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ate Aki OF 
 TOWN PLANNING 
 
THE UNIVERSAL ART SERIES 
 Edited by FREDERICK MARRIOTT 
 
 HON. A.C.C.A. (LON.) R.B.C., A.R.E. 
 
 MODERN MOVEMENTS IN PAINTING 
 
 BY CHARLES MARRIOTT 
 DESIGN AND TRADITION sy amor FENN 
 SCULPTURE OF ‘TO-DAY sy XINETON 
 PARKES 
 
 Vol. I. Great Britain, America and Japan 
 Vol. II. The Continent of Europe 
 
 THE ART OF ILLUSTRATION) (ey se, 
 
 SULLIVAN 
 
 MODERN ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE 
 BY CHARLES MARRIOTT 
 
 LANDSCAPE PAINTING. sy c. Lewis HIND 
 Vol. I. From Giotto to Turner 
 
 Vol. II. From Turner to the Present Day 
 
 THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF OIL 
 PAINTING By HAROLD SPEED 
 

 

 
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 Ancient Rome as in the Sixteenth Century 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
THE ART OF 
 TOWN PLANNING 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY VAUGHAN 
 LANCHESTER 
 
 AB eho eet Se a a 
 
 LONDON 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL LTD. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 HE author desires to express his indebtedness 
 to those from whom he has taken the liberty of 
 making quotations in the course of this book, 
 
 and also to the following for providing the prints and 
 photographs from which the illustrations are taken : © 
 
 The Town Planning Institute, for the loan of 
 prints from their collection. 
 Aerofilms, Ltd., for aeroplane photographs of 
 English towns. 
 Hamilton Maxwell, for aeroplane photographs 
 of American towns. 
 Compagnie Aérienne Frangaise, for aeroplane 
 photographs of Versailles and Carcassonne. 
 The Editors of the Town Planning Review, for 
 blocks originally employed in that publication. 
 The Birmingham Corporation, for Illustrations 
 39 and 4o. 
 The Birmingham Civic Society, for the plan of 
 Northfield. 
 The arrangement of the illustrations follows as far as 
 practicable the treatment of the subjects to which they 
 refer in the letterpress. 
 

 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Part I: History 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. 
 
 Eis 
 
 The Ancient Civilisations 
 
 Grzeco-Roman ‘Town Planning 
 
 . Medizeval Cities 
 
 . Developments in Britain 
 . The Renaissance 
 
 . Aristocratic Planning 
 
 . The Industrial Age and After 
 
 Romanticism 
 
 Part II: THE PRESENT Day 
 
 IX. 
 
 Civic Hygiene 
 
 . Preliminary Studies 
 . Communications 
 
 . Allocation of Areas 
 . Planning for Commerce and Industry 
 . Housing 
 
 . Education and Recreation 
 
 . Civic and Social Centres 
 
 Vil 
 
 PAGE 
 
 105 
 
 126 
 
 144 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Parks and Open Spaces 
 The Furnishing of the City 
 
 Scale and Proportion 
 
 . Tradition 
 
 . Town Planning in the Dominions 
 . Modern Practice | 
 
 . Social Demands 
 
 . Technical Methods 
 
 . The Esthetic Outlook 
 
 Vill 
 
 PAGE 
 
 158 
 170 
 178 
 185 
 196 
 206 
 216 
 223 
 231 
 
 237 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
NO. 
 
 ore iyiirtel ON 
 
 12. 
 
 b, 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ANCIENT ROME AS IN THE SIXTEENTH 
 CENTURY Frontispiece 
 
 . PLAN OF KaHUN, AN EGYPTIAN 'TOWN FOR 
 
 WORKERS 
 
 . THE ROMAN Harspour, OsTIA. FROM A 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY PRINT 
 
 . PROFESSOR G. MARCELLIANI’S MODEL OF 
 
 THE CAPITOL AND FORUM AT ROME 
 
 . Rome. From aA NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 DRAWING 
 
 . FLORENCE. MEDIZVAL AND LATER EXTEN- 
 
 SIONS AROUND THE ROMAN CITY 
 
 TURIN. '[HE ROMAN PLAN EXTENDED UP TO 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY FORTIFI- 
 CATIONS 
 
 CARCASSONNE. A MEDIZEVAL WALLED CITY 
 WURZBURG IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 . THE CASTLE AND ‘TOWN OF DUDLEY _ 
 . A MEDIAEVAL MARKET PLAcE. NUREMBERG 
 . DUREN, NEAR COLOGNE. FROM A PRINT 
 
 BY HOLLAR 
 
 RAVENSBURG, A ‘TOWN EXTENDED DURING 
 THE MIDDLE AGES ON RECTANGULAR 
 LINES 
 
 PaDUA. SHOWING THE ORIGINAL AND 
 ENLARGED CITY 
 
 X1 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 12 
 13 
 16 
 17 | 
 20 
 
 21 
 26 
 27 
 30 
 31 
 
 34 
 
 ap 
 
 40 
 
NO. 
 
 I4. 
 
 Ts: 
 
 16. 
 
 17. 
 18. 
 
 IQ. 
 
 20. 
 
 26. 
 
 yk 
 
 28. 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MILAN. SHOWING SUCCESSIVE ENLARGE- 
 MENTS OF CITY 
 
 SALISBURY. RECTILINEAR PLANNING IN THE 
 MIDDLE AGES 
 
 OXFORD EARLY IN THE #£NINETEENTH 
 CENTURY 
 
 IDEAL CiTy PLAN BY PERRET DE CHAMBERY 
 
 THE LAY-OUT OF A FRENCH PARK WHICH 
 INFLUENCED C1ITY PLANNING 
 
 VERSAILLES. CHARACTERISTIC FRENCH RE- 
 NAISSANCE PLAN 
 
 THE CaPITOL, WASHINGTON. 'THE CENTRAL 
 AVENUE STILL OBSTRUCTED 
 
 PLAN OF WASHINGTON, AS IMPROVED 
 
 . THE IMPROVEMENT SCHEME FOR WASHING- 
 
 TON. FROM A MODEL 
 
 . KARLSRUHE 
 . MANNHEIM, AS PLANNED AND FORTIFIED 
 
 IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 . SiR CHRISTOPHER WREN’S PLAN FOR RE- 
 
 BUILDING LONDON 
 BATH AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINE- 
 TEENTH CENTURY 
 
 BATH. (GEOMETRICAL PLANNING FOR BUILD- 
 INGS APPROPRIATE TO THIS ‘T'YPE 
 
 CHELTENHAM. (GEOMETRICAL PLANNING 
 LACKING ITS PROPER EMPHASIS OWING 
 TO DETACHED CHARACTER OF BUILDINGS 
 
 Xi 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 AI 
 46 
 
 47 
 50 
 
 51 
 54 
 
 55 
 58 
 
 59 
 62 
 
 63 
 64 
 65 
 
 66 
 
 67 
 
NO. 
 
 29. 
 30. 
 
 rine 
 9a 
 33- 
 
 34. 
 35. 
 
 36. 
 37: 
 38. 
 39. 
 40. 
 AI. 
 42. 
 43. 
 44. 
 
 45. 
 
 46. 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 EDINBURGH, SHOWING THE New ‘Town, 
 1766-1830 
 
 Ad 
 
 THe ‘* ARISTOCRATIC’’ PERIOD IN NEW- 
 
 CASTLE-ON-~ ['YNE 
 *‘ UTILITARIAN ”? DEVELOPMENT, BELFAST 
 ** UTILITARIAN ”? DEVELOPMENT, PRESTON 
 
 RIGIDLY MECHANICAL PLANNING, MIDDLES- 
 BROUGH 
 
 SouTH LONDON 
 
 BORDEAUX. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PLAN- 
 NING WITH SUBSEQUENT COMMERCIAL 
 ACCRETIONS 
 
 A GEORGIAN CRESCENT, HASTINGS 
 
 ELY. CATHEDRAL ENCIRCLED BY THE TOWN 
 ST. Mary REDCLIFFE, BRISTOL 
 
 BrIsTOL Roap, BIRMINGHAM 
 
 BIRMINGHAM. COLEBANK Roap. 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL QUARTER OF READING 
 SOUTHAMPTON. AN AEROPLANE Map 
 Lucknow. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 
 
 LIVERPOOL. A COMMERCIAL CENTRE TAKING 
 THE PLACE OF AN OBSOLETE DOCK 
 
 City oF Dustin. New Town PLAN BY 
 ABERCROMBIE, KELLY AND KELLY 
 
 Tue L.C.C. EsTaTE AT BECONTREE. MODERN 
 HousING 
 
 Xili 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 70 
 
 71 
 74 
 75 
 
 78 
 79 
 
 84 
 85 
 Q2 
 93 
 104 
 
 105 
 
 118 
 
 11g 
 128 
 
 129 
 134 
 
 135 
 
NO. 
 
 47: 
 48. 
 49. 
 50. 
 st 
 52. 
 53: 
 
 54. 
 
 55: 
 
 56. 
 
 57: 
 ca: 
 
 59. 
 60. 
 61. 
 
 62. 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OxFORD. BUILDINGS DOMINATING THE PLAN 
 AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WELL STUDIED 
 
 CAMBRIDGE COLLEGES 
 
 SouTH KENSINGTON. SHOWING AXIAL 
 
 PLANNING, BUT FAILURE IN REGARD TO 
 VISTAS 
 
 WatTER EFFECT. ‘THE EXHIBITION AT SAN 
 FRANCISCO, IQI5 
 
 A HemicycLe. ‘THE EXHIBITION AT SAN 
 FRANCISCO, IQI5 
 
 Water EFFECT. ‘THE EXHIBITION AT SAN 
 FRANCISCO, IQI5 
 
 WESTMINSTER. AN OLD CENTRE LARGELY 
 RE-MODELLED 
 
 CARDIFF CIVIC CENTRE, WITH CITY HALL, 
 Law Courts, Musrtum, UNIVERSITY 
 AND OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS 
 
 VIENNA. BEFORE THE REMOVAL OF THE 
 FORTIFICATIONS 
 
 VIENNA. ‘THE RINGSTRASSE LAID OUT ON THE 
 SITE OF THE INNER FORTIFICATIONS 
 
 LEAMINGTON, WITH ITS RIVER PARKWAY 
 THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, WASHINGTON 
 
 PARKS AND PARKWAY SYSTEM, BosTOoNn, U.S.A. 
 
 FORMAL ENTRANCE TO A PARK 
 FROM THE EXHIBITION AT SAN FRANCISCO, 
 Igt5 
 
 172 
 
 AMIENS. ‘TRANSITION FROM THE MEDIZEVAL | 
 
 TO THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 X1V 
 
 173 
 
“I 
 ms 
 
 77: 
 ahee 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 . NORTHFIELD, NEAR BIRMINGHAM. PRESERV- 
 
 ING THE AMENITY OF THE OLD VILLAGE 
 
 . Moscow. RADIAL AND RING ROADS WELL 
 
 DEFINED 
 
 . ABINGDON. A TYPICAL COUNTRY TOWN 
 
 HANOVER. A ‘T'ypicAL MEDIZEVAL STREET 
 
 . [THE ACCEPTED PLAN FOR CANBERRA, THE 
 
 CAPITAL OF FEDERATED AUSTRALIA 
 
 . SCHEME FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE 
 
 CENTRAL AREA, Mapras ‘TOWN 
 
 . PLAN OF THE NEW DELHI 
 
 THE Fort AT DELHI 
 
 INDIAN PLAN FOR A CITY, WITH ‘Two MaINn 
 ‘TEMPLES AND 'T'ANKS 
 
 . BATAVIA, AS PLANNED BY THE DUTCH 
 . A TEMPLE AND TANK, CHIDAMBARAM, SOUTH 
 
 INDIA 
 
 . A Mosque AND TANK, ‘TIRUVANAMALAI, 
 
 SouTH INDIA 
 
 . RECONSTRUCTION OF TOKYO 
 . AROUND CENTRAL PARK, NEW YorkK. DE- 
 
 VELOPMENT WITHOUT REGULATION 
 SKYSCRAPERS AND BRIDGES, NEw YORK 
 THE SHELTON HOTEL, NEw YorK 
 
 XV 
 

 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 HE claim has been made that town planning is 
 
 simply one aspect of the art of architecture, but, 
 
 though these arts have much in common, the 
 cognate relationship between architecture and sculpture 
 does not preclude us from attempting to draw a line of 
 demarcation between them, and such a line can also be 
 drawn between architecture and town planning. With 
 the tendency towards a more extended technique that 
 we find in all the arts, it has become desirable to sub- 
 divide them as much as possible in order to do justice 
 to the characteristics of every branch. 
 
 The claim of architecture as the dominant art in 
 town planning can hardly be resisted, being, as it is, 
 based on the axiom that the design of buildings in 
 relation to each other is just as much an architectural 
 question as the treatment of the buildings themselves, 
 but, apart from this, there are other considerations that 
 enter into the town planner’s programme, not hitherto 
 regarded as within the architect’s province, such as 
 horticulture and arboriculture, and the still more 
 important one of achieving a harmonious relationship 
 between nature and the works of man. Then again, to 
 turn to the practical and economic side, many problems 
 arise for solution on the ground of fitness that cannot 
 be regarded as architectural in character. 
 
 But, it may be argued, this does not establish the 
 claim of town planning to a place among the arts, as it 
 may still be considered under the heads of the separate 
 ones which it employs. The logic of this contention 
 need not be discussed, there being many other com- 
 
 XVII b 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 posite arts, such as drama and the opera, which it has 
 always been customary to review in their integrity, and 
 thus no apology is needed for the inclusion of town 
 planning in this category. 
 
 Did the matter end here nothing more would need 
 to be said, but we have still to deal with the “ prac- 
 tical? man who will affirm that what we are pleased to 
 term an art is really no more than the convenient 
 arrangement of site and buildings to meet the demands 
 of the time, and that though we may embellish this or 
 that feature the basic principles are purely economic 
 and hygienic. Such a position, though often taken up, 
 perhaps from a spirit of reaction against the affectations 
 and casual fashions that pass themselves off as artistic 
 developments, would, if pushed to its logical conclu- 
 sion, involve the affirmation that art of all kinds is a 
 fiction. If art has a part in anything, it has one in 
 everything, and while the tendency of the age has been 
 to exclude it from many of its legitimate fields, it is still 
 possible to uphold its position in a case where both 
 tradition and custom recognise its influence. 
 
 It is curious to notice the tendency at the present 
 time to regard the arts, not as embracing an attitude 
 towards life, but as only to be taken note of at recognised 
 times and seasons, if at all. We fill our house with 
 interesting pictures, or our garden with carefully 
 selected flowers, or maybe go, with mind attuned to 
 appreciation and criticism, to pageant or play, but 
 meanwhile pay no attention to the aspect of our streets 
 and buildings, which demand our notice with greater 
 urgency in that they are not there to be accepted or 
 refused, but are an essential influence, for good or bad, 
 
 XViil 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 on our every-day life. Until we realise that art is not a 
 thing to be taken in specified doses at specified times 
 the ideal of the city as a thing of beauty in all its aspects 
 will receive but scant recognition. 
 
 The first part of this book deals at some length with 
 the history of the growth of towns, and the validity of 
 this form of approach to the subject may be called in 
 question. From those who have not felt an interest in 
 this aspect for its own sake, a demand may come for a 
 justification of what, perhaps, will appear to them a 
 disproportionate expansion in this respect. It might 
 be urged that as our concern is with our city in the 
 present, why then should we travel back through the 
 ages and discuss the efforts of those whose ideas and 
 practice were utterly different from our own? Now, 
 apart from the fact that there are similarities as well as 
 differences, a general retrospective view is the very best 
 basis from which to secure an insight into the problems 
 of our own day. As with all arts, we must obtain some 
 impression of technique, and this impression is most 
 easily acquired historically. Thus only can we see how 
 the conditions of life influence man and his work, and 
 how he, in turn, modified these conditions. 
 
 Moreover, apart from being the best, this is also the 
 most interesting and dramatic approach. The imagina- 
 tive effort in reconstructing and repeopling the past 
 well repays the effort it demands, and gives a power of 
 visualisation which is of inestimable value ; nay, indeed, 
 is indispensable to those who would make a mental 
 picture of the future. It is the past, in relation to the 
 present, that helps us with a clue as to how the present 
 may develop in time to come. 
 
 X1X 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 As will be obvious, it is impossible within the limits 
 of this book to give more than a slight sketch of civic 
 activities and the material forms they took. All that 
 can be offered is a mere outline, which the reader must 
 fill in with life and colour according to his interpreta- 
 tion of history and all that it means politically, socially, 
 architecturally, and sartorially. It is not enough to 
 reinstate the ruined and fragmentary buildings. ‘The 
 demand is for a mental reconstruction of the entire life 
 of the times, and while there is any amount of guidance 
 towards this end in our picture galleries, museums and 
 books, it requires a definite mental effort to secure the 
 needful visualisations. If this effort be made it will 
 more than repay itself in opening up a new outlook 
 towards what has probably been regarded as a mass of 
 inchoate knowledge unrelated to a definite programme. 
 The study of town planning gives us such a programme, 
 and, besides providing a key to what has taken place in 
 the past, itself gains a greater interest through the 
 recognition of the historic basis on which it rests. 
 
PART eT 
 HISTORY 
 

 
CHAPTER I 
 The Ancient Civilisations 
 
 ROM the remote time when the first steps 
 towards a social order were taken men found it 
 convenient to devise some system for the 
 arrangement of their dwelling places, and thus we see 
 that this art, though it has so recently found a name, is 
 prehistoric, and as we can regard this term as connoting 
 different ages in different parts of the world, we are 
 able at the present time to study the most primitive 
 efforts in this direction along with those that are 
 typical of the highest degree of advancement yet 
 reached by ourselves and others, and are thus offered 
 the opportunity of comparing many phases of develop- 
 ment. These show us, not a continuous improvement 
 in a uniform direction, but, like all other aspects of 
 civilisation, movements towards objectives that are 
 always changing, whereby through long ages an advance 
 may be achieved, but which include shorter periods of 
 retrogression. The typical example of the steady flow 
 of the tide comprehending the onward and backward 
 sweep of the waves, though an old illustration, is too apt 
 a one to be passed over, and it will be seen that again 
 and again we can register a highly developed communal 
 organisation only to pass on to a breakdown in this, out 
 of which the succeeding one gradually takes shape, 
 sometimes on similar, but more often on dissimilar, 
 lines to that preceding it. 
 It is for us to trace these developments from their 
 earliest forms to the highly sophisticated demands of 
 
 3 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 our own time, this course being, if anything, more 
 essential to a clear comprehension of town planning than 
 of those arts less definitely based on social demands. 
 
 In some parts of the world the home is even now 
 the circular hut undivided internally, which may be 
 regarded as very nearly the most primitive form of 
 house, and which it will be realised makes but slight 
 demands on lay-out, all that is appropriate in such a 
 case being a reasonable space between one hut and 
 another. Notwithstanding this the group is a true 
 village, and when, moreover, it is enclosed with a 
 palisade, or other mode of defence, illustrates a type 
 the variations of which demand at least a passing 
 notice. 
 
 As there are now but few primitive tribes not under 
 the control of the dominant races, we shall have to go 
 far afield to find the fortified village, which was the 
 rule in former times. Possibly the earliest defences 
 were those against the predatory beasts, man’s original 
 competitors for the products of the earth, but long 
 before the days of which we have knowledge man fought 
 with man for the scanty subsistence that was to be 
 gained at such a stage, and the defences had to provide 
 against attack by rival groups. ‘The most general 
 expedient was the selection of a hill-top having a con- 
 formation that enabled a ditch and rampart to be 
 formed with the minimum of labour, as we must not 
 forget that the primitive tools available involved much 
 greater exertion in such work than would now be the 
 case. Elsewhere the protection of water was sought 
 for, and one type of lake village was developed by the 
 improvement or construction of a small island in some 
 
 4 
 
THE ANCIENT CIVILISATIONS 
 
 lake or lagoon by forming an encircling fence of timber 
 and wattle and consolidating the earth within this, so 
 as to provide a site for the group of huts. Where such 
 water was tidal it was a convenient agent for the removal 
 of refuse, a matter always a trouble with communities 
 in those remote times, as may be witnessed by the 
 kitchen-middens and other deposits that have disclosed 
 the locations of prehistoric settlements, and have inci- 
 dentally afforded valuable indications as to crafts and 
 habits. 
 
 The huts on low sites were built above the surface, 
 but in high and well-drained ground they were exca- 
 vated, the surface soil being formed into a low rampart 
 which carried the eaves of the circular roof that 
 radiated from a central post. The remains of such 
 structures can be traced in the “ hut circles’ on our 
 uplands, while good examples of the first-named type 
 were found in the lake villages at Glastonbury. At the 
 present day structures not very dissimilar may be found 
 in the Western Highlands, among the Esquimaux, and 
 among some of the peoples in tropical countries. 
 The limitations of our subject preclude the discussion 
 of points of detail in these buildings, but it should be 
 mentioned that the hill defences were elaborated by 
 making the entrances indirect and by duplicating, and 
 even triplicating, the encircling ditches and ramparts. 
 It has been suggested that the cattle were herded in the 
 outer ring, but it is more probable that they were 
 coralled in the centre, a practice maintained by the 
 Kaffirs to this day. 
 
 Thus we reach the conclusion that the factor exhibit- 
 ing itself earliest in communal planning is that of 
 
 5 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 defence, probably first against wild animals, then 
 against rival tribes, and that only subsequently does 
 the organised arrangement of dwellings appear, and, 
 Jater still, the provision of buildings for other purposes. 
 
 To follow up these phases and note how more 
 defined planning arose, the first point of interest that 
 strikes us is the fact that rectangular building derives 
 from the need for more than a single chamber, for we 
 find two-roomed huts of an oblong shape with circular 
 ends; practically two huts have coalesced and are 
 covered with a single roof oval in plan. This is the 
 first stage towards the rectangle that soon comes after 
 it, and instantly provokes the need to follow some 
 order in grouping. This order is at first only partial, 
 being dominated by already established routes, and 
 takes the form of a number of groups, each on lines 
 approximately parallel but at various angles to each 
 other, the primitive equivalent of much that we shall 
 find later on, wherever the routes have preceded the 
 buildings. 
 
 The next stage will be found to be a definitely 
 rectangular plan, which is the elementary scheme in all 
 ages for the plotting of a town; dwellings having 
 become rectangular, the streets follow suit, and the first 
 and most obvious pattern is a series of straight streets 
 separating uniform square blocks. Subsequently both 
 streets and “blocks were differentiated in size and 
 importance, in order to provide for buildings of varied 
 character, and also because it was seen that streets might 
 be placed farther apart in one direction than in the 
 other, thus leaving the islands oblong instead of square. 
 
 These oblongs have remained throughout the ages as 
 
 6 
 
THE ANCIENT CIVILISATIONS 
 
 the typical utilitarian plan for areas composed of 
 dwellings, the type and proportions of these not affect- 
 ing the requirements as to access, and the on'y variation 
 being that where conditions demand an approach to the 
 back of the house site the rectangular island is bisected 
 longitudinally by a subsidiary road. The monotony of 
 such a plan when employed by the ancient civilisations 
 was usually relieved by the siting of palaces, temples, 
 and other public buildings, and by the embellishment 
 of the more important centres and lines of route. 
 
 For towns of moderate size on fairly level sites the 
 practical advantages are in favour of a rectangular plan, 
 and by a certain amount of skilful modification it can 
 be made to meet the zesthetic demands as well, subject to 
 the proviso that marked natural features should dictate 
 appropriate departures from geometric design. Where 
 this has not been appreciated we may at once conclude 
 that the art of town planning is at a rudimentary stage, 
 whether we find our examples in ancient Greece or 
 across the Atlantic. 
 
 The adoption of a rectangular plan in defiance of the 
 character of the site may be regarded as more in anta- 
 gonism to both practical and esthetic requirements 
 than any other error in the inception of a town plan, 
 and its result is usually more disadvantageous in regard 
 to both these aspects than where the plan has been 
 allowed to develop itself out of conditions that were 
 once dominant, though time may have rendered the 
 results invalid. Only in the circumstances and with 
 the qualifications referred to above can the rectangular 
 treatment of the town plan as a whole be held to be 
 adequate. 
 
 7 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 With this brief synopsis of the question of the primi- 
 tive plan we may pass on to consider the subject from 
 an historic basis which will bring to our notice many 
 illustrations of cause and effect, and will demonstrate 
 how intimately the material structure has at all times 
 related itself to the religious, social, and economic 
 demands of its time, and how variations in these have 
 compelled adaptations on the efficiency of which has 
 often depended the success or failure of the civic 
 organisation. 
 
 While we may dismiss the primitive types of village 
 comprising circular huts and the hut-circle dwellings as 
 affording merely a starting point for our studies, and 
 also the lake and cave dwelling groups as involving 
 little that can be regarded as considered planning, we 
 must bear in mind that these were often contempora- 
 neous with organised plans elsewhere, of which we can 
 find sufficient traces to recognise that they embody an 
 ordered scheme, though not enough to indicate the lines 
 on which the plans were laid out. 
 
 There is less definite guidance for our studies in 
 regard to the great nations of Western Asia and the 
 neighbouring lands than in the case of many peoples 
 at a much less advanced stage of civilisation. While 
 explorers have been able to uncover the great palaces 
 of Assyria, Babylon and Crete, and while the temples 
 of Egypt still stand integrally visible, we are left 
 with only the vaguest hints as to the disposition of 
 populous cities owing to the fact that the less substan- 
 tial structures occupied by the mass of the people have 
 either disappeared or have left too little to attract the 
 attention of archeologists. Even in Egypt, where 
 
 8 
 
THE ANCIENT CIVILISATIONS 
 
 investigations have been more comprehensive, very 
 little has been brought to light in respect of the arrange- 
 ment of towns earlier than the Grzeco-Roman occupa- 
 tion. Only the block of houses uncovered at Kahun 
 gives us some indication of the probable type of lay out, 
 and these are dwellings of minor importance, con- 
 structed, it is supposed, for those concerned with the 
 erecting of the pyramid of Illahun. 
 
 The planning of the great buildings of various dates 
 from 3,000 B.C. onwards, which have been uncovered in 
 Western Asia, show that rectangular forms predominate, 
 and traces of city walls confirm the conjecture that the 
 general planning was on these lines, or at all events 
 rectilinear, while in Egypt the strong feeling for axiality 
 in the temple plans renders it hardly probable that this 
 did not extend to the cities, of which these temples must 
 have been the most striking features. 
 
 If at the date of the highly developed cities in Egypt 
 and Assyria we glance westward towards Southern 
 Europe and the Mediterranean coasts, we find ourselves 
 at a much more rudimentary stage. Without embarking 
 on complicated ethnological studies as to the inter- 
 actions of the prehistoric peoples inhabiting this part of 
 the world, it will suffice for us to accept that their 
 organisation, originally patriarchal in type, gradually 
 took shape on lines feudal in character, and though 
 details are still obscure, the results from the town- 
 planning point of view are so near to those of early 
 medizval times that if we were to cut out the whole 
 Greco-Roman contribution to civilisation, we could 
 almost conceive a continuity linking the sixth century 
 B.C. with the sixth century a.D., and forget that the 
 
 9 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 twelve centuries had elapsed between them. As a 
 broad generalisation, these two eras might be termed 
 the first and second feudal periods in European history, 
 and their cities are characterised by marked similarity 
 in type. 
 
 The site is chosen for purposes of defence, and not 
 by reason of economic suitability ; it is on high ground 
 with steep escarpments, at the top of which the walls 
 are built. If it be an isolated hill; so much the better, 
 but if on a spur, the defences are strengthened at the 
 isthmus. Special defensive works are also added at the 
 gates, and either the highest or the strongest position is 
 devoted to the arx or fortress. The towns of what we 
 may term the first feudal period, built by the Pelasgi, 
 the Etruscans, and other competing races, not being 
 sited for economic reasons, were usually abandoned 
 during the domination of Rome; but where this was 
 not the case they proved exactly suited to the demands 
 of the second feudal era, as is illustrated by such 
 examples as Perugia, Viterbo, Orvieto, Fiesole, Volterra, 
 Cortona, and other medizval cities, all on Etruscan 
 sites. 
 
 This may be accounted for by the fact that there was 
 no great change in the modes of fighting between these 
 times ; the weapons had remained much the same, and, 
 therefore, similar forms of defence were appropriate. 
 The only great distinction that we meet with is due to 
 the change in religious belief, the first period being 
 Pagan, and the second Christian; thus, while a 
 dominating observance in the first case was the pro- 
 vision of a worthy tomb, in the second this activity 
 was diverted to the place of worship. The Pagan 
 
 Io 
 
THE ANCIENT CIVILISATIONS 
 
 tombs might not be within the town, and, consequently, 
 outside the walls we find a veritable city of the dead, 
 built to simulate that of the living, except that it was 
 excavated or artificially covered. ‘This necropolis was 
 sometimes as extensive as the city of the living, and, 
 being less exposed to destruction, tells us more of the 
 life of the time than the ruins of the actual town. We 
 find tombs made in the likeness of the house, with 
 benches representing couches, and even tables and 
 chairs, while paintings of banquets and hunting scenes 
 adorn the walls. From these we can reconstruct the 
 vanished city, and can realise that it was at least as well 
 organised as those which re-established themselves 
 twelve or fourteen centuries later; in some ways, 
 indeed, better, for while the Greek was cultivating his 
 unsurpassed sense of artistic expression the Etruscan 
 was devoting himself to technical improvements in the 
 crafts and in the material amenities of city life. He 
 ignored the artistic refinements, and was content to 
 look towards other peoples for guidance in artistic 
 expression, but Greece recognised his skill in craftsman- 
 ship, while his systematic provision of water supply 
 and drainage was adopted by the Romans, and has been 
 frequently placed to their credit. 
 
 Such services imply a fairly definite scheme of 
 planning, but what this was has not so far been estab- 
 lished. ‘The knowledge we possess seems to indicate 
 a preference for rectilinear streets, but not a uniformly 
 rectangular plan ; indeed, this latter would hardly have 
 been possible when we sce the highly irregular outline 
 of many of the sites selected, which were defined by 
 the natural formation of the hill. 
 
 I! 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 Besides these hill cities, there have been discovered 
 others on comparatively low-lying ground protected by 
 a moat, and, it is conjectured, inhabited by a people 
 who were originally lake dwellers. For these the term 
 ‘“‘terramare ” has been employed, and Haverfield illus- 
 trates one of rhomboid outline with definite parallel 
 streets. ‘They take, however, a less important place in 
 our story, and, to return to the hill towns, we may 
 regard it as probable that houses rarely exceeded a 
 single storey in height, and that the “ topless towers 
 of Ilium ” referred to fortifications rather than to the 
 dwellings. This does not destroy the parallelism with 
 later times, for the houses of the Carlovingian period 
 were neither lofty nor extensive, and it was only later 
 that the towns became closely packed with the many- 
 storied houses characteristic of medizval life as we now 
 visualise it. We shall consider this in due course, but 
 must now return to the time when the tribal fort-towns 
 of southern Europe were replaced by those of the rising — 
 democracies, first of Greece, and then of Rome. It is 
 not here that the reasons for their fall can be discussed, 
 as we are concerned only with what took their place and 
 the influences that resulted in the change of type. 
 
 Naturally, it was not desired to abandon the old posi- 
 tion, except where it was clearly unsuited to the changed 
 demands, and*in many cases it remained as the nucleus 
 of the expanding city. Rome itself is considered to 
 have its origin in three tribal villages on neighbouring 
 hills, and in several Greek cities the original site became 
 an acropolis around which the later developments 
 grouped themselves, while if we go further afield we 
 shall find similar protected hill tops in Central Asia, 
 
 12 
 
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THE ANCIENT CIVILISATIONS 
 
 the East Indies, and, indeed, almost everywhere, if the 
 conformation of the site lends itself to this type of 
 defence. 
 
 The chief alternative was isolation by water, and, 
 apart from the before-mentioned lake villages, formed 
 either as islands or with houses standing on piles in the 
 water, we may see cities that grew to considerable 
 importance started in this way, to mention only such 
 outstanding examples as Venice and Mexico. Probably 
 the invention of the artificial moat, which is itself 
 prehistoric, derives from this form of natural protec- 
 tion, either complete or, where imperfect, demanding 
 auxiliary works. 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Greco-Roman Town Planning 
 
 telligible, a compromise must be arrived at between 
 
 the chronological and geographical aspects, and so 
 we now return to Greece. Here we find it probable 
 that Athens was the first city to be able to descend from 
 its rock, which then became a spot religiously reserved 
 as sacred to Athena, the tutelary goddess of the city, 
 while the latter spread itself around the base of this 
 acropolis. 
 
 At this date the growth in general seems to have 
 been irregular, apart from a studied placing of the 
 theatre, agora, temples, and monuments. However, 
 in the fifth century B.c. rectangular planning was 
 adopted, and we find numerous examples of this at 
 Pirzeus, Priene, Selinus, and other towns in Sicily and — 
 Ionia ; in fact, wherever the site was not too uneven to 
 admit of it. Axial planning is only represented by an 
 increased width and importance given to a few principal 
 streets, and even the temples and agora usually found 
 their places within one or more of the island blocks, as 
 at Selinus. Most of these cities were fortified, and 
 outside the fortifications we know that suburbs of 
 inferior and often squalid dwellings spread out irregu- 
 larly. The ports were designed to accommodate suit- 
 ably the galleys of that day, but we can pass these by, 
 as we shall find more fully developed harbours in 
 Roman times. 
 
 The supreme artistry of the Greeks is shown, not 
 
 14 
 
 |: order to make the story of town planning in- 
 
GR/ECO-ROMAN TOWN PLANNING 
 
 only in the refinements and proportions of their build- 
 ings, but also in the skill with which these were grouped 
 and located; but while their brief period of ascen- 
 dency is marked by an unsurpassed capacity in these 
 respects, it does not seem to have sufficed for the 
 achievement of a completed system of comprehensive 
 town planning. At the same time, the Greek contribu- 
 tion to the Roman civilisation cannot be disregarded, 
 and the more logical course is to consider the fuller 
 growth of this art under Imperial Rome as Greco- 
 Roman, in which the imaginative factors can be 
 credited to the Greek and the practical and regulative 
 contributions to Rome. 
 
 When the military and naval domination of Republi- 
 _can Rome justified the abandonment of the hill sites in 
 favour of those of greater suitability from an economic 
 standpoint, the Greek colonial towns were already 
 established, and served as a starting point in regard to 
 arrangement and equipment. Rectangular plotting was 
 general, but the theatre and the stadium had introduced 
 a circular element, which subsequently attained great 
 importance as a decorative feature, and as one of 
 material value in facilitating the formal treatment of an 
 irregular site. ‘The Greco-Roman period is of first 
 importance to the studies of the town planner, as in it 
 emerge all the main problems of his art, which, together 
 with the means taken to solve them, can be accurately 
 gauged from the remains and from documentary 
 evidence. It is true that this cannot be regarded as the 
 first time in the world’s history when such conditions 
 may have obtained, but the older civilisations afford 
 us little evidence of demands so distinct in character as 
 
 15 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 to invalidate our accepting the typical Greek and 
 Roman towns as representative of city design in a fully 
 developed form. ~ 
 
 As indicated, the Greeks had not carried their 
 schemes far beyond the elementary rectangular plan, 
 and even then there was a great deal of accidental and 
 irregular building. At first the Roman towns were 
 doubtless inferior to those of Greece and her colonies, 
 and probably also to those of the Phcenicians scattered 
 around the Mediterranean, but with increasing political 
 power, the demand for finer cities necessarily arose, and 
 great activity in this work marked the rise of Rome. 
 Naturally the more important undertakings, such as 
 the temple and the forum, received first consideration, 
 but the other claims soon made themselves felt and 
 were met by public or private munificence to an 
 increasing extent. 
 
 That the question of town planning was considered 
 of great importance by the Romans is illustrated by 
 the large proportion of his first book which Vitruvius 
 devotes to this subject, while he returns to various 
 aspects of it several times in the subsequent ones. 
 
 It is an interesting commentary on the changing 
 ideals of his day that, though he begins by claiming that 
 the city should be placed on high ground for the sake 
 of health, he proceeds to admit that it may sometimes 
 be placed in a marshy situation near the sea coast, if 
 provided with adequate drains and sewers, an obvious 
 concession to the growing commercial needs of the 
 Empire. With the rules he laid down for military 
 works we are less concerned, but a quotation from his 
 chapter on the placing of temples may be admitted as 
 
 16 
 

 
 Facing page 16 
 
 l and Forum at Rome 
 
 1to 
 
 *s Model of the Capi 
 
 jani 
 
 3. Professor G. Marcell 
 
Li asod Surv J 
 
 SsutMeiq] Ainjudd) YJUSEJOUINT B WOOL “*awoy “v7 
 
 
 
‘ | 
 GR/AECO-ROMAN 'TOWN PLANNING 
 
 - indicating the recognition that the site, no less than the 
 building, should have a symbolic significance. 
 
 “The lanes and streets of the city being set out, the 
 choice of sites for the convenience and use of the state 
 remains to be decided on; for sacred edifices, for the 
 forum, and for other public buildings. If the place 
 adjoin the sea, the forum should be placed close to the 
 harbour: if inland, it should be in the centre of the 
 town. The temples of the gods, protectors of the city, 
 also those of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, should be on 
 ‘some eminence which commands a view of the greater 
 part of the city. The temple of Mercury should be 
 either in the forum, or, as also the temple of Isis and 
 Serapis, in the great public square. Those of Apollo 
 and Father Bacchus near the theatre. If there be 
 neither amphitheatre nor gymnasium, the temple of 
 Hercules should be near the circus. The temple of 
 Mars should be out of the city, in the neighbouring 
 country. ‘That of Venus near to the gate. According 
 to the regulations of the Hetrurian Haruspices, the 
 temples of Venus, Vulcan, and Mars should be so 
 placed that those of the first be not in the way of con- 
 taminating the matrons and youth with the influence 
 of lust.; that those of Vulcan be away from the city, 
 which would consequently be freed from the danger of 
 fire, the divinity presiding over that element being 
 drawn away by the rites and sacrifices performing in his 
 temple. The temple of Mars should be also out of the 
 city, that no armed frays may disturb the peace of the 
 citizens.”’ 
 
 Elsewhere Vitruvius gives us instructions as to the 
 construction of harbours, and study of the remains of 
 
 i7 c 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 those which date from his time and the subsequent 
 three centuries (40 B.C. to A.D. 260) show a highly deve- 
 loped system appropriate to the naval and commercial 
 operations of that time. Where practicable, advantage 
 was taken of natural inlets, which were deepened and 
 provided with wharves and supplementary defences, 
 but where natural harbours were lacking the construc- 
 tions were carried out to sea with jetties and break- 
 waters. Major M. Du Plat-Taylor, in his writings on 
 the ancient methods of harbour construction, has cited 
 numerous examples indicating that it was usual to 
 construct these jetties on masonry piers connected by 
 arches above the water level, a mode that seems to have 
 sufficed to break the seas of the Mediterranean, though 
 in a few exposed places two such viaducts were formed, 
 the piers of the inner being opposite to the voids of the 
 outer, the waves being thus more effectually baffled. 
 These jetties often ran out to sea for some distance, so 
 that the entrance was of considerable depth. 
 
 In some cases more than one entrance was provided, 
 and in others we find a wide one covered by a break- 
 water in front of it. The commercial harbour was 
 provided with wharves, while the land side of the naval 
 port was planned as a series of docks, each accommo- 
 dating one gallery, with walls between and roofed over 
 to protect the:ships from the sun, thus preventing 
 deterioration during the time that they might be out of 
 action. Arsenals were constructed adjoining these 
 naval ports, and the commercial ones were provided 
 with extensive warehouses. The principal port for the 
 city of Rome, at Ostia, shows at least two succes- 
 sive periods of construction, owing to the increasing 
 
 18 
 
GRAECO-ROMAN TOWN PLANNING 
 
 demands of the metropolis, and around it a compact 
 but well-planned town was laid out. 
 
 The city of Rome itself cannot be regarded as 
 typical, and yet the conditions to be found here were, 
 if less accentuated, not entirely absent in other large 
 cities at the same date. It is worth while to try and 
 visualise Rome as a whole, when it will make a very 
 different impression from what we might imagine it 
 if our picture were based on the remains now extant. 
 Even at the time when some of the finest buildings 
 were undertaken there was still a great deal of squalor 
 and congestion in Rome, which suffered from the same 
 disadvantages as many other old capitals in having 
 grown up during the tentative efforts to establish 
 dominion, and before becoming the centre towards 
 which the wealth and culture of an extensive empire 
 were drawn. ‘The following extract from the work of 
 J. H. Middleton will give an impression of the city at 
 the beginning of the Imperial era :— 
 
 “In the reign of Augustus a ‘ Metropolitan Building 
 Act’ was drawn up, which did something to improve 
 the stability of Roman houses. Some of the provisions 
 of this Act are mentioned by Vitruvius. Houses in 
 streets, if several stories in height, were to be built on 
 stone piers, or with walls of burnt brick and concrete, 
 instead of the older method of building walls of unburnt 
 bricks, or of woodwork filled in with ‘ wattle and dab.’ 
 In some respects the Roman houses of the Republican 
 period, and under the early Empire, must have re- 
 sembled those of medizval times, especially in the 
 frequent use of upper stories, formed of wood framing, 
 which projected forwards into the street beyond the 
 
 1g c2 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 line of the wall below. Examples of these projecting 
 upper stories have been found at Pompeii. 
 
 ‘In order, therefore, to put an end to the custom of 
 building thick, weak walls of unfired brick, a law was 
 introduced limiting the external thickness of street 
 walls to 2 feet, a thickness which was not sufficient to 
 support upper stories. if unbaked bricks were used. 
 The practical result of this enactment, which seems a 
 strange one, was thus indirectly to force on the people 
 the use of stronger materials. Houses shored up with 
 wood and ready to fall are mentioned by Juvenal, and 
 a great part of Rome for a long period consisted of very 
 flimsy and even dangerous structures. 
 
 ‘It was, however, not till the reign of Nero that a 
 complete reform was effected in the construction of 
 Roman houses. Nero hada new and elaborate Building 
 Act drawn up, requiring fireproof materials, such as 
 peperino, to be used for external walls of houses ; and 
 it appears very probable that he wilfully caused the 
 great fire which destroyed a large part of Rome, in 
 order that he might with effect bring his new Act into 
 operation, and also be able to replan the streets on 
 wider and straighter lines.” 
 
 By such drastic clearances the central area was freed 
 for the imposing structures of which we still see the 
 ruins, the state of which 1s less due to natural causes 
 than to the fact that in the Middle Ages the buildings 
 and monuments became every one’s stone quarry, and 
 their marble decorations were broken up and converted 
 into lime. ‘That the slums were abolished is not to be 
 imagined, when we remember the character of the 
 population the city held, for, although the centre was 
 
 20 
 
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GRECO-ROMAN TOWN PLANNING 
 
 cleared, the subsequent Aurelian wall (A.D. 270) enclosed 
 large areas that were filled with the houses of the poor. 
 Even the earlier wall of Servius, which embraced less 
 than one-third of this ground, included many districts 
 where no traces of substantial buildings have been 
 found ; in spite of this, many great public buildings 
 were placed outside the wall on the Campus Martius, 
 which lies to the north-west of the Capitol. The chief 
 remodelling of Rome seems to have taken place around 
 the Palatine Hill, on which were constructed the 
 palaces of the emperors, more particularly to the 
 north of it, where the series of forums culminated in 
 that of Trajan, with the Basilica Ulpia, which filled the 
 whole of the valley between the Capitol and the 
 Quirinal. In various parts of the city the great Thermz 
 occupied large areas, and numerous other public build- 
 ings have been located, but these cannot, from their 
 position, have formed part of a plan such as the Romans 
 would have devised if they had not been restricted by 
 old-established roads and by occupied areas dating 
 from earlier times. 
 
