications as to how far it "pays" to maintain squalor and ugliness, disease, disorder, and dirt. Like most "material" things, the town is founded on spirit, and we have to begin with the formation of town psychology and civic desire. We have and we understand the love and worship of home and country, and we must seek to add to these city reverence, with teaching about town duties, and even some ritual. The town is a sacred thing, and we are starving the children by not giving them enough to love and reverence. If they grow up too brittle something will necessarily crack. A city is one big organism and itself a single work of art; it is, in fact, the master-work by which others should be judged - what do they do for the town ? It is a university for production, a cradle of life and a school of manners. We town-dwellers came up to the day before yesterday by custom, and we have had an interval in which we have just drifted and gravitated down the steep way of least resistance. Now we have to think out aims and form scientific programmes for the future. Some sort of productive economy has to be worked out to supplement or supplant the kind of political economy which too often has been a mere apology for profiteers. We have to experiment with the means of producing high quality in community life. We have to get rid of the irrational and learn to see untidiness as a disease. We have to teach that nature and the town have to be reverenced with a conscious personal love, and that we necessarily fail of having an essential life substance if these elements are lacking. We have to refound art on community service as the well-doing of what needs doing. People, we ourselves, exist individually in a medium, and if this medium has become thin and dry, our lives must necessarily wither up too. Our towns have to be made places of bodily health and spiritual refreshment, pleasant to live in and to visit. I would care not a pin or a button for a showy city as such if it could be produced only outwardly, but I see that every town is a picture of the minds of its inhabitants. If the town does not embody rational effort, discipline, and aspiration, the children will be untrained and the men and women will be unsatisfied, hopeless and anarchical - it must be so, for, as the old Greek poet said, "The city teaches the man." The first link in this chain at one end is to train for an active love of the towns in which we live, while approached from the other end the first link is to give us something in our towns which we may love. Greek culture built itself out in lovely cities, and these cities became the objects of a passionate regard, wells and reservoirs of community spirit and strength. Every town old or new is a special problem with individual possibilities of developing its own specific character, which I may call its civic personality. In antiquity this idea of a personality was boldly conceived and expressed. Athens became Athene, the genius of Rome had a magnificent temple, and even here in Britain a Roman town would have had a statue of its genius. I must confess that I should like to see some molten images of London and Leeds, Birmingham and Bristol set up as symbols and centres around which the towns might build up their pride. We cannot remain strong without pride, we cannot long be proud without being given something for which to be proud. Every town has to emulate its neighbour and set about developing particular productions and special types of industry and culture They should race for the reputation of having the smartest railway station, the most efficient electric lighting, the best restaurants, the most flowery park, the loveliest suburbs, the most restful cemetery. In every town we need a civilisation society, a council which would advise the town council, a centre for civic patriotism to gather into strength. In going about England the things which have shown themselves as orderly in their classes are golf grounds, race-courses, training villages, cricket fields, and tennis courts. In all the serious matters of sport, as also in war, it is seen that tidiness and smartness are parts of efficiency. In our town life it is not too much to say that this instinctive feeling has largely been pushed out by pressures which we have accepted as "economic." Good and noble things have been done, like the provision of parks and better water supply, and attempts, sometimes quite sad, at "beautification" are frequently made as a sacrifice to what is supposed to be "art"; but the idea of town tidiness, the ideal of town perfection seems nowhere even to be prophesied The aim of this little paper is to suggest that the town is a single organic unit and that it must be seen as the product of a human group and as a work of "art." We cannot shake off responsibility and suppose that towns make themselves. We have come to talk of music and drama and art and architecture as if they were technical words for remote abstractions or exceptional luxuries, but what is civilisation for if it is not to produce poetry, music, beauty, and courtesy ? These things are nothing worth in themselves unless they have a use for life. They are far more than luxuries, amusements, and excitements; they are the natural forms into which high human endeavours run. Civilisation has to externalise itself in disciplined arts, which become the registers and indices of the quality of life. The producers and their products set up a series of "inseparable reactions." Man builds the city so that the city shall shape his sons, for a city is properly a training place for men. Without order in the city we cannot have the full idea of order in the mind, and so of efficiency and the rest. Art is not something extraordinary, it can only properly exist - as can any of the forms and products of civilisation - when it becomes ordinary and common. We destroy it by isolating it and idolising it as "genius," for genius is only the product of a wide culture. Shakespeare was not the accident of genius so much as the inevitable product of an age which was interested in music and poetry; when everybody was writing verses Shakespeare was the best of them. At the end of the eighteenth century a deep and wide interest in English antiquities and scenery culminated, and Turner was born. Turner was no accident, he was the greatest of the topographical draughtsmen, he was carried farthest by the tide, that is all. Arts and civilisation are produced by tides in the affairs of men. Moreover, history shows us that these currents can be made to flow by conscious effort, or rather, perhaps, that when the idea of making an effort arises the tide itself has begun to turn. Pericles made the glory of Athens, and Charlemagne and our Alfred deliberately fostered the arts of life and founded cultures. In these questions of town building and town tidying, we must begin from general ideas which everybody may understand and not allow ourselves to be led off by vain ambitions and professional catch-words. Order, cleanliness, health, everyone will allow that these are desirable to an imperative degree. We must begin with better street sweeping and more whitewash, with efficient dealing with rubbish (a very pressing matter in even small towns and villages), with control of advertisements, and with more planting of trees and flowers and tidying up the approaches and environs of the towns. As it is, we compound for the obviously right and necessary by a dazzlingly vulgar "picture palace," with some "specimen of architecture" - an example, we are told, of correct style produced by a competition of paper designs in great anxiety and excitement at the moment, but scoffed at ever after; or by a marble or bronze "statue" which we are assured is a "work of art," but which nobody wants, understands, or cares for, a mere idol set up to custom and vanity; or accept the promise that some commercial exploit or exploitation will be ornamental, and allow most terrible tram-wire standards to be erected down the whole length of a once delightful High Street - ornamental indeed ! That means so much the worse, for the rule is that "ornament" is properly emphasis, and things like drains and mechanical appliances should not shout, but be quiet and unobtruding. While we have railways and their stations, these must be made to function in an orderly way - mechanism should at least be able to accomplish that. If we have factories, they too may be made in offensive; indeed, a new and necessary science of psychological economics would demonstrate that they could not be properly effective until they were sufficiently humanised to be pleasant. If slag-heaps are necessary products, they may at least be dealt with in the best possible way, and the seeking of a best way would at once make them interesting. Art and poetry may always be found in necessary human work and the inevitable things of life; if they are not so found indeed, that which passes by their names will only become another burden to existence. Art is not this or that strange and extravagant thing "Lo here or lo there," it is a common human aptitude. Without thinking up vainly elaborate utopias, towns organised for decent life might easily be imagined and economically instituted if we would only will them. They must be made tidy from end to end, that is the first condition of such an organism functioning efficiently. Factories, railways, markets, shops may at least be made fit and reasonable; public gardens might be all really sweet, fair, and refreshing; cemeteries (although it is bad taste, I believe, to mention these) could be peaceful and dignified, not as they are now, harsh and flashy, indeed horrible. What a final note this is on our "aims in life !" Children should be trained to reverence their town and to do it services by picking up strewn paper and the like. Every town should have playfields and a stadium for athletics. Annual festivals have been customary in towns from the earliest known days, and some cultural assembly like the admirable Welsh Eisteddfod should be instituted everywhere. Every town should have a municipal theatre where the great stories might be presented; we are becoming a people who only know novelette and cinema stories; folk-lore, hero-stories, and national legends have almost passed out of the hearts of the people. Now stories form spirit, and this is a quite tremendous matter; nothing I can think of is quite so urgent and foundational as this need of giving us all a common fund of stories to form a folk mind. I have sometimes thought that Shakespeare must have consciously set about forming a body of British drama beginning with Cymbeline, and Coleridge made wise proposals for filling up the gaps. We have infinite riches in noble stories if only they could be presented to the people in some penetrating way. The epic of the Norman Conquest, for instance, is already cast into acts and scenes on the Bayeux tapestry, and it would only need the collecting of a few passages from the chronicles and sagas to turn it into national drama. I am eager to try once more to make it plain that by art and beauty in towns I do not mean some few out-of-the-way things which claim to be works of genius when they may be mere freaks of impudence. No; when beauty is scarce and shut-up, the little that remains necessarily becomes weakened and even diseased. Beauty only flourishes as a common good, a general health, a widely distributed right; it has common and humble roots in order, peace, service, joy in work. This last phrase, "joy in work," looks absurd as I write, so far have we been carefully taught into the belief that work is an irksome slavery to be done by somebody else. And yet, what is there worth being joyous about except work ? Many even yet have the work passion so developed that they have had to invent specially strenuous forms like football so as to be really jolly. Art, then, is just healthy work, and beauty is its evidence, its complexion and smile. Some such ideas of town vitality as I have endeavoured to suggest seem to be forming in many countries, and we may hope that this is one of the works of the time spirit. In Denmark, folk schools have been formed for bringing national story back to the people; America is full of "movements" of similar kinds; even while I am writing, an article written by a cultivated modern Chinese scholar comes into my hand from which I may quote a passage: "In China religion is civilisation and civilisation is religion. But let me explain what I mean by a nation with civilisation. The ancient Greeks and Romans were great civilised nations. Why ? Because, besides governing and fighting, producing goods and selling them, they also produced spiritual things such as art and literature, and, what is far more important, they developed high types of humanity, and those great men are admired and prized by after generations. The chief end of civilisation is to produce men who, as we Chinese say, understand li-yo courtesy, and music. A nation is civilised only when it has a spiritual asset or 'realised ideals.' The first thing you must do if you want to save civilisation is to know what civilisation is. Civilisation is first and above all a state of the mind and heart, a spiritual life." |
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| CHAPTER II THE TOWN PLAN . . . planned for industry and healthy living By GEORGE L. PEPLER
The intention is that each garden city should be a distinct self-contained town of comfortable size - not too large to feel at home in, but large enough to contain a diversity of industries to occupy and provide for the people whose homes are there; furnishing that enlivening variety of interests and that mingling of classes so essential to a well-ordered community, and thus to make possible real harmony and unity, the lack of which to-day so much retards progress and prosperity in all directions, not least in that of industry. In a huge city the sense of identity is apt to be lost, and in consequence the ordinary inhabitant often takes little interest in local government; but in a sizeable town, good to look at and with civic pride outwardly expressed in civic order, a man can feel that he is part of a definite community. Feeling a citizen of no mean city, he will take an interest in its good government, and his vision will not be bounded by the walls of his work place. The garden city will advance healthy living, not only because the houses will be placed on the most suitable sites, with plenty of space all round to give free play to clean air and sunshine, but also because the gardens and surrounding agricultural belt will supply fresh and pure food and milk in place of the transit-soiled articles to which the average dweller in an ordinary city is condemned. Also, when working hours are short or in times of bad trade, the garden will afford a profitable outlet for energy. The absence of the permanent smoke-clouds of the large city will mean a purer atmosphere - curtains and clothes will keep clean much longer, and the house keeper will save money on soap and be relieved of much harassing home-work. The fitter the man and the smoother running his home, the better his work, and in this and other respects we shall see that in the garden city, pre-eminently, healthy living and industry can mutually thrive. In order to realise the advantages that a garden city should be able to offer to industry, it is well that we should consider some of the disadvantages under which work is at present being carried on in many towns. The ill effects of bad housing are now generally recognised, but the same analysis has not yet been applied in anything like the same degree to industry.
In many towns factories frequently exist on their present sites not because they were the most favourable situations for the purpose, but because the land happened to be in the market and was not hampered by estate restrictions. I have known of one site that was chosen in preference to another not because it was more suitable but merely owing to the fact that the vendor had a cleaner title to his land. Elsewhere factories have been properly placed, but in the absence of any town-planning scheme domestic buildings have been allowed to surround them, consequently there is no room for expansion and the factories are approached and intersected by streets suitable for domestic traffic but quite unsuitable for factory transport purposes and with foot paths totally inadequate to cope with the stream of factory workers. Apart from the constriction suffered by the factory itself, this haphazard mingling of factories and houses inevitably means unsatisfactory homes, with the corollary of discontent and unsatisfactory work. Factories being placed on sites which do not allow for expansion, and other buildings having been erected all round, the question of lighting is often one of great difficulty. Artificial light has to be resorted to, which not only is an expense but is not so healthy as natural light. Again, there being no general control of an industrial area, any man may establish anywhere a factory where highly inflammable material is produced, and in consequence his neighbours may have to pay largely increased fire insurance premiums although they themselves are carrying on no risky trade. We often see houses on sites suitable for factories, and vice versa. We rarely seem to observe any co-ordination between factories themselves, but, for example, allow a factory having no need of canal accommodation to occupy a long length of canal frontage, excluding heavy industry for which such a service is essential.