 It is in this respect that we find Rome not typical of 
 Roman planning, which is displayed much more clearly 
 in smaller towns founded at a later date. Even the 
 little watering place of Pompeii shows the Roman 
 preference for a systematic lay-out, and at Praeneste 
 (Palestrina), dating from the time of Sulla, a most 
 skilful treatment of a steep hillside is accredited to that 
 governor. 
 
 While the Roman genius for organisation enabled 
 them to cope with the problem of rendering a large 
 town habitable and reasonably healthy, much of the 
 
 aI. 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 magnificence of their cities was due to private initiative. 
 Even before the time of the emperors, leading men 
 provided many important public buildings, and what 
 the emperors did for Rome local magnates endeavoured 
 to emulate in provincial centres. 'The letters of Pliny 
 and various inscriptions make this clear. Pliny himself, 
 following the example of his father in munificence, gave 
 nearly {£9,000 for the foundation of a public library in 
 Como, his native town, and an annual endowment of 
 more than £800 to maintain it, also offering to con- 
 tribute one-third of the expense of a high school there. 
 The late Samuel Dill, to whose studies in Roman social 
 life we are indebted for these facts, pursues the subject 
 as follows :— 
 
 “The letter which records the offer shows Pliny at 
 his best, wise and thoughtful as well as generous. He 
 wishes to keep boys under the protection of home 
 influence, to make them lovers of their mother city ; 
 and he limits his benefaction in order to stimulate the 
 interest of the parents in the cause of education, and in 
 the appointment of the teachers. 
 
 “Yet Pliny is only a shining example of a numerous 
 class of more obscure benefactors. The gifts were 
 sometimes made merely to win popularity, or to repay 
 civic honours which had,been conferred by the popu- 
 lace. They were too often devoted to gladiatorial 
 shows, and other exhibitions which only debased the 
 spectators. Yet the greatest part of them was expended 
 on objects of public utility—baths, theatres, markets, 
 or new roads and aqueducts, or on those public banquets 
 which knitted all ranks together. ‘There was in those 
 days an immense ‘ civic ardour,’ an almost passionate 
 
 22 
 
GR/ECO-ROMAN 'TOWN PLANNING 
 
 rivalry, to make the mother city a more pleasant and a 
 more splendid home. 
 
 “ With regard to municipal expenditure, the budget 
 was free from many public charges which burden our 
 modern towns. The higher offices were unpaid, and, 
 in fact, demanded large generosity from their holders. 
 The lower functions were discharged, to a great extent, 
 by communal slaves. The care or construction of 
 streets, markets, and public buildings, although theo- 
 retically devolving on the community through their 
 zediles, was, as a matter of fact, to an enormous extent 
 undertaken by private persons. 
 
 “The cities did much for themselves out of the 
 public revenues. But there are many signs that private 
 ambition or munificence did even more. ‘The stone 
 records of Pompeii confirm these indications in a 
 remarkable way. Pompeii, in spite of the prominence 
 given to it by its tragic fate, was only a third-rate town, 
 with a population probably of not more than 20,000. 
 Its remains, indeed, leave the impression that a con- 
 siderable class were in easy circumstances ; but it may 
 be doubted whether Pompeii could boast of any great 
 capitalists among its citizens. 
 
 ‘* Nevertheless, a large number of public buildings of 
 Pompeii were the gift of private citizens. The Holconi 
 were a great family of the place in the reign of Augustus. 
 M. Holconius Rufus had been ordinary duumvir five 
 times, and twice quinquennial duumvir ; he was priest 
 of Augustus, and finally was elected patron of the town. 
 Such dignities in those days imposed a corresponding 
 burden, and an inscription tells that, on the rebuilding 
 of the great theatre, probably about 3 B.c., Holconius 
 
 23 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 Rufus and Holconius Celer defrayed the expense of the 
 crypt, the tribunals, and the whole space for the spec- 
 tators. The literature of the age contains many 
 records of profuse private liberality of the same kind. 
 It has been calculated that Pliny must have altogether 
 given to his early home and fatherland, as he calls it, a 
 sum of more than £80,000; and the gifts were of a 
 thoroughly practical kind—a library, a school endow- 
 ment, a foundation for the nurture of poor children, 
 and a temple of Ceres, with spacious colonnades to 
 shelter the traders who came for the great fair. 
 
 “* But the prince of public benefactors in the Antonine 
 age was the great sophist Herodes Atticus, the tutor of 
 M. Aurelius, who died in the same year as his pupil, 
 A.D.180. He acted up to his theory of the uses of wealth . 
 on a scale of unexampled munificence. The liberality 
 of Herodes Atticus, however astonishing it may seem, 
 was only exceptional in its scale. ‘The same spirit pre- 
 vailed among the leading citizens or the great patrom 
 of hundreds of communities, many of them only known 
 to us from a brief inscription or two. The objects of 
 this liberality are as various as the needs of the com- 
 munity—temples, theatres, bridges, markets, a portico 
 or a colonnade, the relaying of a road or pavement from 
 the forum to the port, the repair of an aqueduct, above 
 all the erection of new baths or their restoration. An 
 old officer of the Fourth Legion provided free bathing 
 at Suessa Senonum for every one, even down to the 
 slave girls. At Bononia a sum of £4,350 was bequeathed 
 for the same liberal purpose. 
 
 ‘The Antonine age was passionately fond of splen- 
 dour and brilliant display, proud of civic dignity, and 
 
 24 
 
GR/ECO-ROMAN TOWN PLANNING 
 
 keenly alive to the ease and comfort and brightness 
 which common effort or individual generosity might 
 add to the enjoyment of life. It was also an intensely 
 sociable age. Men looked for their happiness to their 
 city rather than to the family or the state. If their city 
 could not play a great part as an independent common- 
 wealth, it might, by the self-sacrifice of its sons, assert 
 its oe among its rivals.” 
 
 Such was the spirit that inspired the municipal 
 activities of the Romans—might we not be the better 
 for a greater measure of it in our own day? 
 
 The planning of towns established in the Roman 
 colonies has a semi-military character, as it is based on 
 the plan of the camp, one that could be quickly laid 
 out on rectangular lines in accordance with a recognised 
 formula. ‘Timgad, in Algeria, which has been un- 
 covered from its sand drifts, gives a clearer impression 
 of this type of city than any other, but elsewhere we 
 still see the general lines, as at Turin, Florence, and 
 Lucca, in Italy; Autun, in France; and Chester, 
 Chichester and Caerwent, in England. Of course 
 many of these received embellishments in the way of 
 public buildings and arcaded streets, which raised them 
 above the standard of the purely military settlement ; 
 and while some achieved an ordered dignity of effect, 
 we must look to Asia Minor for the more imaginative 
 flights in this direction, where the cult of luxury long 
 established in those parts was responsible for the 
 elaborate refinements in the lay-out and decoration of 
 - such cities as Palmyra, Gerasa, and many another 
 where the colonnaded street, the arch, and the vista 
 were regarded as essential factors in city design. Again 
 
 25 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 at Alexandria, the home of the later Greek culture, all 
 the practical amenities that Rome understood so 
 thoroughly were accompanied by a luxurious splendour 
 in design, grouping and arrangement which, surviving 
 the degradation of most of the more northern cities, 
 extorted reluctant admiration from the Arabs into 
 whose hands it ultimately fell. 
 
 26 
 
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 8. Wurzburg in the Middle Ages 
 
 Facing page 27 
 
CHAPTER III 
 Medieval Cities 
 
 ITH the gradual break-up of the Roman 
 
 organisation the established routine of city 
 
 government lapsed, and the city structure 
 underwent a corresponding degradation, varying to 
 some extent according to the degree of social and 
 economic deterioration. 'Thus in the districts where 
 this did not wholly fail we find that the street plan was 
 preserved, as at Turin and Florence. Elsewhere, owing 
 to subsequent complete abandonment, the original plan 
 remains clearly defined—at Palmyra and Timgad for 
 example—-but in most cases the site continued to be 
 occupied, the original lines being gradually obliterated 
 and now only capable of being traced here and there, 
 either owing to their casual preservation or by excava- 
 tion down to a level below the rubbish accumulated 
 during the centuries when control was lacking. 
 
 In post-Roman times Europe was faced with the task 
 of remaking itself and reconstructing its national 
 groups. ‘This was a slow process, and we have, there- 
 fore, the advantage of being able to follow from small 
 beginnings the enlargement of villages into towns, and 
 the gradual growth of civic organisation, which passed 
 through many stages before approaching the degree of 
 order maintained under the Roman dominion. 
 
 We see the expansion of the Teutonic peoples, who, 
 according to Tacitus, had never evolved a civic life, and 
 had, indeed, a distaste for it. We see them, wherever 
 they went, organising the country on an agricultural and 
 
 27 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 pastoral basis, with no intention of encouraging the 
 growth of towns, and that only step by step did 
 these either establish or re-establish themselves by 
 reason of commercial advantages, or, as is perhaps more 
 usual, by the demand for a fortified position to control 
 the district under the feudal lord. We must leave it 
 to the historian to demonstrate why national organisa- 
 tion took the form known as the feudal system. He 
 will show us that it was the most obvious and direct 
 road towards evolving order out of comparative chaos, 
 and though its defects are manifest, no other method 
 would appear likely to have operated as expeditiously. 
 According to the views already expressed, it was not a 
 novelty, but rather a return to what was customary 
 at an earlier stage of the world’s history, for were not 
 Minos and Agamemnon, ‘Tarquin and Porsena, proto- 
 types of our medizeval chiefs ? 
 
 However, what concerns us is not these and their 
 warfare, but what they were impelled to build, and how 
 these buildings influenced the city structure in the 
 Middle Ages. First we find the need of a strong place 
 or castle, and this gathered beneath it the growing 
 town. The last vestiges of Roman civilisation having 
 gone, we bid good-bye for many centuries to the con- 
 scious exercise of the art of town planning, and from 
 this aspect the title of the “‘ Dark Ages” is not 
 undeserved, though in many ways they were by no 
 means dark, and the cities gradually grew into those 
 forms of beauty and charm that depend on imaginative 
 conception taking advantage of accidents and employ- 
 ing these in accentuating expression. 'To refuse the 
 town planner a share in the harmonious ensemble that 
 
 28 
 
MEDI/EVAL CITIES 
 
 characterises the mediazval town may appear an un- 
 necessary abnegation, but it is only by an undue 
 extension of our definition of this art that skill in the 
 design of buildings in relation to environment could be 
 transferred from the realm of architecture to that of 
 civic design, especially where the contribution of the 
 latter is a purely negative one, in that it has permitted 
 some accidental development of which the builder has 
 had the skill to take advantage. 
 
 Though the planning of towns at this time was 
 technically unsophisticated, the conditions required 
 that defensible positions should be chosen and should 
 be fortified, and it is to this, in large measure, that the 
 dramatic quality of these cities is due, especially in cases 
 where they are perched on a hill-top with towering 
 buildings accentuating the upward sweep of the slopes 
 around them. ‘These effects are not due to civic, 
 but to military exigencies, and when town planning 
 once more comes into sight its influence does not 
 operate towards the enhancement of this type of effect, 
 but rather in the opposite direction. 
 
 Even though we may decline to accept the normal 
 medizval city as town planned, it yet has much to tell 
 us which, if ignored, would leave a blank fatal to the 
 comprehension of our subject as a whole. ‘The interest 
 of the informal and unexpected in these towns has even 
 evoked a school of city designers basing their technique 
 on effects of this character, to which we shall have 
 occasion to refer later on ; but apart from this there 1s 
 much to be learnt from the gradual growth of a town, 
 more indeed than from one deliberately laid out on 
 any but the most considered lines, while the results of 
 
 49 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 change in conditions, sometimes capable of adjustment, 
 but more often not, are hardly less instructive. 
 
 It is here that we can most profitably take up the 
 question of the influences determining location, as, 
 though these have operated through all time, the 
 remoter periods are not more illustrative, while our 
 knowledge is less. ‘These influences are various, but 
 fall under two main heads, economic and military. 
 Even at this stage they cannot be entirely separated, as 
 a position may be strategically good from both points 
 of view. As a rule the economic aspect takes prefer- 
 ence, because the question may be put that, if a place 
 has no economic value, what is the object of defending 
 it? "There are, however, exceptions, for it was soon 
 seen to be necessary to consider the needs of a district 
 as a whole, and therefore we get the military post. 
 Take a case in the north of England. Newcastle was 
 an economic position capable of defence, and Durham 
 a defensive post of great natural strength having 
 comparatively little economic importance. 
 
 We find that it was the invariable practice to enclose 
 the town with walls, as a defence both against casual 
 raids and against more sustained attacks, even small 
 villages in unruly places being planned so that they 
 could be shut up at night, with the inclusion of a suffi- 
 cient area to accommodate the cattle owned by the 
 villagers. In such cases the houses enclosed a large 
 green and themselves formed the line of defence, leaving 
 only a few openings between them, which could be barri- 
 caded. ‘The larger cities had substantial walls, with 
 fortified gates and bastions, not very unlike those built 
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MEDIAEVAL CITIES 
 
 detail still more closely resembling those constructed 
 by the Romans in the third century A.D. These earlier 
 walls were not often so massive as to make extensions 
 impracticable when the city outgrew them, but there 
 would always be some effort involved, and where the 
 walls were of a superior type we find a continued struggle 
 to accommodate the growing population within them. 
 Houses were made higher, gardens built over, and thus 
 we get the closely packed and congested town, pic- 
 turesque it is true, but insanitary, and an easy victim 
 for that terrible scourge of the Middle Ages, the Black 
 Death, which swept over Europe time and again, some- 
 times destroying one-third of the town population. 
 Even in our day we find it, under the appellation of 
 bubonic plague, decimating Indian towns where the 
 houses are ill-constructed and overcrowded. We have 
 only to look at typical cities which either still retain 
 their walls, or where the line of these remains defined, 
 to realise the influence they had in creating congestion, 
 not only in regard to these places themselves, but also 
 in establishing a standard of over-building that affected 
 many others long after the purely physical restrictions 
 had gone. It is but too easy to fall into such ways, and 
 the gregarious habits of the city dweller have made 
 overbuilding at all times the quick and easy way of 
 meeting his demands. Imperial Rome and medizval 
 Edinburgh share with many a less notable place an 
 unenviable reputation in respect to the insalubrity of 
 their poorer quarters. ‘These defects were not unre- 
 cognised, but the remedies were, even if economically 
 possible, too drastic to secure general support. 
 
 That where it was possible to make a start on a new 
 
 31 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 site a better organisation was adopted, we see in the case 
 of the activities of St. Louis of France and Edward I. 
 of England as city builders. During the thirteenth 
 century the need arose to lay out a number of new 
 towns, and the operations in this respect ran on lines 
 curiously parallel to those of the Roman colonisations. 
 In a measure the purpose was similar, namely, the 
 establishment of semi-military posts, and, similarly, 
 the military solution of equal rectangular plots was the 
 accepted ideal. It has been assumed that this was a 
 revival of the Roman tradition, but it is more than 
 doubtful if such an assumption can be justified, this 
 being so primitive and obvious a solution where an 
 appropriate site can be selected, and a scheme easily and 
 quickly realisable is to be provided. Indeed, we shall 
 rarely find, since men began to inhabit rectangular 
 houses, that the first stage in town planning takes any 
 other form, and it is hardly needful, when discussing 
 the medizval plans, to refer these to the influence of 
 the Roman ones or suggest that the American gridiron 
 system is borrowed from either. 
 
 The “ Bastides ”’ of St. Louis afforded the models on 
 which Edward I. based his plans for Montpazier and 
 Sauveterre, together with numerous other towns which 
 he founded in his newly acquired Duchy of Gascony, 
 and these, in their formal plans, show that the ideals of 
 the time did not exhibit any preference for the pictur- 
 esque irregularity that we associate with medieval cities, 
 the latter being merely the outcome of lack of organisa- 
 tion and not of conscious effort. 
 
 Fortunately there is another aspect from which we 
 may look at the normal medieval town. Though 
 
 34 
 
MEDIEVAL CITIES 
 
 insanitary and unplanned, it was the home of such 
 varied and vigorous activities that we must not pass on 
 without some realisation of them. Never since those 
 times has civic life been so integrally rounded off as an 
 
 expression of joyous social co-operation. Not only 
 _ religious observances, but every public ceremony was 
 made the vehicle of gay and jocund artistry. ‘To take 
 one brief reference as a key-note, we find Matthew Paris 
 describing the pageant of King Henry the Third’s 
 marriage in the following terms : 
 
 “There were assembled at the king’s nuptial festi- 
 vities such a host of nobles of both sexes, such number 
 of religious men, such crowds of the populace, and such 
 a variety of actors, that London, with its capacious 
 bosom, could scarcely contain them. ‘The whole city 
 was ornamented with flags and banners, chaplets and 
 hangings, candles and lamps, and with wonderful 
 devices and extraordinary representations, and all the 
 roads were cleaned from mud and dirt, sticks and 
 everything offensive. The citizens, too, went out to 
 meet the king and queen, dressed out in their orna- 
 ments, and vied with each other in trying the speed of 
 their horses. On the same day, when they left the city 
 for Westminster, to perform the duties of butler to the 
 king (which office belonged to them by right of old, at 
 the coronation), they proceeded thither dressed in silk 
 garments, with mantles worked in gold, and with costly 
 changes of raiment, mounted on valuable horses, glit- 
 tering with new bits and saddles, and riding in troops 
 arranged in order.” 
 
 Now this is no exceptional or isolated instance, for 
 in every country and in every city of standing innu- 
 
 33 D 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 merable illustrations might be cited of annual festivals, 
 saints’ days and dedications, celebrated with no less — 
 degree of splendour and colour, while the buildings 
 were designed in the same spirit, so that they afforded a 
 fitting framework for these vivid pictures. A few pale 
 remnants have come down to us from those days, a few 
 rather perfunctory ceremonies are accepted reluctantly 
 as a concession to tradition, a few noble churches have 
 not been entirely bereft of their coloured windows and 
 rich decorations, a few inn signs remain of all the 
 blazonry that decorated the street fronts of shop and 
 house. Puritanism may be regarded as a cause or as an 
 effect, but in either case we have for long ceased to 
 delight in embodying this gaiety of spirit in our daily 
 life, and seem only able to allow it an occasional entry, 
 a little uncertain as to whether this form of enjoyment 
 is not too childish for sensible people. 
 
 Childish or not, such was the temperament of the 
 medizeval city, which, with all its defects, nevertheless 
 presented a picture unequalled in brilliance before or 
 since. Lacking perhaps the stately dignity of Egypt, 
 Assyria, or Rome, for vivacity and colour it remains 
 unequalled. Do we deceive ourselves, or not, in fancying 
 that there is arising a genuine desire to reconstitute our 
 lives on the rational lines that include artistic expression, 
 not as a matter to be left to a few experts, but as one to 
 be regarded as vital to everybody at every moment and 
 in all aspects of life? If this be the case, the town 
 planner will turn to the Middle Ages, not as an 
 archeologist nor with the least idea of reconstructing 
 them as they were, but in an endeavour to recapture 
 the spirit that dominated the communities in evoking 
 
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 11. Duren, near Cologne. From a Print by Hollar 
 Facing page 34 
 

 
 
 
 ddle Ages on Rectangular Lines 
 
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 he M 
 
 a town extended during t 
 
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 Facing page 35 
 
MEDIZEVAL CITIES 
 
 an active co-operation towards the making out of all civic 
 activities something fine and expressive, both by means 
 of appropriate ceremonies and balanced artistry. ‘There 
 is plenty of material to work on, and without doubt we 
 all seek for cheerfulness, but the road to it must be a 
 natural one, and not marked out by the affectations 
 which would be inevitable were any imitations of 
 another age to be imposed on us. Medieval life con- 
 tained so much that was built up on conditions belong- 
 ing to its time that there is not the least excuse for 
 attempting the semblance of a revival, though it is 
 essential to realise what its excellencies were if we 
 intend to make an effort to remedy the defects of our 
 present social organisation. Its direct influence on the 
 art of town planning is almost negligible, but indirectly 
 as a criterion of civic activity, and from that, as a guide 
 to what our cities should provide for, it is of such 
 importance as to justify a brief glance at the develop- 
 ment of the city structure in those days. 
 
 Though the castle of the overlord usually determined 
 the location of the town, it rarely took a central position, 
 the town spreading away from the main gate and 
 keeping to that side only. Probably in most cases the 
 position chosen for the fortified mound was such as 
 precluded development on one or more sides, it being 
 for military reasons better that the castle should be as 
 free as possible from the cover that a crowded city 
 would, if captured, afford to an attacking force. Thus 
 the castle, though often a dominating feature, only 
 affects two or three main routes, and apart from these 
 we may treat the plan of the town as a separate entity. 
 Having disposed of the castle, we find the leading 
 
 35 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 feature of the town to be the parish church, towards 
 which the roads tend to converge in all cases where 
 there has been no organised plan. ‘These converging 
 roads having thus ordained that the centre of the city 
 shall be somewhere near the church, the market locates 
 itself either at or not very far from this point, often 
 right in front of the church itself. For a time all trades 
 and crafts would gather round this point, but if the 
 growing importance of the place made this incon- 
 venient, the different trades would tend to group 
 themselves in quarters near at hand; guildhalls and 
 minor churches would arise; the town would have, 
 in addition to its main centre, a number of subsidiary 
 ones, and it would then be found more convenient to 
 shift the markets for produce in bulk to less central 
 positions. ‘This gives the main features that the plan of 
 the larger medizval city exhibits, and, as most of the 
 citizens were traders or artisans, we need not look for 
 anything in the way of a residential quarter. 
 
 There are some exceptions to be noted. In the ports 
 of the Hansa league the typical grouping was supple- 
 mented by an important maritime organisation, with 
 its quays and warehouses ; in the towns given burgher 
 rights by direct grant of the ruler, the castle would be 
 absent, and the town hall would probably take up an 
 important position in the central group. The cathedral 
 city again might, or might not, have a castle, and 
 while on the Continent the cathedral is usually to be 
 found right in the centre of the town, with us it often 
 merely adjoins it, as in the case of Salisbury, Win- 
 chester and Wells, on the lines of those other religious 
 communities which, being exempt from attack, chose 
 
 36 
 
MEDIAEVAL CITIES 
 
 sites outside the town walls, where land was available 
 on a more liberal scale than in such positions as could 
 have been secured within them. These communities, 
 the depositaries of scholarship and philosophy, were 
 naturally the leaders in the arts and sciences, and their 
 buildings show the best standard of ordered planning 
 and design during this period, while, as the earlier 
 colleges were modelled on them, the university towns 
 exhibit medizval planning at its best, without con- 
 gestion and with well-proportioned and well-grouped 
 buildings set in pleasant garths and gardens. 
 
 No great change in civic ideals took shape until the 
 coming of the Renaissance, and such developments as 
 preceded this accentuated rather than modified the 
 typical character of the city. The elaboration of 
 fortifications penned it up still more firmly within its 
 walls, and where the overflow was driven into suburbs 
 outside, these were so detached and inferior in con- 
 venience as to offer no serious competition to the city 
 itself in the way of discouraging over-building. So long 
 as the trade with the East passed across the Continent 
 the growth of the business centres was unchecked. 
 Only with the discovery of the sea route round the 
 Cape did this begin to slacken, and it is perhaps not a 
 mere coincidence that this set-back is the prelude to a 
 period of disorganisation which left central Europe, 
 some hundred years later, with wrecked cities and a 
 devastated countryside. ‘Thus we reach a tragic close 
 to medizvalism in those parts, while nearer home it 
 drew to an end, not without tragedies on a minor scale, 
 but only those that are bound to accompany a rejection 
 of standards long recognised as the only valid ones. 
 
 a) 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 Developments in Britain 
 
 F any excuse is needed for devoting a chapter to 
 
 the growth of towns in Great Britain it is to be 
 
 found in the fact that our island has, by reason of 
 its being an island, followed a distinctive line of develop- 
 ment, and, while occasionally we have conformed to, 
 or imitated, the manners of contemporary nations 
 across the seas, we have more often been impelled to 
 diverge from them owing to the force of circumstances 
 or to temperamental differences. 
 
 England has been called by its detractors the suburb 
 of Europe, and now that the garden suburb permits us 
 to regard such a term with equanimity and to postulate 
 merits as well as defects, we may accept it as justified 
 from more than one aspect. As far back as we can 
 carry our imagination, certainly long before the age of 
 any remains now existing, it seems to have been the 
 rule for Britain to be the ultimate goal of migrant 
 peoples from the Continent. Probably other lands 
 towards the edges of Europe shared this, but these 
 being, so to speak, within the town ditch, movement 
 took place gradually, while the crossing of the sea 
 involved a definite expedition by those aiming at a new 
 settlement. Thus the Romans found south Britain 
 inhabited by Gaulish tribes, while central and northern 
 England were occupied by men of different race from 
 those in Wales and Scotland, who, there is good reason 
 to believe, were themselves originally immigrants 
 driven back by the newer comers. There were un- 
 
 38 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN BRITAIN 
 
 doubtedly strongly marked differences in life and 
 customs within the area which fell under Roman 
 domination. | 
 
 It is likely that the Belgie and Atrebates in the 
 south were constructing rectangular houses, while the 
 tribes in the west and north were living in circular huts. 
 At all events we find the latter, at least as late as 300 
 B.C., located as far south as Glastonbury, where the lake 
 villages have yielded indications of a fair standard of 
 civilisation, while the numerous hill forts of earlier 
 date could only have been constructed by the co- 
 operation of large numbers, in view of the vast amount 
 of work involved and the primitive implements avail- 
 able. .As the Glastonbury villages were composed of 
 circular huts and the hill forts contain no remains of 
 buildings other than hut circles, we may assume that 
 little more than defensive planning existed prior to the 
 advent of the Romans. 
 
 These naturally began with the construction of 
 camps on the recognised Roman model, and when 
 control was established the three fortress cities at 
 York, Chester and Caerleon, were, in A.D. 75, made 
 the permanent bases of the Ninth, T’wentieth and 
 Second Legions, and the more important camps were 
 given stronger fortifications which ultimately included 
 masonry walls with bastions, and sometimes a covered 
 way under the ramparts. When the country became 
 secure and settled, non-military towns, such as London, 
 Lincoln and Leicester, rose up, together with numerous 
 ** villas scattered about the country, and suburban 
 extensions outside the legionary establishments. These, 
 while displaying Roman influence in their plan, were 
 
 oo 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 by no means so regularly laid out as the military stations, 
 and their walls were not usually rectangular, but in- 
 cluded an area of irregular shape corresponding to the 
 conformation of the ground or the needs of the place. 
 London’s earlier enclosure to the east of Walbrook was 
 nearer the standard type than its later wall, still clearly 
 defined, which includes an area by no means regular 
 in shape about a mile in length, while only half a mile 
 in width. The walls of Silchester have all been traced, 
 and in this case also, although the town streets are 
 rectangularly planned, the walls are laid out as an 
 irregular polygon. 
 
 Before the disintegration of the Roman Empire 
 involved the withdrawal of the last remaining legions 
 from Britain, there had already been conflicts with the 
 sea folk of north Germany, as is proved by the forts 
 constructed along the east coast during the fourth cen- 
 tury, and soon afterwards these immigrants over- 
 whelmed the Romanised Britons, the towns being 
 destroyed by reason of the fact that there was no place 
 for them in the agricultural and pastoral organisation 
 of the newcomers. ‘Thus we find that only in a few 
 instances do our medizeval towns retain traces of the 
 Roman plan, even where the positions are identical. 
 
 The initial destruction covered the site with débris, 
 and the subsequent ground level is considerably above 
 the original one ; yet we sometimes find the two main 
 cross-roads still surviving, quartering the city, as at 
 Chester or Chichester. What happened at Chester is so 
 unusual in the annals of towns that it demands passing 
 mention. The principal roads seem to have been 
 maintained at their original level, despite the destruc- 
 
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DEVELOPMENTS IN BRITAIN 
 
 tion of the Roman buildings that filled the spaces 
 between. Rebuilding took place on the top of the 
 consolidated remains of these, and the first houses 
 stood at the top of banks on either side of the road. 
 Subsequently little booths lined the lower frontages, 
 and eventually the lower and upper structures were 
 combined, hence we get the Chester “ Rows.” In 
 other places roads and all were buried under the débris 
 and refuse, so that we find the Roman pavements deep 
 below the surface of to-day, in London at a depth of 
 as much as 18 feet. The Great Fire may have helped 
 here, but in other towns the depth is considerable and 
 must be regarded as a reflection on the civic manage- 
 ment, or lack of it, in medizval times. 
 
 We now reach a point at which there is a clean slate 
 in regard to town development. With the exception, 
 perhaps, of London and a few other places having out- 
 standing natural advantages, the disappearance of the 
 town was complete, and the needs of the Anglo-Saxon 
 groups were met by the village. Many of the villages 
 then founded have altered very little from the sixth 
 century to the present day, but as others have formed 
 the nucleus of our country towns, small and large, it is 
 necessary that we should have an idea of how their 
 sites were chosen and of their constituent parts. 
 Water was naturally desired, and the presence of a 
 good spring frequently determined the selection ; else- 
 where streams are to be found near at hand, but on 
 uplands rain-water had to suffice. Where there was 
 navigable water, a frontage to this was always desirable, 
 and many parishes have long strips running down to 
 river or estuary, a system curiously parallel with that 
 
 AI 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 even now in vogue in eastern Canada, where farms have 
 been divided into long strips, each with a small river 
 frontage. Again, on the escarpments of the downs and 
 other ranges, boundaries were so delimited as to give 
 each place upland for pasture, woodland on the hillside, 
 and arable land on the plain. 
 
 While there were many variants, the more character- 
 istic type of village group comprised the manor house 
 —-the home of the thane—with, when he became a 
 Christian, the little church near by, and close at hand 
 the cottages of the churls. Around these were the 
 home pastures and, further out, the open arable land 
 which was allocated for cultivation year by year. A 
 water mill might, of course, have to be at some distance, 
 but the ideal was that the village should be a self- 
 supporting unit, independent of commerce, which only 
 began to re-establish itself later. Lacking this and the 
 idea of employing fortification, we find no incentive to 
 urban development and see nothing worthy of being 
 called a city during this phase. 
 
 The Roman system of national roads was not entirely 
 abandoned, but, as may be imagined, many fell into 
 disuse, as the villages demanded no more than a few 
 radial routes which were but poorly linked up with any 
 general road scheme. 
 
 We see at Avalon [the isle dominating the Somerset 
 marshland | the site tradition gives to the last stand that 
 British civilisation made against the invaders, and, 
 again, it is in isolated Athelney, in these same marshes, 
 that Alfred musters his forces to overcome the Danes. 
 By this we may picture how little then remained of the 
 Roman organisation of strong places and good com- 
 
 42 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN BRITAIN 
 
 munication between them. Though it is conjectured 
 that Alfred may have done something in town building, 
 it is the castle and church-building Norman who starts 
 us on our road again. While his eye for a site was 
 primarily that of the fighting man, reviving commerce 
 evoked development, first on river banks, and later at 
 some inland centres. The lack of roads demanded that 
 the trafic should penetrate as far up the river as the 
 draught of the vessels permitted, and this often coin- 
 cided with a point at which it became fordable. Thus 
 many towns now no longer regarded as ports originated 
 as such, with the added advantage that they were at 
 the lowest point where the river could be crossed. As 
 the size of the ships increased the trade moved down 
 the river, and newer towns arose on sites formerly 
 avoided as being too vulnerable to raids from the sea. 
 The map of England illustrates many examples of this 
 tendency, which has operated from Norman times 
 down to the present day. 
 
 To return to the castle located as a stronghold from 
 which to control the surrounding district, and the town 
 that gathered at its gate, which, if of sufficient import- 
 ance, had usually its own enclosing wall, we see that 
 these towns grew up around the lines of approach that 
 conditions dictated, and that only subsequently a more 
 regular lay-out became general, when Edward I., whose 
 bastides in France have been mentioned already, laid 
 out Flint, Conway, Carnarvon, and other Welsh 
 bastides for the English colonies that he founded there, 
 on a plan that was rectangular, except where the line of 
 wall dictated a variation. The new King’s town upon 
 Hull, to take the place of Ravanser, endangered by the 
 
 43 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 encroachments of the sea, was on similar lines, and is 
 interesting as the first place where bricks were generally 
 used in the buildings, the idea, if not some of the actual 
 bricks, being imported from Flanders. The old town 
 of Winchelsea being in the same danger, Edward 
 decided to lay out a new one on a site about 100 feet 
 above the surrounding marshes, and here the lines of 
 the very regular plan remain to this day, owing to the 
 fact that it has steadily declined in importance from 
 shortly after its establishment. 
 
 These activities of King Edward I. appear to have 
 gone a good deal beyond the general practice of the time 
 in organised regularity, though there are several 
 examples of it even earlier than his day. When in 1220 
 it was decided to remove from the arid and windswept 
 height of Old Sarum to the plain below, and to build 
 Salisbury there, the plan adopted was approximately 
 rectangular, and it may well have been the delight of 
 water in plenty after the lack of it on the hill-top that 
 induced the designers to divert water from the Avon 
 so that a runlet passed through nearly every street. 
 Elsewhere we find from time to time examples of 
 rectangular, or at least rectilinear, planning, but as a 
 general rule our medieval towns, as those elsewhere, 
 show the type of plan that develops from the fulfilment 
 of simple needs without deliberate ordering of align- 
 ment and site; generally there was a central area for 
 meeting and business, which became the market-place, 
 and the roads directed themselves towards this, or, if 
 the town had still smaller beginnings, roads leading 
 towards the church, and the market-place, if any, 
 locating itself as near this point as possible. As 
 
 44 
 
DEVELOPMENTS IN BRITAIN 
 
 illustrating this, it is interesting to note that a statute 
 of 1285 forbids fairs and markets being held in 
 churchyards. ‘These open centres are now often in 
 large measure disguised, owing to the fact of their 
 having been built over by those who originally estab- 
 lished booths or stalls and gradually managed to 
 acquire a vested interest in the sites of these, though, 
 fortunately, there are many cases in which the market- 
 place remains on the original lines, either because the 
 character of the market has remained unchanged or 
 because there has been ample ground for such additional 
 building as was needed. 
 
 This latter condition has been fulfilled the more 
 frequently owing to the relatively early abandonment 
 of the walled city in this country. During the settled 
 times of the Tudor dynasty many of our towns spread 
 beyond their walls, which were rarely of a very for- 
 midable character; then the walls themselves were 
 abandoned, and in many cases gradually removed, so 
 that at the time of the Civil War of the seventeenth 
 century only a few towns were so defended. From this 
 time onward our island has been free from such alarms 
 as might have evoked the activities of a British Vauban, 
 and practically the only defensive works carried out 
 have been of the nature of coastal fortifications, includ- 
 ing a limited amount of protective lines at salient points, 
 such as our arsenals. This circumstance has freed us 
 from one of the chief influences towards congested 
 building, and has resulted in our towns being more 
 extended and having a lower standard of height than 
 is usual in most Continental cities of equal size. That 
 this difference struck the observant foreigner may be 
 
 45 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 realised from the remarks of the Count de Grammont 
 on Tunbridge Wells in the year 1664. 
 
 “The visitors lodge in little dwellings, clean and 
 convenient, separated from one another and scattered 
 everywhere within half a league of the Wells. In the 
 morning they assemble at the spot where the springs are 
 situated. There is a fine avenue of shady trees, beneath 
 which the visitors walk while they drink the waters. At 
 one side of this avenue stretches a long row of shops, 
 furnished with all sorts of elegant trifles, lace, stockings, 
 and gloves, where you may amuse yourself as at the 
 Fair. On the other side of the avenue the market is 
 held ; and as every one goes there to choose and buy 
 his own provisions, you see nothing exposed for sale 
 which could occasion disgust.” 
 
 Though Tunbridge Wells was undoubtedly more of 
 a “* Garden City ” than places given over to commerce, 
 we have only to compare the typical English town 
 houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with 
 those of other countries to appreciate the difference, as 
 only in a few of the busiest centres did they have four 
 or five floors ; elsewhere two, or at most three, was the 
 general standard, while gardens were quite usual within 
 the town area. The disadvantages of the overgrown 
 city seem to have had some measure of recognition, as 
 is evidenced by Elizabeth’s statute, placing a limit on 
 the expansion of London, an endeavour which at that 
 date naturally proved abortive in view of the imprac- 
 ticability of providing any alternative course, just as 
 the prohibition of the use of “ sea coal ”’ became a dead 
 letter for the same reason. 
 
 Until the industrial development brought about the 
 
 46 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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DEVELOPMENTS IN BRITAIN 
 
 intensive housing described elsewhere, the house was 
 always regarded as the building unit, with something 
 in the way of a garden attached, and the absence of this 
 adjunct was exceptional rather than general. 
 
 To realise the character of our towns some two hun- 
 dred years ago we must seek one that has not partici- 
 pated in the subsequent commercial expansion, an 
 example not easy to find, so generally has this form of 
 activity spread over the country. At the same time 
 many of the little market towns in the eastern and 
 southern counties will give a fair idea of the early days 
 of the great industrial centres, and with these as a 
 guide we can verify our impressions of the growth of 
 the larger towns from the few surviving buildings to be 
 seen here and there among the later ones that tower above 
 them, and from such fragments of the original centre and 
 street planning as have not been altogether obliterated. 
 
 This brings us down to the time when the “ utili- 
 tarian’’ plans submerged the character of the city 
 organism in ill-devised masses of dwellings, hurriedly 
 pushed up and without visualisation of the changes neces- 
 sary when a town has had to provide for ten or twenty 
 times its former population. ‘The individual houses 
 were probably no worse structurally, and no better, 
 than their immediate prototypes, but what could be 
 tolerated in scattered groups of a dozen or so became 
 deplorable when massed together by the hundred. The 
 only exceptions to this form of growth were in the 
 quarters reserved for the wealthy, and as both these 
 developments will come under review later on, our 
 summary of the conditions specifically British may be 
 brought to a close at this point. 
 
 47 
 
CHAPTER V 
 The Renaissance 
 
 O much has been written on the Renaissance, and 
 
 the general aspects of this phase of history are 
 
 so well documented, that it would be absurd to 
 recapitulate them here, and all that need be done is to 
 pass directly to its effect on the planning of our towns. 
 As might be expected, this was not one of the earlier 
 developments of the movement. Sculpture and archi- 
 tecture showed the influence of the revived study of 
 classic times before the more general aspect of the towns 
 received attention. Probably the earliest definite scheme 
 on record was that for the remodelling of the Vatican 
 quarters in Rome prepared for Pope Nicholas V. (1447- 
 55), which was not carried out. 
 
 Naturally, central areas in proximity to important 
 buildings were the first to receive attention, and when 
 the Piazza della Signoria at Florence was enlarged, 
 Cosimo I. consulted Michael Angelo with regard to its 
 development.. His proposal was to carry loggie all 
 round the square, following the design of Orcagna’s 
 existing loggia, which stands to the right of the Palazzo 
 Vecchio. ‘This again was not executed, and the nine- 
 teenth century reconstruction of central Florence took 
 quite different lines. 
 
 As more became known of the ancient planning of 
 the Greco-Roman civilisation, the technique of the 
 Renaissance planners expanded, but though indebted to 
 classic times for the geometrical forms it employed, it 
 diverted these to dissimilar uses, taking a wider area on 
 
 48 
 
THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 which to impose the patterns made up of street, square 
 and circus. We have seen that the Graeco-Roman work 
 in city planning was at first mainly rectangular, subse- 
 quently combining with this circular features and occa- 
 sional radials, that axial lines were strongly marked, and 
 that the vista with a terminal feature became a popular 
 form of expression. At the same time the more studied 
 effects in the combination of straight lines with curves 
 were almost always reserved for enclosed areas, such as 
 the forum or the bath. It remained for the Renaissance 
 designers to develop the circle as a feature in the general 
 plan of the city and to lay down radial lines as part of an 
 extended scheme. 
 
 As might be expected, Rome took the lead in this 
 development, and the work of Carlo Fontana there 
 initiated the movement towards planning on lines more 
 sophisticated from the geometrical standpoint, his 
 principal achievement being the alignment of the two 
 radial streets meeting the Corso (the old Roman road) 
 in the Piazza del Popolo. ‘Then we see Bernini’s 
 masterly forecourt to St. Peter’s and other fine roads 
 planned to reconstitute the city as a whole, and to 
 display its more striking buildings to the best advantage. 
 Other Italian towns followed suit, and in the Renais- 
 sance gardens of Italy the same general lines of treat- 
 ment were adopted. 
 
 The philosophic aspect of the city plan moved 
 
 several designers to prepare diagrams for the ideal city, 
 and naturally one of the earliest of these comes from the 
 hand of an Italian, the architect Scamozzi; but more 
 logical in treatment were the plan for Palma Nuova and 
 the design by Perret de Chambéry, in that, instead of 
 
 49 : 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 a rectangular plan being employed, the internal 
 arrangements are adapted to the polygonal outline 
 that the fortifications dictate. Leonardo da Vinci 
 also, among his varied activities, gave thought to the 
 problems of the city, and in one of his sketches shows 
 a double system of water and road routes, probably 
 suggested by Venice ; while another gives us roads on 
 two levels, such as might be employed with advantage 
 in some of our overworked modern towns. 
 
 France, in close touch with Italy at the time, was the 
 first to follow up on these geometrical lines of develop- 
 ment, and subsequently carried much farther the 
 system of a series of “ rond points ”’ connected by a 
 triangulated pattern of routes. It is suggested by 
 Professor Abercrombie that this type of plan was 
 influenced by the practice of forming large hunting 
 parks with rectilinear avenues and focal points as 
 meeting places. Apart from the fact that many of these 
 parks were quite close to the city, as adjuncts to the 
 royal palaces, the dignified formality of their imposing 
 avenues could not fail to suggest the idea of developing 
 city extensions on similar lines; more probably the 
 similarity may have arisen to some extent from the 
 same ideas working in parallel lines, for we see that the 
 first development of this kind, in Rome, was of earlier 
 date than the French hunting parks. 
 
 Reviewing the contribution of the Renaissance on 
 broad lines, it may be regarded as that of the geometrical 
 design of a road scheme which was an advance on the 
 previous rectangular plans. Hitherto the radial prin- | 
 ciple in planning had only made itself evident by 
 accident, as it were, where route lines had preceded 
 
 50 
 

 
 17. Ideal City Plan by Perret de Chambery 
 
 Facing page 50° 
 
Facing page 51 
 
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 18, The Lay-out of a French Park which influenced City Planning 
 
 
 
THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 lay-out. The ancient cities had accepted these but had 
 not embodied them in a deliberate plan, and although in 
 medizval towns they appear in plenty, this is only 
 where conscious planning is absent. Now we find the 
 philosophy of the art embracing the principle that 
 radial routes must form a feature in the lay-out of all 
 large cities, that these radials must be co-ordinated on 
 geometric lines, and reconciled at their points of 
 junction by means of a “ place ” planned to harmonise 
 the various angles at which they come together, usually 
 a circular one as the easiest solution, but sometimes 
 made more interesting by the adoption of other 
 shapes. 
 