Apart from the actual carrying on of industry, the factor of rates has a big economical bearing. In many of our industrial towns the rates are high, which means a heavy charge on industry. One of the principles of the garden city is that ultimately the values of the land should revert to the community and high rates thereby avoided. Also in many towns a considerable proportion of public expenditure goes in remedying past defects in housing and in maintaining the victims of such defects, in street improvements and in health services that are required because the towns were not laid out so that each could function properly. Bad living conditions result in ineffective citizens, and this means that many of the fit are debarred from becoming producers as they have to spend their lives looking after the unfit, who therefore not only levy a heavy charge on the community in costly institutions, provided either for their maintenance, correction, or cure, but also divert to their unproductive selves the productive energy of many of their fellow-citizens. As industry can only thrive when the standard of production is high and as taxation is a charge on industry, it follows that every step taken that will save the necessity of the unproductive use of energy or of public expenditure must be a direct help to industry. It would seem that an obvious step in the right direction is to establish garden city conditions. Road traffic congestion is another factor of waste in many towns. Those who experience it appreciate at the time the annoyance and waste of time they suffer, but few realise the large waste of money involved in the aggregate. The business man held up in a taxi can watch the threepences ticking off, and knows also that his wasted time has a cash-value; the man and boy in charge of a van, or the clerk on a bus in the same traffic-block, have to be paid for all this wasted time, and the motor-engines still keep running and consuming petrol. It is not only in a definite block that all this waste occurs, but the constant slowing down of traffic due to inadequate streets makes the waste constant. If the value of the business men's time, of that of their employees whose wages they pay, and of the petrol wasted in this way in the course of a year, could be assessed, it would, in many towns, be found to be a serious permanent charge on industry. Even where the homes of the working people are not uncomfortably mixed up with the factories, one often finds that the workers have a long journey to and from their daily work. Such a journey is often undertaken under very uncomfortable conditions, and this again, apart from the expense, means fatigue and waste of energy and consequently less efficient work. The tendency shown in recent years for industrial undertakings to move out of the crowded centres, despite the cost and great inconvenience of the move itself, is evidence that the disadvantages I have referred to are real and are beginning to be appreciated; but there is little point in moving except to a place such as a garden city where all future development is mapped out, as otherwise the old difficulties will in course of time reappear. All the disadvantages I have referred to can be obviated in the garden city, which is promoted by one body which not only controls how the city is laid out, but actually owns all the sites and provides the principal services and amenities that are required. From the beginning there will be a plan which will allocate to each activity of the community the site on which it can be carried out most efficiently and pleasantly. Works will be allocated to an area or areas where there is access to railway sidings, canals, and good roads; and the roads will be so designed as to serve the works and to deal particularly with the traffic they will be required to bear. The frontage to main lines of railway is limited and sometimes not available for siding purposes. Also some works could not use to the full an entire siding, therefore in a garden city arrangements can be made, if required, for a communal siding serving a group of factories. In choosing the area to be set aside for industry, consideration will also be given to sources of power, water supply, etc. Many works will require large supplies of electricity, gas, or water, and it is economical to place such works near to the sources of supply or production, so that the large mains need not be of undue length and so that the load will not come on mains used also for domestic purposes, thereby interfering with the even continuity of domestic supply. Consideration will be given to arranging factory areas to suit particular, or groups of, industries and to facilitate co-operation. For example, it is possible to house and supply power for a group of distinct small industries in one large building, such small industries as do not each need or cannot economically afford a separate factory of their own. Again, many industries are interdependent or use each other's products or by-products; therefore if a major industry becomes established in the town, adjoining sites in the factory area can be reserved for what may be termed satellite works. Also the works will be placed where they can be carried on without interfering with the amenity of the residents. As industry supplies the wherewithal to live, the choice of the best area for it is almost the first business of the town-planner, but he will always have in mind the amenity of the residents, and in selecting the sites for houses he will pick those positions where life can be most healthy and pleasant. These sites will be near enough to the works for communication to be easy, but far enough away to avoid noise, smell, or dirt. This can only be provided if, from the beginning, there is a plan of the whole town and provision is made for proper inter-communication between the parts. In addition to the house gardens, there will be every facility for recreation, and, as well as the play grounds, the open country, where alone the town dweller can get right away from his daily cares, will be within easy reach of all. So far I have had principally in mind the new garden city erected on a specially selected site. Such a project has many advantages, for it starts where it is possible to provide from the beginning for the best possible facilities for efficient industry and healthy and pleasant living. It is well always to have this ideal model in mind, because only under the conditions provided by a new site can the best type of modern town be built; but that does not mean giving up our existing towns as a bad job; it encourages the study of them to see how their development and reconstruction may be economically and scientifically planned so that they may gradually, approximate to the ideal, and the waste and discomfort of the present gradually remedied. I suggested earlier that a man tended to lose his identity in a great city, yet the great city has many advantages. When we have built all our garden cities we shall still have the great cities. How, then, can we incorporate in them the garden city ideals ? If the present tendency of industries to move out of crowded centres continues, their removal will leave more elbow room in our great cities. This should give us opportunity in our plans of reconstruction to provide for marking out more definitely the parishes or other constituent parts of the city so that the boundaries of each may be clearly seen and each may have its visible centre of civic life, so that the inhabitants may feel members of a definite community. Many cities may enlarge their borders, but in doing so it is of great importance that the identity of the absorbed units should be maintained so that their local councils may feel partners in a big concern rather than indistinguishable pawns of no importance. A great deal can be done in regard to this by proper planning. The old city wall, while giving a sense of comfort to those within, was intended to appear forbidding to the outsider. To-day we require a boundary to be marked in a way that shall give distinction without conveying any idea of antagonism. What, therefore, could be better than a belt of open land, or where the units are already largely conglomerated and a complete belt is impracticable, a small, well-kept open space on either side of the main roads where they cross the boundary, with perhaps stone pillars to remind us of city gates. Many of our existing towns are very pleasant and offer opportunities for extension into veritable garden cities. They possess great advantages in having a history and traditions and a civic entity. Such towns wisely developed to a plan embodying the same general principles as those to which I have already referred, with perhaps such reconstruction as will make the new blend with the old without destroying the historic core, may be made ideal places for industry and healthy living. A garden city is self-contained in a high degree, and this principle applied to existing towns means that each unit of civic life should have its clearly marked boundaries and be of a comprehensible size. It will then be possible to have large groups of authorities joining to form one unit of local government to plan and control inter-urban matters so that each part may be developed in the most efficient way. At the same time the general plan will provide for keeping the parts distinct, and the inhabitants of the local centres should be left freedom to plan, develop, and govern their own place with as much individuality as they desire to express, provided that their schemes fit into the general framework. It may be felt that in this paper I have given too much attention to rather intangible things, which on the surface appear perhaps to be somewhat unpractical. My answer is that the difficult times we are passing through strongly impress on one that if in the past a little more attention had been given to social psychology, the lives of communities might have been arranged so as to run a great deal more happily and smoothly than they have done; far less energy would have been required to be expended in continual readjustments, and much conflict involving huge cost in wasted effort and money might have been avoided. The advocates of the garden city have seen that industry cannot function economically (that is, with full efficiency and without wasteful and harassing friction) unless those engaged in it are given the opportunity for healthy living both of body and mind. Their ideal therefore is to provide towns that are so planned that life and labour can be carried on under the most favourable conditions possible. |