 The acceptance of this kind of planning gives an 
 entirely different aspect to the city. With the ancients 
 the more important spaces were almost always closed in 
 by porticoes conveying the impression of a hall with 
 the sky as roof, and while the street had often a 
 dignified terminal feature, the main effort was usually 
 directed to producing a series of effects by the lay-out 
 of spaces more or less independent of each other. In 
 medizeval towns something of the same impression was 
 achieved by the accident that the streets were narrow 
 and tortuous, and the open centres so closely built up 
 that they appeared almost entirely encircled. Some of 
 the earlier work of Renaissance times displayed the 
 
 influence of these traditions, to mention squares such 
 as the Place Royale and Covent Garden, and the 
 hemicycle at Nancy ; but there is a continued tendency 
 to diverge from this in favour of co-ordinating all 
 streets and “ places ”’ into an open pattern, avoiding the 
 appearance of enclosure and abandoning to a large 
 
 51 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 extent the effects secured by continuous or encircling 
 facades. . 
 
 Under Louis XIV. extensive remodellings were 
 undertaken in Paris, and Le Notre, in the gardens of 
 Versailles, adopted a larger scale than that hitherto 
 employed in this type of design, while the same ideals 
 governed the new developments within the city, where 
 a group of able designers were in emulation to make 
 it worthy of the Roz-Soleil. 
 
 This emulation reached a culminating point a little 
 later, in the competition for a scheme glorifying Louis 
 XV., which has been comprehensively illustrated by 
 Patte. Here it was left to the competitors to select any 
 part of Paris for reconstruction as a setting for the 
 memorial statue, and thus the result was a number of 
 striking suggestions, most of which, though too extrava- 
 gant for achievement, illustrate very vividly the attitude 
 of the age towards the embellishment of the city. ‘The 
 outcome of this competition was the formation of the 
 Place de la Concorde, which defined the design of this 
 part of Paris in the form that it retains to this day. 
 
 The same type of monumental planning was con- 
 tinued right on to the time of Napoleon I., and the 
 ‘“artist’s plan’’ prepared during the revolutionary 
 period has features that still remain on the programme 
 of improvement. These activities slackened later, but 
 were revived when Napoleon III. desired to continue 
 the Imperial tradition and appointed Haussmann to 
 superintend the reconstruction of Paris. ‘The work under 
 his régime adhered closely to the eighteenth-century 
 model, which throughout the major part of the nine- 
 teenth century set the standard for lay-out on the 
 
 52 
 
THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 Continent, and even elsewhere when the matter received 
 any consideration at all. 
 
 Doubtless this system owed much to the increasing 
 demands of wheeled traffic, which brought the roadway 
 into greater prominence as a factor in town life, but 
 this would not necessarily have dictated the formality 
 of treatment, which was a direct inheritance from 
 Roman times. It is the combination of the ideal of 
 spacious dignity with the demand for accessibility that 
 produced this characteristic type of plan. Before study- 
 ing it in detail, passing mention must be made of the 
 theory that it arose from military convenience and the 
 advantages it offered in the control of disorder. Though 
 it is established that a number of straight, wide roads 
 have been made with this object in view, and these now 
 take their place in, and are not distinguishable from, 
 the remainder of the plan in which they occur, this 
 consideration does not appear to have affected the 
 original type of design nor to have modified it to any 
 material extent. Despite the generally “closed ” 
 character of the Grzeco-Roman plans, there are nume- 
 rous instances of the inclusion of the vista where a long 
 approach leads to an important temple or other build- 
 ing, a type of effect probably derived from Egypt or 
 Asia. Now, the enhanced importance given to the 
 straight and wide street in the seventeenth century 
 inevitably brought the value of a terminal feature again 
 into prominence, and as the geometric plan afforded 
 numerous viewpoints for important buildings or 
 monuments placed at street intersections, the geome- 
 tric plan and the terminal feature became inseparable, 
 and the dominant influences on Renaissance city design. 
 
 Shs 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 These influences were responsible for the reconstruc- 
 tions of medieval centres with the object of freeing the 
 cathedral to take its place as a street terminal, which, 
 incidentally, often deprived it of surroundings har- 
 monising with its design and destroyed the effect 
 originally intended. This, however, was merely an 
 occasional error, the main virtue of Renaissance plan- 
 ning being unaffected by it, the virtue which lies in a 
 consistent harmony between the planning of the build- 
 ings themselves and their relation to each other. Axial 
 and symmetrical planning having established itself for 
 the buildings, it is only rational that this axiality and 
 symmetry should extend to the spaces in which they 
 stand, and thus we get in lieu of the medizval artist 
 making his designs so as to fill effectively the accidental 
 voids at his disposal, the considered treatment of general 
 plan and building groups as a single operation. This is 
 where the subsequent developments on similar lines 
 failed, and ultimately brought a measure of discredit on 
 this type of plan. The two components becoming 
 separated, street plans were made without any guarantee 
 that the sites would be occupied by appropriate struc- 
 tures. Under no circumstances is it wise to frame a 
 lay-out without definite views as to the buildings it 1s 
 to provide for, but in the case of planning of the geome- 
 trical type such a course is peculiarly conducive to 
 failure. 
 
 In France the strength of architectural tradition 
 saved the situation to some extent, but elsewhere in 
 Europe the effect of the formal plans suffered much 
 from an empirical eclecticism in the design of the 
 buildings, as may be seen in the Ringstrasse at Vienna, 
 
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THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 while in the United States the even greater latitude as 
 to building masses and design prevalent during the 
 nineteenth century was destructive of any merit to which 
 the plan of Washington by L’Enfant could lay claim 
 to. ‘This scheme, in which the radials of the typical 
 Renaissance plan are superimposed on the traditional 
 American gridiron, could not have been a success 
 without further efforts to reconcile the two, but if the 
 terminal features and the main centres had been more 
 strongly emphasised a better result would have accrued. 
 Recent efforts in this direction have effected improve- 
 ments, but the radical defect of the numerous irregular 
 intersections can hardly be overcome. 
 
 A little later the reconstruction of Detroit after a 
 fire offered an opportunity for the introduction of a 
 geometrical plan which endeavoured to combine the 
 advantages of the diagonal element with a continuously 
 uniform street pattern, and the area then planned forms 
 the centre of the city, though subsequent expansion was 
 on the usual rectangular lines. ‘The scheme offered 
 architectural possibilities of which little advantage was 
 taken. Up till recently these represent the only two 
 instances in America evidencing the influence of Renais- 
 sance planning, but now the great movement for civic 
 improvement there bases itself on this tradition, and 
 the same reliance is placed on it as in the Latin coun- 
 tries of Europe, in distinction from those usually termed 
 Teutonic, in which, as we shall see in a later chapter, 
 a new technique has been substituted which aims at 
 putting town planning on a broader footing than that 
 recognised by the artists of the Renaissance. 
 
 55 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 Aristocratic Planning 
 
 HILE the earlier phases of Renaissance 
 
 design preserved the democratic convention 
 
 of the city as a whole, and made no attempt 
 to differentiate between the superior and inferior 
 quarters of a city, we find in the eighteenth century a 
 definite specialisation of lay-out, where attention was 
 mainly directed to the provision of a dignified and 
 impressive scheme for the sole benefit of the more 
 opulent members of the community. 
 
 We find examples of this in the extensions of Paris 
 and other large French cities, in the west end of London, 
 in the new town at Edinburgh, in Bath, and, on a more 
 limited scale, in many other English towns. In Ger- 
 many the reconstructions, both political and economic, 
 after the Thirty Years’ War, involved considerable 
 activity in town planning, but the new towns, though 
 developed under Governments paternal in form, are 
 not solely aristocratic in conception, as they aim at pro- 
 viding for the community as a whole. At the same 
 time, they are dominated technically by the aristocratic 
 idea, the palace of the ruler being the central feature to 
 which the whole plan is related. Karlsruhe and Mann- 
 heim may be quoted as typical. ‘The planning in these 
 cases, though it is aristocratic in type, since it emanates 
 from a Government of that character, differs from those 
 other developments that concern themselves solely with 
 the accommodation of the well-to-do classes. 
 
 It will be best to consider the German examples 
 
 56 
 
ARISTOCRATIC PLANNING 
 
 first, as more akin to the previous course of Renaissance 
 design. Karlsruhe represents in fact a definite concep- 
 tion for a complete town of the Renaissance type, 
 pivoted on the palace. It dates from 1715, and is 
 notable for its fan-shaped plan, the town occupying 
 rather less, and the park rather more, than half of a 
 complete wheel which has at its hub the palace tower. 
 In the park the radial lay-out stretches for a consider- 
 able distance, but as this extent would become mono- 
 tonous in a town it is cut through by a broad main 
 street beyond which, though the radials continue, the 
 circular roads are omitted and straight ones at varying 
 angles are substituted. The whole plan is an interesting 
 device, but is not one which would fulfil general 
 requirements. It may have owed something to the lay- 
 out of Versailles, but it is, in the main, an original 
 conception. 
 
 The plan of Mannheim was more conventional, on 
 the normal rectangular lines admissible for the limited 
 area the town covered. ‘The street proportions are 
 good, but it has no great distinction. Fortunately its 
 later expansion has been well guided, and the inclusion 
 of a radial system in this has made for convenience and 
 order. Special features in other capitals of the German 
 principalities illustrate this type of scheme, but a more 
 interesting example will claim our attention if we cross 
 the Rhine and pay a visit to Nancy, where the architect 
 Heré laid out for the Duke of Lorraine the section of 
 the city which comprises the Place Stanislas, the Place 
 de la Carriére and the Hemicycle. The main buildings 
 were for the accommodation of the Ducal Court, and 
 the whole conception is more in the direction of a 
 
 57 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 palace than of the civic group that it has now become. 
 At the same time it was welded into the town plan and 
 links up the old city very effectively with the new 
 extensions to the west. 
 
 It is in England, however, that what we have termed 
 “aristocratic”? planning takes a special significance, 
 because, while on the Continent the controlling 
 influences nearly always operated with an eye to the 
 town as a whole, the influence of the Renaissance in 
 England, as regards town planning, does not appear to 
 have reached the minds of those who had the control of 
 our cities. Doubtless the historian could find good 
 reason for the extraordinary difference between the 
 development of Continental towns and those of England 
 during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There 
 are a number of political and social factors that come 
 to mind, the discussion of which does not come within 
 eur province. Whatever the causes were, the fact 
 remains obvious that during this period the ideal of a 
 replanned town never took form with us, while it was 
 general elsewhere. 
 
 The great chance for such a movement seems to have 
 vanished when Wren’s plan for rebuilding London, 
 devised by a man of the highest genius in accordance 
 with the best traditions of the Renaissance, was aban- 
 doned, and the city was reconstructed on its old lines. 
 Had this opportunity not been lost, there would doubt- 
 less have arisen a general recognition of the need for 
 good planning throughout the country, and subsequent 
 efforts would not have been so uniformly limited to 
 private enterprise as they were, with the one exception 
 of Edinburgh, a place always more susceptible to the 
 
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ARISTOCRATIC PLANNING 
 
 influence of the Continent than the remainder of Great 
 Britain. We must, however, retrace our steps and take 
 up our story at the time when Inigo Jones introduced 
 to this country the manner of planning then in vogue 
 abroad. He had here no opportunity for comprehen- 
 sive schemes such as were in view in Rome, and even 
 in Paris the new developments had not got very far ; 
 thus his imaginings were still limited to the dignified 
 square, itself as much an architectural conception as 
 a building, and with this in his mind he laid out 
 Covent Garden and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and in so 
 doing exercised an influence on the future of London 
 and other cities that he probably little realised. That 
 Wren would have carried the technique of city planning 
 much farther can be realised when we look at Green- 
 wich Hospital, not to speak of his plan for the city, 
 but his opportunity went by, and, while his ablest 
 successors were busy with the mansions of the nobility, 
 the square remained for half a century the only addi- 
 tion to our treatment of the town plan. Bristol, then 
 the second city of the kingdom, constructed the 
 spacious Queen Square near the harbour for its leading 
 merchants, and’in London we find a long series of 
 squares built on dignified lines to provide appropriate 
 residential quarters for the aristocracy and well-to-do 
 classes. ‘Though many of these have fallen from their 
 high estate, there are few which have become so 
 defaced that it is not possible to visualise what they 
 once were. We must, however, be aware of the fact 
 that the enclosed gardens belong to a later date, 
 and that the original plan provided an open place, 
 generally with a central monument and, perhaps, an 
 
 59 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 encircling promenade under a single or double line 
 of trees. 
 
 St. James’s, Queen, Red Lion and Soho Squares 
 belong to this period. Hanover, Cavendish and 
 Bloomsbury Squares are a little later. Grosvenor, 
 Portman, and the neighbouring ones follow on; and 
 the other squares in Bloomsbury continue the suc- 
 cession. 
 
 But, if we are to proceed in order of time, we must 
 at this point leave London and transport ourselves to 
 Bath, where we find that, following Queen’s Square, 
 designed by John Wood the elder, his son planned first 
 the Circus, with its three roads of entry, so that each 
 might be terminated by the facades of the houses, and 
 continued his scheme to include a sweeping crescent 
 on a larger scale than anything hitherto done, both 
 introducing the circular element that had not so far 
 been adopted in our street planning, though it was to 
 be found in the design of some of our large mansions. 
 It was some time before this element was generally 
 adopted, though eventually it achieved popularity, 
 more especially in our watering places, where the 
 crescent became a standard feature overlooking the sea, 
 and elsewhere when the site seemed to suggest it as a 
 suitable form. In London several examples date from 
 the end of the eighteenth century, but not in prominent 
 positions, till Nash, who fully recognised the value of 
 the contrast between straight and circular, planned 
 Regent Street, with its quadrant, its two circuses, and 
 its termination in Park Crescent. 
 
 About the same time Bayswater began to spread 
 westward, and Belgravia ran neck and neck with it, 
 
 60 
 
ARISTOCRATIC PLANNING 
 
 reaching its limits the earlier of the two. Both districts 
 include a certain amount of circular planning, but are 
 in the main rectilinear in design. At the later stages 
 of the Bayswater development a slight variation was 
 made in the type of the square. On the adoption of the 
 central enclosure it had been treated as the joint 
 garden of the residents, who crossed the road to enter 
 it. ‘The new arrangement placed the enclosure between 
 the backs of two rows of houses, in the position formerly 
 occupied by a mews accommodating the range of 
 private stables, which were in the eighteenth century 
 regarded as necessary adjuncts to houses of this class. 
 By the middle of the nineteenth century the increase in 
 public conveyances rendered this accommodation super- 
 fluous, and terrace houses could have access from both 
 sides ; therefore, it was clearly advantageous that, while 
 one side faced the street, the other should have a private 
 access to the enclosure. 
 
 In following the fortunes of London we have been 
 drawn so far ahead that we must now turn back to 
 an earlier date to consider the progress made elsewhere. 
 On our way to Edinburgh, let us pause to pay a tribute 
 of regret to the delightful little “ Old Square” in 
 Birmingham, now entirely swept away, which was a 
 perfectly proportioned little “ place,” with its sixteen 
 wide-fronted early Georgian houses and the roads 
 entering in the middle of each side. Other towns can 
 still show us pleasant little squares, but none possessing 
 more quiet old-world dignity than this did. 
 
 In Edinburgh, George Square, to the south of the old 
 town, was built in 1766, and in the following year the 
 most comprehensive development this island can show 
 
 61 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 was commenced from the plans of James Craig. This 
 is the only large municipal scheme of that age, and the 
 southern section, first carried through, is noble in scale, 
 while the simple rectangular planning suits well enough 
 the comparatively level site. ‘Towards the end of the 
 century the extension northward was in hand, and this 
 included a fair proportion of circular planning in its 
 three circuses and two crescents. The site here would 
 have greatly exercised the mind of the modern town 
 planner, as it is on a slope falling rapidly to the north, 
 with a fine outlook in that direction. How far would it 
 be practicable to take advantage of the view and yet 
 secure that the houses should not have an aspect solely 
 northern—what ingenuity would not be expended in 
 achieving this? But the planners of that day had no 
 misgivings ; town was town, and had no concern with 
 natural beauties, viewpoints, or sunlight, so that the 
 monumental plan adopted bears no indication of a 
 hillside, and has every appearance of having been 
 designed for a level plain. The standard of dignity 
 here set up was maintained in Edinburgh until the rail- 
 ways came in and cut up the surrounding areas in such 
 a manner that its continuance was no longer possible, 
 apart from the fact that it was only suited to the needs 
 of the wealthier citizens. 
 
 The eighteenth century brought to Dublin also 
 much added dignity, with noble buildings, streets and 
 squares, but here the political union with Great Britain 
 had the tragical effect of depriving them of the occu- 
 pants for whom they were designed and bringing about, 
 even more quickly and emphatically, the degradation 
 to which other “ aristocratic” quarters have been 
 
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 reduced owing to the shifting of the centres of fashion. 
 In most cases the displacement has been in favour 
 of business undertakings, but here the finest houses 
 have been turned over to the poorest of the poor, for 
 whom they were quite unsuitable. In the north of 
 Ireland we find that much of Belfast was systematically 
 laid out during the early nineteenth century on not 
 very interesting lines, and crossing over to Glasgow we 
 see that somewhat later there was a good deal of sound 
 planning for the wealthier quarters of the town. The 
 remodelling of Newcastle under Richard Grainger was 
 skilfully done, and, as the fine streets he laid out now 
 form the central area of the town, his work has saved 
 the municipality the task of making costly improve- 
 ments such as have been found necessary in other large 
 towns. 
 
 From this summary it will be realised that at no time 
 was the art of planning our towns in complete abeyance ; 
 but if we are tempted to congratulate ourselves on this, 
 we can only do so if we shut our eyes to the fact that all 
 our illustrations have had, perforce, to be drawn from 
 undertakings concerned only with the wealthy, or at 
 least the well to do. 
 
 The fact that the west end is usually the part of the 
 city occupied by the opulent, except where the natural 
 formation of the site forbids it, has provoked many 
 attempts at an explanation. It has often been attributed 
 to an assumption that the prevailing wind drives the 
 smoke eastward, a statement that is, to say the least, 
 open to doubt. Is it not far more probable that, the 
 time of leisure and recreation coming towards the latter 
 end of the day, man naturally turns his steps towards 
 
 63 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 the brightness of the evening sky? Let any one try it 
 for himself and, standing at four or five o’clock where 
 conditions in all directions are fairly similar, see in 
 which direction he feels, eliminating any preconceived 
 intention, inclined to direct his steps. Will it not be 
 westward ° 
 
 Moreover, in the old days of the walled city, by far 
 the pleasantest evening promenade must have been 
 outside the western walls, and, therefore, all who were 
 in a position to choose gathered themselves together in 
 this quarter, and thus established the “‘ west end ” 
 tradition. It may safely be said that the only towns not 
 obedient to this rule are those in which the conforma- 
 tion of the site, or some dominating economic require- 
 ment, imposes a marked physical obstacle to the 
 tendency towards such an arrangement. 
 
 64 
 
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 ey 
 
 
 
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 eae Nhe 
 

 
 26. Bath at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century 
 
 Facing page 65 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 The Industrial Age and After 
 
 4 SHE title of ‘‘ the industrial age’ is given, per- 
 haps unfairly, to that period in which the rapid 
 discovery of machine methods of production 
 
 and the putting into operation of these methods took 
 such a predominant place in human activities as to 
 exclude, to a large extent, all other forms of effort, with 
 the result that we have to record, as against a clear 
 economic gain, a marked set-back in every branch of 
 social comity. 
 
 As is generally recognised, the British Isles had 
 almost a monopoly of this unenviable phase, and 
 though it spread abroad, and we see at the present day 
 an aftermath in the industrial centres of Asia, Britain 
 had such a long start in this form of unrestrained pro- 
 duction that the evils it brought in its wake were 
 becoming apparent before other countries followed 
 suit, and, therefore, things never reached the same 
 pitch of degradation elsewhere. 
 
 We can see on all sides the legacy that has come 
 down to us from the age that Dickens depicts so graphi- 
 cally in “ Hard Times,” but for those whose good for- 
 tune it has been to live far from any “ Coketown,”’ it 
 may not be amiss to quote one paragraph from his 
 description of the outward appearance of that place, 
 though, did space permit, one would be tempted to add 
 others exhibiting the psychology of those responsible, 
 more illuminating than the mere description of 
 appearances. 
 
 65 ) s 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 “It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would 
 have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it ; 
 but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and 
 black, like the painted face of a savage. It was a town 
 of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which inter- 
 minable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever 
 and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black 
 canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling 
 dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where 
 there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and 
 where the piston of the steam-engine worked mono- 
 tonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in 
 a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large 
 streets all very like one another, and many small streets 
 still more like one another, inhabited by people equally 
 like one another, who all went in and out at the same 
 hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements 
 to do the same work, and to whom every day was the 
 same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the 
 counterpart of the last and the next.’ 
 
 It is not easy to imagine how such a lapse from sane 
 living was possible, unless by accepting the theory that 
 man, having made the machine, this took its revenge by 
 mechanicalising him and his life, and sweeping away 
 the last fragments of the gracious relationships that had 
 survived from earlier times. 
 
 Communal life has at all times evoked struggles 
 between the groups and interests it comprehends, but 
 the rules of the game have varied, so that while in many 
 cases the results have left no enduring effect, in this 
 one they may take centuries to extirpate. Mere oppres- 
 sion and the reactions it provokes, responsible for much 
 
 66 
 
99 aod su1mv yy 
 
 add J, styi 0} a3e11do1dde ssurpling Jo} Suruue[g [eorjeutosyy ‘yieg “Lz 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 Lo aspd suing 
 
 ssUIp]Ing Jo Jojovieyy 
 peyorjaq 0} Surmo siseydua Jadoid sj Suryoey Sutuuryg [evoljowooy ‘“weyusiayD “gz 
 
 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL AGE AND AFTER 
 
 bloodshed and devastation, have left behind fewer ills 
 than this apparently beneficent discovery of vast 
 economies in the methods of production, which unfor- 
 tunately brought with it an irresistible tendency to- 
 wards the destruction of individuality, and the change 
 from the man into the “ hand,” the latter coming to be 
 regarded as having no claim on any intelligent part in 
 the functioning of the social machine. 
 
 How this influenced the structure of our towns is 
 sufficiently obvious. ‘The urgent need of the moment 
 was simply to house the accumulating masses of 
 workers as cheaply and as rapidly as possible ; no one 
 had time or disposition to think of their future, and 
 though there is no reason to suppose that the actual 
 standard of housing was lowered, what may be harm- 
 less in scattered groups becomes disastrous in vast 
 masses with the cumulative disadvantages of dense 
 smoke and the removal from qualifying rural amenities. 
 Karel Capek emphasised this aspect when he drew the 
 following picture :— 
 
 “The horrible thing in East London is not what can 
 be seen and smelt, but its unbounded and unredeemable 
 extent. Elsewhere poverty and ugliness exist merely as 
 a rubbish-heap between two houses, but here are miles 
 and miles of grimy houses, hopeless streets, Jewish 
 shops, a superfluity of children, gin palaces and Chris- 
 tian shelters—everything equally dull, grimy, bare and 
 unending, intersected by dirty channels of deafening 
 trafic. In the south, in the north-west, in the north- 
 east again the same thing, miles and miles of grimy 
 houses, where the whole street consists of nothing but 
 a vast horizontal tenement, factories, gasometers, rail- 
 
 67 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 way lines, clayey patches of waste ground, warehouses 
 for goods and warehouses for human beings. There 
 are assuredly uglier quarters and squalider streets in 
 all parts of the world, even squalor is here on a higher 
 level, and the poorest beggar is not clad in rags ; but, 
 good heavens, the human beings, the millions of 
 human beings who live in this greater half of London, 
 in these short, uniform, joyless streets, which teem on 
 the plan of London, like worms in a huge carrion. 
 And that is just the distressing thing about the East 
 End—there is too much of it; and it cannot be re- 
 shaped. In this overwhelming quantity it no longer 
 looks like an excess of human beings, but like a geolo- 
 gical formation.” 3 
 
 Planning there was none, except that demanded by 
 the economics of arrangement and construction. ‘The 
 previous standards of density, bad even in the conditions 
 then subsisting, were not amended, and the need for 
 ameliorative provisions was not even visualised, except 
 by one or two more advanced thinkers, such as Robert 
 Owen and William Cobbett, who were unable to make 
 headway against the sweeping current of unrestricted 
 industrialism. Only about 1845 did any strong move- 
 ment arise to stem this current by means of sanitary 
 measures, a limited provision of open spaces, and by 
 improvements in the character of dwellings. 
 
 Titus Salt built a village for the workers in his mills 
 in the year 1851, and though this is by no means in 
 conformity with the ideas of the present day, it indicates 
 an awakening to the fact that the existing standards were 
 in dire need of amendment. However, there was a long 
 lapse of time before any other manufacturer followed 
 
 68 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL AGE AND AFTER 
 
 his example, and though the standard of lay-out and 
 construction had an upward tendency, this was solely 
 from the “ practical ”’ standpoint, and it was not until 
 the ’eighties that any further move was made and 
 Bournville and Port Sunlight were founded. 
 
 But we are travelling too fast; before looking into 
 later phases of industrial town planning, it is incumbent 
 on us to visualise more definitely what preceded them. 
 When we come to consider the details of what has been 
 termed the “ utilitarian ”’ plan, we see that it embodied 
 almost every possible defect from the town planner’s 
 point of view. The actual houses themselves are dealt’ 
 with elsewhere, but the allocation and arrangement of 
 sites for the homes of the people appear to have been 
 decided with such an utter disregard of normal human 
 demands, as we now visualise them, that it seems no 
 longer worth while to embark on a detailed criticism. 
 Nevertheless, a phase that has left so definite an impress 
 on our town life may not be altogether ignored, and a 
 bare outline must be given of what our heritage is in this 
 respect, if merely as a text indicating evils to be avoided. 
 
 ‘“ Utilitarian ’’ planning—though the title be a 
 misnomer, it is a convenient one to employ—is simply 
 a negation of town planning as we now know it. Sites 
 were selected merely because they were at hand, regard- 
 less of whether they were suitable for occupation. 
 Well or badly drained, it made no difference ; smoke, 
 dirt or noise were of no consequence; aspect and 
 outlook were alike disregarded ; workers were there, 
 they must have a roof over their heads, and the more 
 you could pack together the better, as it saved the 
 bother of looking farther afield. It was not that at this 
 
 69 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 time the knowledge of building or planning had 
 deteriorated, since the rich were given fine streets and 
 good houses ; it was simply that no one had ever had 
 to plan on comprehensive lines for the worker, and 
 until the effects of the neglect to do so began to evidence 
 themselves it did not strike any one that such planning 
 was necessary. It is not to be believed that our fore- 
 fathers were deliberately inhuman ; more probably it 
 was mere absentmindedness in this direction. ‘They 
 had thought comfort in such things to be a luxury on 
 a par with fine clothes and rich food, and not a matter 
 of general necessity. It took a long time to realise 
 this error, and it is taking longer still to rectify it. 
 
 A brief quotation from Mr. Christopher Dawson’s 
 description of the state of affairs at this time helps us 
 to realise the position :— 
 
 ‘* 'The living social organs were those of the national 
 state, and were rural and aristocratic in character. 
 The rulers of the country looked on the development 
 of the new coal mines and factories in somewhat the 
 same way as a Roman senator would have viewed the 
 work of his slave gangs on his provincial estates—as 
 something outside and below civic life. The medizval 
 constitutions of the municipalities were no longer 
 functioning. ‘The craft regulations were mere anti- 
 quarian survivals. ‘The body of Freemen had practically 
 disappeared ; the essential’ work of the Common 
 Council was being taken over by the Borough Justices 
 of the Peace, and by a number of anomalous bodies— 
 Paving Commissioners, Police Commissioners and the 
 like—created by special Acts of Parliament. Some of the 
 greatest industrial towns were not even corporate cities. 
 
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THE INDUSTRIAL AGE AND AFTER 
 
 ‘Moreover, as the ruling classes were not city 
 dwellers, there was no opportunity for contact and 
 adjustment between the new raw industrial city and the 
 contemporary standards of civilised living. Even the 
 rich manufacturers themselves did not make a perma- 
 nent home in the towns which produced their wealth. 
 It was their ambition to climb out of their town into 
 the society of the country, which preserved all its 
 social prestige, even in districts where the material 
 advance of the new towns was greatest. In medizval 
 Florence the nobles came into the city as it grew rich, 
 but in nineteenth century Leeds and Manchester the 
 merchants and manufacturers went into the country. 
 There was none of that civic patriotism which caused 
 the medizeval merchant to spend so large a proportion 
 of his wealth in the service and adornment of the city. 
 And, in the same way, the semi-servile class of wage- 
 labourers, who formed the true population of the new 
 towns, grew up without traditions or ideals, with no 
 share in the national franchise or in the government 
 of their city. Their standards of life were even lower, 
 and their interests more limited, than those of the rural 
 class from which they had sprung. No doubt the 
 medizval artisan had no high standard of life, but at 
 least he shared in the living organic life of his city ; and 
 the gulf between his existence and that of the collier 
 or cotton spinner of the later eighteenth century 1s 
 almost as great as that which separates civilisation from 
 barbarism.” | 
 
 If the planning for those engaged in industry had 
 stopped at this point it could only have claimed men- 
 tion as a deplorable phase, of no interest except as 
 
 Ti 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 exemplifying what to avoid. But fortunately it 1s pos- 
 sible to supplement our account of this with the story 
 of the last forty years, in which has been exhibited a 
 steady upward movement that has brought it to a point 
 where it became possible for a Cabinet Minister to 
 say, ““I am tired of hearing the term working-class 
 housing, it is time now to speak simply of housing,’ 
 showing us that the ideals of the home need no longer 
 be differentiated in terms of the occupation of the 
 householder. 
 
 The obligation of providing good housing for their 
 employees was accepted by Mr. George Cadbury when 
 he founded Bournville in 1879, and by Mr. W. H. 
 Lever (now Lord Leverhulme) when he started to lay 
 out Port Sunlight in 1888. ‘The first-named is more 
 notable for the provisions dictating its development. 
 The basis was seven houses to the acre, giving, after 
 deductions for roads, etc., 500 square yards to each 
 house ; one-tenth of the whole was allotted to parks 
 and recreation grounds, and appropriate sites were 
 provided for public buildings. ‘The distance between 
 house fronts was fixed at 82 feet, so that in every way 
 the regulations were liberal in character. From the 
 points of view of health and general amenity, Bourn- 
 - ville takes a very high place, but the same favourable 
 verdict can hardly be extended to include the planning 
 from the zsthetic standpoint. The lay-out was unin- 
 teresting, and has been very greatly improved on in 
 schemes of later date. At Port Sunlight, much of 
 which was earlier than Bournville, the planning dis- 
 plays a much clearer intention as regards the grouping 
 of the houses, the lines of the roads, and the distribu- 
 
 72 
 
- THE INDUSTRIAL AGE AND AFTER 
 
 tion of open spaces. If the economics of planning 
 could be disregarded it might be considered as ideal ; 
 that this was the aim of its founder is not to be doubted ; 
 he has made every provision that struck him as bene- 
 ficial regardless of a direct return for it, a course which, 
 while it makes the conception most interesting as an 
 illustration of possibilities, somewhat vitiates it as a 
 criterion of the principles to be adopted where less 
 ample resources are available. For example, the plan 
 adopted made heavy demands in making up the ground, 
 and, this done, there is at least 50 per cent. more road- 
 way than is necessary for the buildings served. In 
 the village of Earswick, Messrs. Rowntree have had 
 the advantage of being able to study the work of their 
 predecessors in this line, and have been able to plan, on 
 economic lines, an industrial colony that possesses the 
 merit of good lay-out from the points of view of amenity 
 and appearance. 
 
 A later industrial village is Dormanstown, built by 
 Dorman Long and Company for their steelworkers. 
 This is of quite a different type, and owes its formal 
 treatment to the fact that its designers felt that no other 
 type of plan would be appropriate to a uniformly flat 
 site. The village built by C. Furness and Company for 
 their shipbuilders on the other side of the ‘Tees is also 
 more or less geometric in plan. 
 
 In other parts of the country various industrial con- 
 cerns have of late years been making similar provision, 
 and on the Continent we must not pass unnoticed the 
 extensive activities of the firm of Krupp, at Essen, in 
 this direction, while even in the Far East we find at 
 Cawnpore the workers of the Lalimli Woollen Mills 
 
 73 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 housed in a model colony, which, while utterly unlike 
 any in Europe, at the same time represents the best 
 possible provision for those concerned. 
 
 But there is yet another branch of this development 
 that claims attention. For some fifteen years great 
 advances have been made in the provision of miners’ 
 villages, which have in many instances, owing to difh- 
 culties of location and site, demanded very skilful 
 planning. Where the land 1s fairly flat there are no 
 marked differences between these and other industrial 
 villages, but in some parts, such as South Wales, the 
 mines are in very broken country, mostly narrow 
 valleys between ridges and uplands too high for con- 
 venience of access and for water supplies. Formerly 
 the cottages were crowded haphazard into these valleys, 
 but of late the hill-sides have been carefully planned out 
 to give convenient routes, and the latitude allowed in 
 proportioning roads to the demands on them has 
 enabled these to be reduced, where it was better to 
 place houses on one side only and this arrangement 
 makes a better scheme feasible. In one or two cases 
 good sites above the valley slopes have been found to 
 be available, and the villages placed at these higher 
 levels are healthier and more attractively developed 
 than those on the steep slopes below. 
 
 In the areas now being developed by deep mines, 
 with pit-heads some four miles apart, mining is less 
 destructive of the amenity of the district than formerly, 
 and the villages placed half a mile or more from the 
 shaft can retain an environment of a rural character. © 
 There is thus some hope that the impending colliery 
 development in East Kent will not turn this attractive 
 
 74 
 
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 ce 
 
 
 
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 uoysorg ‘quowrdopaod ,, URTIEUIIID,, ‘z 
 
 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL AGE AND AFTER 
 
 district into the type of Black Country characteristic of 
 the older coal workings, and if it is decided to convert 
 the coal into electric energy at the pit-head the pros- 
 pect is more hopeful than would be the case if the 
 coal were to be transported to separate factories scat- 
 tered over the country-side. The Doncaster coalfield 
 includes examples of what might be anticipated in the 
 case of East Kent, where the preservation of the natural 
 beauty of the district is of even greater importance. 
 
 It must be placed to the credit of the town planning 
 movement that it has emphasised the fact that, with a 
 few exceptions, industrial activities can economically be 
 carried on without desolating the surrounding districts 
 to the extent of condemning those compelled to occupy 
 them to a life deprived of the amenities which should 
 be every man’s birthright. 
 
 75 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Romanticism 
 
 of all deliberate planning which marks the indus- 
 
 trial expansion of our towns, there grew up a school 
 of design which, while limited in its appeal at the time, 
 was ultimately destined to exercise a very marked 
 influence on English towns, and ultimately to extend 
 thence, in a lesser degree, to other countries. ‘This 
 ‘““ Romantic ”’ school quite obviously arises part passu 
 with a like development in literature, and is the outcome 
 of the almost inevitable reaction of the Anglo-Saxon 
 against the hard logic and civic formality of the Renais- 
 sance. A quotation from Washington Irving’s “ Sketch 
 Book ”’ will form a fitting prelude to the consideration 
 of this development :— 
 
 ‘““In some countries, the large cities absorb the 
 wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only 
 fixed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and 
 the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish 
 peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis 
 . is a mere gathering place, or general rendezvous, of the 
 polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the 
 year to a hurry of gaiety and dissipation, and having 
 indulged this kind of carnival, return again to the 
 apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The 
 various orders of society are therefore diffused over 
 the whole surface of the kingdom, and the most retired 
 neighbourhoods afford specimens of the different ranks. 
 
 “The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the 
 
 76 
 
 |: is curious that, contemporary with that negation 
 
ROMANTICISM 
 
 rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the 
 beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures 
 and employments of the country. This passion seems 
 inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born 
 and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, 
 enter with facility into rural habits, and evince a tact 
 for rural occupation. ‘The merchant has his snug 
 retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often 
 displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his 
 flower garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does 
 in the conduct of his business and the success of a 
 commercial enterprise. Even those less fortunate 
 individuals, who are doomed to pass their lives in the 
 midst of din and traffic, contrive to have something 
 _ that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. 
 In the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the 
 drawing room window resembles frequently a bank of 
 flowers ; every spot capable of vegetation has its grass 
 plot and flower bed ; and every square its mimic park, 
 laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming with 
 refreshing verdure. 
 
 “Those who see the Englishman only in town are 
 apt to form an unfavourable opinion of his social 
 character. . . . It isin the country that the Englishman 
 gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose 
 gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities 
 of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and 
 becomes joyous and free-hearted. He manages to 
 collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies 
 of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country 
 seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious 
 retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. 
 
 ie 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting 
 implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no con- 
 straint either upon his guests or himself, but in the true 
 spirit of hospitality provides the means of enjoyment, 
 and leaves every one to partake according to his 
 inclination.” 
 
 The first indications of the movement are, as we may 
 well expect from the foregoing, an antagonism towards 
 the dignified and reticent formality of the parks and 
 gardens surrounding the great mansions. ‘These had 
 never been a really national form of expression, and had 
 always owed much to the influence of the Continental 
 gardeners, who had brought their technique into 
 harmony with the standards of the Renaissance, which 
 at no time dominated England to the extent it did the 
 Continent. 
 
 The initiative was doubtless with the cultivated 
 classes of the eighteenth century, who found in “ Capa- 
 bility ’ Brown and others, men competent to give their 
 views form and shape. As the result of the activities 
 of these men, most of the large geometrically-planned 
 gardens were swept away, and what were regarded as 
 naturalistic designs substituted. Now, we are not 
 especially concerned with these gardens as such, but 
 their reformation exercised so notable an influence on 
 English town planning of the nineteenth century that 
 we must find space for a brief description of the chief 
 novelties that were then introduced. 
 
 The rectilinear and rectangular planning of the 
 architect was to be reserved for buildings only, where 
 indeed it is largely inevitable. As the straight line is 
 not to be found in nature, and as the garden is made 
 
 78 
 
QL aspd su1v gy 
 
 ysnosqse[pplyl ‘Suruueyg [eoruvyoay] A[pisry “ff 
 
 
 
6L asod sursv 
 ae sjonper, Avmyprey Aq 
 sproy [BVuIsliQ, “UopuO’y YING “bE 
 
 dn yno pue piezeydey ul pel[y saoedg o}eIpewiia3}Uy ynq ‘yno prey [fess 
 
 
 
ROMANTICISM 
 
 up of natural features, it was decided that the use 
 of forms employing all uniformly straight lines or 
 geometric curves must be abandoned in favour of a 
 lay-out dictated by the eye on the site, in order to 
 make such groupings as could be regarded as pictures 
 simulating those to be found where untouched nature 
 exhibits scenes happily proportioned. Buildings were 
 to follow suit as far as possible ; balance of irregular 
 masses was to take the place of symmetry, and the 
 pictures could be completed by any features deemed 
 appropriate, such as artificial ruins, rock-work and 
 waterfalls. Of course these ideals were rarely pressed 
 to extremes ; roads and paths were still a necessity, 
 and the resulting compromises emphasised the fact 
 that a dwelling-house could not avoid being an artificial 
 intrusion, and that naturalism in relation to human 
 requirements could only be a travesty of nature. The 
 more extravagant features had but a fleeting popularity, 
 but the determination that all paths should take wavy 
 lines and all lakes and planting should have irregular 
 outlines persisted for more than a century, and such 
 ideas are even now the stock-in-trade of many a land- 
 scape gardener. As an indication of the established 
 popularity of this school of design, another reference 
 to Washington Irving’s “ Sketch Book” shows the 
 enthusiasm which its departure from previous traditions 
 had aroused :— 
 
 “The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, 
 and in what is called landscape gardening, is un- 
 rivalled. They have studied Nature intently, and dis- 
 cover an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and 
 harmonious combinations. ‘Those charms, which in 
 
 79 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 other countries she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here 
 assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They 
 seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and 
 spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes.” 
 During the earlier days of this fashion public streets 
 were still planned on geometric lines, no departure 
 from these being possible as long as dwelling-houses 
 were built in blocks ; but as Romanticism spread from 
 the few to the many, it became responsible for the 
 vogue of the detached villa, with its garden imitating 
 on a small scale the features of the grounds of a country 
 mansion. ‘Then it was seen that the roads could be 
 aligned on any varying curves that the levels or the 
 scenery dictated. Naturally the dictates of fashion 
 secured a preference for the winding road, and these 
 were often made without any extraneous reason for 
 such an alignment. We find areas around many of 
 our principal towns where the straight road appears to 
 be definitely taboo, as at Bournemouth, Hastings, Wim- 
 bledon Park, and elsewhere, and in many cases these 
 have obviously been formed with no specific intention 
 other than that of avoiding the straight line. Neverthe- 
 less, futile as many of these schemes were, they have 
 the merit of rendering more flexible our previously too 
 limited ideas as to the possibilities of development, 
 and in our own day we can hold the balance fairly 
 between the over-rigid demands of the geometrical 
 plan and the illogical ones of the later efforts to impart 
 curves and turns to every road, whether the formation 
 of the site suggested them or not. Thus present 
 practice takes account of natural features without 
 attempting the actual simulation of nature, a task clearly 
 
 80 
 
ROMANTICISM 
 
 impossible in relation to the provisions for the needs of 
 human activities. 
 
 Outside England, the comparative rarity of the 
 adoption of the villa type of residence has given few 
 opportunities for street planning on “ naturalistic ”’ 
 lines, but, at the same time, despite the magnificent 
 examples of formal lay-out then, and fortunately still, 
 maintained, the attractions of the new method proved 
 strong enough to establish the “ Jardin Anglais ” as 
 the type on which many of the public and private parks 
 were laid out around Paris and other Continental cities. 
 Beyond this, however, with the exception of a spas- 
 modic development at the Petit Trianon, Versailles, 
 where, under Louis XVI., a simulated rusticity was the 
 key-note, romanticism took no hold on planning until 
 towards the end of the nineteenth century, when it 
 reappeared, owing to the initiative of Camillo Sitte, of 
 Vienna, in a new form, supported by very well-thought- 
 out arguments and combined with many sound deduc- 
 tions as to the esthetics of town planning. He directs his 
 attack on two characteristics of the typical Renaissance 
 plan, namely, its open treatment, without enclosed 
 “‘ places,” and its rigid formality on an extended scale. 
 He only accepts the formal within limited areas, and 
 exhibits a distinct preference for a picturesque irre- 
 gularity in general treatment, pointing out, with justice, 
 that the mind derives little interest from anything which 
 can be appreciated at a glance, such as a straight and 
 uniform street, or an unvarying facade, and deducing 
 from this that geometrical planning should give way to 
 a deliberate effort to recapture by design the accidental 
 qualities of medizval towns, and to disguise the open 
 
 81 
 
 @ 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 character of the ‘‘ place”’ by masking the street 
 entrances, limiting their number and varying their 
 direction. His arguments are strengthened by the 
 demands of traffic, as it has become increasingly obvious 
 that a number of routes gathered to one point result in 
 danger, confusion and delay. In this respect the geome- 
 trically triangulated plan has proved a failure unless 
 laid out on a very large scale. But we are not here deal- 
 ing with the practical aspects, or the consideration of 
 existing types of plan from the point of view of traffic ; 
 the question is how far we should qualify our designs 
 by simulating the accidental, as has been the general 
 practice in Germany during recent years. The logical 
 mind is naturally in revolt against this idea, as on a par 
 with stage effects unworthy of introduction into an art 
 that should, above all, express purpose, but we may go 
 so far as to suggest that, whereas formerly there was a 
 prejudice in favour of formalism, and developments 
 were liable to be distorted in this direction, there may 
 now be a prejudice against it, with corresponding dis- 
 tortions in the opposite one. Should we not try to 
 base our work on common sense, taking suggestions 
 from the character of the site and surroundings as to 
 the treatment we adopt? On level ground, with no 
 strongly marked natural features, it would surely 
 appear an obvious affectation to lay out irregular 
 routes and to invent, as it were, accidents, while on 
 undulating sites, perhaps with dominating lines of hill 
 or woodland, it would be equally out of place to intro- 
 duce a rigid plan. The latter error is the more frequent 
 of the two, therefore we owe this to the Romantics, 
 that they endeavoured to free us from obsessions which 
 
 82 
 
ROMANTICISM 
 
 came to us from the time when tightly packed buildings 
 logically dictated a rigid plan, and if we cannot accept 
 their maxims in their entirety, we can yet apply them 
 when they help us to bring our work into harmony 
 with nature or to employ an economic solution to our 
 problems. 
 