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| CHAPTER III THE TOWN AND THE BEST SIZE FOR . . . of a size that makes possible a full By RAYMOND UNWIN
In considering the size of a city from the point of view of the best social or cultural unit, it would be neither possible nor desirable to ignore the underlying economic conditions; these vary materially in their effect both on the actual size for the best economic unit and on the class of population, which is an important consideration in regard to the best social unit. There are, for example, industrial concerns which it has proved an economic advantage to develop on so large a scale that they employ sufficient people to represent the normal working population of a city containing from 80,000 to 100,000 inhabitants. It is undesirable that a city should consist entirely of a population interested in and dependent upon one industrial concern. Economically it is very dangerous, and socially it must have a tendency to a narrow and one-sided outlook on the part of the citizens. The social disadvantage has been particularly apparent in some large colliery towns where there is comparatively little variety in the character of employment afforded by the single industry, where it is particularly difficult to develop any social life and culture having a wider basis of interest than the pits and their working. If decided economic advantage is permanently to be associated with industrial undertakings on the scale which requires from 10,000 to 20,000 workers, we must expect that there will be numerous cases in which a limit of population that might be most advantageous for a city depending on mixed industries would be altogether too small to give the full social and cultural advantages aimed at. The difficulty of the very large industry might, no doubt, be met to some extent by the grouping of cities of smaller size, so that several of them might be sufficiently near to serve one of these large industrial undertakings, in addition to some mixed industries of their own, and in this way the dilution of the population dependent on one industry could be secured without requiring a city unit of abnormal size. There are conditions varying considerably in different places which may affect the best unit of size for a town from the economic point of view. There is usually some unit for a city population for which the various necessary services, such as transport or water-supply, can be provided at the least cost per head of population; and if the town grows much beyond the size of that unit the cost may increase. For instance, to sink wells to secure a water-supply for each house would be very costly, and it would usually be much cheaper per head to provide an adequate water-supply for a population of 50,000 or 100,000 people; but at some such figure the water available in the immediate neighbourhood may be exhausted and the supplies necessary for a further increase of population may only be obtainable at a greatly increased cost. It is found that in cities like New York to increase the supply of water to meet its growing population may cost four or five times as much per head as formerly was the case. Not only is this true, but the needs of the population in some cases show a high ratio of relative increase as compared with the numbers. This applies notably to passenger traffic facilities, the total number of journeys, or the average number of journeys per head of population, seem to increase in large cities faster than the square of the increase of population. If, in addition to this, the cost per head of providing traffic facilities increases, as it undoubtedly does with the increase in the size of the city, we have a considerable total increase in the cost of assisting citizens to move about arising from an increase of population beyond the most economical unit. Mr John Lothrop has recently stated that while New York was increasing in population about 30 per cent., the cost of installing traffic facilities increased about 400 per cent. There are other facilities - the telephone is perhaps the most obvious - in which the increased population necessarily so complicates a system that the cost per head tends to increase with the increased population, although it is true that the opportunities given to each subscriber are enormously greater. These may, however, be opportunities which the majority of subscribers do not utilise. The number of friends with whom any subscriber ordinarily communicates is probably not much greater in London than it would be in a town of 50,000 inhabitants, but as the head of the American Telephone and Telegraph recently is reported to have said:
These increasing costs tend to make the great city uneconomical as a unit of population At the same time it must be recognised that the increased size of the unit of population very greatly enhances the opportunities of gain to the fortunate among large sections of the trading and professional citizens, and this is no doubt the reason why, in spite of much economic difficulty, our great cities continue to grow. It is, however, by no means clear that the increase of economic or financial opportunity to these individuals applies to the population generally; and, to some extent at least, the general population is probably bearing the cost of the increase of size beyond the most economic unit, while the advantages of that increase are going mainly to a limited number of successful traders. The opportunities for gain for all the population may be increased; at the same time it may be equally true that the life of the majority is rendered harder, and that only the minority really enjoy the advantages. If this be the case, it would seem that life in the overgrown towns has become some thing of a gamble, and results in sacrificing the welfare of the majority of citizens to increase the winnings of those who are fortunate in what may perhaps be called the city sweepstake. It is very important that we recognise clearly the distinction between economic advantages which are shared by the whole population, due to their living and working together, and opportunities for greater individual gain which are afforded to a limited number as the result of bringing an ever-increasing population within reach of their activities. The former is a permanent force conferring a general advantage and giving a more generous economic basis upon which life and culture may flourish. The second has no such general economic value. It merely introduces into the economic basis a larger element of uncertainty and a more unequal distribution of advantages. The subject of the economic efficiency of towns of different size has not received such study as would enable any definite figures to be fixed for the average size that would give to every citizen a supply of the necessary services and conveniences at the least cost in labour per head of population. It is most desirable that this subject should receive more careful investigation, and that some realisation by the whole of the citizens of what it may cost them per head if they allow their cities to go on growing indefinitely should be made possible. Economic efficiency is a factor of importance because it must be the basis of social life, but it cannot be considered alone. There are many advantages in city life, and also many disadvantages - social, educational, and hygienic - the securing or avoiding of which may be well worth some sacrifice on the economic plane, should that be called for. It is desirable, therefore, to consider the question of size independently from the point of view of social life and culture. We have already seen that there can be no one ideal limit of number to afford the best social opportunities, because this number will vary with the variety of employment available and other factors bearing upon the character and average level of education of the population. No exact figure either can represent the most economical unit, the one, that is, which will give the greatest number of conveniences and opportunities to the whole population with the least expenditure of time and labour. An examination of both the problems will show a certain range of limits rather than any particular limit. One may expect to find that, both economically and socially, increasing population will clearly show improved efficiency and opportunities up to a certain figure, as, e.g., 50,000; that according to circumstances the improvement may continue in one or both up to about 75,000; and that thereafter there might be a slight diminution in efficiency varying according to circumstances which would become marked at about 150,000 inhabitants; and that for given circumstances the most satisfactory and efficient size might lie somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 population. In one case it might easily happen that the full cultural opportunities would be reached at 50,000, whereas the full economic efficiency was only reached at 100,000; and it should be recognised that the economic efficiency is so important as a basis of social and cultural opportunities that within limits which did not appreciably injure the social efficiency of the community it would be difficult, and perhaps from the practical point of view impossible, to limit the size of a city to a less figure than would represent full economic efficiency. On the other hand, if it were found that the most economical point indicated a smaller city than that which would give full cultural opportunities, it might well be worth while for the citizens to make some sacrifice to secure the greater opportunities. From cities of 50,000 to cities which are numbered in millions there is such an enormous range of size that it is difficult to find a limiting figure; but so great a student of men and life as Lord Bryce, than whom few men could be quoted who would set a higher value on the opportunities of culture, has suggested that the desirable size for a city would be from 50,000 to 70,000 people, and that it is doubtful whether cultural advantages of any kind will result from cities over 100,000 in population which could compensate for the sacrifices which they must entail. It is worth while to examine a few of the conditions of life, taking the smallest number mentioned. To begin with education; in a city with a population of 50,000 there would be approximately 10,000 within the ages devoted to education. This would involve a staff of 300 to 400 teachers at least. While such a population might not itself afford the specialised opportunities for study and instruction on a university level, it is clear that there would be a sufficient number of scholars and teachers to allow very efficient organisation of education and provide for an ample variety of accomplishment. In this country boroughs having a population of 10,000 and urban districts having a population of 20,000 are recognised as Educational Authorities both for elementary and secondary purposes; and there can be no doubt that any ordinary town of a mixed population numbering from 50,000 to 75,000 which would include places like Chester, Exeter, Lincoln, York, Dudley, or Burton-on-Trent, could provide educational facilities which, as regards elementary and secondary education certainly, would be equal to anything which larger cities could offer: such towns could also provide a considerable amount of specialised education both technical and artistic. In the realms of higher university education, or the more complicated and advanced branches of technical training, larger centres of population might have some advantage, one, however, which could equally be secured by groups of towns of the size mentioned. Indeed, many of the most advanced teaching centres are not found in large towns, but depend for their support on students drawn from many towns, or even from the whole area of the country. Looked at from another point of view, it will be found that even in a town having a population as small as 50,000, the majority of the children will attend schools situated in the particular part of the town in which they live, and will only in their later years begin to attend classes which depend on the whole of the town. As the size of a town grows this decentralisation extends to all the educational facilities, and, to a large extent also, to all recreational and social institutions, so that it is only to a very limited extent that the majority of the people in a very large town secure any cultural or social advantage due to its actual size. A limitation of the scale of certain elaborate entertainments would be likely to be imposed by a general limitation of the size of towns. The very expensive productions of plays, operas, and other performances which can only be paid for by a very large number of attendances, continued through long runs, would not be practicable in towns of 50,000 to 100,000 population. But it is by no means clear that this would involve any appreciable loss to genuine culture. In fact, there are many who consider that the conditions imposed by productions on such an extravagant scale have proved very detrimental to dramatic art, and efforts have been made in recent years to develop smaller theatres depending on local groups. Already in some Canadian cities the theatres are removing from the centre to the suburbs, and we have in our own country such examples as the Everyman Theatre at Hampstead, which is a theatre of high cultural value. The development of music is notoriously independent of the large aggregations of population. Many towns of quite small size have become famous as the homes of musical movements, periodical festivals, schools of instruction, or orchestras reaching a very high degree of executive skill. The beautiful building known as the Mozarteum in Salzburg, connected with which is a great teaching school and an extensive, highly skilled orchestra, may be quoted as an example; while the musical festivals of Hereford and the development of music and pageantry at Glastonbury may be given as further examples. Both music, the pageant, folk-dancing, and many other forms of entertainment are characterised by affording very large opportunities for the public to share in the preparation of the performances, and they naturally spring up in the smaller towns or in definitely localised parts of larger cities, where there is sufficient general intercourse among a limited and varied population to bring about such efforts at self-entertainment and expression. Such, forms of spontaneous entertainment have an educational and cultural value which probably far outweighs the loss of some opportunities which a large centre of population might afford for viewing highly specialised performances. Each element of social life could be examined in like manner, but enough has been said to suggest that the value of the overgrown town because of its greater opportunities for witnessing the greatest skill and talent has been overrated, and insufficient allowance has been made for the necessary opposite result, namely, that the overgrown town tends to restrict the opportunities of development to a few fortunate people, whereas a number of smaller towns would give a more limited opportunity to a much larger number to develop their full capacities. As regards social life and culture, it would appear that a group of towns of from 50,000 to 100,000 population, having good means of communication from one to the other, and recognising one capital city which would be the centre of those highly specialised activities which must draw from a large population, will afford nearly all the advantages which have hitherto been associated with the very large town. At the same time the limitation of the size of each of these units, and their proper arrangement so that every citizen would be within walking distance of open country, would give those opportunities of quiet and peaceful contemplation which are so sadly wanting to the majority of dwellers in our great towns, who must live in the midst of noise, bustle, and confusion, almost unceasing, during the greater part of their lives. Though it is not easy to define, the influence of constant contact with open country is very great. Pleasure and interest of the most wholesome kind come from watching the growing of crops, the rearing of animals, and the ever varying succession of the seasons, each with its special beauty; and there is little doubt that the more definite advantages which may be gained by town life should be sought with the very minimum of sacrifice of this intimate contact with nature. There is one point which should not be overlooked in regard to size. The higher the general level of education and intelligence, the smaller need be the city unit which will give the greatest cultural and social opportunities. If the whole population have sufficient education and culture to appreciate music, the drama, and the higher arts of life generally, a relatively small number will provide the highly skilled few who can be leaders and instructors for their fellows in the different arts and sciences, and a small population only will be required to support the necessary institutions for giving expression to these arts. With regard to the second point of the possibility of limiting the growth of cities, it should be recognised that this is no new proposal. European cities in the Middle Ages, and even up to comparatively recent times, were definitely limited in size by their fortifications, and frequently no building was permitted within a zone of considerable width outside those fortifications. The desire for safety proved a sufficiently strong inducement to secure this limitation. In the case of more modern cities also, examples of definite limitation in certain directions by of large open spaces are common, and instances of more definite limitation - as in the belt which was left around the original city of Adelaide - are not wanting. If the population sufficiently wish for the limitation, there is not much doubt that it can be secured; but a mere negative policy of fixing a limit would be likely by itself to fail; definite and attractive provision should be made at the same time for the increasing population, otherwise the pressure of public opinion would be likely soon to break through the bounds which had been laid down. Therefore to provide for attractive satellite cities in sufficient number and conveniently placed must be part of the policy of limitation, and indeed will probably have to precede the fixing of any limit in the case of existing towns. The limitation would naturally take the form of the reservation of a certain area of land around the city to be kept free from buildings. And in the first instance, in connection with existing towns the belt reserved may tend to be of inadequate width, and suburbs instead of satellite cities may grow up nearer to the parent city than is desirable. It cannot be expected that so great a change in the policy of city development as would be involved by the recognition that the ideal size of a city lies between 50,000 and 100,000, and that, as Lord Bryce expresses it, "the great thing is to arrest the growth of cities beyond 200,000," at which size we must regard them as overgrown, can be brought about suddenly. The important matter is to secure a general recognition of what is desirable and to work towards it as rapidly as possible. |
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| CHAPTER IV THE TOWN AND AGRICULTURE .