 83 
 
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PART II 
 
 THE PRESENT DAY 
 

 
CHAPTER IX 
 Civic Hygiene 
 
 OWN planning is so essentially an art of 
 co-ordination that, when we pass from the 
 historic studies to those of moment in our 
 present practice, we find it needful to take into account 
 a number of factors which were not consciously 
 embodied, though not hitherto deliberately ignored, as 
 a basis for the inception of a scheme, and which, owing 
 to our advance in the appreciation of social values, can 
 no longer be neglected in the contriving of plans for 
 towns suited to the requirements of the present time. 
 The science of social hygiene has received such close 
 attention during the best part of a century, and with 
 results so eminently justifying the labour devoted to its 
 study, that it is no longer possible to visualise the 
 growth of towns otherwise than in relation to the type 
 of citizens it produces. The late stage at which the 
 valid conclusions of the scientist and the social reformer 
 have begun to influence the general arrangement of the 
 city plan is largely due to the fact that, when a number 
 of specialists are working each in his limited field, it 
 takes time to grasp the bearings of the results arrived 
 at, in relationship to each other, and although specialisa- 
 tion in all cases is as necessary in the field of knowledge 
 as in that of production, in both cases the co-ordinating 
 brain must be present in order to employ both science 
 and material. 
 Now it is only with the development of the art of 
 town planning that the various sciences connected with 
 
 87 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 human welfare have been so co-ordinated that they can 
 take a definite form in respect to the handling of our 
 towns as a whole. As has been indicated, the early 
 years of the nineteenth century gave us a system, or 
 lack of system, that as time went on began to exhibit 
 the capability of destroying us mentally and physically. 
 Towns always operate to some extent parasitically, 
 and with the rapid growth of these at the expense of 
 the rural population, even had they been better than 
 they were, the massing together of the people was 
 bound to produce a detrimental effect, but, being what 
 they were, the racial deterioration could not for long 
 fail to attract attention. Of course, the material 
 elements first secured notice. Epidemics of cholera 
 dictated measures for the improvement of water supply 
 and sewerage ; then the diseases due to overcrowding 
 and lack of light and air evoked, somewhat tardily, 
 measures to restrict building density that have since 
 proved inadequate. The resistance of owners, who 
 saw their profits from property diminishing, retarded 
 progress, and it has taken some eighty years to establish 
 a standard that, but for this antagonistic attitude, might 
 have been reached in half the time. 
 
 Even were we to assume that we have now reached 
 finality in these respects, an assumption not warranted 
 in view of doubts yet to be resolved in regard to 
 tuberculosis and several other ills that still scourge the 
 poor in our towns, we have only handled one, and that 
 perhaps not the most important, section of our problem. 
 
 Step by step we have dealt with such questions as 
 river pollution and the worst cases of air pollution, but 
 this latter problem is still as yet only partially solved, 
 
 88 
 
CIVIC HYGIENE 
 
 for there are many industries that cannot be carried on 
 without filling the air with volumes of smoke, and in 
 other cases, including that of the domestic fire, it is 
 admitted that any remedy presents grave economic 
 difficulties. It may be proved up to the hilt that the 
 annual loss through dirt and fog, and the ill-health and 
 waste of time due to these, would justify an enormous 
 capital expenditure, but with the numerous demands 
 on capital and the change of habits prescribed, it hardly 
 appears likely that the needful reforms will be effected 
 otherwise than very gradually. 
 
 Even if we imagine our towns delivered from all the 
 dirt, disorder, and discomfort due to the air being 
 charged with smoke and other impurities, we are still 
 far from achieving the ideal city. Assuming all the 
 physical disabilities removed, we have yet to cope with 
 the psychological ones, if we demand that our cities 
 are to be such as will bring forth the highest type of 
 citizen. Civic activity is not solely concerned with the 
 hygiene of the body ; it must also include all that tends 
 to evoke the pride and dignity of citizenship. 
 
 When we make a serious attempt to visualise the 
 existing conditions in any great centre of population, 
 the extent to which these make impossible any whole- 
 some or rational form of life would fill us with despair 
 were it not for the fact that we have a programme for 
 amelioration, a programme that, while it may take 
 generations to realise, does, at the same time, offer 
 features of immediate practicability. The distance we 
 have to go is certainly apt to appal us, and has even 
 induced some reformers to regard our great cities as 
 almost hopeless and to propose breaking new ground 
 
 89 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 by making an entirely fresh start. The efforts in this 
 direction have been of the utmost benefit, not so much 
 as an economic solution, for our existing centres, with 
 positions automatically dictated by economic factors, 
 are too strongly entrenched to be greatly affected, but 
 as an illustration of what a town could be like if well 
 organised from the beginning. 
 
 The “ Garden City,” first put forward as a solution 
 of this problem by Ebenezer Howard, was advocated 
 by him on the grounds that the drawbacks of the large 
 town were mainly due to its excessive extent, and that 
 if towns could be limited to a population of about 
 fifty thousand, and designed so that they could not 
 grow beyond this size, a much better life would be 
 possible in them. The garden cities of Letchworth and 
 Welwyn are laid out in strict accordance with these 
 principles, the area to be built on being limited by a 
 surrounding agricultural belt which not only defines 
 the population—a maximum density being prescribed— 
 but also ensures a supply of dairy produce and fresh 
 vegetables near at hand. Factories are encouraged, 
 with the intention that the town shall be a self-support- 
 ing organism, and naturally such factories are placed 
 so that they shall not be detrimental to the general 
 amenity, and are under regulation as to the emission 
 of smoke. 
 
 Such places as these, together with our newer indus- 
 trial villages, have proved that communities can have 
 the hygienic advantages of the country together with 
 the social ones of the town, and the idea that our 
 problems could be met in this way is a very attractive 
 one. At the same time it must not be allowed to blind 
 
 go 
 
CIVIC HYGIENE 
 
 us to the fact that this solution can only be practicable 
 to a very limited extent. The position of towns has 
 almost invariably been dictated by productive or com- 
 mercial factors, and it is only some new development 
 in these that will bring about a new foundation. It 
 may be doubted if Letchworth or Welwyn would have 
 been able to establish themselves but for their proxi- 
 mity to London, and though a few other similarly 
 suitable sites may possibly be found in the future, it is 
 obvious that our attention must be mainly directed to 
 those centres where the masses of population are already 
 gathered, and which are in such urgent need of ameliora- 
 tion. } 
 
 The difficulties before us in securing cleanliness and 
 order cannot be understated, but, as will be seen subse- 
 quently, certain provisions now either in operation or 
 under consideration will assist in this. For areas at 
 present seriously overcrowded the remedies at our dis- 
 posal are costly to an extent almost prohibitive, except 
 where the houses are in such a bad state as to be 
 condemned for habitation. ‘Then the reduction of the 
 population in any such area involves the increase of 
 transit provisions for the accommodation of those dis- 
 placed, so that altogether the outlook does not appear 
 hopeful. Probably the most potent influence making 
 for betterment would be a change in the views of those 
 occupying such areas as to what they would regard 
 as possible for dwelling-places and environment, but 
 habits are so engrained that such a change can only 
 be gradual, working through the younger generations 
 that will eventually take the place of those who, living 
 so long under deplorable conditions, have come to 
 
 gi 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 regard these as quite normal. Discontent and emula- 
 tion of their “‘ betters’? may do something, but until a 
 serious change in their attitude takes places the recon- 
 struction on sound lines of the masses of undesirable 
 dwellings in our large towns will proceed but slowly. 
 
 That this can be done with advantage, and without 
 undue extravagance, has been proved by many schemes 
 of “slum improvement” already carried through in 
 London, Birmingham and other cities, but these do 
 not represent a tithe of what is needed to overtake a 
 century of neglect. In many places the worst instances 
 are not to be found among the rows of small and badly 
 built houses, depressing as they may look, but in 
 neighbourhoods that have seen better days, where the 
 large houses are now occupied by a number of families 
 in one and two room dwellings, without adequate pro- 
 vision for separate family life. ‘These are often worse 
 than the overcrowded tenements to be found on the 
 Continent and in Scotland, for the latter have usually 
 been planned for division, while the adapted large houses 
 were not. 
 
 The town planner is, however, less dismayed by the 
 magnitude of the task of reorganising our cities than 
 by the very limited appreciation of the fact that such 
 reorganisation is necessary to stop the gradual degrada- 
 tion that town life, as it now is, must result in. - Vitality 
 is essential to maintenance of a high place in civilisa- 
 tion, and the vitality of townsfolk is being sapped by 
 conditions which drive them to such narcotics as drink 
 and melodrama. Perhaps the most destructive of all 
 so-called recreations are those based, not on personal 
 action or experience, but on the passive acceptance of 
 
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CIVIC HYGIENE 
 
 the real or fictitious activities of others, whether as 
 _ shown in the football ground or the cinema, and this 
 is the course to which the average town dweller is 
 inevitably driven. 
 
 It will be asked whether these are not questions for 
 the sociologist rather than for the town planner, and it 
 is true that it would be quite possible for the former to 
 prepare a programme and for the latter to prescribe the 
 measures by which the demands could best be met. 
 At the same time the technique of our subject so invari- 
 ably turns on the social influences that dominate it, 
 that a town planner is not worth much who is not also 
 something of a sociologist, and whether the co-ordina- 
 tions necessary are to be effected by one person, or 
 secured by the co-operation of several, the work can 
 only be efficiently carried through with a clear recogni- 
 _tion of the connection between the social requirements 
 and the executive measures. As these requirements 
 vary according to the activities and characteristics of 
 people of different nationalities, and even loealities, it 
 follows that there can be no uniformity of practice in 
 planning, and that the statement of this must, there- 
 fore, be made in general terms, so that its principles 
 may cover a multiplicity of different modes of opera- 
 tion. 
 
 The following chapters, in which the attempt is 
 made to classify town planning operations under 
 various heads, must therefore be regarded as subject to 
 the qualification that there exist numerous differences 
 in social organisation which involve variants of the pro- 
 gramme, and that while the general principles may be 
 regarded as valid throughout, the illustrations of these 
 
 93 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 depend on special conditions and might take quite 
 another form elsewhere. Social well-being, funda- 
 mental to sound town planning, is thus the criterion to 
 which every proposition must be referred, and as this 
 takes so many forms, the impossibility of defining 
 every solution is obvious, and the scope of our studies 
 is necessarily restricted by this limitation. At the same 
 time certain demands are common to most communal 
 developments, and are thus capable of being brought 
 under review in turn. 
 
 Towns usually come into being by reason of advan- 
 tages in respect of production and commerce, but occa- 
 sionally of others, such as administration, health and 
 recreation. They make their demands for the housing 
 of their citizens, for access to and communication 
 between the various quarters, for the suitable distri- 
 bution of the different activities, for provision for 
 education and recreation, and for all the other things 
 that will come to mind when we visualise a healthy and 
 active community ; and these aspects must now claim 
 our attention. 
 
 94 
 
CHAPTER X 
 Preliminary Studies 
 
 AVING briefly cited in the last chapter the 
 
 range of subjects that come under the purview 
 
 of the town planner when considering his 
 schemes, it will be well to give some attention to the 
 methods by which he can best present, both for his own 
 information and for the enlightenment of the public 
 he serves, all these factors in such a manner as will 
 enable them to be most readily appreciated, and by 
 this means to justify his proposals both to himself and 
 to others. 
 
 Now, it is customary to begin by placing these 
 factors in tabular form, and this has been done in 
 various ways, both in England and abroad, with a view 
 to securing a systematic mode of investigation. It is 
 not appropriate here to inflict these elaborate schedules 
 on the reader, who can only be asked to take it for 
 granted that they cover the ground in all its aspects, 
 including topography, history, economics, housing, com- 
 munications, hygiene, education, recreation, zsthetics, 
 and administration. 
 
 Taking these in turn, we will endeavour to give an 
 impression of what these specific studies involve, but 
 before doing so it will be well to glance at the methods 
 accepted as exhibiting the results of investigations in 
 the most efficient way. We all know that statistical 
 tables are prepared for the purpose of recording con- 
 ditions and changes, but we are no less aware of the 
 dreary reading they make and the difficulty of memo- 
 
 95 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 rising them. The civicsurvey has long abandoned this 
 mode of presentation for the facts it is desirable to 
 emphasise in favour of a graphic method employing 
 maps, diagrams, and models, by means of which the 
 eye instantly appreciates the conditions they represent. 
 Thus, by different colours or tones of colour placed on 
 a map, altitudes, density of population, health con- 
 ditions, rate charges, and other facts can be compared 
 at a glance. In like manner, a scale of colours will 
 indicate the various purposes for which land and 
 buildings are employed, whether woodland or meadow, 
 allotments, houses, shops, warehouses, or industrial or 
 public buildings. Coloured zones show the time or the 
 money expended to reach a given centre from the areas 
 around it. Symbolic signs mark the positions of places 
 of public resort, such as churches, schools, theatres, and 
 hotels, also hospitals, gas and electric works, and other 
 concerns having a general interest. Public open spaces, 
 as parks and recreation grounds, are distinguished from 
 the private ones used for golf and other games, and also 
 from cemeteries and ground permanently open, but not 
 allocated to recreation. 
 
 Communications are treated on the same principle, 
 the routes being marked by bands of colour, wider or 
 narrower according to the amount of traffic indicated 
 by a census, or by a model with strips of uniform 
 width, but raised vertically to mark increased intensity. 
 Maps of this kind are supplemented by diagrams 
 enabling growth, output, commerce, and similar factors 
 to be estimated at a glance, and there is, in fact, no limit 
 to the resources of graphic presentation, the value of 
 which, in facilitating a clear understanding of conditions, 
 
 96 
 
PRELIMINARY STUDIES 
 
 can hardly be over-estimated. To give but one 
 example of possible extensions of the method, we may 
 refer to a model prepared by the town of Gothenburg, 
 showing the existing state in relief, the intended 
 improvements being indicated by superimposed 
 colour. 
 
 It seemed best to give an idea of the mode of presen- 
 tation first, as, though the important matter is obviously 
 the range of study that will be advantageous, an under- 
 standing of the form in which this can be shown greatly 
 assists in affording the power to visualise the results in 
 relation to the ultimate town plan. It is here that the 
 statistical tables of former days fail, if not absolutely, 
 at any rate practically, because it is well-nigh impossible 
 to co-ordinate them mentally area by area so as to 
 grasp their bearings on each other, whereas a few maps 
 hung side by side will enable these co-ordinations to be 
 made almost instantaneously. 
 
 The first subject for study will be the general topo- 
 graphy of the town and its surroundings, which will 
 be illustrated by a contoured map, a geological map, 
 one showing the nature of the surface soil, and others 
 giving information as to watercourses, collecting areas 
 and flow, lakes and reservoirs, and the levels of water 
 in the ground at various seasons. Further maps will 
 show how the ground is occupied, whether by wood- 
 land, agriculture, wastes or marshes, and the extent of 
 building and other features modifying natural con- 
 ditions. In some cases mining activities will have to 
 be considered and shown, particularly where subsidence 
 may be anticipated. Again, it may be of importance 
 to deal with an area ethnologically, zoologically, and 
 
 97 x 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 botanically. Diagrams showing climate, including 
 temperature, rainfall, prevailing winds, and the like, 
 must also be added, and other factors will demand 
 attention in certain cases, such as that of towns in the 
 tropics, so that nothing affecting the ultimate scheme 
 may be left unconsidered. 
 
 Next we may look at the town from the historical 
 aspect, and prepare a series of plans showing its gradual 
 growth, at what stages the salient features appeared, 
 and how these, whether they still remain or not, have 
 affected subsequent developments. Old maps and 
 views will be very useful here. Diagrams showing the 
 expansion or lapse of local trades and other activities 
 may be valuable in forming a judgment on the possi- 
 bilities of the future. ‘Then, economic studies such as 
 these are incomplete without the corresponding social | 
 ones showing how occupation has influenced habits of 
 life and thought, on which interesting sidelights can 
 be thrown by records of local customs and views as 
 expressed in the types of recreation, the religious and 
 other observances, and the manner of conduct gene- 
 rally. There are also the more specifically archzeological 
 studies comprising records of all ancient sites and 
 buildings, with careful notes as to what remains of 
 them, with a view to their preservation and enhance- 
 ment in future operations. 
 
 Perhaps next in order we may place industry and 
 commerce, the usual considerations that have dictated 
 the location of the town. We shall require diagrams 
 showing the importation of raw materials, with the 
 costs of transport, which will suggest the causes of 
 their coming here in preference to elsewhere. The 
 
 98 
 
PRELIMINARY STUDIES 
 
 industrial maps will indicate the distribution of the 
 various industries, and will give a clue to the reasons 
 for such a distribution, and supplementing these 
 diagrams illustrating the export and destination of the 
 productions of the town. Then, where the place 1s a 
 centre of exchange, records of imports and exports can 
 be presented graphically, the whole giving us an exposi- 
 tion of how the town makes its living. 
 
 ‘These dealt with, we pass on to consider the people 
 who are engaged in making this living, and where and 
 how they live, which will involve maps of the different 
 classes of housing, distinguishing the good, bad, 
 and indifferent, and of the variations in the type of 
 house and in the status of the occupants. Practically 
 this is the housing section, though it concerns itself not 
 only with the actual houses but also with those dwelling 
 in them, whether they are well-to-do or earning more 
 or less than a living wage, whether any are forced into 
 bad houses who would occupy better ones, or are, on 
 the other hand, obliged to pay higher rents than their 
 income justifies ; generally, whether housing accom- 
 modation is appropriate and compares favourably or 
 unfavourably with other places. Comparison with 
 other maps will show how far the houses are well dis- 
 tributed in respect of the occupations of those living 
 in them, or otherwise, and the conditions indicated on 
 the housing maps will demand careful consideration in 
 relation to those in the health section. 
 
 It will be well to take next the question of com- 
 munications, as this not only affects the economic 
 position in respect of industry and commerce, but also 
 the facilities for transit between the residential areas 
 
 99 
 
THE ART OF 'TOWN PLANNING 
 
 and the industrial and business districts. With good 
 communications there will be greater latitude in the 
 selection of areas available for housing and less conflict 
 between the demands of the various classes of transit 
 and transport. With plans showing clearly the routes 
 employed, whether water, road or rail, and the inten- 
 sity of traffic on these, we shall be better able to 
 visualise whether these are adequate, and, if not, what 
 will most efficiently and most economically supply the 
 remedies demanded. 
 
 Next let us take the important section of hygiene, 
 covering the maps to show density of population, the 
 general death rates through a series of decades, and, in 
 like manner, the infant death rates and those for the 
 principal epidemic and other diseases. It will also 
 include diagrams of the average physique in various 
 districts and occupations, the development of children, 
 and the moral standards as indicated by the statistics 
 of crime and misdemeanour. ‘The positions of all 
 remedial institutions, such as hospitals, dispensaries, 
 infirmaries, asylums and prisons, would be indicated, 
 giving the accommodation and the areas and popula- 
 tion they serve. Diagrams would illustrate the relative 
 conditions as regards overcrowding, lack of light and 
 air, effect of regulations and by-laws, the character of 
 the water supply, sewerage, sanitation and scavenging, 
 and generally of all services affecting health. In most 
 cases statistical maps will need to be prepared separately 
 for districts, wards, or even smaller areas, in order that 
 the divergent conditions in these may be properly 
 compared, and the causes discovered of ill-health and 
 poor development, whether defects of situation, over- 
 
 I0O 
 
PRELIMINARY STUDIES 
 
 crowding, detrimental industries, failures in sanitation, 
 or other disadvantages, and the remedies poReon ate 
 to the case put in operation. 
 
 It will be convenient to place aegis and recrea- 
 tion in another group which will schedule the facili- 
 ties offered, the accommodation relatively to the 
 inhabitants, and the distribution. The diagram plan 
 showing schools should classify these according to the 
 type of education given, as primary, secondary, tech- 
 nical, State-aided, or otherwise, and should include an 
 indication of the extent of playground and garden 
 attached. Parks, playing fields, and children’s play- 
 grounds should be separately scheduled, and here again 
 division by districts will be required to show how far 
 the provisions are proportionate to the population. 
 Libraries, baths and public places of entertainment 
 will need another map rendered statistically as to 
 attendances, while theatres and other private halls may 
 be included with these and dealt with on similar lines. 
 
 Land values and charges, such as taxation, rating, 
 costs of gas and of electric light and power, lend them- 
 selves to graphic presentment on similar maps to those 
 described, while administration demands yet another 
 section indicating the various authorities controlling 
 the different communal undertakings and the areas 
 under their jurisdiction. Only when this is under- 
 taken does one realise the amazing number of authori- 
 ties exercising special functions in an urban area. 
 Forty is a number that is exceeded in several places, 
 and as their boundaries are by no means coterminous, 
 it is obviously desirable to have maps showing these. 
 Apart from ad hoc bodies, such as water boards and 
 
 Iol 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 port authorities, there are curious dovetailings between 
 county and municipal powers, in respect to acquisitions, 
 roads and other matters. 
 
 This is but a sketch outline of the civic survey, 
 touching only on its salient features. There are many 
 other aspects having almost equal claims on the 
 investigation which could only be set out in a treatise 
 dealing with this subject alone. The arts, constructive 
 and technical methods, customs and habits of a locality 
 are but a few of the things that repay illustration. 
 These, however, we must leave in order to take up the 
 question of what is to be done with the work of the 
 Civic survey when complete. Its value to those on 
 whom the responsibility for the city’s future rests is 
 easily appreciated, but unfortunately they, however 
 enthusiastic, can do very little in the directions suggested 
 unless they have the support of the general public 
 behind them. We conceive our authorities to be 
 apathetic, but they cannot go very far in advance of 
 the views of those who elect them, therefore, if the 
 survey is to be of real service, it must be exhibited and 
 advertised to the public at large. It makes by no means 
 a dull show ; well arranged and properly documented, 
 it draws large attendances, as has been proved at 
 Dublin, Manchester and elsewhere, even when the 
 exhibits were only in part of local interest. 
 
 What is wanted is a permanent civic museum in every 
 town, with the civic survey forming the key to each 
 section, its objects reinforced by suitable lectures and 
 demonstrations from tine to time. Such an exhibition 
 would become quite a popular affair, making the most 
 of all the interests the town possessed. 
 
 102 
 
PRELIMINARY STUDIES 
 
 The rising generation, more especially, would be 
 disposed to accept it, by reason of the fact that this 
 mode of study is but an extension of the regional ones 
 _ now gaining popularity as a more vivid way of acquiring 
 knowledge than the former abstractions as set forth in 
 books. When we find the youth of our time being 
 encouraged to seek for themselves a knowledge of what 
 is around them on the lines of the following few extracts, 
 taken from a schedule in circulation among a great 
 many schools, we cannot imagine them finding 
 difficulties in appreciating and interesting themselves 
 in what the maps and diagrams of the civic survey 
 exhibit, especially when are added the actual objects 
 relating to the history and activities of the place that 
 every well-arranged museum should supply. 
 
 “What is the soil in your district? Is it all the 
 same ? 
 
 ‘* How deep does it go, and what is underneath it ? 
 
 “‘ How do the inhabitants obtain water ? 
 
 ‘““ Are there any woods, marshes, ponds, heaths, or 
 uncultivated lands near you, and what kinds of trees 
 and plants can you find? 
 
 “Make a map year by year showing the crops 
 grown. | 
 
 “ What wild animals and birds are there ? 
 
 ‘What prehistoric remains are there, barrows or 
 camps, and do you know of anything that has been 
 found in these 7 
 
 “Make plans of any British camps, Roman camps 
 and roads. Show on a map the position of each village 
 and town, stating what they are, as ports, market towns, 
 manufacturing towns, or cathedral cities. 
 
 103 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 “Find out all you can as to their origin, and make 
 maps showing different stages of development. 
 
 ‘‘ Make a time chart of notable events in the history 
 of your district. 
 
 ‘‘ Mark all roads, railways, footpaths, rivers, canals, 
 and other lines of communication.” 
 
 104 
 
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CHAPTER XI 
 Communications 
 
 HEN we come to consider the influence 
 
 of communications on town planning, and 
 
 remember the importance of transit by 
 water in the earlier history of city location and growth, 
 we are almost tempted to give it first place among the 
 means of communication to be dealt with, and might 
 do so with justice but for the fact that, with a few 
 notable exceptions, all places have been planned on the 
 basis of land communications, and that waterways, 
 while often affecting location, were incidental to, and 
 not dominating, the more intimate details of the 
 plan. 
 
 It is, therefore, better to start with the roads, and to 
 reserve consideration of water routes till we find the 
 artificial development of these influencing lay-out. 'The 
 chronology of street alignment has already been glanced 
 at in the historical notes, but it demands to be supple- 
 mented by an outline of road development in general, 
 in order that we may grasp how the towns have been 
 influenced by this. Such a study not only gives interest 
 to the roads as we find them to-day, but also provides 
 useful guidance as to the principles to be borne in mind 
 in the needed reconstruction of our road system, both 
 urban and inter-urban. 
 
 That substantial roads were constructed by the great 
 nations antecedent to the Romans is obvious when we 
 realise their varied activities, but it will serve our 
 purpose, after a brief digression on the prehistoric lines 
 
 105 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 of route in our own country, to begin with the technique 
 of road construction as laid down by the Romans. 
 
 The earliest tracks we can trace are those of the 
 Bronze period—perhaps some even date from the 
 Neolithic one preceding it—when the tribes of those 
 times determined the best routes by which to move 
 their flocks from one pasture to another. The lower 
 grounds seem to have been densely wooded and the 
 habitat of predatory beasts, so that we find these roads 
 taking the shortest lines across valleys, and following 
 escarpments and hill-tops. Where the natural formation 
 failed to make the line obvious, guidance appears to 
 have been afforded by natural or artificial landmarks. 
 These routes were retained for trade and war, and to 
 serve the early agricultural developments before the 
 advent of the Romans. They were, as we know, 
 distributed in accordance with the use of the land at 
 the time, leaving large districts untouched as unsuited 
 to the activities of that stage of civilisation. 
 
 When the Romans arrived in Britain they had 
 already formulated their practice as to roads, and had 
 classified these into five groups: the first, a paved road 
 accommodating two lines of vehicles; the second, a 
 similar road for one line only ; the third, a bridle road ; 
 and fourth and fifth, narrow ways mainly for the use 
 of agriculturists. The higher-class roads were provided 
 with bridges, culverts, drainage, etc. 
 
 The work of organising this country in accordance 
 with the political system of Rome involved the planning 
 of an entirely new system of paved roads, primarily for 
 the movement of troops, but at the same time so complete 
 as to be more than adequate for other requirements. 
 
 106 
 
COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 As we are aware, these roads were fairly direct in 
 their general alignment and, with a few exceptions, 
 absolutely straight from camp to camp, placed a day’s 
 march (about twenty miles) apart. A map indicating 
 all the known roads shows the country well served with 
 routes most skilfully planned, except from one point 
 of view, now of much more importance than at that 
 time, namely, that of gradient, which was obviously a 
 minor consideration with so little wheeled traffic. 
 
 While many of these roads have remained permanently 
 employed, large sections of the Roman scheme have 
 gone out of use, and can be traced only by fragments to 
 be found here and there. This abandonment was not 
 connected with any unsuitability in the roads, but was 
 due to the dismemberment of Britain under the Saxons 
 and its only partial reintegration under the feudal 
 system. Not until the sixteenth century did we recover 
 anything resembling the unity of control exercised by 
 the Romans, and even then nothing equivalent to their 
 efficiency in sustained organisation. Of course, with 
 increasing population and production, the country 
 became covered with a network of routes, but many 
 of these were only pack-horse ways, and the art of 
 road-making having lapsed, main routes often fell 
 into a hopeless state where natural conditions were 
 unfavourable. 
 
 In the early days of wheeled traffic this became so 
 definitely the case that very circuitous routes had to be 
 taken in bad weather, sometimes involving detours 
 which more than doubled the distance between one town 
 and another. Stone sets were only employed in the 
 cities, and no other efficient mode of road-making being 
 
 107 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 known, roads in bad ground soon got so cut up as to 
 become impassable. Where the ground was open, 
 vehicles struck out new tracks till the old had recovered, 
 and so we find in places very wide roads, sometimes 
 subsequently narrowed by intakes. 
 
 A number of experiments in road surfacing carried 
 on for about a century finally crystallised into the 
 definite specification of MacAdam, and a reliable surface 
 capable of carrying the increasing wheeled traffic came 
 into general use. With easier and more comfortable 
 transit, travel increased rapidly, and immense numbers 
 of coaches and post chaises sped along our main roads. 
 New roads and improvements in alignment were found 
 necessary, and towards the end of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury an era of road building set in which lasted till the 
 advent of the railway. 
 
 MacAdam, Telford, and other leading engineers 
 were engaged on this work, and the return for the 
 capital was provided by means of tolls. The primitive 
 type of gate, the “ Turnpike,” gave the name to these, 
 and the period during which these roads were built has 
 been termed the “ Turnpike’ age. In the midst of 
 this activity the railroad and steam engine came on the 
 scene, and after a few years of incredulity every one 
 became convinced that the day of the road was over. 
 Roads ceased to be a profitable investment for capital, 
 which was promptly transferred to rail enterprises. 
 Not only this, but on the railroads securing popular 
 favour, railway schemes were often laid out in a 
 manner detrimental to future road development, par- 
 ticularly in the neighbourhood of the towns. Outside 
 the towns, things remained in this position until 
 
 108 
 
COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 towards the end of the nineteenth century, when 
 the development of the combustion engine as the 
 driving power for road vehicles brought the road 
 into enormously increased use, and demanded a re- 
 consideration of the problems of road planning and 
 construction. 
 
 The first of these to arise, that of dust, was not a 
 new one. In coaching days the Bath Road was kept 
 watered from end to end, but a better solution was now 
 found, and without recapitulating the recent history of 
 road-making, it will suffice to affirm that we can now 
 form roads physically and economically suitable for 
 motor traffic. : 
 
 In town areas also the eighteenth century provided 
 us with good schemes and spacious roads, and much of 
 the subsequent deterioration of these, including en- 
 croachments, took place in early Victorian times when 
 the railway filled the public eye. The road plan of 
 London south of the Thames dates from this period, 
 and Great Dover Street is a good example of a by-pass 
 road. Then we see the fine route laid out from the city 
 to Paddington, originally 150 feet between frontages. 
 Edinburgh and Bath may also be quoted as notable 
 examples, but many of our smaller towns retained their 
 medizeval plan, and not even this at its original standard, 
 market-places having been filled in with buildings and 
 the roads having suffered from gradual encroachments, 
 particularly near the busy centres. 
 
 Our latest roads are now being dealt with by two 
 methods. Road systems are being framed under town 
 planning, or, more comprehensively, under regional 
 planning schemes, while large arterial roads are being 
 
 109 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 planned and constructed to connect towns at a con- 
 siderable distance from each other. 
 
 In the first case a careful study has to be made of the 
 existing roads, their use, their adequacy, and their con- 
 nections. The trend of development has also to 
 receive consideration, and the new road pattern built 
 up on these factors, providing for the relief of over- 
 charged routes, safety at junction points, and a free 
 movement of traffic between industrial and residential 
 areas, so that the business of the district may be carried 
 on without the handicap of inadequate communi- 
 cations. 
 
 In the second case, the determining factor is mainly 
 the economics of transport, whether a road service can 
 operate advantageously as against the existing railway 
 facilities. Per ton mile the road is at a disadvantage, 
 but this may be outbalanced by economies in tranship- 
 ment and terminal collection and delivery. For the 
 shorter distances, and for some classes of goods, the 
 case for the roads may be regarded as established, but 
 for distances of 100 miles and over it is possible that 
 further investigations are needed before such roads can 
 be justified on economic grounds. Undoubtedly a good 
 case could be made out at the moment, but the railways 
 are short of plant, and it is also questionable if they are 
 working at 2 maximum of efficiency and a minimum of 
 profit, as they might be capable of doing in competition 
 with an alternative mode of transport. 
 
 In order that these main arterials should answer 
 their purpose, their design would have to take, in some 
 measure, the character of the railway, by going over or 
 under important cross routes and by by-passing inter- 
 
 IIO 
 
COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 mediate towns and villages so that these connect by 
 means of short branches. ‘They can only, to a modified 
 extent, be regarded as developing the districts through 
 which they pass. 
 
 The regional and local roads, on the other hand, 
 must be designed to provide for the development of 
 the adjacent areas and must therefore follow, as closely 
 as possible, the natural levels, embankments and, to 
 some extent, cuttings making it difficult to use front- 
 ages for building purposes and awkward to arrange 
 the connections with side roads. Therefore the align- 
 ment of these in hilly ground must needs be governed 
 by the contours. Where an arterial road is brought 
 into a regional system, it is often worth while to pro- 
 vide sufficient width for a central and two side roads, 
 the latter for the local traffic, thus reducing the number 
 of crossings on the central road and allowing these 
 crossings to be placed out of line with the openings 
 into side roads. The regional plan is prepared in 
 diagram form, giving the traffic routes demanded, and 
 then, after the road lines have received such modifica- 
 tions as the formation of the ground and the disposition 
 of industries and properties prescribe, there remains 
 the important question of road junctions. On the 
 design of these a great deal depends, both in regard to 
 smooth working, with a minimum of supervision, and 
 freedom from danger points. Where main routes cross 
 each other ample space should be provided, and no 
 building or other obstruction to a clear view extending 
 to a radius of at least 40 yards from the crossing point 
 should be permitted. But such crossings ought to be 
 eliminated as far as practicable, and it is better that 
 
 II! 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 subsidiary routes should enter and leave the main one 
 at different points, say about 100 yards apart, while 
 the small branch road is better with a funnel mouth and 
 central island so as to check the speed of traffic coming 
 into the main route. Where a record of accidents is 
 kept, many of these are found to be due to excessive 
 speed when emerging from a side road, either with the 
 intention of directly crossing the high road or of turning 
 to the right along it. 
 
 In planning these regional road systems it will often 
 be found that the existing railways add greatly to the 
 difficulties in regard both to levels and the cost of 
 bridges. It is, in this country, practically impossible _ 
 to obtain any modification in the level of a railway, or any 
 bridge reconstruction otherwise than at the cost of the 
 local authority. The law in this respect operates most 
 unfairly. If eighty years ago a railway company pro- 
 vided a little bridge over a country lane, and this lane 
 has now become a busy highway, there is no power to 
 compel it to rebuild this bridge in accordance with the 
 increased needs, though the railway has secured its 
 share of the expansion of business that development 
 brings about. 
 
 The U.S.A. is very much in advance of us in this 
 matter ; not only can the authorities demand a reason- 
 able alteration in the rail level, but they can also claim 
 a proportion, which varies in different States, of the 
 cost of bridge building and road grading. One may 
 safely say that, but for these enactments, very little of 
 the work done towards eliminating level crossings in 
 American towns would have been accomplished. 
 
 We have so far been considering areas in course of 
 
 112 
 
COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 development, but we must not overlook the traffic con- 
 gestion in our great cities and the possible remedies 
 for this. 
 
 Motor transport has at least doubled the capacity of 
 our streets, and, if all the traffic could be carried on at 
 the uniform higher speed of the motor, there would be 
 a still further gain. The abolition of the horse-drawn 
 vehicle has been frequently advocated, and although this 
 must take place sooner or later, it is still felt that too 
 great a hardship to certain classes of business would 
 result from it. An intermediate course is open, namely, 
 . the exclusion of the horse from the main roads, but 
 this would involve a degree of supervision that renders 
 it economically doubtful. It may be assumed that for 
 the moment neither of these alternatives is likely to 
 meet with acceptance. 
 
 To take London as an example, it has, from the 
 traffic standpoint, the advantages and disadvantages of 
 an old city. Like all places whose expansion has been 
 long continued, the general lines of route are the 
 natural ones and appropriate to traffic requirements, 
 but, on the other hand, many of the more important 
 roads are no longer adequate to the demands now made 
 on them, and at the crossings of the principal routes 
 the delays are particularly accentuated. Moreover, the 
 general plan being framed on a limited number of 
 main roads with large areas in between, laid out with a 
 view to excluding traffic rather than encouraging it, the 
 old arteries are overworked. Heroic efforts at improve- 
 ment have been made from time to time; during the 
 nineteenth century many important streets and street 
 widenings were carried out, not always very successfully 
 
 113 1 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 because of the obsession at that time in favour of con- 
 necting to existing ganglia, such as the Bank, Piccadilly 
 Circus, Charing Cross, and Victoria, which have now 
 become points at which it is most difficult to devise an 
 orderly system. 
 
 We are only just beginning to appreciate the value of 
 ‘‘ one-way ”’ routes and the “ gyratory ” system, both 
 of which have proved useful in a number of cases in 
 other countries, and, though London affords fewer 
 opportunities for employing these remedies than cities 
 laid out on a larger scale, there are, nevertheless, quite 
 a number of streets where one-way traffic could be 
 adopted with advantage and where it could be put in 
 operation quite simply; but the employment of the 
 gyratory system, which would be of the greatest value 
 at important centres, is not such an easy matter as might 
 appear. To allow this to work smoothly there has to be 
 some little distance between each of the roads opening 
 into the circulating route, and many of our central 
 ganglia are too small for this. The alternative is the 
 inclusion of one or more blocks of buildings within the 
 line of circulation, thus giving this the character of a 
 “ one-way ”’ traffic route. 
 
 Incidentally, it is worth noting that the annual cost 
 of each post where a policeman is on traffic duty 
 amounts to something over £450, and that, as every 
 simplification would diminish the number of these 
 posts, there would be a definite saving under this head 
 in addition to that due to acceleration. These savings 
 would help to balance the cost of such street improve- 
 ments as would in some cases be essential to provide 
 for a workable scheme. 
 
 114 
 
COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 But roads are not the only form of communication, 
 and if we turn back to the time before the railway era, 
 when the demand for economical transport was met by 
 the improvement of natural waterways and by artificial 
 ones linked up with them, we see that the Romans 
 made canals and even started to cut the Isthmus of 
 Corinth, that in Venice the canals followed the original 
 tidal channels of the lagoon in which it was built, and 
 that in later times the necessity for canals in the 
 reclamation schemes of the Netherlands brought them 
 into general use there and demonstrated their utility 
 to the neighbouring countries. In England the first 
 canal was cut early in the eighteenth century, and from 
 this time onward private enterprise was gradually 
 covering the country with a network of water routes, 
 when the advent of the railways put an end to these 
 efforts. In France and Germany, where canals were 
 national undertakings, these being on a larger scale and 
 more efficiently co-ordinated have maintained their 
 position better, and few have been abandoned, a fate 
 which has befallen many of the smaller navigations in 
 England. 
 
 In the United States also many canals were cut 
 about the beginning of the nineteenth century, but these 
 also became obsolete, and at the present day the only 
 type of water route which is regarded as worth under- 
 taking is that planned on a scale to accommodate sea- 
 going ships, as, for example, those at Suez, Panama, 
 Manchester, and that linking up the great lakes in 
 North America. At the same time, inland water 
 transport is still of considerable importance, and the 
 development of inland ports has materially affected the 
 
 115 
 
 ~ 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 planning of many towns, more particularly in the Rhine 
 provinces, not to speak of the example we can claim at 
 Trafford Park, Manchester. London itself is still 
 encircled by the Regent’s Canal north of the Thames, 
 and penetrated for a considerable distance by the 
 Surrey Canal on the south side. Dublin has an 
 encircling canal both north and south, and several of 
 our inland towns are materially affected in their 
 planning by the waterways that pass through them. 
 Whether future conditions will produce an enhance- 
 ment of these facilities or the reverse is uncertain, but 
 where the scale of operations is capable of expansion 
 there seems little doubt that waterways will still retain 
 an important place in our scheme of organisation. 
 Though railways are not at present technically 
 included within the scope of town planning, it is 
 obviously out of the question to exclude them from | 
 its programme in view of their importance in respect 
 of organisation and amenity. It has been most 
 unfortunate that, on account of the extraordinary 
 difference this form of transit made in the speed, 
 comfort, and economy of travel, it was soon accepted 
 with such fervour that permission was readily granted 
 for operations now seen to have been extremely detri- 
 mental. Embankments and viaducts have wrecked the 
 orderly plan of many town areas, and have made good 
 planning impossible in many suburban ones. Public 
 open spaces, such as the Surrey commons, were allowed 
 to be cut up by railway routes without compensation, 
 and it is only quite lately that railway proposals have 
 been opposed on the ground of their affecting the 
 amenities. It is easy to understand that at the experi- 
 
 116 
 
COMMUNICATIONS 
 
 mental stage, when encouragement was needed, large 
 concessions should have been made, but this attitude 
 was maintained long after it ought to have been 
 abandoned, and the railways were allowed a freedom 
 only permissible on the ground of economy, but which 
 has often been exercised with no such justification. 
 Indeed, on the other hand there has been, and there is 
 still going on, a great deal of extravagance and waste in 
 construction owing to the lack of a co-ordinating 
 authority to control competitive activities. 
 
 The suggestion has been made that in the towns no 
 railways should be allowed to be carried at a level above 
 that of the streets, and though this would certainly 
 remove the extraordinarily ugly bridges that our 
 engineers seem to delight in, overhead lines may be 
 admissible if skilfully planned and carried out with due 
 consideration to the artistic effect. Moreover, we have 
 no right to ignore the railway traveller in favour of his 
 brother in the street, though the railways themselves 
 have always taken this attitude. If it 1s a question of 
 outlook, the man in the train has his claims, and one 
 can call to mind many fine views of city and country 
 that, if not seen thus, would never be seen at all. 
 
 Hitherto both parties have been to blame, the rail- 
 ways for disregarding the harm they were doing to the 
 districts they ran through, and the planners and 
 builders for disregarding the railways and taking no 
 care that a presentable face was made to them. ‘The 
 course adopted at Port Sunlight of running a road 
 along the side of the line is an unnecessarily extravagant 
 one, as there is no reason why the backs of houses 
 should present any worse appearance than the fronts, 
 
 117 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 and common sense would place them at sufficient 
 distance from the trains to allow of some planting and 
 gardening between. Given this, there is no reason why 
 the railway front of a house and garden should not be 
 just as good to look on as the street front. 
 
 Then, again, we have serious cause of complaint 
 against our railways for their neglect of the areas 
 around the large termini, and the purely utilitarian way 
 in which these are handled. Both the Continent and 
 America put us to shame in this matter, and it may be 
 doubted if even the excuse of economy may be pleaded 
 when we see the degree of confusion and hustle which 
 the haphazard arrangements now general provoke. 
 The fact is that the monopolies granted have encouraged 
 incompetence, and railway practice is in many respects 
 obsolete compared with the possibilities clearly visible 
 to those who have been trained to take a wide view 
 of civic organisation. One example only need be 
 mentioned as an illustration. About the same time 
 two large termini were planned, one in New York and 
 one in London. At the first the incoming and outgoing 
 passengers are given separate routes between street and 
 platform ; at the second no attempt is made to separate 
 them. The difference in capacity and smoothness of 
 working can easily be imagined. Not until the railway 
 element is brought within the scope of town planning 
 schemes shall we be able to secure the co-ordinations 
 required. 
 