. . surrounded by a permanent belt By Sir THEODORE G. CHAMBERS, K.B.E.
One of the lessons of the Great War was the need of increasing the supply of home-grown food. How nearly Great Britain came to grief between 1914 and 1918 owing to its not being self-supporting few seem to be aware. The menace of the German submarine campaign caused those in authority some of their most anxious hours during the war. If, in the future, we are to increase materially our home-grown food, it is necessary to attract and to keep upon the land a very much larger proportion of our population than we have there to-day, and in many ways our systems of food production must be modified. The danger to a State of the depopulation of its rural districts together with an inordinate growth of its cities has been recognised by many before our time. It has been a subject of concern to statesmen throughout history. Six times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries efforts were made to check the growth of Paris. During the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts the emigration from the rural districts of England and the rapid growth of the towns were sources of anxiety to those who saw ahead. In Germany also serious attempts have been made to retain labour on the land by preventing the freedom of movement of the population; but all legislative methods proved futile. Direct legislation is not, however, likely to be advocated in these days to remedy the depopulation of the countryside and the congestion of the cities. We must look rather for a policy which will promote conditions which will automatically and naturally check the forces which at present repel people from the country and attract them to the cities, and set up reverse forces which will attract industry to settle and develop in rural surroundings under improved conditions, and at the same time not only keep the present rural workers on the land, but add to their numbers. It is interesting to note, from a study of the planning of ancient and medieval cities and towns, that in times past the proper relationship of agricultural land to the city was often carefully considered and provided for. Sites for towns were chosen and their plans prepared with due regard to this relationship. The original nucleus of the city was oftentimes the market-place which served the economic needs of the surrounding agricultural district. Most of the older county towns in England were the centres which served the inhabitants of certain areas for the interchange of their produce, for the performance of their commercial, social, and administrative functions - places where people met on certain occasions, coming in from the surrounding country to buy or sell, to discuss or to administer their general affairs. The great cities of to-day are, with few exceptions, the growth of the industrial age, the result of concentration upon manufacturing processes within brick walls. The are modern atrocities. The fatal divorce between agricultural and urban life which has resulted, and the consequent demoralisation of both rural and urban communities, is a nineteenth century development in the main, and it has been a divorce with highly important and injurious influences. In the year 1851 the population of England and Wales was about equally divided between town and country. An aggregate population of about 9,000,000 people lived in some 580 towns. About the same number lived in the country. Even at this date the economic interests of the townspeople and the rural dwellers were often incompatible, but the equal distribution of the population did not give a preponderance of power to the one or the other. With the growth of the cities and the gradual increase of the proportion of townsmen to country folk the power of the industrial population was not felt immediately. It was largely counterbalanced by the political power and prestige of the landed classes, which enabled rural economic interests to be upheld against the growing weight of the commercial and industrial economic interests. But by the end of the century the growth of the towns made the State predominantly urban, and with the diminution of the power of the landed classes, due to various causes, there is little doubt that agricultural interests suffered neglect. At the date of the last census - 1921 - we find 79.3 per cent. of the population of England and Wales living in urban districts, while only 20.7 per cent. were living in rural districts; and while we have to note that these terms urban and rural districts are to a large extent merely empirical divisions of area which do not always coincide with fact, nevertheless it is certain that this separation of the inhabitants of a State into two camps, with different and often opposed economic conceptions, must be a grave danger. This will be especially the case when the predominant political power passes into the hands of the industrial population, many of whom by the circumstances of their lives cannot know or appreciate how vital is the maintenance of agriculture and food production to the well-being of the State. The segregation of the people into these two groups is also permanently injurious to the race, in that the cities naturally attract the most enterprising the most gifted individuals from the rural districts through the superior advantages they offer to those with intelligence and driving power. In the towns these individuals tend to deteriorate. To quote the report of the "Verney" Committee of 1916:
The present-day city system is thus seen to have a definitely dysgenic influence in that it acts continuously as an agency first for the selection and then for the destruction of the fittest of the race. Before leaving the agricultural aspect of the rural belt a word or two is necessary as to the treatment of the land. Generally speaking it may be said that that kind of agriculture should be carried on which will best help the city itself. If the soil is suitable a considerable area will be required to provide the milk supply. Fruit and vegetables will have a ready market and should be profitable. The near presence of a community will give intensive cultivation its opportunity. Low cost of transport to the consumer acts as a preferential tariff against imported produce. Poultry, ducks, pigs, the rearing and keeping of which demands considerable labour, will provide a healthy and part- time occupation for a number of the inhabitants of the city if they take sufficient trouble, and it will be profitable also if they do not pay too meticulous attention to the time they spend. But whatever be the type of food production which will suit the city best, the actual user of the land will be ultimately determined largely by the character of the soil and its suitability for one purpose or another. We must now turn to another, and in some respects a not less important, function of the rural belt of the garden city. The belt is necessary to protect the city from encroachments and from the injurious effect of bad planning or overcrowding of houses upon the land in its immediate vicinity. One of the essentials of the garden city is the ownership the freehold of the entire area by those who have the control of its destiny. In this ownership of the entire area lies the ability to plan the city properly and also the elements of financial success. In planning the city there must be reserved surrounding the built-up portion a protective belt owned by the city but not built upon. This belt will serve the agricultural needs of the city and fulfil the requirements we have discussed in the first part of this chapter. The fact that the belt is not built upon will, if the belt is judiciously selected and if it is of a sufficient width, prevent the land beyond it, which is not owned by the city authorities, from being built upon. Thus the existence of a rural belt round the city in the ownership of the city maintains a very much wider belt beyond, which will extend until the next urban area is reached. From the economic and social standpoints the agricultural belt will thus be practically all that surrounding country which comes within the sphere of influence of the city or in any way enters into relationship with it. It is this protective function of the city's belt which will mainly determine its precise area, its position and width. It must be widest where protection is most needed. It may be narrower or even omitted where there exists some natural barrier to development, such as river or marsh, mountain or moor. Along main roads or canals or avenues of approach a considerable frontage should be reserved - that is to say, the belt must be wide, since development will often run along narrow channels where transport and ease of access may encourage demand. Generally speaking the width of the belt at any given point must be such as will prevent a demand arising for the land beyond the area owned by the city, which, if satisfied, would break the unity of the city. If the best conditions are to be maintained this unity must be absolute. The actual amount of land to be retained by the city undeveloped by building will depend upon the size and growth of the city, and it may be affected to some extent by financial considerations. It must not be an amount so excessive in its relationship to the area which will be developed as to throw an undue burden on the resources of the city. The revenue from the rural lands will probably be insufficient to meet the proportionate interest upon its capital value at the rate which the financing of the enterprise will demand. It will therefore be inadvisable for the belt to be any larger than is actually necessary for the preservation of the town and the maintenance of the rural character of the hinterland. Again, the rural belt need not be fixed irrevocably and finally. There must be a belt permanently, but it need not be strictly a permanent belt. As the city grows, and provided the maximum limit of size has not been exceeded, the original belt may be built upon if the city has secured the freehold of land further out which can be substituted for the original belt in order to maintain its essential character. It is in this maintenance of a belt permanently to protect the city that the greatest skill and watchfulness must be exercised by the city authorities. It is impossible to-day to forecast what will be the population of the ideal city in the years to come. This will depend upon what unit of population in the future can maintain the most efficient civic machinery and the most lively civic spirit. Nevertheless, while reserving the right to extend the area of particular garden cities in the future to meet changed conditions, it will be necessary for the city architect to know the boundaries of the city, and yet while working within these boundaries he will maintain a certain elasticity of mind and prepare as far as he can, and where it is possible, for future outward growth. It has to be borne in mind that the further the city spreads from its centre the greater will be the area available for development with each equal extension of the radius. We have thus seen that the rural belt is one of the most significant and important characteristics of the garden city. That it is indeed so essential to the conception of the garden city as to be regarded as axiomatic, for without it the garden city of to-morrow would not be radically different in its nature economically and socially from the cities of yesterday. |
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| CHAPTER V THE TOWN AND LAND .