 118 
 
Sit asvd sur. 
 
 SuIpvoy Jo JoyIeNG Teuysnpuy oy, ‘iF 
 
 
 

 
 42. Southampton. An Aeroplane Map 
 
 Facing page 119 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 Allocation of Areas 
 
 HE allocation of areas to the purposes for 
 
 which they are or may become most suitable 
 
 has, for reasons of brevity, been given the title 
 of “ zoning,” though the form these areas take can only 
 occasionally approximate to that of a series of belts or 
 zones. At times regulation may be on these lines, as 
 in the case of some German and American towns, 
 where the heights permitted are gradually diminished, 
 starting from the centre and proceeding towards the 
 outskirts, but in the case of varied utilisation, as for 
 commerce, industry, and housing, clearly the character 
 and suitability of the ground must dictate the use to 
 which it is put, rather than a merely diagrammatic 
 relationship to a given centre. 
 
 In taking a glance at the conditions general in our 
 cities as they are at present, we find administrative and 
 business premises usually in possession of a central 
 position, with industry and commerce stretching out 
 from this in one or more directions, and residential 
 quarters in others, commerce seeking a place where 
 rail and water transport is available, and residences the 
 areas most attractive and accessible. This broad 
 generalisation is, however, very greatly qualified in 
 practice, as industry and commerce draw into the 
 interstices of their quarters a great deal of housing for 
 the workers employed, so that these may be close at 
 hand; while industries less dependent on transport 
 distribute themselves among the residential districts. 
 
 11g 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 Thus, instead of a defined scheme of production, trans- 
 port, and distribution, we see only a blurred travesty 
 of such an organisation. Much of this has doubtless 
 been due to lack of adequate provision for transport 
 and transit, which, instead of being planned in advance, 
 has been improvised to cope with demands after those 
 have made themselves evident. ‘This being the case, it 
 is not often possible to do all that might be desired for 
 our existing towns, which can only be regarded as 
 illustrations of certain forms of failure to be avoided 
 in planning for the future. 
 
 In laying down principles for zoning we must bear 
 in mind that it is impossible to predict the future with 
 absolute accuracy, and therefore alternatives in utilisa- 
 tion should be admitted to the maximum extent com- 
 patible with the validity of the scheme as a whole, so 
 that in many parts more than one type of occupancy 
 may be allowed. This is, however, a long step in 
 advance of the latitude formerly customary, which has 
 left us with so much confusion in our towns, detrimental 
 from the aspect not only of health and amenity, but of 
 economics as well. Large areas of low-lying ground 
 are covered with houses, and the smoke from factories 
 on the neighbouring riverside streams over them, 
 while elsewhere big industrial concerns have had to 
 abandon their works because the ordinary road com- 
 munications on which they relied have become obsolete. 
 
 There are a few main factors which, if borne in mind, 
 will enable us to visualise the lines on which a town can 
 profitably develop, and though much more intimate 
 study has to be given to the special circumstances of 
 each case before zoning regulations can be safely laid 
 
 120 
 
ALLOCATION OF AREAS 
 
 down, these will suffice to give a general idea of the 
 differences that such regulations have in view. 
 
 The business organisation will necessarily retain its 
 
 ‘central position, and we must bear in mind that in a 
 growing community it must also expand, and will 
 probably do so by increased height in the buildings and 
 by extending into adjacent areas occupied by residences 
 or factories, a course not without its advantages, as it is 
 usually the older and obsolescent houses and factories 
 that go. ‘These movements are, however, of less import 
 than the continued demand to add accommodation by 
 increasing the height of business premises, which, if 
 acceded to, would intensify the traffic, and as the 
 existing communications are often inadequate, it 1s 
 essential that an appropriate limitation should be 
 maintained. 
 
 Passing on to industrial and commercial organisations 
 as carried on at the present time, we see that these 
 demand good transport facilities, the ordinary road 
 access being only suitable for those that are relatively 
 small in their scope, or which handle light material 
 only. Where there is navigable water, many will want 
 frontages on this, and water is also useful in connection 
 with some manufacturing operations. Direct rail trans- 
 port is also essential to large concerns, and this is more 
 easily organised on the flat ground to be found at the 
 lower levels, which is undesirable for housing purposes, 
 so that we have good general guidance in this respect. 
 
 We are, therefore, enabled to reserve the higher 
 ground for residential purposes, and if this is irregular 
 in its conformation it will lend interest to the lay-out, 
 with the advantage that any too steep to be built on 
 
 I2I 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 with economy can be planted and developed as strips 
 of park with pleasant walks, breaking up the monotony 
 of large areas of building. 
 
 While everything else favours a marked separation 
 between large industrial undertakings and the workers 
 employed therein, it must not be forgotten that, if we 
 segregate these two groups, convenient and economical 
 means of transit must be provided between them, and 
 this demand will have to be satisfied before any scheme 
 of zoning on these lines can be accepted. Whatever 
 the other merits of such a scheme might be, it would 
 not be popular if an undue expenditure of energy in 
 getting from one part to another were involved. Apart 
 from the considerations of amenity and health, one of 
 the main objects of zoning being to simplify and 
 improve organisation, no scheme could be justified 
 that failed in this respect. 
 
 There are still other matters that remain to be dealt 
 with, such as the allocation of areas peculiarly suited 
 for use as parks, recreation grounds and allotments, the 
 best position for shops and the minor industries, like 
 laundries and garages, which are needed in residential 
 districts. It is possible to go even farther with advan- 
 tage and define sites for churches, schools, etc., but 
 this degree of detail is only likely to be of value where 
 there is an immediate development in view. 
 
 The claim of town planning to include in its scope 
 powers of this nature, though now accepted in prin- 
 ciple, has probably aroused more antagonism than any 
 other feature in its programme. It is felt to be sub- 
 versive of the freedom of the individual to do what he 
 likes with his own, and has affected two classes more 
 
 122 
 
ALLOCATION OF AREAS 
 
 accustomed than others to have unfettered initiative, 
 namely, the landowner and the industrial leader. It 
 would have made little headway had not the lines of 
 procedure laid down provided for consultation with 
 these, thus affording the opportunity for criticism and 
 of meeting any valid objections by judicious modifica- 
 tions. It is easy to realise why in this country, less 
 subservient to State controls than most, the system of 
 zoning has made less rapid progress than elsewhere, 
 and 1s still limited to areas not yet developed, whereas 
 in Germany and the United States it extends to towns 
 as a whole. As might be imagined, it was in Germany 
 that the idea originally took shape, when in 1884 Franz 
 Adickes, then burgomaster of Altona, prepared a zone 
 plan for that town. Other German towns followed suit 
 with schemes governing height, character and density. 
 In America the city of Los Angeles was the first to pass 
 a zoning ordinance in 1909, and in a large number of 
 American towns similar regulations are in force. Those 
 adopted by New York in 1916 were of a comprehensive 
 nature, and have met with general approval in that 
 city, and it is claimed that they have effected savings 
 amounting to many millions of dollars. In St. Louis 
 the ordinance is said to have resulted in a very noticeable 
 stabilisation of values in several residential areas which, 
 previous to the adoption of the system, were declining 
 or showing a tendency toward depreciation. 
 
 As we have mentioned, the provisions of this kind 
 included in the Town Planning Act of 1909 were much 
 less comprehensive, but even for what they are, two 
 instances may be quoted illustrating their utility in 
 checking disorganised growth. Birmingham began by 
 
 123 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 prohibiting any dangerous, noxious, or offensive trade 
 to be carried on except on lands already so used or 
 appropriated for the purpose; otherwise no specific 
 factory area was set apart, but no factory or building 
 other than a dwelling-house could be built anywhere 
 in the town-planned area without the consent of the 
 corporation. Manchester, in its scheme for the 
 southern area, set aside a portion where any type of 
 factory can be erected subject to the approval of the 
 corporation as to the manner of erection, height, eleva- 
 tion and character of building. Factories in other 
 parts of the area will only be permitted subject to 
 certain restrictions. 
 
 It may be confidently predicted that the regulation 
 of the growth of cities on considered lines, such as these, 
 will effect an enormous improvement in their future 
 efhiciency, and it cannot be long before an appreciation 
 of the necessity for control in this matter will bring 
 about an amendment extending these powers to the 
 occupied areas. It need not be assumed that in such 
 an event established interests will be much interfered 
 with ; this is hardly likely, but occupied areas are to- 
 day changing their character in all our large towns, and 
 guidance is urgently needed to ensure that such changes 
 shall take place as part of a movement clearly defined 
 in accordance with a comprehensive programme and 
 not in a piecemeal and haphazard fashion. 
 
 When this stage is reached those whose interests give 
 them an influential position in civic affairs will perforce 
 have to take part in shaping the city’s future instead of 
 standing aside from municipal activities on the ground 
 that these are not of sufficient importance to be worth 
 
 124 
 
ALLOCATION OF AREAS 
 
 their attention. In past times the services of the 
 ablest citizens were devoted to these activities, and 
 though at the moment their claims in this respect seem 
 to have been in a measure forgotten, there are signs 
 that the expansion of civic control is bringing about a 
 more general realisation of civic responsibility. 
 
 125 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 Planning for Commerce and Industry 
 
 ITHERTO industrial concerns have had a 
 
 fairly free hand as regards the selection of sites, 
 
 and while the positions chosen have often been 
 injurious to the community as a whole, they have 
 usually been taken up with a view to advantages of one 
 kind or another in relation to the operations contem- 
 plated. With the restriction of this freedom, so essen- 
 tial from the town planning aspect, it becomes the more 
 necessary to ensure that the areas allocated to indus- 
 trial purposes shall be such as will enable these to be 
 economically and profitably carried on, and that they 
 can be apportioned in sites suitable for the classes of 
 industry likely to be in demand. 
 
 It has been suggested that this question can be 
 appreciated with greater clarity if the operations of 
 industry be subdivided into their constituent parts, 
 including most of those that fall under the head of 
 commerce. Beginning with what is termed “raw 
 material,” we have first the processes by which this is 
 won or gathered, next its transport to, and reception 
 at, the place where it is to be worked on, and possibly 
 a period of storage there ; then the manufacturing pro- 
 cesses, which may be the complete series to the finished 
 article, or only a partial one preparing it to be passed on 
 elsewhere, as in the case of a smelting works or a tannery ; 
 then another period of storage and the distribution of 
 the finished or partially finished article. 
 
 The appropriate relationships between all these 
 
 126 
 
PLANNING FOR INDUSTRY 
 
 operations demand consideration, and where the assem- 
 bling of various constituents or the provision of power 
 comes into the account, it is often a question of great 
 nicety in economics as to which factors are to dictate 
 the location, whether ore is to be brought to coal or 
 coal to ore, whether material to power or power to 
 material, and the successful prosecution of an industry 
 will be found to depend not alone on facilities in respect 
 of material nor as to ultimate markets, but on a 
 balancing of both these factors, together with others, 
 such as competing demands for labour, climatic suita- 
 bility, etc. ‘Thus we see that the task of the industrialist 
 is no easy one, and when his requirements have to be 
 understood by the town planner, this aspect must needs 
 take an important place in his studies. 
 
 Bearing this in mind, the wisdom of planning 
 industrial areas with as much flexibility as possible 
 will be recognised, so that provision will be made 
 alternatively for smaller or larger undertakings, with 
 lines of communication spaced out so that supple- 
 mentary ones can be formed when the actual allocations 
 are defined. Where there are valuable water frontages, 
 these should be economised as far as the character of 
 the industries permits, and a good depth given to sites 
 so situated, as in most cases there will be certain 
 branches of the work not demanding proximity to the 
 water front. Where the principal means of transport 
 is by rail, the planning requires care in providing that 
 sidings can be carried to the necessary points without 
 undue waste in arranging curves. ‘To effect this it is 
 often best to align the sites obliquely to the railway 
 route, so that the sidings may be run into them without 
 
 127 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 too long acurve. A portion of the plan of the industrial 
 area of Lucknow illustrates this; here there was the 
 added complication of two railway services of different 
 gauge, the narrow gauge bringing most of the raw 
 material, the broad gauge bringing the fuel and also 
 receiving the bulk of the finished product. 
 
 In no city does the difference between good and bad 
 planning so seriously affect the economic welfare as in 
 the large commercial seaport, and it is here, owing to 
 the rapid advances made in marine construction and 
 transport methods during recent years, that the greatest 
 activity has been found necessary to keep pace with the 
 progress made. Many of our wharves and docks, 
 together with their plant, are obsolete, both in scale and 
 efficiency, and it is only occasionally that their position 
 renders the solution possible that has proved of value 
 in Liverpool, where several important office buildings 
 have taken the place of one of the older docks. ‘Though 
 the course taken in this case can hardly be a usual one, 
 it seems likely that in London and one or two other 
 places where the demand for an enlarged business 
 centre is pressing, extensions may be secured by the 
 abandonment of the older docks, which are outgrown 
 by the shipping of the present day. 
 
 The planning of new docks is dictated by the class 
 of trade and the size of the vessels accommodated, the 
 former determining the proportion of land area and the 
 arrangement of the warehouses and shore communica- 
 tions, the latter the scale and design of the water areas. 
 It may be imagined that these engineering questions 
 are outside the range of town planning, but experience 
 has shown that the arrangement of the docks or 
 
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PLANNING FOR INDUSTRY 
 
 wharfage is the most vital factor in the extension of a 
 sea port, and that efficient planning would be impossible 
 were this excluded. The physiography of the site must 
 influence to a large extent all planning of this nature, 
 but, apart from this, port organisations divide them- 
 selves into two types, each of which has its sub- 
 divisions. | 
 
 Where the tidal variation is small and the position 
 sheltered, the port may be open to the sea, but where 
 it is considerable the scheme almost always takes the 
 form of enclosed docks with locks and gates. Quite 
 frequently accommodation of both types is provided. 
 The two main variations of the open port give wharfage 
 parallel to the shore, running the length of natural or 
 artificial frontages, and, alternatively, a series of piers at 
 right angles to the shore line, the first and older type 
 being more general in Europe and the second that 
 usual in America. Enclosed docks exhibit similar 
 variations, as in some the ships lie along the walls of 
 the dock, and in others along jetties projecting from 
 these walls. Formerly these jetties were placed at right 
 angles to the wall, but an oblique position is now found 
 more convenient for manceuvring ships and in giving 
 more economy in the space taken up by railway sidings, 
 just as in the oblique arrangement already described for 
 factory sites. 
 
 The special planning for port areas in the way of 
 sorting sheds, storage, elevators, bonded warehouses, 
 and the like does not call for consideration here, as, 
 when the general lines of development are settled and 
 the necessary areas allocated, this will pass into other 
 hands, but outside these areas the lines of access and 
 
 129 K 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 communication still remain to be dealt with, both in 
 regard to the service of the port and to that of the sites 
 in proximity to it. These sites will in most cases be 
 of eminent value for industrial purposes allied to the 
 commercial interests, and it will thus be of the utmost 
 importance that, apart from the lines of communication 
 by road and rail between the port and its “‘ hinterland,” 
 there should also be, distinct from these as far as 
 possible, transport facilities between it and the sur- 
 rounding sites occupied by important industrial con- 
 cerns. In former times these were often served by 
 inland canals running from the port, and railways now 
 do most of this work, but it is a question if these might 
 not be supplemented by overhead transport, such as 
 travellers or rope lines serving large works, when in 
 proximity to the port area. 
 
 Port undertakings being as a rule on low-lying 
 ground, it is probable that, avoiding the bad practices 
 of the past, we shall only find sites suitable for housing 
 the workers at some distance, leaving us free to organise 
 the zone immediately around the port for appropriate 
 industries, and arranging to bring the employees from 
 some more desirable places in the district by a rapid 
 transit service. Such a form of organisation is obviously 
 demanded both north and south of the Thames estuary, 
 and also along the ‘Tyne, the Tees, the Dee, and several 
 other rivers. The lay-out of the communications for 
 transit demands careful study, not only to avoid con- 
 flicting with those for transport, but also to give such 
 routes as may be economical in working and, at the 
 same time, so unified as to provide varied routes 
 according to the requirements of the workers. ‘The 
 
 130 
 
PLANNING FOR INDUSTRY 
 
 housing of the workers in each group of docks and 
 works at the nearest appropriate point, with a direct 
 connection between these, sounds a simple solution, but 
 it is not an adequate one, as members of a family may 
 work at different places, and workers may change their 
 place of employment without wishing to move their 
 homes. Some compromise between direct routes and 
 a circulating one will probably best meet the circum- 
 stances of the case. 
 
 There are other difficulties associated with industrial 
 operations which must not be overlooked. It is only 
 here and there that sites are by nature too irregular or 
 too steep to exclude development, but where the ground 
 has been quarried or excavated for gravel or clay it is 
 usually left in such a state as to be useless for any 
 economic purpose. ‘The owners obtain their royalties, 
 and sometimes compensation in addition, but this is 
 rarely expended in restoring the levels, and when the 
 town extends to these areas the desired communications 
 and planning are found to be impossible owing to the 
 prohibitive cost. They might often be reserved as 
 open spaces, and even made quite attractive with pools 
 and walks, but a fictitious value being usually placed 
 on them, with the idea that restoration may be ulti- 
 mately justified, they remain in the meantime an 
 obstacle to good planning. It is essential that a definite 
 programme should be laid down in respect of these 
 activities, permission only being given conditionally 
 on the restoration of the land to a state capable of use 
 or handed over to the authorities at a nominal figure to 
 be adapted as permanent open spaces. In either case 
 the further provision must be made that necessary lines 
 
 131 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 of communication are not interfered with, or, if this is 
 too inconvenient, are subsequently restored. 
 
 Similar provisions are desirable in the case of the 
 huge mounds resulting from mining or smelting opera- 
 tions. ‘These have done much to destroy the few 
 amenities which remain possible around our industrial 
 centres, and while we must guard against regulations 
 so severe as to preclude the economic pursuit of these 
 industries, it is only too obvious that the recklessness 
 hitherto habitual must give place to a more considered 
 treatment of these artificial hills. Fortunately it is now 
 found practicable to shift the spoil in coal mines into 
 the worked-out portions, thus diminishing the sub- 
 sidences and also limiting the surface mounds, while a 
 use has been found for the material from slag heaps in 
 the metalling of our arterial roads. So far, however, 
 the reduction of these mounds is not keeping pace with 
 their increase, and we have an unfortunate legacy of 
 areas destroyed by them in former days. Where it is 
 still unavoidable to form deposits of this type, the 
 surface soil should be removed and reserved, the 
 deposits should be kept as uniform and level as pos- 
 sible, with provision for grade approaches, and the 
 whole undertaking so organised that some degree of 
 restoration is subsequently practicable, by tree plant- 
 ing or such other operations as could be undertaken 
 where the surface was approximately level. The 
 employment of cable transport, which is now tending 
 to take the place of rail trolley lines, gives more flexi- 
 bility to the mode of deposit, making it easier to distri- 
 bute the spoil in a less destructive fashion. 
 
 Apart from this, the problem of mining areas is one 
 
 132 
 
PLANNING FOR INDUSTRY 
 
 that makes exceptional demands on the efforts of the 
 town planner. Owing to the increased depth of the 
 more recent mines, the workings extend over a larger 
 area, reaching to a radius of two miles from the shaft, 
 and being on this scale the mining village is corre- 
 spondingly increased in size. On this point we may 
 quote Professor Abercrombie, who has written as 
 follows :— | 
 
 “The natural tendency of coal working on a com- 
 paratively level site is to distribute growth in a series of 
 communities more or less attached to each pit. But the 
 pit-head village, however well designed and cut off or 
 screened from the pit, is not the ideal unit. It possesses 
 the drawback of too great a similarity of social structure 
 and consequent narrowness of interest. ‘The Garden 
 City, it will be remembered, always contemplated the 
 existence of varied factory, business and agricultural 
 life, combined, in the two cities so far attempted, with a 
 strong infusion of purely residential leaven. A new 
 coalfield, perhaps, does not offer the same attraction to 
 energising personalities to settle there and philosophise, 
 as does for example Letchworth and Welwyn. ‘There 
 is also the important factor of size; the Garden City 
 movement rightly deplores and attempts to prevent the 
 creation and continued growth of huge towns ; but in 
 the other extreme, villages of 5,000 inhabitants or so 
 are under very severe limitations for learning, art, 
 amusement, shopping and general business.”’ 
 
 To counterbalance the drawbacks mentioned, he 
 suggests that the development of a central town should 
 be encouraged either with good transit facilities to the 
 various pit-heads, a course which he regards as appro- 
 
 133 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 priate in the new East Kent coalfield, or else the form- 
 ing of a focus around which the villages are grouped, 
 in the way the Doncaster area is already shaping 
 itself. 
 
 When we review the industrial possibilities of any 
 country as a whole, it becomes clear that the exploita- 
 tion of these exercises a preponderating influence on 
 the problems of development, and determines the 
 general distribution of the population and, to a large 
 extent, the commercial organisation. The survey of 
 national resources, present and possible, is essentially 
 the fundamental preparation for all future planning, 
 not only around the existing towns, but of the country 
 as a whole, so that every likely expansion of the indus- 
 trial activities may be adequately provided for, as a 
 portion of a general scheme with appropriate co-ordina- 
 tions in all its aspects. 
 
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CHAPTER XIV 
 Housing 
 
 HE question of housing is fundamental to town 
 planning. We have seen that this art may have 
 been said to have begun with the demand for a 
 house of two rooms instead of one, and ever since the type 
 of house has been the main influence determining the 
 layout, the area to be covered, and the spacing of the 
 streets. At the same time we must not ignore the fact 
 that occasionally changing conditions have reversed 
 the process, and the house has then been compelled to 
 adapt itself to the area available and to grow vertically 
 instead of horizontally, as aforetime, to subdivide itself 
 into tenements, or to combine into aggregations. 
 These adaptations have been the cause of most of 
 the “ housing problems,” which predate time historic. 
 In Asian and African villages man builds his own 
 domicile just as he would cook his own dinner ; it is a 
 domestic matter, and he constructs what he wants as 
 far as his means permit, and usually secures what he 
 regards as appropriate. So long as such structures can 
 be placed in “‘ open formation,” no great evil results 
 from their relatively unsubstantial character. It is only 
 when they begin to get packed closely together that 
 danger from fire and from lack of appropriate sanita- 
 tion comes to be felt. This is clearly exemplified in 
 India, where in case of plague the inhabitants are moved 
 to camps of isolated dwellings from the denser agglo- 
 merations of the mud-built houses that have been 
 penetrated by the infected rats. These more primitive 
 
 135 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 types of building were no doubt general in all ages, 
 when only the aristocracy of the day was able to 
 secure a large share of the advantages that the civilisa- 
 tion of the period could offer. In the plains of Meso- 
 potamia, in Egypt, and even in Greece and Italy, the 
 depressed or enslaved classes had nothing better, while 
 it was only by slow degrees that in medizval times the 
 standard was raised, and the building craftsmen took 
 over the work of providing homes for the poorer 
 classes. Thus we find Harrison as late as 1577 remark- 
 ing :— 
 
 ‘* And yet see the change, for when our houses were 
 builded of willow, then had we oken men; but now 
 that our houses are come to be made of oke, our men 
 are not onlie become willow, but a great manie, through 
 Persian delicacie crept in among us, altogither of straw, 
 which is a sore alteration. 
 
 ‘“ Now haue we manie chimnies; and yet our 
 tenderlings complaine of rheumes, catarhs, and poses. 
 Then had we none but reredosses ; and our heads did 
 neuer ake. For as the smoke in those daies was sup- 
 posed to be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the 
 house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe 
 the goodman and his familie from the quacke or pose, 
 wherewith, as then, verie few were oft acquainted.” 
 
 While in London, then as now by far the largest city 
 in England, we may see by some of the regulations of 
 Richard I. that substantial building was only at that 
 time (1189) becoming general. 
 
 ‘When two neighbours shall have agreed to build 
 between themselves a wall of stone, each shall give a 
 foot and a half of land, and so they shall construct, at 
 
 136 
 
HOUSING 
 
 their joint cost, a stone wall three feet thick and sixteen 
 feet in height. And, if they agree, they shall make a 
 gutter between them, to carry off the water from their 
 houses, as they may deem most convenient. But if they 
 should not agree, either of them may make a gutter 
 to carry the water dripping from his house on to his 
 own land, except he can convey it into the High 
 Street. | 
 
 “They may also, if they agree, raise the said wall as 
 high as they please, at their joint expense, and if it shall 
 happen that one shall wish to raise the wall, and the 
 other not, it shall be lawful for him who is willing, to 
 raise his own part as much as he please, and build upon 
 it, without damage of the other, at his own cost. 
 
 “ And if any shall build his own stone wall, upon his 
 own land, of the height of sixteen feet, his neighbour 
 ought to make a gutter under the eaves of the house 
 which is placed on that wall, and receive in it the water 
 falling from that house, and lead it on to his own land, 
 unless he can lead it into the High Street. 
 
 ** Also, no one of two parties having a common wall 
 built between them, can, or ought, to pull down any 
 portion of his part of the said wall, or lessen its thick- 
 ness, or make arches in it, without the assent and will of 
 the other. 
 
 ‘ And if any one shall have windows looking towards 
 the land of a neighbour, and although he and his pre- 
 decessors have long been possessed of the view of the 
 aforesaid windows, nevertheless, his neighbour may 
 lawfully obstruct the view of those windows, by building 
 opposite to them on his own ground, as he shall con- 
 sider most expedient ; except he who hath the windows 
 
 137 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 can show any writing whereby his neighbour may not 
 obstruct the view of those windows. 
 
 ** Whosoever wishes to build, let him take care, as he 
 loveth himself and his goods, that he roof not with reed, 
 nor rush, nor with any manner of litter, but with tile 
 only, or shingle, or boards, or, if it may be, with lead. 
 Also all houses which till now are covered with reed or 
 rush, which can be plastered, let them be plastered 
 within eight days, and let those which shall not be so 
 plastered within the term be demolished by the alder- 
 men and lawful men of the venue. 
 
 “* All wooden houses which are nearest to the stone 
 houses in Cheap, whereby the stone houses in Cheap 
 may be in peril, shall be securely amended by view 
 of the mayor and sheriffs, and good men of the city, 
 or, without any exception, to whomsoever they may 
 belong, pulled down.” 
 
 We know that at the time of the Great Fire London 
 was still largely of wooden construction, andit is hardlyto 
 be doubted that the idealistic provisions of 1189 in regard 
 to the construction of stone division walls had only 
 been accepted to a limited extent. ‘There were at least 
 two reasons for this: firstly, stone is not plentiful near 
 London, while its substitute, brick, did not come into 
 general use till three centuries later; and, secondly, 
 valuable space would be lost by the substitution of 
 a three-foot wall for the comparatively thin timber 
 framing it was intended to replace. 
 
 We can further judge of the general scale of buildings 
 in the twelfth century by the reference to sixteen feet 
 as a probable height. Clearly no more than two stories 
 was then the rule, and this in the metropolis ; elsewhere 
 
 138 
 
HOUSING 
 
 it is hardly likely that a large proportion of the build- 
 ings was of more than one story. The characteristic 
 medizeval street, with its tall and overhanging facades, 
 irregular projections and steep-pitched roofs, such as 
 Gustave Doré loved to emphasise even beyond the 
 possible, was the growth of later times, when the city, 
 still packed within its defensive wall, was impelled to 
 develop vertically through being precluded from. exten- 
 sion laterally, resulting, as has been mentioned earlier, 
 in the type of city we now recognise as representative 
 of this period. 
 
 It was not the natural adaptation of means to an end, 
 but the tradition of the tall house on a limited site that 
 dictated the form of town houses during the seven- 
 teenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it was 
 the designer’s endeavour to justify this height that led 
 him to group them in blocks and treat the whole as a 
 unit simulating a palace, by the employment of detail 
 borrowed from Palladio and those other Italians, the 
 authors of the genuine palaces of the Renaissance. 
 
 The standard of the closely built city having been 
 thus established, it has remained with us ever since, 
 and its one claim to merit, namely compactness and 
 shortening of distances, has been given undue weight 
 in the balance against its numerous defects. ‘This is, 
 moreover, not the end of our heritage from the Middle 
 Ages in respect to housing. ‘The one family one house 
 type, from which all communities start, has at various 
 periods been driven to give place to the tenement block 
 housing a number of families. We find it in ancient 
 Rome, and in the East at the present day, antagonistic 
 though it be to the Eastern ideal of family life. 
 
 139 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 In Europe it has generally arisen out of changes in 
 conditions or of fashion that have drawn the well-to-do 
 away from extensive blocks of large houses and left 
 them to those who could only afford to rent them 
 piecemeal. We see that this has taken place in London, 
 in Dublin, and other large towns, while on the Continent 
 this tendency appeared still earlier than here, Paris 
 and many other cities affording us examples with which 
 Edinburgh may be classed with these as being at least a 
 century ahead of similar developmentsin England. As 
 an improvement on this accidental form of housing, we 
 come next to the block planned for the purpose of pro- 
 viding a number of houses. Such blocks seem to have 
 been erected by the Romans where conditions dictated 
 this course; they reappear on the Continent and in 
 Scotland during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies, but not until the nineteenth in England, and 
 even then for a long time only reluctantly as an expe- 
 dient for housing the very poorest. Flats for middle- 
 class residents, long accepted elsewhere, hardly existed 
 in London before 1880, and for some two decades after 
 this were usually designed to simulate the appearance of 
 private house as far as possible. 
 
 Of course the tenement or flat planned ad hoc 
 has clear advantages over improvised subdivision, and 
 London suffered from its conservatism, many being 
 housed in a fashion of which Dublin presents the only 
 exact equivalent. If we grant the necessity for residen- 
 tial flats, it is important that they should be as skil- 
 fully designed as possible, and of late years it may be 
 claimed that this has been effected, but there are yet 
 many English towns of medium size where their utility is 
 
 140 
 
HOUSING 
 
 still repudiated, in marked contrast with the Scottish 
 ideal, which dictates the building of tenement blocks 
 even in quite small places. 
 
 It may perhaps be felt that these considerations are 
 somewhat remote from the subject, but the influence 
 of the type of dwelling on the character of a town 
 demands their inclusion before we pass on to the aspect 
 of town planning as affected by housing standards. 
 
 Having reviewed at sufficient length the trend of 
 housing development in the past, it will now suffice to 
 look at our towns as they stand at the present day, and 
 here a marked contrast is evident between those of the 
 Continent and those of our own island. While the build- 
 ings in the large Continental cities average four or five 
 stories in height, in ours the larger proportion of the area 
 is covered by houses of two stories only, the appropriate 
 height of the one-family house for nine people out of 
 ten. We know, of course, that the impressive masses of 
 buildings we see abroad are divided into small and, to 
 our mind, not very comfortable dwellings, but, none 
 the less, they create an impression of ordered dignity 
 lacking in our towns at home. Even though we may 
 be inwardly convinced that our own arrangements are 
 preferable, we are yet so far dominated by the tradition 
 of what a city should look like as to feel that the Con- 
 tinental town corresponds to this more closely than our 
 own widespread ranges of small homes. 
 
 If we determine to study the housing question on its 
 merits we must free ourselves from all obsession as to 
 past standards in the characteristics of a town. We 
 have been accustomed to get our impressions from the 
 imposing houses of the wealthy in our own country, 
 
 141 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 and from such houses, reinforced by massed buildings 
 simulating them, elsewhere. In these days the demand 
 for the large town house has practically ceased, and the 
 alternative before us is either to substitute the flat or 
 tenement block or to reconstruct our plans so as to 
 make it possible to occupy wide areas with cottage 
 residences. On the Continent the former alternative 
 is the one most generally accepted ; with us the second 
 remains the more popular ; but, as a result, our large 
 towns are becoming increasingly difficult to organise, and 
 only the acceleration of traffic has made it possible 
 up to the present. One of the strongest arguments of 
 the advocates of the garden city has been the undesira- 
 bility of unlimited expansion, and in view of the depress- 
 ing effect of mile after mile of small houses, there is a 
 great deal to be said for the substitution of “ satellite 
 towns ”’ and detached suburban villages, which are, 
 from both the hygienic and the social points of view, 
 preferable to the extended “ agglomeration ’’ and more 
 in consonance with our national temperament. To 
 encourage these we need improvements in the planning 
 and working of our systems of transport, but there is 
 every hope that these will be effected, not perhaps as 
 fast as is desirable, but possibly in time to afford a fair 
 chance for the required revision in the mode of pro- 
 viding for massed population. We recognise now that 
 mere extent adds nothing to the dignity of a city, indeed 
 rather the reverse, as even where from time to time we 
 may meet with salient features, a deadening impression 
 on the mind is bound to be created by vast areas of 
 houses that cannot reasonably be expected to exhibit 
 much variety in type. 
 
 142 
 
HOUSING 
 
 At this point a brief note on housing, as it has 
 influenced the welfare, apart from the appearance, 
 of many of our larger towns, is desirable. For many 
 decades the lack of adequate transit facilities resulted 
 in houses being packed together in limited areas con- 
 veniently near to business and industrial districts, and 
 though by-laws came into operation to restrict this, the 
 regulations were, as we have seen, far less drastic than 
 modern practice demands, only prescribing curtilages 
 too small for gardens, and in many cases still accepting 
 houses built back to back, a system which could only 
 be of economic value with dwellings of two or three 
 rooms, and which has been condemned, not only in the 
 case of separate houses, but also in that of tenement 
 blocks on account of the impossibility of securing a 
 thorough current of air. Even now such tenement 
 blocks are being constructed in Continental towns with 
 separate flats on each front, so that they are in effect 
 back to back. 
 
 The type of dwelling now established as best from 
 the point of view of health is open on as many sides as 
 possible, and while cottages may be grouped for 
 economic or zsthetic reasons provided there is plenty 
 of air space around each group, those planned as 
 detached or semi-detached always show a slight 
 superiority in the increased freedom as regards aspect 
 and aeration. 
 
 143 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 Education and Recreation 
 
 ROM the town planning point of view, educa- 
 
 tion and recreation may well be grouped to- 
 
 gether, and there is a sound basis for such a 
 grouping, as recreation undoubtedly educates and 
 education is, or ought to be, recreative. Separate 
 classifications of the two are possible, if difficult, 
 but for our purpose they may be dealt with together, 
 since we have little connection with book learning, which 
 is the popular concept of education as a distinct opera- 
 tion, but a great deal to do with those other aspects that 
 concern themselves with open air pursuits and merge 
 indistinguishably into what are recognised as recreative 
 ones. 
 
 It has long been accepted by educationalists that the 
 latter are of primary importance in the education of the 
 young, and various steps have been taken in the 
 interests of physical and mental development to change 
 the type of school building so as to make provision for 
 working as much as possible in the open air, and the 
 school surroundings in order to facilitate practical 
 operations, such as gardening and constructive work, 
 as a part at least of the programme. ‘The experiment 
 has even been made of taking the children en masse into 
 the country during the school hours, a plan economi- 
 cally practicable, because they can travel in an opposite 
 direction to that of the daily influx of workers into the 
 town. 
 
 Whether this be generally possible or not, the typical 
 
 144 
 
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EDUCATION AND RECREATION 
 
 town school, with a playground so limited that it must 
 needs be but an asphalte yard, is so far from the recog- 
 nised ideal as to ensure that only in the most acute 
 emergency will others be erected on this model. With 
 the increasing provision of open spaces it is probable 
 that future schools will be located adjoining these, so 
 that there will be scope for games and the study of 
 nature, without involving journeys for these pursuits. 
 As it is recognised that no extensive housing schemes can 
 be laid down without ample provision for open air 
 recreation, it will become a matter of course that the 
 provision for schools will be considered in relation to 
 these, and that the structural characteristics of what are 
 misnamed our “ public schools’ will be aimed at in 
 the design of schools for all classes. This will not be 
 so costly as might be imagined, for the playing fields 
 can serve different sections of the community at dif- 
 ferent times, the infants mainly before 2 p.m., the 
 scholars between that hour and 5, and the adults from 
 5 p-m. till dark. 
 
 The type and amount of the accommodation which 
 is being established as the standard in newly developed 
 districts will gradually influence the general attitude 
 towards the older schools where there is a pronounced 
 shortage of open space, and in course of time the defects 
 of these will be felt intolerable, and there will be a 
 stronger demand than there is at present that advantage 
 should be taken of all clearances of insanitary property 
 for the purpose of providing open spaces. The prin- 
 ciple is recognised in the legal provision for reduced 
 compensation where this course is adopted, and though 
 this has often the effect of visiting on the children the 
 
 145 : 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 sins of the fathers, we know that there is a sanction 
 for this form of vicarious retribution, without even the 
 proviso that it is to take effect for the good of the 
 greater number. 
 
 Having laid down the axiom that school buildings 
 should be in proximity to open spaces, though these 
 latter, if economy demands it, need not be exclusively 
 allotted to the school, we can now pass on to the con- 
 sideration of the parks and recreation grounds them- 
 selves. 
 
 The formal park of the eighteenth century, and the 
 “landscape” one of the nineteenth, are of far less 
 value from the educationalists’ standpoint than the 
 types of open space most in demand at the present 
 time, and though the former has a value in definitely 
 enhancing the unity between city design and natural 
 features, we cannot afford to give it the dominant posi- 
 tion it once held. ‘The social reformer asks for two 
 things, the nature reserve, where townsfolk can appre- 
 ciate those aspects of life which would otherwise be 
 beyond the range of their observation, and the recrea- 
 tion ground, varying in type according to local demand, 
 but laid out to afford the maximum accommodation for 
 the physical activities which counteract the defects due 
 to their absence in most of the occupations of the 
 dwellers in a town. 
 
 It is incumbent on all towns of any size to keep a 
 look out for positions reasonably accessible which 
 offer advantages in situation or character, and to secure 
 them when opportunity offers. Very often these are 
 areas of the least value for economic purposes, irregular 
 in formation, bluffs or escarpments, the valleys of small 
 
 146 
 
EDUCATION AND RECREATION 
 
 streams, dingles or cloughs, just the kind of places that, 
 if encroached on by building operations, destroy most 
 effectually, for very small profits, the amenity of the 
 locality in which they occur. They possess, as a rule, 
 not only the attractions of varied landscape effects, but 
 also a wider range of fauna and flora than more uniform 
 tracts, an important advantage from the point of view 
 of their educational value. We must not, however, look 
 at them solely with the eye of the naturalist. Education 
 is not alone the acquisition of knowledge, it covers the 
 expansion of the faculty of appreciating the drama, so 
 to speak, of both nature and art, and thus it is of import- 
 ance that any feature of outstanding effect on its 
 surroundings, be this hill or valley, should be pre- 
 served from obliteration by the encroachment of undis- 
 tinguished buildings. 
 
 Turning to the provision for recreation in the form 
 of playing fields, the selection would usually be of level 
 ground, suited to those games which give the maximum 
 activity in relation to the area employed. The national 
 games of football and cricket must, of course, be pro- 
 vided for, while tennis gives more intensive use in pro- 
 portion to the ground occupied. Bowling greens are 
 not extravagant of space, and gymnastic exercises take 
 comparatively little. A running track can easily be 
 arranged, but it is only with exceptionally favourable con- 
 ditions in the matter of open land that public golf links 
 can be included, though this game has the advantage 
 that it is independent ofa levelsite. Ofcourse there are 
 many examples of parks where a part is available for 
 games, and the remainder, suitably laid out, provides 
 walks and pleasances, and doubtless this division is a 
 
 147 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 sound course where circumstances have dictated it, but 
 such parks would not replace the quieter reserves the 
 naturalist willask for. In addition, where part of an area 
 required for games is irregular in its outline and levels, 
 it might be profitably laid out as an open air concert hall 
 or theatre. 
 
 Besides the larger grounds for organised games, 
 small playgrounds among the groups of houses must 
 be provided for young children, so that they can have 
 the benefit of free exercise in the open air conveniently 
 near theirhomes. ‘These playgrounds will only demand 
 a relatively small proportion of the total area required 
 for playing fields, and at the same time the cost will 
 be trifling, since they can be calculated as part of the 
 allowance for garden ground in a housing scheme. 
 
 The proportionate allocations for these open spaces 
 will be considered in the chapter on Parks, and we can 
 therefore pass on to a type of activity which, while 
 ostensibly concerned with the lighter forms of recrea- 
 tion, sometimes embodies educational features in addi- 
 tion, namely, the temporary exhibitions and their 
 adjuncts. ‘These, no doubt originating in the old fairs 
 which combined business with entertainment, have 
 acquired a changed complexion, owing first to the estab- 
 lishment of pleasure gardens such as Cremorne and 
 Vauxhall, and later on to the inauguration of the large 
 international exhibitions in various European capitals 
 and the more important cities of the United States. 
 While the more serious features of these have gained an 
 increasing popularity, the peripatetic entertainments 
 appertaining to the fair have expanded their plant and 
 have continued their peregrinations among the minor 
 
 148 
 
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 Facing page 149 
 
EDUCATION AND RECREATION 
 
 towns. These have not sufficed for the more populous 
 centres, where “joy cities,” offering the same class of 
 entertainment on a larger scale, have been established. 
 
 In the United States the “joy city ”’ is a permanent 
 feature as a distinct establishment, but in Europe it is 
 more usually joined to an organisation which either 
 temporarily or year by year purports to have a serious 
 aim, thus more nearly typifying the medizval fair, 
 -which gathered people from far and wide for the pur- 
 poses of commerce and hirings, and where the amuse- 
 ments were at first merely incidental in character. St. 
 Bartholomew’s, Barnet, and other Fairs, afforded pic- 
 turesque incidents and a good deal of rough and tumble 
 amusement to those frequenting them, the prototypes of 
 the present-day votaries of the “ joy city,” while those 
 having a taste for rather more sedate enjoyments 
 brought into popularity the gardens of Vauxhall, 
 Cremorne, and their successors. 
 
 In more recent times the combination of these 
 various ideals has brought into vogue the exhibition as 
 a place of interest and amusement, and the emulation 
 of the nations in displaying their resources by this 
 means has been responsible for a vast amount of 
 grandiose planning and the display of effects more 
 easily secured by means of temporary structures than 
 would be possible with more costly permanent buildings. 
 Despite much that may be open to criticism from the 
 point of view of design, it can be affirmed that the 
 impression given by many of these undertakings has 
 been definitely beneficial, as they embody more digni- 
 fied and spacious planning than is to be found generally. 
 Of course the lay-out and massing of buildings on 
 
 149 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 a site selected for the purpose, and free from the 
 restrictions met with under ordinary conditions, to- 
 gether with the fact that the structures themselves are 
 less dominated by economic and practical require- 
 ments, offers more opportunity for untrammelled 
 imaginings, and therefore the more successful efforts 
 have exercised a definite influence on the appreciation 
 of comprehensive design. 
 
 Paris, already in the forefront in this respect, may 
 have had little to learn, but there can be no doubt that 
 the popular standards of Chicago and San Francisco 
 have been materially raised by the very effective plan- 
 ning of their exhibitions. Yet nowhere has the full 
 advantage been taken of the opportunities these under- 
 takings have afforded for experiments in the subsidiary 
 aspects of design, such as gardening, water and illu- 
 mination. In spite of the fact that from time to time 
 quite exceptionally good effects have been contrived, 
 these have not been regarded as setting a standard for 
 the decoration of our cities, which still sadly lack the 
 vivacity obtainable by a few of the expedients that have 
 been freely employed to gain popularity for exhibitions 
 and their adjuncts. 
 
 After these excursions into specialised activities we 
 thus come back in the end to the city itself, which is, in 
 its functions and organisation, the main factor in the 
 education of the townspeople. It is for this reason that 
 the movement for better and more logical design in the 
 development of our large towns is of such paramount 
 importance. Confused and sordid surroundings can 
 only result in a correspondingly sordid outlook on life, 
 while the noble city cannot fail to evoke a broad- 
 
 150 
 
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 * 
 
 EDUCATION AND RECREATION 
 
 minded nobility in its citizens. Education is only to a 
 minor extent a matter of books and class-rooms ; what 
 makes or mars a people is mainly the type of environ- 
 ment, no less from the point of view of the social stan- 
 dards themselves than from that of their expression in 
 material form. 
 
 151 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Civic and Social Centres 
 
 
 
 E must once more turn to Rome for the idea 
 of both the civic and the social centre, 
 though in neither case do we now demand 
 the exact equivalent of what was then provided. In the 
 first case it was the custom of the Romans to group 
 round the Forum the buildings connected with civil 
 administration, and in the second the magnificent 
 Thermz provided for the various forms of communal 
 social activity, including, as they did, not only the 
 baths, but provision for various athletic exercises, and 
 also for social meetings, discourses and recitations. 
 These, as we have seen, it was the recognised duty of 
 the authorities to establish and maintain, though they 
 were often aided in this by private munificence. 
 
 Only quite recently has a similar attitude towards 
 these centres become at all general. It is true that 
 during the Middle Ages the combination of religious 
 and municipal functions with social activities tended 
 towards the concentration of all these in a definite 
 centre, but when these interests separated themselves, 
 this tendency lapsed and no effort was made to provide 
 on similar lines for the less unified activities of the 
 modern city. Official buildings were left to find a place 
 when and where they could ; churches and chapels, as 
 might be expected, distributed themselves in various 
 quarters, while the other communal provisions were 
 forgotten altogether, and were only re-established piece- 
 meal on an opportunist basis, just how and where it 
 
 152 
 
CIVIC AND SOCIAL CENTRES 
 
 seemed possible, with no idea of a co-ordinated group. 
 Schools claimed attention first ; then “‘ baths and wash- 
 houses ”’ secured popular support ; games found a foot- 
 ing in odd corners of the parks, and the free libraries 
 began to be accepted as a public need. Art galleries and 
 museums were for long regarded as appropriate only to 
 cities of metropolitan importance, but we now find 
 that most places of any size are endeavouring to include 
 them in their municipal programme. 
 
 While there is no occasion to be pedantic on the ques- 
 tion of grouping all these together, it being obvious 
 that there is no real necessity for this, and often very 
 definite difficulties in so doing, it is clear that a much 
 more emphatic expression of civic dignity will be 
 achieved by a studied placing of public buildings in 
 relationship to each other. 
 
 Taking the administrative centre first, we shall find 
 here and there that such a group has either formed itself 
 or has been found practicable without too great an 
 effort. Birmingham’s chief public buildings are massed 
 together, though not with any very striking effect as 
 regards their architectural position. Cardiff has been 
 more fortunate in that a large park, reserved by the 
 Marquis of Bute till long after the town had extended 
 beyond it, was transferred to the corporation and laid out 
 in sites for the city hall, law courts, museum, univer- 
 sity, and several other public buildings. The arrange- 
 ment of these has not been all that could be desired, but 
 the spaciousness of the site, and the inclusion of trees 
 and gardens, place it far ahead of anything else of the 
 kind in this country. It is to the U.S.A. that we must 
 go to see the civic centre established as an essential in 
 
 153 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 the design of an important town. In many towns 
 there such a grouping has either been secured or is in 
 contemplation. That of Cleveland was one of the 
 earliest to take shape, but Pittsburg, St. Louis, Chicago, 
 and a number of other cities have schemes laid down 
 for this purpose. 
 
 From the civic standpoint it is a great drawback that 
 in England we have such a large number of administrative 
 bodies functioning quite independently of each other. 
 Post and telegraph offices are a Government affair : the 
 county may have its offices in one place and the town 
 council in another: the town hall may, or may not, 
 be in conjunction with the latter, the courts perhaps in 
 a district quite remote: and the list could be extended 
 almost indefinitely. Apart from the obvious incon- 
 veniences of such a distribution, it militates seriously 
 against the effect of dignity that would be gained by the 
 co-ordinated grouping of all these buildings in a well 
 chosen position, and though we know that this is not 
 always practicable in an old established centre, much 
 more could have been done in this direction if the ideal 
 had been kept in mind and a scheme forecasted with the 
 aim of its gradual realisation. 
 
 The same principle applies no less imperatively to the 
 educational group. ‘The university, with its allied 
 institutes and schools, now a recognised feature of all 
 important centres, has a definite claim to consideration 
 as a whole, and though the character may vary according 
 _ to local occupations and conditions, it will be the excep- 
 tion rather than the rule if these suggest that educational 
 activities should be distributed between various locali- 
 ties in preference to being grouped in a suitable site not 
 
 154 
 
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CIVIC AND SOCIAL CENTRES 
 
 too remote from the focal centre of the city. It must 
 be outside the commercial area or it will be impossible 
 to provide space for the inevitable extensions, and as 
 university activities are rapidly, and fortunately, ceasing 
 to be the concern of the adolescent only, the educa- 
 tional group should be easily accessible, both from all 
 parts of the city itself and from the outside region of 
 which the city is the focus. 
 
 Passing on to the social centre, as the group of 
 buildings having recreation as their main objective is 
 usually entitled, a much more varied type of demand 
 presents itself. Social life takes many different com- 
 plexions, ranging from that to be found in the clubs 
 of the great capitals to the simple intercourse of the 
 village hall. Nor is it solely a matter of wealth and 
 culture; there are even in a single nation wide varia- 
 tions in the attitude towards social relationships, and 
 any organisation providing for them must base itself on 
 the local traditions. It is out of the question to discuss 
 these at length, and the only course is to admit that, 
 while defining in general terms the features to be 
 included in such a centre, this is subject to reserva- 
 tions in regard to national or local customs and ideals. 
 
 Then, again, there must be main and subsidiary centres 
 in our large towns since they have outgrown any possible 
 civic unity in this respect, and it would be as futile as 
 it would be unreasonable to try and cultivate social 
 relations on a mass basis. This is easiest in the village, 
 less easy in a city suburb, and almost impossible in many 
 of the overcrowded districts which are our heritage from 
 the “‘ industrial’ age, but these centres are wanted 
 if people are to have a chance of lifting themselves 
 
 55 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 out of the depression in which it has deposited them. 
 The beginnings are already with us, and that they 
 will eventually take their place in the civic organism 
 cannot be doubted. We have picture galleries, museums, 
 libraries, public baths, and recreation grounds as 
 separate institutions, having their specific values, but 
 they would exercise a much stronger influence if they 
 were grouped and supplemented by other desirable 
 provisions, so as to give the idea of a gathering point for 
 all local activities, on the lines of the club group at Port 
 Sunlight. 
 
 The art gallery, museum and library, with their 
 intimate inter-relations, should obviously be combined, 
 together with studios for art work and for the prepara- 
 tion of scenic effects to be employed in the adjacent 
 theatre, which would also link up with facilities for 
 cultivating music and the dance. ‘Then the baths and 
 gymnasium seem naturally to demand a place in the 
 group, with such supplementary adjuncts as a small 
 running track, a skittle alley, and the like. Of course 
 there must be the usual club rooms for meetings, lec- 
 tures, games, social intercourse and refreshments, with 
 separate provision as far as necessary for men, women 
 and children. ‘This is more or less what the group 
 would offer where nothing beyond a good building site 
 is available, but where this can be secured in juxta- 
 position to a recreation ground, we can add playing 
 fields for adults and children, tennis courts, bowling 
 greens, lawns for dancing, and possibly such additions 
 as a swimming pond, an open air theatre, and even a 
 golf course. Birmingham is developing a recreation 
 centre on these lines at the Lickey Hills. 
 
 156 
 
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 56. Vienna. ‘The Ringstrasse laid out on the Site of the Inner Fortifications 
 Facing page 157 
 
CIVIC AND SOCIAL CENTRES 
 
 Naturally the programme must be proportioned to 
 local resources and demands, but it should cover as 
 broad a range of activity as possible, and even the village 
 hall may find space for a small library and local museum. 
 The main value in the system of grouping is the facility 
 it offers for widening the interests of those frequenting 
 one or more of the sections. Some who regularly visit 
 the library have no idea of taking part in music or the 
 drama, while others, enthusiastic over athletics, ignore 
 the existence of books or pictures. Of course it would 
 be absurd to demand that every one should be modelled 
 on the same pattern, but one of the chief obstacles to 
 social intercourse in all classes is the existence of 
 numerous blanks in experience and knowledge due to 
 too limited an outlook. | 
 
 Again, if each district has its own centre, we shall 
 get the incentive of emulation, and with the huge 
 agglomerations of dwellings having but little interest or 
 distinction that now characterise our great cities, it 
 should not be forgotten that the appearance alone of a 
 group of buildings on a scale allowing for dignity in 
 their conception will give focal points that are sadly 
 needed to break the monotony of these far-stretched 
 suburbs. 
 
 The city can only have one municipal group, but the 
 social centres will take their place in the encircling 
 districts, adapting themselves to the needs of each, and 
 counteracting the tendency of the overgrown town to 
 swamp the social contacts of its denizens. 
 
 157 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 Parks and Open Spaces 
 
 HOUGH it has not been possible to escape a 
 
 few references to parks and open spaces, the 
 
 importance of these in town development de- 
 mands that they shall come under review more specific- 
 ally, a number of considerations being involved in the 
 study of the whys and wherefores of park site selection 
 and lay-out. 
 
 To begin with the selection, this may be in response 
 to what might be termed a “ positive ” demand, such as 
 the “‘ natural beauty or historic interest ”’ of the area, to 
 quote from the title of the National Trust. Then 
 places with an interesting flora or fauna have a claim, 
 and, as well as these, we need good level sites in con- 
 venient situations for the playing fields and smaller play- 
 grounds for children to which we have previously 
 referred, and suitable allocations for allotments. In 
 providing for the living we must not forget the dead 
 and the need for cemeteries, placed neither too far for 
 convenient access nor in places which could otherwise 
 be more profitably employed. 
 
 We must add to this list areas to be reserved as open 
 spaces for negative reasons, such as sites which are 
 steep and irregular by nature or by the operations of 
 man, and which cannot be economically developed, 
 brooks to be kept pure and bright, low lying ground 
 on which it would be unhealthy to build, zones to pro- 
 tect residential districts from proximity to undesirable 
 industrial operations, and other reservations of this 
 
 158 
 
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 
 
 type. It will be well, however, before going into 
 further detail, to take a brief retrospective view of the 
 types of park we have inherited from the past, and the 
 extent to which these have been adapted to meet 
 changing ideals. 
 
 The royal hunting parks have mostly come into the 
 hands of the people, and on the Continent, these were 
 usually laid out as described in the chapter on the 
 Renaissance, with geometric triangulations having 
 circular clearings at the principal intersections. Those 
 in England had rather less of artifice and more of nature, 
 but the formal treatment was accepted for the smaller 
 parks, such as Greenwich, Hampton Court, and Ken- 
 sington Gardens. Later on these regular designs were 
 abandoned in favour of a studied “‘ naturalism,’ and in 
 some cases were even swept away under the same in- 
 fluence, a course adopted at the Bois de Boulogne and 
 in our own St. James’s Park. Throughout the nine- 
 teenth century the “‘ Landscape School”’ was para- 
 mount, a school which, while it abandoned formality, 
 still retained the sophisticated neatness and definition 
 of grass, gravel and shrubbery belonging to the tradi- 
 tions of the formalist. 
 
 The parks of the continental cities mainly belong to 
 these two categories and are, in general, welded into 
 the city pattern by the customary tree-planted avenues 
 and boulevards. In this country we have a curiously 
 mixed heritage of parks planned, private parks acquired, 
 and woodlands, heaths, and commons left in their 
 natural state. In almost all cases the park is regarded 
 as an entity in itself, and, with perhaps one or two 
 exceptions like Regent’s Park, no attempt has been 
 
 159 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 made to combine the park and its surroundings in a 
 comprehensive design. Such instinct as we have for 
 reinforcing groups of buildings by formal lay-out, 
 seems to expend itself in private gardens, and but few 
 efforts on these lines are to be found at the present 
 time in our public places, though there are hints of a 
 movement from which we may expect something in the 
 future. 
 
 Whatever may be done in this direction, it is unlikely 
 that we shall carry out the idea of unity of park and town 
 to the extent customary on the Continent, and we shall 
 assuredly retain our preference for the park as a relief 
 and respite from the life of the city rather than as an 
 enhancement of it,asis the accepted view abroad. For 
 this reason the more recent municipal acquisitions of 
 rural areas are not elaborately laid out, except in so far 
 as it is necessary for games or to complete a scheme 
 incidental to a mansion or an existing plan, and this is 
 right, because, given equally easy access, the “ nature 
 reserve ”’ will be far more popular than the landscape 
 gardener’s park. Apart from the playing fields, distinct 
 in their purpose, the only strong competitor is the well- 
 furnished flower garden, not just the few circles and 
 crescents, carpet bedded, that every self-respecting 
 park includes, but such as may be found with the old 
 houses which have sometimes come into the possession 
 of the public. Real flower gardens with herbaceous 
 borders, beds gay with well-chosen colours, water and 
 water plants, flowering shrubs and trees, where the 
 changes from season to season ensure a sustained 
 interest—these, and the woodlands with streamlets 
 and viewpoints, are the pleasure grounds that most 
 
 160 
 
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 Facing page 161 
 
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PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 
 
 delight our townsfolk, and though there is no need to 
 disparage other types, it may be borne in mind that 
 hilltops, woods, and flowers are sure in their appeal. 
 The Enclosure Acts, framed with the intention of 
 providing an increased agricultural output to meet the 
 needs of a growing population, deprived us of large 
 areas of common land which in many instances would 
 have been most valuable as playgrounds for our great 
 towns: in other cases the greed for land has resulted 
 in the filching of large slices of public property, and 
 this more especially where proximity to the town in- 
 creased the temptation. Only towards the middle of 
 the nineteenth century did we begin to wake up to the 
 danger and set to work to secure what remained of the 
 common lands. Some were then recovered, some bought 
 back, but even later than this there were losses from 
 encroachment. Only in a few cases have these acquisi- 
 tions been transformed into the accepted type of park, the 
 more usual operations having fortunately been limited 
 to the making up of a few of the principal roads and 
 paths, and provision for games where this was demanded. 
 We may look forward to an increasing desire for 
 public open spaces, and to a more intimate study of the 
 means by which these can be made easily accessible from 
 the populous districts. Some of our great towns own 
 widespread parklands, Leeds, for example, where there 
 is an acre to every 240 inhabitants, and Bradford, where 
 this ratio is more than doubled, in each case with new 
 roads and tramway routes making these parks their 
 objective, and yet in them as elsewhere there are still 
 densely-built-up areas from which it is by no means 
 easy to reach playgrounds of even moderate size. 
 
 161 be 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 In many towns the bulk of the land on the fringe 
 of the built-up area ought by rights to be reserved 
 as open spaces, but as this will in most cases be 
 economically impracticable, an alternative is the reten- 
 tion of strips or belts of ground which will appro- 
 priately link up the built-up areas with the larger parks 
 or reserves that have been secured further afield. 
 Boston, U.S.A., offers a good example of how this 
 ought to be done, and many other American cities are 
 following on the same lines. ‘The valleys of small 
 rivers or brooks are suitable for reservation as park- 
 ways of this type, and in Surrey an effort is being made 
 to secure the course of the Wandle from Carshalton to 
 Merton against undesirable developments that would 
 destroy its beauty. ‘There are numberless streams of 
 this type around London and our other large cities 
 where similar action is urgently needed. 
 
 Then there are other sites, mentioned as of low value 
 for practical purposes, that may be of great assistance 
 in the provision of a comprehensive park system. Apart 
 from the classic example of the Buttes Chaumont in 
 Paris, made out of the former refuse tip of the city, we 
 may cite Leeds as having acquired an old quarry area 
 of 53 acres which will, at comparatively small cost, form 
 a most interesting park. Then we have in some dis- 
 tricts extensive mounds left by disused coal pits, 
 which, unpromising though they appear, are yet 
 capable of being planted and ultimately organised as 
 attractive open spaces. A good deal of work in this 
 direction has been carried out in South Staffordshire 
 under the auspices of the Midland Re-afforesting Asso- 
 ciation, which has, during the last twenty-two years, 
 
 162 
 
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 
 
 dealt with some 14,000 acres, and has found that on 
 this seemingly unpromising ground it is practicable to 
 grow alder, wych-elm, birch, robinia, ash, sycamore, 
 and other British trees, together with shrubs such as 
 elder, gorse and broom, while in the course of a few 
 years the bare surfaces cover themselves with wild 
 flowers and grasses. Nature itself gradually provides 
 a superficial soil, and in the end the disorganised irre- 
 gularity of these neglected mounds becomes a source of 
 beauty. There are still large areas awaiting these 
 ameliorative operations, and it may even be hoped that, 
 when the worser influences of fumes and smoke have 
 given way to improved methods in the consumption 
 and utilisation of fuel, such operations may follow on 
 the heels of the industries concerned, so that no long 
 period may elapse during which the country suffers 
 from the disfigurements now regarded as inevitable. 
 Given the desire for this, it would not be difficult to 
 deposit such accumulations as cannot be avoided, so that 
 there should be a rotation over a series of areas by 
 means of which reorganisation may be provided for in 
 conjunction with the operations responsible for the 
 injuries. 
 
 ‘These incidental opportunities, though it is impor- 
 tant that they should not be neglected by reason of their 
 influence on the standards of living among those who 
 are otherwise subjected to the depressing effects of 
 untidy and sordid surroundings, must not be per- 
 mitted to obscure the necessity for a careful investiga- 
 tion of communal requirements in the way of parks and 
 recreation grounds. The most definite of these is that 
 of playing fields, for which there is an increasing 
 
 163 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 demand that will not, under average conditions, be met 
 by the provision of less than about two acres for every 
 1,000 townspeople; a further quarter acre per 1,000 
 will, if the sites are properly selected, provide for the 
 needs of young children, while the amount allocated to 
 allotments will vary considerably, according to the 
 occupations and traditions of the workers. It has been 
 found, however, that where ground has been well 
 chosen and is easily accessible, the demand for these 
 tends to increase, and cultivation as a profitable recrea- 
 tion becomes more general. It has been pointed out 
 that the too frequent untidiness and casual construction 
 of allotment buildings detracts very seriously from the 
 appearance of this feature in our suburbs, but this 
 aspect is now claiming attention, and an improved 
 standard is likely to secure popular support in the 
 future, though, of course, it will take time to 
 arrive at a very general appreciation of the merits 
 of orderly planning and design as applied to these 
 garden plots. 
 
 There is less definite guidance as to the area for 
 ornamental parks and gardens, and for reserves of a 
 more rural character. Hygiene and amenity suggest 
 that these cannot be too extensive, subject to the 
 limitation that they do not interfere with the con- 
 venient and economic organisation of the occupied 
 districts. This will rarely be the case, as we can see when 
 we bear in mind the speed and cheapness of modern 
 modes of transit. Relatively to their recreative value 
 ‘“‘ nature reserves ”’ are much more economical in up- 
 keep than carefully maintained parks, though these latter 
 have their appropriate place as part of the decorative 
 
 164 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 MAP OF THE ENVIRONS OF 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 5 
 SCALE OF MILES 
 
 
 
 
 
 = 
 ra 
 eta 
 
 MIDDLESEX 
 FELLS 
 
 
 
 PROSPECT {ow 
 HILL 
 
 
 
 
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 A VOIR 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ARNOLD J 
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 THE BEVE HIEES 
 
 
 
 59. Parks and Parkway System, Boston, U.S.A. 
 Facing page 164 
 
o 
 
 FE; 
 
 
 
 60. Formal Entrance to a Park 
 Facing page 165 
 
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 
 
 scheme of a town area. The municipal budget will, 
 however, impose a limit on the areas kept up in this 
 form, while the expenditure on the natural reservations 
 may be kept very low when resources are limited, more 
 especially where the citizens have acquired the sense 
 of civic responsibility that eliminates the risk of wilful 
 damage. 
 
 Thus we may picture the city as a whole, with playing 
 fields and playgrounds distributed according to the 
 needs of the population, these being provided with mar- 
 ginal walks and trees to give form and definition to 
 their lay-out, with a limited allowance of decorative 
 parks, gardens and avenues, and with an extensively 
 ramified network of parkways and reservations, secured 
 as opportunity offers, and linking the urban area with 
 the surrounding countryside. 
 
 In this connection it is apposite to include the fol- 
 lowing extracts from notes on “ ‘Town Trees and their 
 Characteristics ” collated by Robert H. Mattocks :-— 
 
 “The Robinia or False Acacia is perhaps the best 
 tree for standing prolonged heat and drought and for 
 withstanding the effects of impure atmosphere. It 
 grows freely in almost any soil, and retains its leaves 
 until the first sharp frost, which takes them all off. 
 
 “The Ailanthus glandulosa has rich green spreading 
 foliage, which is coarse in texture and tropical in effect, 
 but green until late in the year. It will thrive under 
 most adverse conditions, including barren soil, dust- 
 laden and smoke-filled atmosphere and paved sur- 
 roundings. Where it would be impossible to have a 
 good street tree the ailanthus may be planted, and 
 with a little care in training, a fair shade tree may be 
 
 165 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 secured. When other trees will grow well the ailanthus 
 should not be considered. 
 
 “The Ash has been little used for street planting, but 
 possesses some points that recommend it as a shade 
 tree. It is a rapid grower, hardy, a good smoke- 
 resister, and has no serious insect pests. It will suc- 
 ceed in almost any soil and will stand sea air. Its 
 leaves are about the last to come out ; as a compensa- 
 tion, they are shed late. 
 
 “The Birch. Both the common and silver varieties 
 make beautiful trees for suburban roads, having a light, 
 graceful appearance ; but they should not be used in 
 very smoky districts. ‘This tree is short-lived, quick- 
 growing, will succeed in very exposed situations, and 
 may be planted in almost any soil, though preferring a 
 light loam. 
 
 ‘“‘'The Catalpa is a quick growing, ornamental tree of 
 moderate size, with flowers resembling those of the 
 horse chestnut. It is a splendid smoke resister, and 
 retains its leaves until late in the season, but it should 
 only be planted to give variety in the areas most 
 injurious to plant life. The best variety is Catalpa 
 spectosa. 
 
 “The Elm. Elms are not good smoke resisters, but 
 will grow well in the more open districts. Although 
 almost ideal in shape, branching and general beauty of 
 form, the elm is subject to attacks from a great variety 
 of insects, which make it a costly tree to look after, 
 and render the limbs of the larger specimens liable to 
 fall off without warning. 
 
 ‘The Hackberry is a medium-sized tree, in foliage 
 and general appearance resembling the elm, for which 
 
 166 
 
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 
 
 in America it is often substituted. Its straight trunk 
 divides high above the ground, it gives good shade, and 
 is free from serious disease and insect pests. It is slow 
 growing, but vigorous and long-lived, and iolerant of 
 many conditions of soil and climate, but is not a good 
 tree for the most severe street conditions. 
 
 “The Horse Chestnut is best in open situations, as 
 it is not a good smoke resister, and in confined spaces 
 soon shows signs of distress and becomes a danger. 
 
 “The Laburnum succeeds well either inland or near 
 the sea, even when subjected to a large amount of 
 smoke, but it casts its leaves early. ‘The seeds are 
 poisonous, and the tree should only be planted where 
 these cannot be eaten by children. 
 
 “The Lime grows to a medium-sized, shapely tree, 
 with a straight trunk and numerous twigs which improve 
 the winter appearance and render it a favourite tree for 
 pleaching. It is a splendid avenue tree, but most 
 varieties do not succeed in the worst parts of a large 
 town, with the exception of the Crimean linden, which 
 has a more leathery leaf and will stand much more 
 severe conditions in this respect. 
 
 ‘The Maidenhair ‘Tree is superior to most in with- 
 standing smoke and fumes, and it is entirely free from 
 insect enemies or disease. Even when the foliage is 
 ready to fall it betrays little effect from the atmosphere. 
 It will grow in any soil, whether rich or poor, but its 
 growth is slow. 
 
 “The Norway Maple withstands city conditions 
 well ; it has splendid resistance to insect attacks, and 
 is easily transplanted. It puts forth its leaves earlier 
 and retains them later than many other maples, and is 
 
 167 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 adapted to a great variety of soils and situations. The 
 Red Maple is a quicker-growing variety, hardy, and 
 thrives well in rich and rather moist soils. The Syca- 
 more seems to withstand chemical fumes well. The 
 variegated variety is preferable for smoke resistance. 
 It will grow in any soil, but prefers one that is rather 
 moist. 
 
 “The Oaks have not been used much in this country. 
 This may be due to the ordinary English variety 
 branching low and throwing branches out horizontally, 
 but, more probably, to the lack of properly prepared 
 saplings, as without careful preparation it is difficult to 
 transplant. Oaks have, however, much to recommend 
 them. ‘The Red Oak and Scarlet Oak will stand severe 
 street conditions. 
 
 “The London Plane stands first in the list of town 
 trees. It is adapted to a wide range of soils, and is one 
 of the few trees which succeed when planted in a hole 
 made in the side-walk. It grows a good clean stem, 
 reaching a considerable height before lateral branches 
 are thrown out. ‘The foliage is not too dense, and the 
 annual shedding of the bark keeps the breathing pores 
 open. ‘The trees are easily transplanted, and are unusual 
 in that they combine rapid growth with long life. 
 Planes are specially suited for planting on wide avenues 
 and boulevards, but, in spite of their large size when 
 grown naturally, they can be planted, when specially 
 desired, on narrower streets, as they withstand pruning 
 well and can be trimmed at any time with any degree of 
 severity. 
 
 ‘‘ Poplars are splendid smoke resisters, being grown 
 successfully under the worst conditions, but they are 
 
 168 
 
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 
 
 quick growing and soon find the slightest flaw in any 
 drain near which they may be planted, quickly filling it 
 with a ball of fibre. They should be reserved, as far as 
 possible, for places where other trees will not thrive, 
 Most varieties throw out heavy lateral branches which. 
 if not annually hand-pruned during the earlier period of 
 growth, break off close to the trunk in high winds when 
 the tree has attained full size. This annual pruning 
 is expensive. In some American towns the planting of 
 poplars is forbidden. 
 
 “Of the varieties of pyrus the Mountain Ash is a 
 valuable small tree for town planting. It withstands 
 smoke and fumes well, and is a tree of great beauty, 
 capable of growing almost anywhere with a minimum of 
 attention. ‘The White Beam is another valuable small- 
 growing variety which will grow luxuriantly in confined 
 places and even in poor soil. The tree grows fairly 
 rapidly until its tenth year, when it gradually slows 
 down. ‘The Service Tree is a rather larger type of 
 pyrus with silvery leaves. It is also a slow grower, but 
 does well in the cleaner parts of towns and at the 
 seaside.” 
 
 This brief summary must suffice here. Those whose 
 interests stimulate them to further studies in this sub- 
 ject will find it dealt with in the works specifically 
 devoted to trees for town planting. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 The Furnishing of the City 
 
 T has been generally recognised that, even after 
 
 the main lines of the plan and the proportions of 
 
 the buildings have been considered and appraised, 
 there yet remains a great deal that can enhance, or 
 injure, the effect of the street pictures in our towns. 
 The memorials and monuments, the lighting arrange- 
 ments, the kiosks and other structures such as waiting 
 shelters, etc., which are provided for the public, 
 all claim to be studied in regard to site, character 
 and suitability to environment. More particularly do 
 pleasure resorts and watering places require ample 
 provision of this kind, and also special features for 
 open-air entertainments, usually, but not necessarily, 
 limited in other towns to the bandstand in the park. 
 Incidentally may we not suggest that these activities 
 are considered to be too exclusively the prerogative of 
 the holiday resort, which employs them competitively 
 to attract patrons. Could not the busy commercial 
 centre well afford to provide more in this direction and 
 offer these forms of recreation as a part of the daily life 
 of the citizen rather than as only to be enjoyed during a 
 brief annual holiday ? This is the general practice on 
 the Continent, and it must be admitted that our own 
 towns suffer by comparison in this respect. 
 
 To return to our “ furnishing.” In former times the 
 city relied to a much greater extent on this than we do 
 nowadays. In the Middle Ages the religious ceremonies 
 and civic customs gave us the market crosses, shrines, 
 
 170 
 
THE FURNISHING OF THE CITY 
 
 well heads and other features, all handled with decora- 
 tive intent, and the void left by the cessation of these 
 demands was filled in later days by a return to classic 
 motifs for the decoration of the salient positions in the 
 Renaissance plans. The old entry through a gate in 
 the town wall, often elaborately decorated, suggested 
 to the designers of this period the revival of the 
 triumphal arch of the Romans, one of the principal 
 features of classic times, when the cities were embel- 
 lished by numerous altars, monuments, colonnades, 
 and the like. 
 
 Reminders of our professed faith would in this era 
 often be inconvenient intrusions into every-day life. 
 Our spiritual supplies being delivered to us by means 
 of the printed page and ethereal vibrations, and our 
 material ones by vehicles, pipes and wires, these no 
 longer offer an excuse for communal activities, and 
 traditional features of long standing in the civic organi- 
 sation disappear. Statues of eminent citizens, whose 
 careers thus advertised might presumably excite 
 emulation among their successors, rarely seem to suc- 
 ceed in their appeal, and the pillar box, though not to 
 the seeing eye without its element of romance, seems 
 to fail as a social substitute for the well head or even 
 the parish pump. ‘Thus the furniture of our streets 
 becomes less of an essential feature and merely inci- 
 dental, and our attitude towards it has accentuated this 
 diminution of values. Civic buildings seldom seem to 
 achieve a more monumental character than the ambi- 
 tious efforts of commerce, and, as for our monuments 
 themselves, a dreary formalism or else an absent- 
 mindedness as regards their purport seems to neutralise 
 
 171 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 their influence in conveying any meaning to the 
 observers. 
 
 The plethora of statues and monuments that are 
 dumped haphazard about our streets and squares do 
 nothing towards enhancing the beauty and interest of 
 the city. If they are observed at all they cannot be 
 properly seen amid a crowd of vehicles and with no 
 adequate background, but more often they escape 
 notice altogether. In some countries where this matter 
 is better understood, the symbolic aspect which in 
 London has been remembered only in the placing of a 
 few politicians in Parliament Square, dictates the form 
 and position to the maximum degree possible. ‘The 
 naturalist meditates in a grove, the philosopher sits 
 sedately within the cloister of the university, and the 
 demagogue gesticulates in the public square. It is true 
 that our Duke of Cambridge rides past the front of the 
 War Office, which, by the way, was barely completed 
 in his time, but his memorial makes little more impres- 
 sion than would an omnibus held up by the traffic. 
 
 When a public building is designed provision could 
 so easily be made for its facade and surroundings to pro- 
 vide appropriate settings for statues and monuments, 
 commemorating individuals or events connected with 
 its purpose, be this administrative, artistic or scientific, 
 and this course would serve the double purpose of 
 enhancing the effect of the building itself and of ensur- 
 ing that the memorials could be properly seen and 
 appreciated. In contrast with the firm lines and sedate 
 masses of a well-designed structure, it is fitting to 
 employ the more vivacious ones that sculpture offers, 
 and the inevitable horizontality of all buildings devised 
 
 172 
 
zLi aspd su1isv yy 
 
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 ROS Seb, ee 
 
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 ames Re x 
 
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 Lae) 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 1ssance 
 
 from the Medizval to the Renai 
 
 ition 
 
 Trans 
 
 62. Amiens. 
 
 Facing page 173 
 
THE FURNISHING OF THE CITY 
 
 for the purposes in general demand will both gain from 
 and give emphasis to such added decorative features as 
 masts or obelisks seen in conjunction with them. 
 
 Egyptian architecture, so rigorously horizontal, de- 
 manded the strongly expressed vertical of the obelisk. 
 The Roman qualified both the horizontal element in 
 buildings and the verticality of the obelisk, substituting 
 for the latter the monumental column, but the intention 
 of contrast between these remained and was continued 
 when the dome was accompanied by the minaret, 
 when Wren designed the steeple of St. Martin’s, Lud- 
 gate Hill, to emphasise the mass of St. Paul’s dome, 
 and Fischer von Erlach placed copies of Trajan’s 
 column on either side of his dome to the Karlskirche. 
 
 Contrasts of this kind are still within the gamut of 
 civic design ; the beautification of the city demands 
 their employment, and if used with judgment and 
 imagination they will do much to enhance and enliven 
 the rigid solidity of the masses of building, a function 
 they share with the suitable placing of groups of trees. 
 This does not, however, bring us to the end of the 
 possible embellishments; colonnades, arcades and 
 balustrades are helpful in linking buildings together 
 and in bringing them into harmony with their sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Then, again, moving water, as a means of enlivening 
 the effects of rigid compositions by the use of foun- 
 tains and falls, has its recognised charm both in nature 
 and in art. In former times, wherever practicable, 
 runlets of water fed by a river, spring or fountain, were 
 carried through the streets. ‘These simplified cleansing, 
 but being no longer necessary for this purpose, water 
 
 173 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 effects are now decorative only, and, while making a 
 less emphatic appeal in our climate than in hot, dry 
 countries, yet claim a place in our schemes. More- 
 over, the challenge that a waste of water is involved is 
 no longer valid now that it has been found economically 
 practicable to circulate this by means of a pump, except 
 in cases where high jets form part of the design. 
 Fountains are at their best in the sunlight, but also lend 
 themselves to artificial illumination, and it is regret- 
 table that this form of display is not more generally 
 employed in England. Now and again special efforts 
 have been made in this direction, but the experience so 
 gained has not been utilised, as abroad, for the benefit 
 of the general public. Even when we have duly dis- 
 counted the defects of our climate, there does not seem — 
 adequate ground for restricting all gaiety to exhibitions 
 and specially organised fétes. 
 
 Artificial lighting has for over a century taken an 
 important place in town organisation. Before the dis- 
 covery of gas the cost of maintenance only admitted of 
 the barest minimum lighting for the streets, but with 
 gas a much more liberal provision became possible and 
 the almost simultaneous development of cast iron 
 offered an appropriate material for the lamp standards. 
 While many of these displayed little artistic merit, a 
 large number of designs were produced having a highly 
 decorative quality, and in France especially we see 
 many such standards of suitable and graceful character. 
 In England a few good ones adorn some of the more 
 important positions, while in recent years attention has 
 been paid to lamp design in the United States. 
 
 The advent of electric lighting has not entirely dis- 
 
 174 
 
THE FURNISHING OF THE CITY 
 
 placed the old type of standard, and the treatment of 
 these, though it has undergone some modification, is 
 still a suitable subject for the skill of the designer, but 
 where high power lights are employed the much greater 
 altitude appropriate involves an entirely different 
 handling of the supports. The more massive type with 
 decorative enrichments has to give place to a more 
 uniform shaft with much less decoration, and that of a 
 lighter character ; so far most of the achievements in 
 this direction have not been strikingly successful, and 
 the combination of lighting and tramway standards has 
 added to the difficulty, but there are possibilities in the 
 arrangements now demanded, and we may expect to 
 see in the near future a marked advance in their 
 esthetic treatment. For efficient lighting with power- 
 ful lamps the centre of the road is a suitable position, 
 but, in the narrower streets, this seriously hampers 
 traffic. The alternative of suspended lamps has been 
 employed, but here again there are disadvantages. 
 Probably the best solution is to be found in standards 
 at the side with reflectors directing the light down- 
 wards and across the street. 
 
 We have not yet escaped from the tradition of pro- 
 viding only the light necessary for the road and pave- 
 ment, a heritage from the days when lighting was 
 relatively more costly than it 1s at present; conse- 
 quently, after dark the streets are architecturally null 
 and the buildings indistinguishable. 
 
 Increased altitude and readjustments in the distri- 
 bution of the light would have obviated this failure 
 to make the best of our principal streets, and the 
 advertiser coming along would not have been able to 
 
 175 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 flash out his electric signs with the same irritating 
 insistence as now, when he is free to occupy the dark 
 facades that we have left at his disposal. Some of our 
 more important buildings are receiving flood light 
 illumination as the result of private enterprise, and 
 the success of this seems bound to bring about a 
 movement for the general lighting up of the street 
 fronts in business thoroughfares. 
 
 Probably in no aspect of civic management may we 
 expect a more rapid advance than in that of street 
 lighting. The range of light effects available, and now 
 being exploited in shops, theatres, and other premises, 
 will establish a standard calculated to make the town 
 dweller intolerant of the measure of light at present 
 accepted as adequate, and as electricity is one of those 
 commodities on which there is a reduction on taking a 
 quantity, it seems safe to prophesy that the demand for 
 light will be a rapidly increasing one. May we not also 
 anticipate that some day or other light will be employed 
 not solely as an illuminant, but also to make its own 
 contribution to beauty in the city. We have already 
 seen something of what can be done in this way in stage 
 effects and in firework displays, and even the electric 
 advertisements make an attempt in this direction. 
 With the support of buildings and foliage, something 
 much more subtle could be devised, and perhaps we 
 may yet see this as a recognised civic undertaking. 
 
 There is still another important factor in the furnish- 
 ing of the city, namely, the provision for, and treat- 
 ment of, those temporary decorations which accompany 
 the festivities at the reception of honoured guests. These 
 are too often improvised without any regard to appro- 
 
 176 
 
THE FURNISHING OF THE CITY 
 
 priate character or imaginative treatment, and merely 
 consist of rows of venetian masts and strings of flags 
 which obscure rather than enhance the expressive quality 
 of the scene. Firstly, the general lines suited to the areas 
 to be dealt with should be decided on for good, and the 
 necessary sockets and other fitments permanently 
 installed so as to simplify the erection and removal of 
 the temporary decorations. This will make easy the erec- 
 tion of masts, pylons, triumphal canopies, and other 
 features more decorative in their effect than that 
 which is secured by filling the air with a haphazard 
 assortment of flags. The triumphal arch was much 
 in vogue some time back and simulated a permanent 
 structure. ‘T’his was its undoing, as it was bound to 
 look rather stagey and second-rate among the buildings 
 around it. ‘The last thing such decorations should 
 attempt is a semblance of permanence, there being so 
 many interesting effects that can be achieved without 
 this in the way of colour, draping and decorative designs, 
 when these are free from the handicap of having to 
 resist dirt and damp. A well-designed city lends itself to 
 this added ornamentation, but it is always difficult to 
 secure a complete harmony and avoid a tawdry and 
 meretricious appearance when the support from ordered 
 planning and finely grouped buildings is lacking. 
 
 L]7 N 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 Scale and Proportion 
 
 TUDIES in town planning cannot be regarded as 
 
 complete without the inclusion of some considera- 
 
 tions respecting the appearance of buildings in 
 relation to each other, and many problems arise as to 
 maintenance of a general harmony when structures for 
 widely differing purposes come into juxtaposition. Of 
 course zoning would be of material assistance here, but 
 this is still at an early stage, and even were it fully 
 operating a complete solution would not be within its 
 province. ‘There would still remain many points at 
 which differing types of building come in contact with 
 each other, and therefore, as we recognise that these 
 are, or ought to be, of a character suited to their use, it 
 is inevitable that they must then be distinctive ; indeed, 
 there is no reason why they should not, nor will such 
 distinctions be detrimental, provided their designers 
 have a general unity in outlook, and even with some 
 degree of latitude in this there may be quite a consis- 
 tently good effect, provided one consideration is kept in 
 mind, namely, that of scale. 
 
 Broadly speaking, the tendency is that with increased 
 resources scale will increase in proportion. We see this 
 in all branches of activity, in mass production, in 
 mechanical engineering, in ships, and in other commer- 
 cial activities. No one can have a word to say against 
 it, but we have to realise that, unless we are content 
 to live in a heterogeneous agglomeration of conflicting 
 features, measures must be taken to reconcile the 
 
 178 
 
SCALE AND PROPORTION . 
 
 different objects that our varied needs bring into 
 demand, and it is, inter alia, the function of the town 
 planner to effect this reconciliation. 
 
 In times when there was a strong artistic feeling 
 dominating all the activities, this harmony came about 
 automatically, and even now we see a marked variation 
 in the degree of appreciation this aspect meets with in 
 different countries, those following the Latin tradition 
 making a more sustained effort towards consistency in 
 scale. Elsewhere, the great progress that has been 
 made in constructive possibilities seems to have obscured 
 the other points of view, and we find the relationship of 
 structures to a comprehensive harmonic conception 
 practically ignored, while even apart from the driving 
 force of practical and economic factors, there is also in 
 operation a gargantuan cult of bene for its own 
 sake. 
 
 Size in itself is not inherently antagonistic to the 
 preservation of scale. Medizval churches generally 
 tower above their surroundings and yet contrive to 
 remain in precise scale with them; St. Paul’s Cathe- 
 dral continues this tradition, in so far as.that 1t combines 
 breadth of treatment with components of the smallest 
 dimensions compatible with such a design. 
 
 Bridges are a crucial test, and even when these were 
 customarily constructed of stone there was some risk 
 that they would dwarf their surroundings, though at 
 the time this was generally evaded by skill in the design 
 and by the introduction of subsidiary features, such as 
 columns to the piers, tending to preserve continuity 
 with the surroundings, as may be seen in the notable 
 example of Waterloo Bridge, where the scale enlarges 
 
 179 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 gradually from the facade of Somerset House, through 
 the terrace on which this stands, to the bridge, which is 
 itself diminished in scale by the coupled columns, an 
 expedient employed on previous bridges with the same 
 intuitive intention. No less skilful in this respect is the 
 treatment of the bridges over the Seine, and more 
 recent examples can be seen in those spanning the 
 Danube canal at Vienna. 
 
 The substitution of iron did not at first materially 
 change the position, as the cast-iron arched bridges, 
 though giving an increase of span, were not larger in 
 scale than their stone prototypes, while the airy form of 
 the suspension bridge removed it from competition with 
 more solid structures. It was only with the introduc- 
 tion of the girder bridge, whether of the rectilinear or 
 bowstring form, that the scale began to jump away 
 from its surroundings, and, where no special measures 
 were taken to qualify it, to introduce the disaccord in 
 this respect which is a feature of so many modern towns. 
 
 It will be well, before pursuing the consideration of 
 special relationships such as these, to look into the 
 fundamental factors primarily evoking a sense of scale. 
 This starts naturally with the stature of man and his 
 first needs in respect of shelter from the elements, 
 therefore, as regards dwelling-houses, the scale takes 
 care of itself, and even the pilasters and columns of 
 Palladio and his school, applied with the intention of 
 aggrandisement, rarely succeed in disguising the struc- 
 tural unit. Nowadays these embellishments are some- 
 what out of fashion in domestic architecture, and doors 
 and windows of appropriate size are accepted as 
 dictating the proportions of our homes. There will be 
 
 180 
 
SCALE AND PROPORTION 
 
 some variation, but that not great, and as the scale of 
 the lay-out must follow that of the buildings, we see 
 that what was appropriate in Renaissance times can no 
 longer be accepted for the two-storey houses, detached 
 or in small groups, which are the standard types in Eng- 
 land at the present day. This, though it has not always 
 been recognised, is fairly well understood by those who 
 have planned most of our housing schemes, and a more 
 intimate type of design is general, giving less width to 
 roads while preserving the desired sense of spaciousness 
 by greater liberality in forecourts and gardens. Formal 
 effects on large lines are clearly impossible, but sym- 
 metry and balance in the lay-out and grouping are still 
 available as features in the designs. Passing from 
 strictly domestic buildings to business ones, such as 
 shops and offices, there will probably be a slight 
 increase in the scale, but not such as would make the 
 transition difficult were it not for the fact that the Palla- 
 dian manner, abandoned in the design of dwellings, is 
 retained, and even accentuated, in these, probably by 
 reason of its being thought to give an impression of 
 dominating importance in such cases. Not being 
 here concerned with architectural aspects, we are not 
 called on to give an opinion as to the extent to which an 
 imposed scale, such as is effected by the inclusion of a 
 number of floors in one unit, is admissible. If the sur- 
 roundings are proportionate to this the civic harmony 
 is maintained, but it is obvious that where a town con- 
 tains these different types there should be a graduated 
 transition from one to another. 
 