. . the whole of the land being in public By R. L. REISS
To understand the reasons for this, it will be necessary to discuss briefly the general question of land ownership and development. The term "land" is used both in practice and in Acts of Parliament in a number of different senses. Thus it is often used to include not merely the actual ground but all the buildings upon it, and in certain instances even machinery in a factory. For our present purpose, however, the term "land" is applied to the ground only. Again, the phrase "land value" or "value of land" is also used with a number of different meanings. For our present purpose its meaning is the value of the land apart from any buildings on it. Generally speaking it is the market value, or the price that may be agreed as between a willing buyer and a willing seller. There are various elements in the making up of this value. First, there is the value as a site for building purposes or for a recreation ground or for any other purpose. This may depend upon its location, upon the beauty of the surrounding country, upon its proximity to a railway station and to shops, upon the size of the town and the amount of development taking place there, and upon the services which are provided, e.g. water, drainage, roads. This "site value" may also depend upon the amount of other land in the market. Secondly, there is the actual agricultural value of the land, which depends upon the nature and quality of the soil and its location in relation to markets and transport. In a there may be a sporting value, and in many cases a "sentimental" value or a value due to a supposed social position attaching to its ownership. For a long time social and economic effects of land ownership and the creation of land values have been the subject of acute controversy. There is a school which believes that national interests can only be served effectively by the ownership of all the land in the country being vested in the State. Others, while not going so far as this, nevertheless believe that a considerable increase in the municipal ownership of land is desirable. Again, there are those who believe that land values should be subject to special taxation, basing their case upon the argument that land increases in value through the activities of the public generally, and of local authorities, while the economic advantage accrues to the owner without a corresponding exertion or expenditure of capital on his part. For our present purpose it is unnecessary to balance the arguments for and against such proposals or to lay down any definite opinion upon the broad questions involved. Whatever opinions may be held upon such questions, there are certain propositions upon which there is general agreement, which, together with the results obtaining from them, are of vital importance in connection with the development of towns, and particularly in the creation of new garden cities or the extension of villages and small towns in such a way as to make them into garden cities. In the first place, land is a quasi-monopoly. There is a limited quantity of land in any given country, town, or place. Moreover, within each town there is a limited quantity of land suitable for any given purpose. The land monopoly differs from other monopolies such as arise in connection with the licensed trade, copyrights and patents, which are not monopolies because of their inherent characteristics, but become such through the action of the legislature. In the second place, land is immobile, and the use to which it is put is for the most part a permanent use and vitally affects other land and other people than the owners. As a result of the monopoly and immobility of land, land values may increase and decrease through circumstances over which the owner often has no control. It is true that the value of land may be increased by the judicious expenditure of capital on the part of the owner, but it is also true that it may increase or decrease for a number of different reasons. As a matter of history, the total value of land has steadily increased by a greater amount than is represented by the amount of capital expended upon it. At the same time, individual bits of land have decreased in value. Thus the value of land owned by A may be increased or diminished by the use to which his neighbour B puts his land. If B erects a well-designed house of substantial size, with a good garden to it, A's land may very likely be increased in value. If, on the other hand, B erects a factory upon his land or sells it for the erection of an elementary school, A's land, if a choice residential site, may be diminished in value. Again, the value of the land may be increased by the action of a local authority in carrying out a drainage scheme, by a railway company opening a new station, by the discovery of coal or the opening of a large factory in the neighbourhood. On the other hand, its value may be diminished by the local authority locating their sewage farm or isolation hospital in the immediate neighbourhood. It may also be increased or diminished in value because the town in which the land is situated is increasing in prosperity or is decaying. For example, the value of the land in Salisbury was increased by the development of that city during the Middle Ages, while the resulting decay of Old Sarum and of Wilton probably diminished the land values in those two places. Land may also acquire a special value owing to its "special adaptability for a given purpose." It may decrease in value owing to "severance," e.g. by a farm or a building estate being cut up. On the other hand, two or more bits of land may be increased in value as a whole through being joined together, e.g. the land purchased by the London County Council in connection with the Kingsway improvements, which acquired an additional value over and above that attributable to the actual capital expenditure on the making of new roads. Another effect of the peculiar qualities of land, and particularly urban land, is that the use to which it is put is, generally speaking, of a comparatively permanent nature. If the land is badly developed it often can only be replanned at enormous cost (e.g. slum areas such as the Boundary street area in Bethnal Green). Now, as most of the land of the country is and has been in private ownership, and as private individuals have, in the main, considered their own interests and not those of the community, land has been developed in an unsatisfactory way from the public point of view. Our towns have grown up gradually without plan, each individual owner utilising his land in such a way as to secure to him the greatest immediate advantage. Broadly speaking, towns may be divided into three categories:
Generally speaking, planning is worst in places where the control of the land has been split up among a number of different owners. Each individual treated his own land as an opportunity for making the most out of it. There has been no kind of co-operation and little consideration for the public interests. Public improvements of various kinds have had to be carried out at considerable expense, whether such improvement has been the widening of a street or the clearing of a slum area. Even in leasehold towns, where the freehold of the land is mainly owned by quite a few people, or possibly a single individual, this has to a large extent been the case. In some districts of such towns, however, where individual owners have owned a considerable portion of land, they have attempted to plan the development of their land with some idea of public advantage. But this has generally been done because the owner has had the imagination to see that such planning was also to his own interest. Examples of this may be seen in some of the big London estates, where portions of the lands owned by the Dukes of Bedford, Devonshire, and Westminster, Lords Portman, Northampton, and others, have in the past been laid out in squares and crescents. The larger the area owned by any particular owner in a developing town, the more chance he has of securing good development. Where, as at Eastbourne, practically all the land is owned by one person, and that person has retained the freehold and granted leaseholds, the opportunity for good planning has been in large measure taken advantage of. In certain of the towns in the West Riding of Yorkshire, however, where similar conditions have prevailed, the development has, nevertheless, not been any better than in freehold towns, the estates being developed to secure immediate results only and with out taking a long view. It has long been recognised by people of all parties that the ownership of land should be subjected to restrictions. Thus, the law provides that if a man use his land in such a way as to constitute a nuisance to his neighbour, the latter has a right of action against him; that a an can only develop his land for building purposes provided he complies with the building regulations and bye-laws with regard to roads and drains, designed to secure that buildings should have reasonable access of air and sunshine and should be properly drained. Moreover, the power of local authorities and, under certain circumstances, statutory companies such as railway companies, to purchase land for public purposes, compulsorily if necessary, has long been recognised in this country as elsewhere. These provisions, however, did not meet the requirements of the case. With the increasing recognition of the necessity for town planning, the Town Panning Acts of 1909 and 1919 were passed. These Acts recognised the public interest in the development of land. Municipalities were empowered to prepare town-planning schemes for the unbuilt portion of their area, and in certain cases contiguous areas, controlling the use to which each individual owner might put his land. Such schemes may limit certain land to industrial purposes, others to residential. They may provide for restrictions and regulations with regard to the construction of roads, the number of houses to the acre, and various kindred matters. These provisions may all be achieved without a local author purchasing any of the land itself. Whatever the value, however, of the Town Planning Acts as applied to the development of the outskirts of existing towns, they do not fully meet the requirements of the case where a garden city is being projected, or where it is the intention to extend an existing village or small town in such a way as to make it a garden city. The ordinary Rural District Council, which is the responsible local authority in such cases, can hardly be expected to have the imagination to prepare a complete town-planning scheme for the whole area where a new town is to be built. Moreover, the exercise of the Town Planning Acts does not deal satisfactorily with the increases and changes in land values. It is for this reason that those connected with the garden city movement, which has as its object the founding of new towns and the extension of small existing towns into garden cities, are agreed that "the whole of the land must be in public ownership or held in trust for the community." In the first place, there is great value in the whole of the land being in one ownership, because
In a word, the creation of land values will be in one hand. But it is not sufficient that the land should be in one ownership. The monopoly thus created must be used to public advantage. The predominating consideration in the preparation and carrying out of a town plan must be the interests of the town rather than the profit of individuals. Moreover, the excess of land values created over and above the amount required to cover the interest upon the capital cost of development must be used for the benefit of the town as a whole. These results can only be achieved by the whole of the fee-simple of the land not merely being in one ownership but in the ownership of some public body, whether Local Authority or the State, or else held by some person or body of persons in trust for the community. If this policy be adopted, then the following results can be achieved:
It will be seen that the garden city policy secures the main objects of those who advocate the taxation of land values and the nationalisation of the land, while at the same time it meets the objections of those who object to both proposals. The fact that people holding widely divergent views upon the land question generally have agreed upon this policy with regard to the creation of garden cities is the strongest evidence of its soundness. It remains to discuss briefly the relative merits of the land being in public ownership or being held by some body in trust for the community. Those who object to the nationalisation or the municipalisation of land assert that if public bodies engage in the business of land development they would be unlikely to exercise sufficient initiative or to carry out the business on sound lines. A common ground can be secured between the advocates of municipal ownership and its opponents if, during the initial stages whilst the town is being developed, the land is owned by a public company whose constitution limits the amount of interest or dividend that can be paid upon its capital, the remaining profits going to the community. When the town is developed the ownership can be taken over by the responsible Local Authority if such a course is deemed desirable. In other words, the best policy is probably for the land in the initial stages to be held in trust for the community and in the final stages to be owned by the community. It is unnecessary, however, to dogmatise upon this matter. |
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A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Garden City. By C. B. Purdom. London: 1918. Cities in Evolution. By Patrick Geddes. London: 1915. Some Papers and Addresses on Social Questions. By Sir Ralph Neville. London: 1920. Ancient Town Planning. By F. Haverfield. London: 1913. Medieval Town Planning. By T. F. Tout. London: 1917. Town Planning in Practice. By Raymond Unwin. London: 1909. Royal Institute of British Architects, Transactions of the Town Planning Conference. London: 1911. Architecture. By W. R. Lethaby. London: 1911. The Case for Town Planning. By H. R. Aldridge. London: 1915. The Improvement of the Dwellings and Surroundings of the People. (The Example of Germany.) By T. C. Horsfall. Manchester: 1904. Report of the South Wales Regional Survey Committee. H.M. Stationery Office. London: 1921. Garden Cities and Town Planning. Monthly. London. Town Planning Review. Quarterly. Liverpool. Town Planning Institute Papers. Yearly. London. What of the City ? By Walter D. Moody. Chicago: 1919. City Planning. By John Nolen. New York: 1916. Satellite Cities. By G. R. Taylor. New York: 1915. The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Statistics. By Adna Ferrin Weber. New York: 1899. Journal of the American Institute of Architects. Monthly. Washington. Proceedings of the National Conference on City Planning. Yearly. Boston. Housing Problems in America. Yearly. New York. Deutscher Städtebau en Böhmen. By Anton Hoenig. Berlin: 1921. Städtbaukunst Geschichtliche Querschnitte und Neuzeitliche Ziele. By Dr A. E. Brinckmann. Berlin: 1920. Handbuch des Wohnungswesens und der Wohnungsfrage. By Dr Rud. Eberstadt. Jena: 1920. Der Städtebau nach seinen küntlerischen Grundsatzen. By Camillo Sitte. Vienna: 1909. Der Städtebau. Monthly. Berlin. La Vie Urbaine. Quarterly. Paris. |
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