 Pursuing the subject further, we find another gap 
 between the scale of our public and large commercial 
 
 181 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 buildings and that of engineering undertakings. Rail- 
 way stations were wont to be covered with roofs of 
 which the height and extent overshadowed everything 
 in proximity to them, and, as mentioned above, many 
 modern bridges cannot be reconciled with their sur- 
 roundings. Without prejudicing the logical treatment 
 of these structural problems, it is yet open to us to 
 challenge whether the solution adopted may not have 
 ignored the aspect we are now considering without 
 sufficient economic justification. While in some 
 instances, such as that of the Forth Bridge, the engi- 
 neer may be able to make good his claim that it was a 
 case of this solution or nothing, in many others, notably 
 the girder bridges across the Thames, we can be 
 assured that the adoption of this type was simply due 
 to the fact that their appearance was never considered 
 in relation to the surroundings. The economic gain 
 was relatively small and the esthetic loss very con- 
 siderable. Much injury has been done on these lines, 
 and as it is only very gradually that this can be righted, 
 all that remains to us is to see that in the future the 
 considerations of scale and harmony are not over- 
 looked. 
 
 But there are yet a few more words to be said on the 
 question of proportion. As regards buildings alone, 
 this is a matter for the architect, but with buildings 
 grouped together in streets and open spaces, the 
 relationships between solids and between solids and 
 voids are the concern of the town planner. Our atti- 
 tude towards town buildings is at present an eclectic 
 one, coloured by our recollections of what pleases us 
 in the work of former times. In England, at all events, 
 
 182 
 
SCALE AND PROPORTION 
 
 we are equally content with street frontages in formal 
 blocks, symmetrically arranged with a uniform cornice, 
 and with those including a number of separately designed 
 fronts irregular in height with the resulting broken 
 skyline. Even accepting that either may be good, we 
 make the fatal mistake of jumbling them up together, 
 and get a Regent Street conforming to one and Oxford 
 Street to the other. Consistency in general treatment, 
 evident in many continental cities, is not a characteristic 
 of our own. 
 
 Another factor in street design which seems to have 
 escaped the attention of those responsible for our regu- 
 lations is the relationship between height and width. It 
 is often laid down that the buildings may be as high as 
 the street is wide—absolutely the worst proportion 
 that could be chosen esthetically. While for all resi- 
 dential streets the width, for the sake of light and air, 
 should not be less than double the height of the build- 
 ings, in business quarters it is usually necessary to 
 allow a much greater height. Now, if we review the 
 streets that impress us as interesting, we shall find that 
 they divide themselves into two types, those lanes and 
 streets that secure their effect by narrow proportions 
 [the canyon type] and those that strike us as spacious 
 and open. ‘The first demands buildings at least half 
 as high again as the width, while in the second the 
 heights may not exceed two-thirds of the street width. 
 Northumberland Avenue and the new Regent Street 
 come between the two, and consequently they fail in 
 having neither the verticality of the lane nor the 
 spaciousness of Regent Street as it used to be. 
 
 The same principles are applicable to the circus, the 
 
 183 
 
THE ART OF 'TOWN PLANNING 
 
 crescent, and other limited open spaces. Oxford Circus 
 no longer suggests its form, but becomes four truncated 
 angles. ‘The crescent is more flexible, but to secure the 
 combined feeling of space and enclosure a square 
 demands that the height of the surrounding buildings 
 should not be more than one-third, nor less than one- 
 tenth, of the distance between the frontages. It is 
 unnecessary to review all the possible problems of this 
 character arising in the laying out and building of a 
 city as a work of art, but their existence is so often 
 forgotten that no excuse is needed for a brief reference 
 to the forms they most frequently take. 
 
 184 
 
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 Preserving the Amenity of an old Village 
 
 Facing page 184 
 
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 Facing page 185 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 Tradition 
 
 HE element of change always coincident with 
 
 vitality ina communal organisation brings about 
 
 the need to formulate new types of expression, 
 which will in time result in a complete alteration in 
 the aspect of the city; and while it is undesirable to 
 place any restrictions on the facilities for providing for 
 such new demands, it is one of our problems to secure 
 that they are met without introducing discords between 
 them and the traditional practices which have evolved 
 the towns as they are at the present time. The old 
 traditions were the outcome of the conditions under 
 which they arose, and the proper course is obviously to 
 expand and develop these to meet the changing state of 
 affairs rather than to ignore them entirely and attempt 
 to wedge in a new type of development based on “ first 
 principles’ without relation to what exists. The 
 argument against this is naturally that, the city being 
 the result of a series of phases of development, 
 it might be equally appropriate to go to work 
 independently of the past and add yet another phase, 
 based on the exact requirements of our own day. 
 Such a course looks so logical and simple that it seems 
 almost a pity to have to refuse its acceptance. These 
 exact requirements are, however, a fiction ; all require- 
 ments being in small measure material and, in far 
 larger measure, psychological, and this latter factor 
 would be, in the ideal community, materially influenced 
 by continuity of tradition. 
 
 185 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 In former days, when travel was less universal and 
 the builder was little influenced by work outside his 
 own town, it was only natural that the style of building 
 should develop progressively and gradually from one 
 manner to the next. Now that these conditions are 
 changed, there is a much greater liability to a breaking 
 down of the traditions and the importation of exotic 
 methods. 
 
 One of our chief difficulties to-day lies in the fact 
 that transportation facilities have changed the normal 
 building materials in many districts. We cannot afford 
 to disregard the economic aspect of building ; in most 
 cases we are pledged to give the maximum convenience 
 within our means, using brick where we should formerly 
 have employed stone, and making other substitutions of 
 a like character. As each material demands appropriate 
 treatment, this adds a further difficulty to the task of 
 harmonising the old with the new, yet with study and 
 care a great deal can be done in the way of reconciling 
 the general forms and colour schemes, even where 
 different materials have to be used. 
 
 In the present day the purpose of artistic expression 
 takes a small place in the interest of the community. 
 To many this may be an unpalatable statement, but it 
 is none the less true. The exceptional advances made 
 of late in the application of scientific knowledge to 
 material requirements must be paid for, and part of the 
 price appears to be a certain degree of stagnation in 
 other fields of activity, more especially in those arts 
 having form and space as their basis. It is therefore 
 all the more important that we should endeavour to 
 maintain and pass on the traditions of periods more 
 
 186 
 
TRADITION 
 
 expert in these methods of expression than our own, 
 awaiting patiently from generation to generation the 
 time when the inevitable turn of the wheel will bring 
 these activities once more into a prominent place in the 
 human economy. 
 
 So far we have dealt mainly with building, and it may 
 be assumed there is reason for believing that any attempt 
 widely departing from local traditions is unlikely to be 
 satisfactory ; but the art of civic development com- 
 prises many other things besides the buildings them- 
 selves. There is the framing up, as it were, and here 
 we have again the task of reconciling new requirements 
 with old, in a more accentuated form probably than in 
 the case of the structures themselves. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the outward and 
 material appearance of a city is the natural outcome and 
 expression of the life and ideas under which it has deve- 
 loped. ‘The value of its tradition is consequently 
 measurable by the value of the part it has taken in the 
 history of human development. In appraising this 
 value we must beware of taking too narrow a view, of 
 forming our opinions too closely on the ideals of the 
 moment. Such ideals are perpetually reconstituting 
 themselves, forming new combinations, by the advance 
 and retirement of their leading components, as in a 
 complex dance movement. Thus it is impossible at a 
 given moment to place comparative values on the 
 influences that have governed the form of this or of that 
 city, as we lack a reliable standard for our comparisons. 
 Of course we all have our individual preferences, some 
 for the acute mentality of the Greek, others for the 
 dominant force of Rome, the vivid life of the Middle 
 
 187 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 Ages, or the dignity of the Renaissance ; and perhaps even 
 the despised “ industrial age’ may in future take its 
 turn in exercising the fascination of a period when 
 ideas and methods differed from our own. 
 
 Let us not forget those useful guides, the artists, 
 pictorial and literary. How varied and multifarious 
 are the things that have inspired them—from the subtle 
 line of chiselled marble to the sombre masses of smoke- 
 blackened kilns; from the ordered beauty of the 
 Italian garden to the accidents of form and mass in 
 warehouses, derricks and smoke shafts. 
 
 We have, and rightly, the feeling that we ourselves 
 have something to say in the development of the city, 
 that with the recognition of a higher sense of communal 
 life must come a more consistent and more definite 
 manner for its expression; but let us not, on the 
 other hand, condemn without the most careful con- 
 sideration the efforts that are perhaps a little too near 
 us to have acquired the dignity of age, lest we fall into 
 the hands of the fashion mongers, who are ever too 
 ready to exploit the craving for novelty, and would 
 persuade us that nothing can be so good as the method 
 of the hour. 
 
 The supply of really imaginative work is limited in 
 any age, and most assuredly the present one cannot 
 claim to be exceptionally prolific in this respect. It is 
 therefore all the more important that the traditions, 
 both remote and comparatively recent, should be 
 respected, and that nothing should be obliterated 
 unless we are very sure that we can substitute something 
 better. No historical detail should escape notice in 
 our dealings with the city that lays claim to a past. In 
 
 188 
 
TRADITION 
 
 cases where no great development can be anticipated, 
 the obvious course is to maintain the existing character, 
 in so far as it is compatible with modern modes of life. 
 We may not sacrifice the health or legitimate needs of 
 the citizen in the interests of archzology, but the con- 
 flict between the two is far less acute than many are apt 
 to imagine. Far more often the conflict is between 
 defective taste and the claims of the past rather than 
 between these claims and any genuine social demands. 
 
 In the city that has come down to us as a heritage 
 from our ancestors without material increase in size, 
 our main duty is to secure that the inevitable additions 
 and modifications shall affect its character as little as 
 possible. 
 
 With the old city that is developing the problem is 
 more complex. It will probably present features 
 belonging to different stages of its development, which, 
 while imperfectly harmonised, nevertheless have a value 
 in marking the phases of growth, and we shall be com- 
 pelled to strike a balance between their claims and those 
 of modern requirements if we are to secure a consistent 
 harmony throughout. 
 
 There are, in all old- metered centres, a few fea- 
 tures or structures that will be regarded as inviolate, 
 but there are many more which it may be highly 
 desirable to retain, subject to the proviso that their 
 retention does not militate too greatly against the con- 
 venience or amenity of the city as a whole. They may 
 be capable of adaptation, but if not will have to give 
 place to new types of structure and arrangement. The 
 transition is bound to introduce discords unless 
 managed with more than ordinary skill, but if a definite 
 
 189 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING. 
 
 reconstructive aim is kept in view, these operations will 
 be less destructive to a unified harmony than if allowed 
 to proceed by casual instalments. 
 
 When we come to the extensions of our cities we are 
 often faced with marked changes in the views as to 
 housing. The present movement towards smaller 
 houses with more space around them has entirely 
 altered the characteristics of city suburbs. The modern 
 ideal is that suburbs should take the form of a series of 
 villages rather than stretches of building. The natural 
 grouping round suburban railway stations supports 
 such a method, with the result that the outskirts of 
 the city cease to convey the impression that they are 
 ‘parts of a whole, and might, for all one can see at any 
 one point, be five, ten, or 100 miles away from the 
 centre. On several grounds it may be contended 
 that this is not undesirable. It is often felt that the big 
 town is unpleasantly oppressive, and were it not for 
 the exigencies of a livelihood there are numbers who 
 would not dream of joining themselves to such a vast 
 community, and would prefer to belong to a smaller 
 one, such as the garden suburb simulates. The very 
 large community only advantages a few of its members 
 whose faculties are highly cultivated in some special 
 direction. As far as a great many people in the cities 
 are concerned, they would be far better, far more com- 
 fortable, and far healthier living in rural surroundings ; 
 but the actions and reactions in great cities are necessary 
 to produce that keenness of mentality in the few which 
 gives the actual life, the actual vigour and force to the 
 nation. This is not, as a rule, excited by the calm and 
 quiet surroundings of rural life. For this the great 
 
 190 
 
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 A Typical Medieval Street 
 
 66. Hanover. 
 
 ing page 191 
 
 Fac 
 
TRADITION 
 
 cities exist. In this respect they are an essential part 
 of the national economy, but their existence levies a 
 heavy tax on the rank and file among their citizens. 
 
 Again, it may be argued that many of our larger towns 
 _ have ceased to possess a definite and individual character 
 for so long a time that they are now a hopeless agglo- 
 meration of conflicting elements which cannot possibly 
 be brought together into a harmonious whole. In 
 order to challenge this view we must look at the other 
 side. ‘The largest cities of a couple of centuries ago 
 could be felt and realised in their entirety, while many, 
 from some favourable point, could even be viewed as 
 a whole, and to this day there are some of which the 
 general character can be grasped from a neighbouring 
 eminence. ‘These, it may be admitted, are the excep- 
 tions, and the usual manner in which we comprehend 
 the character of a large town is by a succession of 
 impressions aS we pass from one point to another. 
 These impressions being successive, it follows that, 
 under ideal conditions, they should lead up to and 
 reinforce each other like passages in a musical com- 
 position. 
 
 First, let us consider how and when we are likely to 
 receive these impressions. Normally, this would be 
 during our approach to, or departure from, some point 
 near the centre; in the first case there would be a 
 gradual transition from natural beauty to formal 
 dignity, in the other the order would be reversed. In 
 speaking of a gradual transition, we do not mean 
 it to be inferred that we may not, from point to point, 
 vary the effects towards formal art or free nature. We 
 may reach a subsidiary centre with formal lay-out and 
 
 IQI 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 afterwards return to a looser and more open type of 
 plan ; but as we pass inward each culminating point 
 should transcend the preceding one in respect of 
 importance and dignity, while in the outward course 
 the domination of natural beauty should become more 
 marked at each intermediate point. In the railway 
 approaches to a city such effects as these are only attain- 
 able to a modified extent, and more or less accidentally, 
 as we have never realised the railways as an integral 
 part of our civic scheme, and have allowed them to 
 develop on absolutely independent lines, to the detri- 
 ment of all other interests. Our main roads were 
 almost forgotten as means of transit, but now that they 
 are once more coming into their own, through the 
 acceleration of vehicular traffic, their importance is 
 correspondingly increased. 
 
 With the railways little can be done; but there is 
 much that we ought to take in hand in amending and 
 beautifying our road approaches. Before the advent of 
 the railways a fine tradition had been established in 
 respect of main roads, and it is for us to take up this 
 tradition where it was dropped and develop it on the 
 basis of our own requirements. In so doing a number 
 of difficulties face us, the most serious being the linking 
 up of new developments with the older ones of the ante- 
 railway period. As far as traffic requirements are con- 
 cerned, this is a mere matter of practical economics, 
 difficult enough to handle, maybe, but simpler than 
 that of bringing these two sections of our city into 
 artistic unity. 
 
 The railway era exhibits not only a marked reduc- 
 tion in the spaciousness of main roads, but also a 
 
 192 
 
TRADITION 
 
 change in the mode of their utilisation. From this time 
 dates the idea of the main road as a shopping centre. 
 Prior to this, the great through road and the shopping 
 centres were not necessarily identical. Now once 
 more similar conditions have returned; but in the 
 intermediate period the main road, losing the bulk of 
 its through traffic while still retaining some of its tradi- 
 tional importance, became a kind of elongated market, 
 so that by this time we have come to consider the 
 important thoroughfare as a shopping street. 
 
 In actuality, the demands of the thoroughfare and 
 the marketing area are utterly different, and no attempt 
 should be made to combine them. The main road into 
 a large town, if adequate to present and future needs, is 
 too wide to make a good shopping street, and at many 
 points too remote from the more populous areas to 
 demand shop frontages. However, nearly all the 
 main roads during the railway era developed as shop- 
 ping streets, rather too wide for these but, at the same 
 time, not wide enough for the through traffic now 
 demanded. 
 
 We have to break through this zone somewhere, and 
 the question now before us is how this is to be done. As 
 a rule, financial considerations preclude drastic widen- 
 ings, while the disorganisation of business would be 
 enormous. Probably the best solution is to seek alter- 
 native routes and to improve these, for the purpose of 
 separating the long distance from the local traffic. 
 
 The use of two roads instead of one is not a perfect 
 solution zsthetically, but it is improbable that economic 
 considerations would admit of one more satisfactory 
 from this’ point of view. 
 
 193 0 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 There is another aspect of the problem. An impor- 
 tant route demands a certain firmness of definition and 
 formality. If we seek for the traditional method we 
 find lines of building on either side of the wide road. 
 We have abandoned the use of blocks on this scale and 
 demand that dwellings shall be spread over a much 
 larger area of land; our buildings are therefore rela- 
 tively ineffective and are not to be relied on as an 
 enhancement of the dignity of the thoroughfare. 
 
 What can be substituted ? We must have trees; a 
 fine avenue (double rows on each side if possible) is 
 almost as impressive and dignified as the massive ter- 
 races of former years, and the farther we go from the 
 city centre the more appropriate these avenues become. 
 They need not be continuous, as this would be some- 
 what monotonous in effect. Where justifiable, a group 
 of buildings of suitable mass and scale should strike 
 the eye, and advantage should be taken of the proximity 
 of water or hills to provide variety of outlook. The 
 most attractive portions of a railway journey are found 
 where a viaduct crosses a valley or where the line skirts 
 a hillside overlooking a plain. With our road we can 
 rarely depart much from the general level of the ground, 
 but still opportunities may occur to follow the line of a 
 river or to skirt high ground possessing an open outlook 
 on one side. | 
 
 We have now some idea of the general framework of 
 our city—the centre, the earlier developments, the 
 later and generally less satisfactory ones, and the pro- 
 gramme for the future. We have a rough notion 
 of how these sections or zones may be linked up 
 together, and of the modifications desirable in order 
 
 194 
 
TRADITION 
 
 to bring them into harmonious relationship with each 
 other. 
 
 The more open lay-out, the increased proportion of 
 detached buildings, and the new requirements for 
 administrative, educational and other purposes, involve 
 of necessity a revised type of plan. Unnecessary diver- 
 gencies would tend to break up the harmony of effect 
 still further, so that we should endeavour, by maintain- 
 ing the general characteristics of form and design, to 
 secure as far as possible a continuity of manner with 
 the old blending insensibly into the new. 
 
 Our city is bound to be composed of a number of 
 different kinds of buildings expressing their differ- 
 ences, but these buildings may be held together by the 
 thread of tradition in architectural expression, much 
 in the same way as the actual masses and groups of 
 building, discordant in the variety of their intention, 
 can be unified by lines and masses of trees, linking 
 them together and disguising or softening their dis- 
 cordancies. 
 
 195 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 Town Planning in the Dominions 
 
 HE towns laid out in the Dominions, mainly 
 during the nineteenth century, have mostly 
 followed the conventionally rectangular plotting 
 usually regarded as typical of America, and though 
 Canada is in the forefront as regards regional and civic 
 studies, only a few recent towns and town extensions 
 show a marked advance on the types general in the 
 United States. Interesting schemes have been pre- 
 pared for Vancouver and other towns on the west coast, 
 and efforts are being made elsewhere to qualify, by 
 means of civic centres and parkways, the monotony of 
 the uniform rectangular plan which has also dominated 
 practice in the newer Dominions of South Africa and 
 Australia, though in the latter we find variations in 
 schemes worthy of closer attention. Sydney, owing to 
 its magnificent water frontage and irregular shore line, 
 has had perforce to adopt a plan giving more varied 
 interest, and though the width of 200 feet originally 
 proposed for the principal thoroughfares has come 
 down to 60 feet, which is inadequate to the present 
 demands of traffic, considerable relief is afforded by 
 the fact that many of the suburbs lie in the numerous 
 coves around the magnificent harbour, and are quickly 
 accessible by means of radiating boat services. A com- 
 prehensive improvement scheme is now in preparation 
 which includes a high level bridge across the harbour at 
 its narrowest point. 
 W. R. Davidge, who has studied the cities of the 
 
 196 
 
TOWN PLANNING IN THE DOMINIONS 
 
 Antipodes, describes a number of them, and the follow- 
 ing extracts from his work will give a general impression 
 of their more important characteristics :— 
 
 “The city of Adelaide is known throughout the 
 world as a city town planned from its inception in 1837 
 and surrounded with a broad belt of ‘ park lands ’ half 
 a mile or so in width belonging to the town. The 
 original ‘ square mile,’ which was approximately the 
 size of many colonial towns planned about this period, 
 was laid out by Colonel Wm. Light on rectangular 
 lines. ‘The limited area of the first town was contained 
 in a rectangle about one mile by one and a half miles, and 
 any further growth had to take place outside the line of the 
 park lands. In the case of the suburb first constructed 
 —North Adelaide—an extension of the park lands sur- 
 rounds it, but with later suburbs this ideal was, unfor- 
 tunately, discontinued. Recent development has been 
 much more haphazard, and even in the town itself the 
 original blocks have been divided and subdivided to 
 obtain more intensive use of the available land. Radiat- 
 ing roads, leading out into the country in all directions, 
 were provided in the original plan, thus remedying one 
 of the main defects in any rigidly rectangular lay-out of 
 large dimensions. 
 
 “The early plan of Melbourne, laid out in 1837, was 
 arranged with the main streets, such as Collins Street 
 and Bourke Street, roughly parallel with, or at right 
 angles to, the River Yarra. ‘The land was then divided 
 into ten-acre blocks, and back roads 33 feet wide were 
 laid out to give access to the back of each settler’s 
 ‘allotment.’ These to-day are narrow streets contain- 
 ing some of the most important businesses in the city. 
 
 197 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 The later suburbs of Melbourne, originally separate 
 settlements, have now coalesced to form part of a 
 general rectangular pattern on the north and south 
 lines originally adopted by the Government surveyor 
 as a convenience for survey purposes. There are few 
 diagonal or radiating roads, and such as exist are sur- 
 vivals of the early tracks made before the land was 
 completely “ surveyed ’ on the north and south compass 
 bearings so dear to the surveyor. 
 
 ‘* Brisbane is a striking example of the failure of the 
 rectangular plan on undulating or hilly country. In some 
 of the suburbs of Brisbane the road gradients due to 
 this cause are almost as much as one in three, although 
 by departing from the rectangular plan a much easier 
 gradient could have been arranged. 
 
 “Not only in the Australian city of Adelaide, but 
 also in quite a number of early townships in New Zea- 
 land, a ‘town belt’ of continuous open land was 
 reserved around the town. Dunedin, in particular, still 
 retains this belt of open wooded land, which forms a 
 particularly attractive feature for the town. In Well- 
 ington, the great difficulty has been the steep mountain 
 sides which rise immediately at the back of the town, 
 and consequently the very limited amount of level land 
 available. A wonderful series of drives has been laid 
 out along the seashore, and by a steady policy of tree 
 planting on what remains of the original town belt, the 
 amenities of Wellington are being steadily improved. 
 Here, however, much of this belt has disappeared. The 
 city of Christchurch was laid out about 1840 with the 
 typical square mile of town, having its cathedral square 
 in the centre and the whole surrounded by a belt of 
 
 198 
 
TOWN PLANNING IN THE DOMINIONS 
 
 park land, the property of the town. A few years later, 
 however, a railway tunnel was required through the 
 neighbouring hills to the port of Lyttelton, and the 
 whole of these town lands were sold to aid this pur- 
 pose.” 
 
 Mr. Davidge also notes an interesting, though by no 
 means beneficial, effect of a legal enactment on town 
 planning. 
 
 “One of the curious effects of land registration in 
 New Zealand is that the compass bearing of each length 
 of road must be stated ; hence curved roads are prac- 
 tically impossible in New Zealand, and the nearest 
 approach to one that can be secured is a ‘ curved ’ road 
 consisting of a series of straight lines from point to 
 point.” 
 
 When it was decided to provide a new capital for 
 Federated Australia, and Canberra was chosen as an 
 appropriate location, the site was generally acclaimed 
 as presenting good opportunities for development, and it 
 was the more unfortunate, therefore, that the conditions 
 of the competition for a plan were not such as could be 
 accepted by British designers, who declined to enter. 
 However, a number of plans were prepared in America 
 and on the Continent, and that by Mr. W. B. Griffin, 
 of Chicago, which was selected, is of marked distinction 
 and displays many points of originality. While care- 
 fully considered as regards the allocation of areas for 
 various purposes, the scheme binds these together by a 
 well-devised system of axial routes, and the whole gains 
 firmness by the orientation of the plan on a main axis 
 linking up two summits. As this axis crosses the prin- 
 cipal valley at right angles the degree of symmetry thus 
 
 199 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 secured allows of many minor variations in detail 
 which give interest to the plan without allowing it to 
 fall into confusion. 
 
 On the way to India we must stop to glance at 
 Rangoon, where the rectangular plan was adopted 
 with some justification, the site being level lowland, 
 and though it was intersected by numerous channels 
 these were not large enough to preclude reclamation. 
 The starting point for the plan was made at an 
 important pagoda then in existence, and the alignment 
 was determined by the river frontage. Rangoon having 
 now filled its original site, and having begun to extend 
 into the undulating ground to the northward, the new 
 extensions no longer follow the rectangular plan, but 
 are laid out on lines dictated by the formation of the site 
 and the directions of the main roads. 
 
 In India, entirely different conditions present them- 
 selves. Here the only cities which can be regarded, 
 even comparatively speaking, as modern, are the sea- 
 ports of Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, and Karachi, the 
 first dating from the sixteenth, and the next two from 
 the seventeenth century. As the controls were by no 
 means rigid, and the country generally was organised 
 on lines which might be termed medieval in character, 
 the problems of the town planner, both in these and in 
 the older cities inland, are as comprehensive as any to 
 be faced in European towns. 
 
 The above-mentioned seaports are not characteristic, 
 being only semi-oriental, and even the other cities vary 
 greatly, those of the south differing from those on the 
 west coast, and these again from the towns in the 
 northern provinces. For our purpose it will be most 
 
 200 
 
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 Facing page 200 
 
TOWN PLANNING IN THE DOMINIONS 
 
 illustrative to describe a typical northern city. There 
 is a closely-packed central area, filled with buildings 
 three or four stories in height, and intersected by streets 
 generally not more than 20 feet in width. In the older 
 cities this was surrounded by a defensive wall which 
 may or may not remain, and often some portions of 
 this area have gone out of use and become derelict, 
 though rarely completely unoccupied, as even where 
 the houses are ruinous people contrive.to live in some 
 portion of them. Around this centre, which is some- 
 times called the fort, and of which the main streets are 
 termed bazaars, will be found various forms of sporadic 
 growth. In some directions there may be fairly good 
 houses with gardens, and perhaps also a few industrial 
 buildings, but in almost every case large areas covered 
 with mud huts of a single story, like an aggregation of 
 villages. Beyond this will be found the European 
 population, housed in bungalows, with compounds of 
 two or more acres which accommodate also the range 
 of servants’ quarters. The European may live for years 
 at a place and never once visit the Indian city, endea- 
 vouring as far as possible to ignore its existence, if he 
 is not concerned with it in some official capacity. 
 Town planning work in India started on a different 
 basis from that in England. Here it is regarded as 
 primarily the organisation of new developments, 
 whereas in the East it arose out of health measures 
 dealing with insanitary and overcrowded areas. Before 
 the initiation of comprehensive schemes, a good deal 
 had been done in clearing plague-ridden districts and 
 opening new streets, while plague camps were a recog- 
 nised sanitary measure; but apart from these, re- 
 
 201 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 housing did not receive adequate consideration, with 
 the result that new slums were constantly growing up 
 in lieu of the old. 
 
 The principal feature of town planning in the East 
 still remains the treatment of congested areas, but 
 clearances are now made on more studied and conser- 
 vative lines, while the provision of suitable sites for the 
 accommodation of those evicted is regarded as of 
 primary importance. The expedients to secure ade- 
 quate rehousing depend on many varied conditions, but 
 one feature cannot be passed over, namely, the neces- 
 sity for giving close attention to the caste of those to be 
 moved and for providing that locations for them are 
 selected, not only with regard to occupation, but also 
 as suitable in respect of surroundings ; they must not 
 be near other groups which may be, from their point 
 of view, unclean, and the access to each quarter must be 
 so arranged as to avoid a confusion between groups 
 which, by religion or custom, are distinct from each 
 other. In some towns the caste groups are fairly 
 defined, and the various occupations follow this group- 
 ing; but in others they have already become confused, 
 and industries are tangled up in a way antagonistic to 
 good organisation. ‘This is the more disadvantageous, 
 as the Indian trader prefers to combine store and 
 dwelling, so that there are often traffic difficulties due 
 to the frequent transfer of goods from one district to 
 another. While the nature of the sites to be dealt 
 with, and the difficulties due to climatic conditions are, 
 of course, subject to considerable variation, it must be 
 remembered that all the more fertile land, carrying the 
 denser population, is almost level, and relatively low 
 
 202 
 
TOWN PLANNING IN THE DOMINIONS 
 
 lying, so that it may be cultivated by irrigation ; there- 
 fore much of the area around the cities is of this 
 character, and the water is provided by rivers, wells 
 or tanks. In the case of the first two it is practicable, 
 without an undue outlay, to transfer the land to urban 
 purposes, as the feed canals from the rivers can distri- 
 bute water at other points in lieu of the closed outlets 
 in the town area, while the operating of wells is so 
 large a proportion of irrigation costs that this land has 
 a much lower agricultural value. In case of tanks, as 
 the reservoirs are called, much more studied reorganisa- 
 tion is necessary. In the decadence that preceded 
 British occupation controls had lapsed, and the urban 
 tanks and channels had become foul and contaminated, 
 so that our officers, unfamiliar with the basic principle 
 of the scheme, that of irrigation, conceived the only 
 remedy to be the filling in of all these depressions, a 
 method that made no provision for disposing of the 
 volume of water due to the heavy tropical rains, some- 
 times Io to 12 inches in a day. One of the duties of 
 the town planner is to restore the old systems, or pro- 
 vide some efficient substitute for them, so that the flood- 
 ing so frequent in many Indian cities shall be obviated. 
 
 Many other problems arise in the improvement and 
 development of the Eastern city. Apart from those of 
 caste and housing, already touched on, one meets with 
 that of the family group and the distaste for separation, 
 which induces overcrowding and provokes encroach- 
 ments, by the division and the enlargement of houses 
 originally planned for one family so that they can 
 accommodate three or four. 
 
 Then again temples, mosques and graves must not be 
 
 203 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 touched, and as these are to be found throughout the 
 occupied area they often put very great difficulties in 
 the way of reorganisation. Both the Hindu and the 
 Mohammedan are much more inclined to build anew 
 than to maintain the old, but as a religious building, 
 however ruinous, remains inviolate, the number of these 
 makes it imperative to exercise a great deal of ingenuity 
 in devising an improvement scheme so that they will fit 
 in with it. 
 
 The old Hindu civilisation included a very definite 
 technique in which a rational organisation was indicated 
 by means of rules, which were given a religious or 
 symbolic significance. ‘The old cities of the south 
 conformed to one or other of the various established 
 types, though subsequent centuries of neglect have often 
 resulted in the partial obliteration of the original scheme. 
 Nevertheless, an Indian city stimulates the imagination, 
 and even where much of it is squalid and insanitary, it 
 rarely lacks characteristic features and hints of beauty 
 on which to frame afresh a series of effects, making the 
 best of what is there and bringing order and decency 
 into even the humblest streets. One never sees any- 
 thing so depressing as the ee regularity of the 
 average English suburb. 
 
 India claims, in the new Delhi, the other modern 
 capital, planned to occupy a large area to the south- 
 west of Shah Jehan’s city. The outlines of the scheme 
 follow the Renaissance tradition of triangulations with 
 focal points. The main axes N. to S. and E. to W. 
 have good terminal features, but some of the subsidiary 
 vistas are badly related to them and are aligned awk- 
 wardly on the principal buildings. The prepossession 
 
 204 
 
TOWN PLANNING IN THE DOMINIONS 
 
 in favour of the equilateral triangle has involved the 
 designers in a series of problems that are imperfectly 
 resolved. 
 
 Throughout the tropics generally the advent of the 
 European makes demands on the town planner for the 
 elimination of conditions adverse to health, as an essen- 
 tial preliminary to planning, and the science of pre- 
 ventive medicine provides him with a programme that 
 widely extends his field in such areas. ‘Then, where 
 there is a mixed population, the problem of complete 
 or partial segregation adds other complexities. ‘Town 
 planning in the tropics must be treated as a special and 
 separate study, since it introduces factors that could 
 only be dealt with adequately in a special treatise on 
 the subject. 
 
 205 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 Modern Practice 
 
 N the earlier chapters we have briefly reviewed 
 
 the developments in various ages to which can be 
 
 traced the elements that find a place in the tech- 
 nique of town planning in our own day. We have seen 
 the co-ordinated arrangements characteristic of ancient 
 Rome ; the intimate study of building groups in rela- 
 tion to a naturally developed plan, the outstanding 
 feature of the medieval city ; and the road planning 
 on geometric lines which dominates the Renaissance 
 conception. Subsequently an endeavour has been 
 made to review the component factors affecting the 
 problems that confront us. It is now due to attempt 
 the task of indicating how, by a synthesis of these 
 various factors, our present practice in city planning 
 has been built up. 
 
 In endeavouring to trace the growth of town planning 
 practice as we see it to-day, we may go back to the 
 eighteenth century, when, owing to national conditions, 
 Sweden stepped into a foremost place in appreciating 
 the need for comprehensive planning in town develop- 
 ment. This was recognised in a legal enactment dating 
 back to 1734, and after this several towns secured 
 powers to acquire property where this was necessary to 
 enable such planning to be carried out. Their position 
 in this respect was strengthened by further legislation 
 in 1845, and in 1874 the Act for regulating the planning 
 and building of towns put the matter on a broad and a 
 systematic footing, including both improvements and 
 
 206 
 
bm ekik. 2 Te EIEN mr ree» Tar” eee cerreeraine armen peter ead 
 
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 City 
 
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 SCALE 
 
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 Fisting Rativays shown thus ———-* 
 
 
 
 69. Plan of the New Delhi 
 Facing page 206 
 
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MODERN PRACTICE 
 
 extensions. No other nation had at that time imposed 
 a legal obligation to lay down a plan, though many 
 plans had been officially prepared in one city or another. 
 While Sweden must be given the credit for its pioneer 
 work in regard to its legal enactments, and while these 
 kept it well abreast of current practice, its town plans 
 were more or less on the lines of those of other coun- 
 tries, and it must share with Germany the credit for 
 substituting, in the latter part of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, a freer technique for the mechanical rigidity of 
 road plans based on the Renaissance tradition. 
 
 About 1880, the Renaissance plan being then in 
 possession of the field on the Continent and the so- 
 called economic one in Britain and America, it began 
 to be realised that neither was an adequate solution in 
 view of modern demands. ‘To review Continental con- 
 ditions first, we find that it was customary to insist on 
 a formal lay-out with roads proportioned to intensive 
 building, irrespective of the formation of the ground and 
 the tendency towards diminished density of occupation. 
 The planning, in the hands of the authorities, was 
 systematic, but like all official business, remained 
 stereotyped and failed to keep pace with the change in 
 demand. With us, on the other hand, the failure was 
 of another character. Planning, being under the aus- 
 pices of private enterprise, usually avoided the more 
 obvious extravagances, but came to grief through being 
 done piecemeal with no attempt to connect the indivi- 
 dual schemes, and, what is worse, often with a deli- 
 berate attempt to avoid connecting such schemes with 
 those adjacent to them; while roads, being only 
 governed by a provision for a minimum width, were 
 
 207 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 in many cases either inadequate or excessive. More- 
 over, it was quite a chance whether the schemes were 
 skilfully laid out or not, this depending on the owner’s 
 judgment in choosing his technical adviser, if he 
 employed one at all. In America the practice differed 
 both from our own and from that of the Continent. 
 The general lay-out was established by custom on a 
 uniform rectangular plan, which had the defects, with- 
 out the merits, of the Continental geometric one, 
 and could claim as its sole virtue that it avoided the 
 disorganisation of the individualistic development usual 
 in England. 
 
 As the first movement towards the present attitude 
 was in the ‘Teutonic and Scandinavian countries, the 
 course this took demands priority in our studies, and it 
 will be well to begin by reminding ourselves that the 
 firm control of the general plan by the municipality 
 was largely due to the custom of dividing landed pro- 
 perty among families, generation by generation, so that 
 much of it was held in small strips impossible to lay out 
 for building, and that, consequently, towns could only 
 expand by co-operative action, which was rarely 
 secured, and house famines were frequent. Muni- 
 cipal control was the most obvious remedy, but even 
 then the difficulty of dealing with small ownerships 
 was almost insuperable until the passing of the Lex 
 Adickes gave powers to pool them, and, after planning 
 as a whole, to return to the owners building sites pro- 
 portionate to their original holdings. Only by this 
 means could plans of the Renaissance type have been 
 achieved, and even later, when more freedom was 
 accepted, the method proved too valuable to be aban- 
 
 208 
 
MODERN PRACTICE 
 
 doned. It would not in itself have produced any change, 
 but owing to its putting the responsibility on the 
 shoulders of active officials, it paved the way towards 
 the acceptance of new ideas which brought about the 
 departure from the formal plan. 
 
 This departure was influenced from two directions ; 
 one, the obvious incapacity of the formal plan to adapt 
 itself economically to irregular sites ; and the other the 
 studies of Camillo Sitté on medizval cities and the 
 deductions he made as a logical romanticist in regard 
 to the zsthetic superiority of what he claimed to be the 
 ““ medizeval method.”’ Now, without entering into an 
 argument as to whether his interpretation of the illus- 
 trations he employs is correct, the fact is indisputable 
 that he and his school entirely remodelled, in most 
 ways for the better, the practice of city planning in 
 Germany and the Scandinavian countries. Of course 
 the reaction overshot the mark at times, and produced 
 affectations of the picturesque that are too obviously 
 evident as such, but, in the main, the release from an 
 unintelligent formalism has been a great gain, more 
 especially where it has harmonised the lines of lay-out 
 with the natural formation of the site and its sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Though Sitté’s book was translated into French, it 
 did not affect the standards in France very strongly ; 
 but ever since 1909, when Raymond Unwin (who may 
 fairly be acclaimed the pioneer of this school in Eng- 
 land) included in his book, “’'Town Planning in Prac- 
 tice,’ a very comprehensive exposition of Sitté’s prin- 
 ciples, these have taken an important place in the philo- 
 sophy of town planning here, the more so as in this 
 
 209 7 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 work, while giving varied illustrations of the German 
 practice at that time, he covers many expansions of this 
 and takes a broad outlook over the whole subject, based 
 on his own experience. Apart from Professor Patrick 
 Geddes’s studies on the sociological aspects, no contri- 
 butions towards our present technique in town planning 
 have been of greater import than those of Raymond 
 Unwin, and much of what is now our established prac- 
 tice owes its inception to his demonstrations. ‘The 
 value of his work, and of that of his contemporaries 
 abroad and in this country who have done so much to 
 establish the principles of town planning as we now 
 know them, lies in the recognition that each kind of 
 development has its appropriate treatment artistically, 
 and that, instead of approaching the subject with a 
 preconceived ideal, often based on conditions no longer 
 applicable, the proper course is to investigate the neces- 
 sities of the case and then to devise the right form of 
 expression, not neglecting what history offers towards 
 this, but only accepting it as a stimulant to the 
 imagination. 
 
 In illustrating what is involved by such a course it 
 will be best to begin by citing a few practical considera- 
 tions which must be attended to, and then to point out 
 the relationship between them and the factors that 
 conduce to harmony and character in the design as a 
 whole. 
 
 For practical reasons a plan should be based on the 
 contours of the site, as by following these it will adapt 
 itself to the natural features and secure that they will 
 reinforce the characteristic effect of the scheme. Again, 
 common sense dictates that roads shall be varied in 
 
 210 
 
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MODERN PRACTICE 
 
 plan and design to suit the class of traffic to be accom- 
 modated. This, in turn, gives a sense of fitness which 
 is an element of beauty. Trunk and branch roads 
 are welded together into a pattern which should 
 appear as inevitable as the growth of the forest tree 
 from which the nomenclature is borrowed. Then we 
 come to the utilisation of sites for the purpose of 
 public buildings, shops, houses, open spaces, etc. ; 
 here the best allocations from the standpoint of con- 
 venience, will, with buildings of suitable design, exactly 
 coincide with the demands of expression. We might 
 continue the same course with regard to other features 
 of the plan, such as the junctions of roads, the distri- 
 bution of trees, and discuss at length all those details 
 that must be worked out to produce a sound plan, but 
 these few examples are enough to define the position 
 of the town planner of to-day, whose faith is firmly 
 pinned to the essential unity between reason and 
 imagination. His work must be logical and reasonable, 
 but without imagination no amount of logic will produce 
 a good plan. 
 
 On the other hand, imagination must have material 
 to work on, and this is provided by the factors that 
 have to be taken account of and dealt with in such a 
 way that the scheme is not only the most efficient 
 possible but also gives an impression of balance which 
 makes its every beauty appear as something so obviously 
 right as to be inevitable. ‘Thus the most important 
 contribution to modern town planning has been the 
 recognition that we must be at liberty to base our 
 designs on logical requirements, without prejudices in 
 favour either of formal pattern or of studied irregu- 
 
 2I1I 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 larity. In making a plea in 1910 in favour of an appre- 
 ciation of the art of town planning, Raymond Unwin 
 closed his remarks as follows :— 
 
 “T believe that it is only when we have got beyond 
 these prejudices in favour of so-called formal and 
 informal work, and feel free to make use of either, 
 recognising at once the naturalness of formality in 
 design and the importance of subordinating mere 
 formality on paper, to seize upon the magnificent 
 opportunities which many undulating sites afford, that 
 we shall be able to do the best work in town planning. 
 If, to the other advantages of town planning, we are to 
 add the completing glory of creating beautiful cities, 
 let us not forget that we have not really learned to do 
 any work until we have learned to do it beautifully. It 
 seems to me the function of the town planning archi- 
 tect, who is specially trained to find beautiful forms of 
 expression for practical requirements, is first to accept 
 obediently the instructions which should be prepared 
 for him by the sociologist, the economist, the surveyor, 
 and the engineer ; and then within the limits prescribed 
 to find a beautiful form of expression in the plan. It is 
 a task as difficult as it is inspiring, for which he must 
 prepare himself in whatever way is his equivalent to 
 the prayer and fasting of the ancients. Having mas- 
 tered all the practical requirements that have to be 
 satisfied, if, in a spirit of respect for all of traditional 
 interest or natural beauty that goes to make up the 
 individuality of the city, and welcoming the difficult 
 features of the site as affording greater opportunities for 
 his art, the town planner can fuse the whole into one 
 imaginative creation beautifully expressing the life of 
 
 212 
 
MODERN PRACTICE 
 
 the city community, then, indeed, he will deserve well of 
 his fellow men, for not only will he have added to the 
 convenience of their lives, the health and comfort of 
 their homes, but he will have provided for them and 
 their children a wealth of beauty for their delight, ever 
 growing in the grace of its appeal by the kindly influence 
 of time and the enriching glamour of association.” 
 
 Thus is summarised the faith of the craftsman ; and 
 when it becomes that of the citizen also, we may hope 
 for towns which will bear comparison with the best of 
 all past ages. 
 
 The scheme for the reconstruction of the central and 
 eastern quarters of Tokyo destroyed by earthquake 
 and fire might be assumed to afford a good illustra- 
 tion of modern practice, but this is hardly the case, as 
 the conditions are responsible for unusual features, and 
 the decision to exact the utmost economy in the pro- 
 posals admissible is responsible for departures from 
 the course dictated were the ideal of a modern capital 
 permitted to determine the form of the design. The 
 plan includes a broad ring route encircling the Imperial 
 Palace, the eastern section of this route running 
 parallel to, and relieving, the traffic in, the Ginza and 
 Nihombashi, streets which respectively serve the retail 
 and wholesale business centres of Tokyo. This ring 
 road links together the important radial routes which, 
 together with all the main roads and most of the minor 
 ones, are to be widened and improved. It is so planned 
 as to form part of the broad road designed to traverse 
 the city from south to north, and to connect with the 
 
 213 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 high speed road to Yokohama running southward, and 
 at its northern end with the road to Nikko. 
 
 The canals, which take so important a place in the 
 city, are also to receive attention, and a number of 
 realignments and widenings are included in the scheme, 
 though the modifications here are by no means so 
 drastic as in the case of the roads, which will cover 
 four times the area of those they replace. This extra 
 ground will be provided in part by requiring every 
 owner to give up one-tenth of his present holding, 
 without compensation. Payment will be made only 
 for further expropriations, the idea being that, as but 
 little building work of a permanent character has yet 
 been undertaken, no serious hardship will be involved, 
 for it may fairly be estimated that the improvement of 
 the frontages will raise the value of sites by at least 
 ten per cent. 
 
 Open spaces are required to serve as refuges in case 
 of fire, and in most cases these are to be secured by 
 building all the primary schools with spacious play- 
 grounds, a recompense which the great disaster has 
 given to the children of the city. ‘The fine parks that 
 Tokyo possesses are embodied in the scheme, with 
 some limited extensions, but the city, as a whole, comes 
 far short of the European standard in regard to public 
 open spaces, though, as some compensation for this, a 
 liberal amount of tree planting is to be employed on 
 the main roads. Again, owing in large measure to the 
 system adopted of demanding a proportion of each site, 
 it has not been possible to make much change in the 
 existing lay-out, and as this is, in the main, a uniformly 
 rectangular plan, the future city will still exhibit the 
 
 214 
 

 
 73. A Temple and ‘Tank, Chidambaram, South India 
 
 Facing page 214 
 
Siz asd suv 
 
 vIPUT YINOG ‘TepeweueANsTy, ‘yURy, pue onbsoyy y “VL 
 
 
 
MODERN PRACTICE 
 
 monotonous effects inseparable from such a system. 
 The need for economy may justify this as a general 
 rule, but surely it ought to have been possible to vary 
 it at salient points in order that public builcings and 
 other features might be afforded sites enabling them to 
 give interest and variety to the new scheme. While 
 America, having discovered the artistic ineffectiveness 
 of the “ gridiron ”’ plan, is endeavouring to extenuate 
 this by supplementary radials and closed vistas, it is 
 remarkable that in this case, where there is compara- 
 tive freedom, these demands should have been ignored. 
 Recognising that it is the desire of the Japanese to 
 make their capital worthy to rank with those of other 
 nations in dignity and beauty, it is only fair to point 
 out this failure in a scheme exhibiting many merits. 
 
 215 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 Social Demands 
 
 E have now defined the general principles of 
 the art of town planning as recognised at the 
 present day, but, unfortunately, their accep- 
 tance by no means assures us that all future operations 
 will be carried out in accordance with these principles. 
 The art has still to receive much fuller and wider 
 recognition before this can be hoped for. At the same 
 time, in spite of the sacrifice of individual freedom 
 involved, its social value is generally or conclusively 
 accepted, and on this ground, if on no other, it has 
 secured such a measure of support as to give it a place 
 among the old established customs possessing legal 
 sanctions for limiting personal activities where there 
 was a risk of their conflicting with communal welfare. 
 Strictly speaking, the function of the town planner 
 terminates when he has correctly interpreted the 
 demands of the public, whose servant he is, and has 
 formulated the best possible proposals for meeting 
 these demands, 2.e., the best possible having regard to 
 the means at his disposal, and in view of the limitations 
 of various kinds that will inevitably be associated with 
 operations so comprehensive in their character. At 
 the same time the study of town planning, involving 
 an intimate recognition of hygienic, psychological and 
 social requirements, is bound to draw those who 
 interest themselves in it beyond the strict limits of 
 technical practice, and to encourage anticipatory visuali- 
 sations as to the trend of communal developments. 
 
 216 
 
SOCIAL DEMANDS 
 
 Reverting to our historical résumé, we can find no 
 point at which social life remained stationary, however 
 rigid the systems of control, and even after making 
 allowance for the fact that the events of the moment 
 loom unduly large in our eyes, it appears incontrover- 
 tible that the present time is one of more than ordinary 
 activity in respect of such changes. While a detailed 
 and elaborate forecast would probably meet the same 
 fate as has befallen similar forecasts in the past, no one 
 whose function it is to deal with proposals that may 
 take two or more generations to reach fruition can 
 avoid the effort of endeavouring to realise what condi- 
 tions may be like at the end of that period. 
 
 We have two factors on which to base our estimates, 
 the economic one, which changes with great rapidity, 
 and the psychological one, which in any one race 
 changes hardly at all. We have only to step back a 
 century to realise the immense difference between the 
 economic position of our own and other countries then 
 and now, while we may go back three or four and find, 
 after making allowance for the differences in environ- 
 ment, that the men of each race exhibit similar traits in 
 behaviour. While it is true that, when a people 
 secures an overwhelmingly predominant position, this 
 position seems to hold within it the elements of decline, 
 we must avoid confusing the political cycle with the 
 much more subtle permanence of racial characteristics, 
 the continuity of which could be confirmed by many 
 examples. 
 
 Beyond just a mention of the parallelism that R. G. 
 Collingwood finds between the arts of Britain, Gaul, 
 and Jugo Slavia under the Roman Empire and 
 
 217 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 those of the same countries in later times, and a 
 reference to the similarity of the general attitude of the 
 worker towards his employment and the dole after the 
 plague of the fourteenth century and our own recent 
 experiences, we must leave it to the reader to multiply 
 illustrations of this persistence of national charac- 
 teristics. | 
 
 There is therefore little likelihood of a world-wide 
 uniformity in the technique of this art, and this may be 
 hailed as fortunate, for not only is it desirable in itself 
 that countries should exhibit varied aspects, but also 
 that these variations in ideals should exist to influence 
 each other and maintain a certain fluidity in national 
 developments. Each nation works in accordance with 
 its own temperament and traditions, and by this course 
 achieves a unique position in some particular directions, 
 but, at the same time, there is a continual comparison 
 being made between the merits of its achievements 
 and those of its neighbours, with the resulting emula- 
 tion in all points not definitely based on racial differences 
 in ideals. 
 
 Here and there we have indicated, in general terms, 
 the demands of our own townsfolk at the present time, 
 and have been bound to recognise that the characteristic 
 attitude of the Anglo-Saxon still influences Britain. 
 The preference for open air pursuits and rural sur- 
 roundings has so persistently dominated our race that 
 it has brought us back, despite the fact that towns have 
 been forced on us by a misunderstood economic pres- 
 sure, to the ideal of the garden city and garden suburb. 
 We have never really desired the city, and that is why 
 our cities are, from the town planning point of view, so 
 
 218 
 
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 RECONSTRUCTION OF : TOKYO 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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SOCIAL DEMANDS 
 
 bad. Other nations have delighted in the city, and the 
 pride of the citizen is reflected in its structure and 
 embellishments. In England it has been merely 
 tolerated as a necessary evil, and while a few travelled 
 Britons have been able occasionally to impose civic 
 features borrowed from abroad, these make no impres- 
 sion on the mass of the people, who attach but little 
 importance to them. 
 
 The result is that, while we have been driven out of 
 the country by force of circumstances, we have never 
 become genuine townsfolk ; if we had, it would long 
 ago have been recognised that our towns must be 
 beautiful to look at in their own conventional way, 
 must be clean, and not defiled by the smoke of the 
 numerous firesides that are an admissible delight only 
 where dwellings are not crowded together. The 
 remedy now popular is to provide for the increasing 
 population on lines simulating, as far as possible, the 
 effect of the countryside, and to make this practicable 
 by the provision of rapid transit facilities. From many 
 points of view this is probably the soundest solution, 
 but it must be accepted that it will preclude any rapid 
 advance in the city centres, except from practical and 
 economic points of view, by drawing the interest from 
 these centres to the outlying residential districts. Of 
 course it will be pointed out that, if there has never 
 been a very strong feeling in favour of the dominant 
 beauty and dignity of the city centre, no loss can be 
 shown, but it is to be feared that many who hoped to 
 see our Cities emulating those of the Continent in these 
 respects will be doomed to disappointment. 
 
 Deprived of an understanding public, no art can 
 
 219 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 retain vitality, least of all one that depends on the 
 expression of communal purpose, and unless we can 
 regard ourselves as capable of idealising both rural and 
 civic life, an anticipation unlikely to be widely realised, 
 it is clear that the growth, or rather the re-establish- 
 ment, of the rural ideal must take place at the expense 
 of the civic one, to an extent that will, at all events, keep 
 the standards of the city below those in countries 
 where a large proportion of the people are integrally 
 citizens. | 
 
 It is characteristic that there are many sociologists 
 in this country who hold that the city is parasitic and 
 detrimental to the national welfare, and this view can 
 be justified, inasmuch as that a nation which aban- 
 doned agriculture would be doomed, therefore the less 
 the city is divorced from its rural environment the 
 better the chance of survival. That the size of our 
 larger cities is beyond what is desirable can hardly be 
 questioned, but could all the imaginable reorganisations 
 be effected they might be adapted to a wholesome 
 civic life, with such ameliorations as would place this 
 life almost, if not quite, on equal terms with rural con- 
 ditions. ‘The reconstructions that this would demand — 
 are, however, more drastic than we can hope to see 
 effected in several generations, and in the meantime 
 we shall continue to pay the toll that these over- 
 grown towns demand in diminished vitality and racial 
 deterioration. 
 
 The appearance of a city is the material interpreta- 
 tion of the life it contains, and thus it is that cities 
 usually exhibit a definite character, and that merely 
 imitative effects, independent of an inspiring cause, do 
 
 220 
 
SOCIAL DEMANDS 
 
 nothing to build up a consistent and expressive har- 
 mony. For this reason our town planners get few 
 opportunities to carry out their visions of dignified and 
 impressive groupings, such as are to be seen in other 
 countries. ‘I‘hese owe their dramatic quality to a con- 
 ception of the town as an absolutely distinct form of 
 development, having its conventions of mass, propor- 
 tion and scale, unrelated to nature except through the 
 human medium. The faculty for appreciating these 
 qualities can only arise with generations of town 
 dwellers who have learned to delight in them. Few 
 Britons have followed this road, and therefore our 
 towns are rarely expressive of civic dignity, and the 
 designer whose studies have made him more or less 
 cosmopolitan is in the dilemma of either trying to force 
 on his public something beyond its demands, or, more 
 rationally, of accepting these latter and adapting his 
 practice to the type of design they suggest. Neverthe- 
 less, even if the exponent of civic design is prepared to 
 accept the limitations imposed on him by the social 
 structure as he finds it, there will yet remain to him a 
 wide scope for the exercise of his imagination. Though 
 he may have to put aside many of the ideals he has 
 derived from his comprehensive studies, he will be 
 able to substitute a considered logic as to the expres- 
 sion of characteristics not without value in themselves. 
 Town planning in Britain has already followed this 
 road, and if it continues in this direction it may make 
 its contribution to the international standards of design, 
 which, even if insular in aim, will possess a definite 
 value as an interpretation of recognised social demands. 
 
 A factor that influences the future course of city 
 
 221 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 design is the increasing extent to which municipal con- 
 trol is taking the place of private enterprise. While the 
 latter is by no means excluded from taking part in new 
 developments, the tendency is towards increase in 
 public ownerships, partly with a view to the facility 
 this offers in directing future growth, and partly with 
 an eye to securing for the community a share in the 
 “unearned increment” that expansion brings into 
 existence automatically. We are all aware of the 
 attempt made to secure some of this increment for the 
 nation, the complications this involved, and its conse- 
 quent abandonment. Notwithstanding this failure, 
 the principle that the results of communal activity 
 should, as far as practicable, benefit the community, 
 is widely accepted, and public ownership has been 
 proved to promote this. Thus an efficient municipality 
 finds it profitable to acquire property and undertake its 
 development. ‘This favours the preparation of com- 
 prehensive schemes considered more specifically from 
 the aspect of the public interest, and though it can 
 hardly be claimed that the highest technical standards 
 are often reached, owing to the fact that it takes time 
 for these to influence public opinion, a better basis 
 than the individualistic one is provided for the lines of 
 development. While the art of town planning is not 
 necessarily dependent on public undertakings, any 
 enlargement of these is bound to affect its future 
 character. 
 
 222 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 Technical Methods 
 
 ROM time to time a number of writers, among 
 
 whom G. B. Shaw and H. G. Wells stand out 
 
 prominently, have vouchsafed us their anticipa- 
 tions of what the world may be like in the nearer or 
 further future. While it is not for the technical exponent 
 of an art to take such distant flights as the poet or the 
 philosopher, he is unlikely to refrain altogether from 
 attempting to visualise the effects of some of the more 
 obvious probabilities. We have discussed at some 
 length the influences of stability in national characteris- 
 tics, but we cannot allow these to disguise from us that 
 the advances in science and its applications tend towards 
 changes in the mode of life and, ultimately, in the ideals 
 of what life should afford. 
 
 Agriculture can hardly be displaced from its basic 
 position, but even this undergoes alterations due to 
 scientific discoveries and transport developments. As 
 a factor in human well-being, its essential purpose is 
 strongly supplemented by the value of its activities in 
 maintaining a good standard of physique, a standard 
 that cannot be placed to the credit of many other forms 
 of productive effort, owing to the adverse conditions 
 inherent in their operations. Therefore the co-ordina- 
 tion of towns and their environment is at the root of all 
 our problems of communal advancement. In former 
 times this limited the size of the city and its dependent 
 area, though these varied from age to age according to 
 the better or worse organisation and security of trans- 
 
 2.23 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 port. In recent times transport has improved with 
 unprecedented rapidity, and the facilities have out- 
 distanced our capacity for maintaining control over them. 
 
 Thus we have allowed the false economy of measure- 
 ment by price values to take the bit between its teeth, 
 and drag us from the road of the true economy that 
 recognises racial welfare as an essential factor in the 
 organisation of production. The quantity and quality 
 produced is of less importance than the life such pro- 
 duction involves, and though the majority has always 
 allowed itself to be exploited at the expense of this 
 life, it is the hope of the social reformer, who carries the 
 standard for the town planner, that one of these days 
 this criterion, of price values regardless of the other 
 factors, will be generally pronounced an invalid one. 
 
 This in no way involves a negation of the benefits 
 that science is every day conferring on us in the way of 
 increasing productive capacity, using the term in its 
 widest sense, to cover all facilities in location, transport, 
 and transit. These are all to the good, and the only 
 distinction between the so-called ‘“* economist’s ”’ atti- 
 tude towards them and that of the town planner, is that 
 the former omits the most important factor, the effect 
 on the producer, while the latter places this first and 
 considers the actual production a subsidiary question, 
 which will decide itself quite efficiently when the ideals 
 of life are sound. 
 
 We have now at our disposal advantages beyond any 
 previous experience, and if we keep an open mind as 
 to what these may give us, it is in our power to organise 
 them to benefit all. Apart from the possibilities of 
 flight, making demands on the town planner that have 
 
 224 
 
TECHNICAL METHODS 
 
 not yet been adequately explored, there are numerous 
 types of provision for rapid transit, on the level, above 
 and underground. If desired, a combination of these 
 enables us to occupy sites very intensively, and as it is 
 practicable to construct buildings fairly economically 
 up to a height of 500 feet or so, it will be seen that at 
 this extreme the possibilities, as exemplified in American 
 towns, are far beyond those of a few decades ago. 
 
 These possibilities are mentioned because they may, 
 under certain conditions, prove of great value, but at 
 the same time there is risk in their employment without 
 a most carefully studied programme in regard to the 
 proportion of site to be covered and the provisions for 
 access and communication. In the typical case of New 
 York, there was not, until recently, any restriction on 
 the heights of buildings, and consequently, in the 
 business quarters, overbuilding has in many blocks 
 deprived the lower floors of daylight and has caused 
 acute congestion in traffic. The practice outside 
 America has been to place a definite restriction on 
 height, the usual average for business districts being 
 about 100 feet, with various systems for gradual 
 reductions in the outer zones. This is the safer course 
 to pursue in view of the difficulty of securing diminished 
 site areas in exchange for increased height, an alterna- 
 tive method which would, if capable of practical opera- 
 tion, afford advantages in the provision of increased 
 light and air for a given volume of building. Such a 
 course is little likely to be adopted, as it would in most 
 cases involve more drastic replanning than is feasible 
 in old-established centres. 
 
 In the United States the necessity for height limita- 
 
 225 Q 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 tions has now been recognised, and, though in most 
 cases much greater heights are permitted than would be 
 acceptable in Europe, the system adopted is a sound one, 
 with a maximum height for frontage walls and a limiting 
 angle above this, so that building in the central part of a 
 site may be carried higher than the surrounding portions. 
 
 Having determined the maximum heights admissible, 
 with regard to climatic conditions and the adequacy of 
 communications, and the best system of limitation, 
 there yet remain many factors worthy of considera- 
 tion if the central areas of our cities are to keep pace 
 with the advances that our command of resources make 
 practicable. No one will contend that these are not in 
 need of improvement ; for example, the discomfort of 
 the streets in bad weather must, to every thinking man, 
 appear an absurdity in view of the obvious expedients 
 available in the way of protected communications. At 
 one time there seemed a probability that we should 
 follow the practice in more southern climes and adopt 
 covered footways, but this was only a partial remedy, 
 still involving exposure when crossing streets, and had, 
 moreover, the disadvantage, owing to our sombre skies, 
 of darkening the shop frontages and rendering them less 
 attractive. ‘The glazed arcade running from street to 
 street is better in this respect, and would have been much 
 more generally employed but for the sub-division of 
 ownerships, which makes comprehensive planning 
 difficult. 
 
 Now it looks as if we are moving towards another 
 solution. The rapid increase of underground transit 
 in the larger towns suggests that this should be expanded 
 to afford access to all the more frequented buildings, 
 
 226 
 
Qez aspd SUID 
 
 yIOK MON ‘sosprug pue siadesoshyg “LL 
 
 
 

 
 78. The Shelton Hotel, New York, showing the effect of Height Regulations 
 
 Facing page 227 
 
TECHNICAL METHODS 
 
 such as the large stores, hotels and theatres. Already 
 in New York there are a number of connections of this 
 kind. A general scheme of subway routes linking up 
 stations and buildings might surely be expected to 
 more than compensate for the initial cost. The move- 
 ment towards this has barely started yet, but when it 
 gets under way the inevitable competition for such 
 facilities will make it a rapid one. Not only does it 
 offer the advantage of giving clean and easy routes pro- 
 tected from the weather, but also that of saving time 
 and money at the busy hours when traffic congestion is 
 acute. ‘Those who frequent London restaurants and 
 theatres must be familiar with the facts that the aggre- 
 gation of these in a very limited area, and the concen- 
 trated traffic at certain times, make organisation and 
 regulation extremely difficult. Street widening would 
 do much less towards effecting a remedy than a two- 
 level system of access, where one of them obviate 
 the necessity for vehicles, which make much greater 
 demands on space and on control than foot traffic. In 
 London, for example, about half a mile of subway 
 would suffice to link up some sixteen theatres and half 
 a dozen large restaurants, with three tube stations on 
 different routes. Less urgent, perhaps, but also advan- 
 tageous, would be the connection of the large stores 
 with the underground lines. ‘The question has been 
 raised as to whether we have followed a wise course in 
 providing first for passenger traffic in our underground 
 routes, leaving the transport of goods on the surface. 
 Probably we were wrong in so doing, but we are now 
 committed to this policy and must make the best of it, 
 though there may yet come a time when it will be found 
 
 227 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 necessary to contrive a better organisation for the 
 collection and distribution of merchandise. London 
 already has an extensive underground provision ex- 
 change at Smithfield, which might be made the nucleus 
 for some system of distributing tubes to other centres 
 or to important private establishments. Again, Covent 
 Garden as a market has been obsolete for half a century 
 or more, and if it is to retain its present site new means 
 of access should be provided either by rail or tube. 
 There is a tram subway within a hundred yards, and 
 as this connects with routes running right to the verge 
 of the town area, it might be possible to make such 
 adaptations as would enable it to be used for trans- 
 port at slack hours during the night. 
 
 All the possibilities in these directions will have to 
 be explored sooner or later, but until the situation 
 becomes desperate there is little chance of reform, for 
 the dice are loaded against it. A few years ago a pro- 
 posal for a goods clearing-house on American lines 
 was brought forward in London, and, though it un- 
 doubtedly offered many advantages, as soon as it 
 became evident that large vested interests would be 
 adversely affected, the scheme was doomed. Naturally, 
 when vested interests include valuable plant and 
 organisation that might be thrown out of use, such 
 disturbance must be taken into account when striking a 
 balance, but more often these interests succeed in pre- 
 venting even an attempt to obtain an unbiassed study 
 of the question at issue. 
 
 There are other instances in which two-level traffic 
 routes may be worth consideration. We see, for 
 example, that the difference in use and value between 
 
 228 
 
TECHNICAL METHODS 
 
 the north and south banks of the Thames is in some 
 measure due to the discomfort of crossing long bridges 
 exposed to the rigours of our climate. Now there is 
 neither practical nor esthetic difficulty involved in 
 designing a two-tier bridge, in which the lower tier could 
 accommodate tram routes and covered footways and the 
 upper one the open road and fair weather footpaths. In 
 several positions the terminal levels are capable of adjust- 
 ment, and where this is the case, bridges on these lines 
 would be an economical method of improving the com- 
 munication between the two sides of the river. 
 
 Mons. E. Heénard, who has made comprehensive 
 studies as to the possibilities in street planning, goes 
 so far as to suggest even as many as five superimposed 
 roads, describing this as a many storied street, just as 
 we haveamany storied house. ‘Thesurface road would 
 take the ordinary traffic; immediately below this would 
 be the tramways ; below this again the subway for the 
 various services and supplies, the sewers and removal of 
 refuse; next the high speed electric railways, and at 
 the bottom the lines for the transport of merchandise. 
 
 Naturally, it is only in places enjoying a climate 
 euphuistically termed “‘ temperate ’’ that these expe- 
 dients are seriously demanded. Man is not by nature 
 troglodytic, and it is only as a remedy for existing defects 
 that these adaptations are justified. At the same time, 
 there is no reason why we should not adopt common- 
 sense solutions for obvious difficulties. The work of the 
 town planner is, with rare exceptions, that of making the 
 revisions and adaptations suggested by new conditions, 
 and such reconstructions as can be effected without dis- 
 organising too drastically the existing structure of the city. 
 
 229 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 The above suggestions are merely illustrative. Their 
 value is less as definite proposals, the validity of which 
 can only be established by investigation, than as afford- 
 ing a clue to the attitude to be taken in regard to the 
 future development of our towns. The examples have 
 been taken from London, simply for the reasons that it 
 is, among Englishmen, the city most generally known, 
 and that the problems it offers are the most intricate 
 and acute. Other great towns have their difficulties, 
 and the need of the time is that these should be 
 approached in a scientific manner, with the broadest 
 outlook both as to amenity and economics. ‘The science 
 of city construction lags, at the moment, far behind the 
 other sciences, mainly because it demands a degree of 
 co-operation not easily secured, so that there is little 
 encouragement for the individual exponent. An in- 
 ventor can devise a new machine, and has only to 
 succeed in demonstrating its utility to a few to 
 secure its adoption, but it is quite another matter to 
 gain the support of the community as a whole for a new 
 type of civic organisation. Not only are larger interests 
 affected, but the innate conservatism of the human race 
 will resist anything involving altered habits until driven 
 to it by very severe inconveniences. 
 
 The technical methods of administration, and the 
 legal provisions governing these, are outside our range. 
 They exhibit many points of interest, but, in view of the 
 fact that several important works deal solely with these 
 aspects, it is obvious that they could not receive ade- 
 quate exposition in a book aiming at a general view of 
 town planning as an art. 
 
 230 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 The Atsthetic Outlook 
 
 S there a place for beauty in the city yet to be? 
 Surely, if the art of town planning is to lead 
 
 us anywhere, it must be to the restoration of 
 cities to the position they once held as focal points in 
 the considered harmony, which man, at all periods 
 of civilisation, endeavoured to evolve by a studied 
 revision of his environment in order to bring it into 
 conformity with his psychological and economic needs. 
 The numberless attempts at a philosophical defini- 
 tion of beauty concern the artist but little, as his method 
 of approach is by quite another road. We must, how- 
 ever, gather together a few fragments of these to help 
 us towards a realisation of the principles, recognised or 
 unrecognised, by which towns have grown into beauty 
 in the past, and may yet do so in the future. The 
 standards by which beauty is judged become increas- 
 ingly complex as we move towards an enhanced varia- 
 tion in human mentality, a condition concisely stated 
 by the phrase that ‘beauty is in the eye of the 
 observer,” and yet to accept this as the sole criterion 
 apart from qualifications would lead us nowhere. 
 Taking as our guides those who possess acute sensi- 
 bility towards their environment, we find that this 1s 
 evoked by a number of different aspects. To one, the 
 beautiful seems to appear in the guise of absolute 
 unity with function, such as nature exhibits in the 
 growth of a plant or the proportions of an animal, and 
 artifice displays in the lines of a ship or the structure 
 
 2g 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 of a Gothic church ; to another, beauty is a matter of 
 the associations it calls to mind, by transporting him. 
 mentally into a world which is, or seems to be, pecu- 
 liarly sympathetic to his temperament ; while a third 
 has reached the stage at which beauty has become an 
 abstraction in itself, not to be defined by any law 
 of function or association. ‘There may be yet other 
 relationships between the human mind and its ideals, 
 but a pursuit of these would involve us in the meshes 
 of metaphysics and would only lead us away from the 
 course to be followed. Even the last attitude of the 
 three we have mentioned is of little avail to us, and we 
 shall have to confine our efforts in the main to the 
 demands of the first two, and to begin by estimating 
 the relative force of these. 
 
 It seems likely that perfection of function is the 
 basis of all beauty, but whether, as some claim, it is 
 itself beauty, we need not attempt to decide ; for our 
 purpose it will suffice to state that a falsification of 
 function is, as Ruskin afirmed, a dangerous enemy of 
 sound artistic expression. Here, however, we must 
 pause for a moment to put in a word on the side of the 
 exponent of beauty from its traditional aspect. The 
 appeal of Ruskin, in its attempt to enforce the logic of 
 function on the arts, has failed, owing to the fact that 
 the majority appreciate the arts through the channel of 
 their association with life, and to forbid the employ- 
 ment of features that belong to tradition removes for 
 many the charm that derives from the story of past 
 achievement. 
 
 Even in the practice of the arts themselves we find 
 it the invariable rule that each of the more outstanding 
 
 232 
 
THE ZESTHETIC OUTLOOK 
 
 developments has grown out of that which went before, 
 more or less rapidly, according to the imaginative 
 vigour of the age. The expression of the new demands 
 has, in the long run, taken material forms, only 
 departing step by step from the old. Deliberate revivals 
 have broken this continuity, and these, though a less 
 rational manner of progress, have been of value, as 
 they could have made no headway against traditions 
 which were adequately expressing the spirit of the time. 
 In town planning, to a greater extent than in most 
 other arts, do we find the traditions strongly en- 
 trenched, and in the aggregate they receive a full 
 measure of respect. Unfortunately this is often paid 
 to the wrong type of tradition, those of real value being 
 neglected while some that could well be dispensed 
 with hold their ground. For example, there is urgent 
 need for a complete reconsideration of the general 
 structural organisation in such matters as the distribu- 
 tion of activities and the system of communications, but 
 in these cases it is assumed that what has suited the 
 past will be appropriate to the future. On the other 
 hand, many of the buildings show departures from the 
 established scale and manner, not by reason of changes 
 in constructive method, which might be an adequate 
 excuse, but solely through a desire to emphasise the 
 new at the expense of the old, as in the case of a rural 
 owner who refused to build a stone cottage in a Cots- 
 wold village for fear people should not recognise that 
 it was a new one. Lest it may be imagined that this 
 indicates an unusually primitive mentality, we may 
 point out that the same spirit is evident in many of 
 the recent buildings in the metropolis itself. 
 
 233 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 Change in the form of our cities is inevitable if they 
 are to hold their own in the world competition for 
 organised production on lines consistent with national 
 well-being, and it is to the art of town planning that we 
 must look for guidance as to how such changes can be 
 given appropriate expression, harmonising the new 
 developments with what it is necessary or desirable to 
 retain of the old. Such problems must be faced in the 
 broadest possible spirit. In the chapter on Tradition, 
 we have already dealt with the claims of the past, and 
 it now devolves on us to consider those of the imme- 
 diate future. We may anticipate that our large towns 
 will be divided more specifically into two sections, one 
 concerned with production and commerce and the other 
 the residential area. These may sometimes, but not 
 invariably, take the form of a central group and an 
 outer ring, and their relative locations will determine, 
 to a large extent, the type of design. Normally, the 
 dominant masses of the commercial and industrial 
 buildings will be the more obvious features from dis- 
 tant points, and though they will rarely be planned 
 with a definite idea as to their effect, we shall often be 
 able to find interest in the accidents of grouping that 
 they exhibit. The main commercial centre will be 
 more adequately emphasised by the inclusion of the 
 public buildings that ought to dominate it, but there 
 is a risk that, following the example of America, these 
 will be overshadowed by some of the commercial 
 structures which may advertise themselves by lofty 
 towers or domes. It is, perhaps, an open question 
 whether this should be accepted as typical of our 
 times, or rejected as detracting from the expression of 
 
 234 
 
THE ASSTHETIC OUTLOOK 
 
 the dominance of municipal government. If we are 
 thinking of the impression of the city seen as a whole, 
 we are less concerned with these alternatives. 
 
 Passing on to the residential districts of the modern 
 town, these will make but little impression in a general 
 view, except where the larger buildings designed for 
 public purposes are grouped. The trees we delight in 
 are bound to dominate houses of the type now de- 
 manded by all classes, and give a general park-like effect 
 when these districts have acquired the permanent 
 character aimed at in their planning. 
 
 These general effects, being less often the aspects of 
 the city that strike the eye, are not of the same impor- 
 tance as the more intimate pictures that come to our 
 notice at one point or another, made interesting, or the 
 reverse, by combinations of vista, grouping, colour and 
 outline. The importance of a general harmony in the 
 treatment of the buildings, and of good proportions 
 between these and the spaces around them, has already 
 been emphasised, but we need more than this if the 
 city is to create the right impression when we are 
 within it. | 
 
 Variety in unity is what we seek, varied effects 
 secured by the appropriate grouping and embellish- 
 ments of the more important buildings, unity by a 
 consistent treatment of the whole, avoiding affectations 
 and freakish attempts to attract notice where increased 
 emphasis is not justified by purpose or by situation. 
 Such emphasis is admissible only in special cases, more 
 particularly at centres of public, commercial, or social 
 importance, and if not limited to these there is bound 
 to be conflict and confusion. As yet it is hardly 
 
 235 
 
THE ART OF TOWN PLANNING 
 
 recognised that a city must be regarded as a whole, just 
 as any other work of art, plastic, musical or literary, so 
 that we rarely escape this confused and distracting 
 effect. ‘The treatment in detail of the buildings and 
 their accessories is a matter for the architect and 
 outside the legitimate realm of town planning, though 
 we must recognise that the latter divorced from the 
 architectural aspect is a futility. 
 
 The discussion of what are, or what are not, the 
 right modes of expression for the city might be pur- 
 sued in many directions, but present conditions suggest 
 that little would be gained by this. The main reason 
 why we have so little beauty in our cities is, not that 
 the capacity to produce this is lacking, but that so few 
 among us realise that there is any real necessity for the 
 city to possess this quality. Even those interested in 
 one or more of the recognised arts rarely apply their 
 critical appreciation to civic design, and seem quite 
 content to accept many shortcomings as inevitable. 
 The general attitude towards this question will need a 
 radical change before the artist will be permitted to 
 exercise his imaginative faculties in this field of opera- 
 tions. At no time has he failed to answer the call, but 
 the call must come first. When it comes, then will 
 town planning fully justify its claim to rank as a 
 fine art. 
 
 236 
 
abER rt 15 My 
 
 
 

 
INDEX 
 
 BERCROMBIE, hunting 
 parks, 50 
 
 Abercrombie, the pit-head 
 
 village, 133 
 
 Adelaide, 197 
 
 Adickes, Franz, zone plan, 123 
 
 African village domicile, 135 
 
 Agamemnon, 28 
 
 Agriculture in a basic position, 223 
 
 Alexandria, home of later Greek 
 culture, 26 
 
 Alfred, a town builder, 43 
 
 See ae buildings, untidiness of, 
 104 
 
 Altona, zone plan of, 123 
 
 American gridiron plan, 32 
 
 American towns, zoning regulations, 
 119 
 
 Anglo-Saxon attitude still influences 
 Britain, 218 
 
 Anglo-Saxon villages, 41 
 
 Antagonism to zoning, 122 
 
 Antonine age, 24 
 
 Antipodes, the cities of the, 197 
 
 Arterial roads, 109 
 
 Artificial lighting, 174 
 
 Artist’s plan of Paris, 52 
 
 Arx or fortress, 10 
 
 Asia Minor, towns of, 25 
 
 Asian village domicile, 135 
 
 Assyria, palaces, 8 
 
 Athelney, 42 
 
 Augustus, Building Act for Rome, 19 
 
 Aurelian wall, 21 
 
 Australia, 196 
 
 Authorities, number of, 1o1 
 
 Autun, 25 
 
 Avalon, 42 
 
 ABYLON, palaces, 8 
 
 Back-to-back houses, 143 
 Barnet Fair, 149 
 
 Basilica Ulpia, 21 
 
 Bastides, 32 
 
 Bath, 56 
 
 Bath Road kept watered, 109 
 
 Bayswater, 60 
 
 Belgravia, 60 
 
 Bernini, 49 
 
 Birmingham recreation centre at the 
 Lickey, 156 
 
 Birmingham regulations, 123 
 
 Black Death, 31 
 
 Bois de Boulogne, naturalistic treat- 
 ment, 159 
 
 Bombay, 200 
 
 Boston, U.S.A., parkways, 162 
 
 Bournemouth, winding roads, 80 
 
 Bournville, 69, 72 
 
 Bradford, wide parklands, 161 
 
 Brisbane, 198 
 
 Bronze period tracks, 106 
 
 Bungalows in India, 201 
 
 Buttes Chaumont in Paris, 162 
 
 By-pass roads, 109 
 
 ADBURY, George, 72 
 G Caerleon, 39 
 Cerwent, 25 
 
 Calcutta, 200 
 
 Campus Martius, 21 
 
 Canada, civic studies, 196 
 
 Canberra, capital of Federated 
 Australia, 199 
 
 ** Capability ’’ Brown, 78 
 
 Cape sea route, 37 
 
 Cardiff civic centre, 153 
 
 Carlo Fontana, 49 
 
 Carlovingian houses, 12 
 
 Carnarvon, 43 
 
 Caste requirements, 202 
 
 Castle usually determining location, 
 35 
 
 Cawnpore, 73 
 
 Centres, main and subsidiary, 155 
 
 Charing Cross, congested point, 114 
 
 Chester, 25, 39 
 
 Chester Rows, 41 
 
 Chicago civic centre, 154 
 
 Chicago Exhibition, 150 
 
 Chichester, 25 
 
 Christchurch, N.Z., 198 
 
 Church and Market, 36 
 
 Circular hut, the primitive house, 4 
 
 Civic museum, 102 
 
 Civic survey, 96 
 
 Civil War, 45 
 
 Cleveland civic centre, 154 
 
 Cobbett, William, 68 
 
 239 
 
INDEX 
 
 Collingwood, parallelism in arts, 217 
 
 Commercial organisations, 121 
 
 Communal life, expression of, 188 
 
 Communications, 99-105 
 
 Conway, 43 
 
 Corinth, canal, 115 
 
 Cortona, 10 
 
 Count de Grammont on Tunbridge 
 Wells, 46 
 
 Crossing points of roads, 111 
 
 Covent Garden, 51, 59 
 
 Covent Garden, market obsolete, 228 
 
 Craig, James, 62 
 
 Cremorne Gardens, 148 
 
 Crete, palaces, 8 
 
 AVIDGE, cities of the Anti- 
 podes, 196 
 
 Dawson, Christopher, 70 
 Delhi, 204 
 Detroit, 55 
 Development of children, 100 
 Dickens, “‘ Hard 'Times,”’ 65 
 Dill, Samuel, 22 
 Dock planning, 128 
 Dominions, towns in the, 196 
 Doncaster, 75 
 Doncaster coalfield, 134 
 Doré, Gustave, the medieval street, 
 
 139 
 Dormanstown, 73 
 Dublin in the eighteenth century, 62 
 Dunedin, N.Z., 198 
 Du-Plat- Taylor, harbour construc- 
 tion, 18 
 
 Durham, 30 
 
 ARSWICK, 73 
 East Kent Coalfield, 74, 134 
 East, trade with the, 37 
 Edinburgh, 31, 56 
 Edinburgh and 
 Continent, 59 
 Edinburgh “ new town,” 62 
 Education and recreation, 101 
 Edward I., 32 
 Egypt, temples, 8 
 Electric lighting, 174 
 Electric signs, 176 
 Elizabeth’s limit on expansion of 
 London, 46 
 Enclosed docks, 129 
 Enclosure Acts, 161 
 Encroachments, 161 
 England, the suburb of Europe, 38 
 
 influence of the 
 
 Essen, 73 
 
 Etruscans, technical improvements, 
 II 
 
 Etruscan towns, 10 
 
 AIRS and markets, 45 
 Fiesole, 10 
 
 Fire of London, 41 
 ees von Erlach, the Karlskirche, 
 
 Flats. ioe middle-class residents, 140 
 Flint, 43 
 
 Florence, 25, 27 
 
 Flower gardens, 160 
 
 Forum, grouping in, 152 
 Framework of the city, 194 
 
 French hunting parks, 50 
 Furnishing of the City, 170 
 
 AMES, fields for, 147 
 ** Garden City,”’ 90 
 Garden City Movement, 133 
 
 Gascon towns, 32 
 
 Gaulish {tribes 
 Britain, 38 
 
 Gerasa, 25 
 
 Geddes, Patrick, 210 
 
 German towns, zoning regulations, 
 119 
 
 Germany, simulating the accidental, 
 
 found in South 
 
 2 
 Glastonbury lake villages, 5 
 Goods clearing-house, 228 
 Grainger, Richard, at Newcastle, 63 
 Greek acropolis, 12 
 Greenwich, formal treatment, 159 
 Greenwich Hospital, 59 
 Griffin, design for Canberra, 199 
 ““ Gyratory ”’ system, 114 
 
 AMPTON Court, 
 treatment, I59 © 
 Hansa league, 36 
 Harmonising old and new, 186 
 Harrison, houses of willow, 136 
 Hastings, winding roads, 80 
 Haussmann, reconstruction of Paris, 
 
 formal 
 
 52 
 Hemicycle, Nancy, 57 
 ee E., “‘ a many storied street,” 
 
 Heatet the Third’s marriage, 33 
 Heré, architect, 57 
 Herodes Atticus, his liberality, 2 
 
 240 
 
INDEX 
 
 Hill-top defences, 4 
 
 Hindu civilisation, rules having 
 symbolic significance, 204 
 
 Historical aspect, 98 
 
 Holconii as benefactors, 23 
 
 Housing, good, bad and indifferent, 
 
 99 
 
 Howard, Ebenezer, advocate of the 
 Garden City, 90 
 
 Hut circles, 5 
 
 Hygiene, 100 
 
 Imaginative work limited in any 
 age, 188 
 Impressions of a large town, 191 
 India, a typical northern city in, 201 
 Indian trader combines store and 
 dwelling, 202 
 India, plague in, 135 
 India, town planning work, 201 
 Industrial age, 65 
 Industrial areas, planning of, 127 
 Industrial organisations, 121 
 Industry and commerce, 98 
 Inigo Jones, 59 
 Inland ports, 115 
 Irving’s, Washington, ‘‘ Sketch 
 Book,” 76 
 
 I DEAL cities, 49 
 
 “VF ARDIN Anglais,” 81 
 * Joy cities,”’ 149 
 
 AHUN, workers’ colony in 
 Kk Egypt, 9 
 
 Karachi, 200 
 Karel Capek, East London, 67 
 Karlsruhe, 57 
 Kensington Gardens, formal treat- 
 ment, 159 
 ** King’s town upon Hull,” 43 
 
 AKE village, 4 
 
 Lamp standards, 174 
 Land registration 
 Zealand, 199 
 
 Land values, 101 
 
 Large houses rented piecemeal, 140 
 
 Leeds, wide parklands, 161 
 
 Leicester, 39 
 
 L’Enfant, Washington, 55 
 
 Le Notre, Versailles, 52 
 
 in New 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, double system 
 of routes, 50 
 
 Letchworth, go 
 
 Leverhulme, Lord, 72 
 
 Lex Adickes, 208 
 
 Lincoln, 39 
 
 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 59 
 
 Liverpool, obsolete dock, 128 
 
 Logic of function, 232 
 
 London, 39 
 
 London, road plan of, 109 
 
 London squares, 59 
 
 London, wooden construction, 138 
 
 Los Angeles, zoning ordinance in 
 1909, 123 
 
 Louis XIV., remodellings of Paris, 
 52 
 
 Lucca, 25 
 
 Lucknow industrial planning, 128 
 
 ACADAM, 108 
 Madras, 200 
 Manchester, regulations, 124 
 Manchester, ship canal, 115 
 Mannheim, 57 
 Mattocks on “‘ Town Trees,” 165 
 Mediterranean coast cities, 9 
 Melbourne, 197 
 Mexico, 13 
 Michael Angelo, 48 
 Middle Ages, the city structure, 28 
 Middle Ages, the combination of 
 functions, 152 
 Middleton, Imperial era in Rome, 19 
 Midland Re-afforesting Association, 
 162 
 Military exigencies, 29 
 Minos, 28 
 Montpazier, 32 
 Motor transport, doubled capacity 
 of streets, 113 
 Mounds resulting from mining, 132 
 Municipal control, 222 
 
 Nz. Place de la Carriére, 
 57 
 
 Nancy, Place Stanislas, 57 
 
 Nancy, the hemicycle, 51 
 
 Napoleon I., 52 
 
 Napoleon III., 52 
 
 Nash and Regent Street, 60 
 
 National Trust, 158 
 
 Naturalistic designs, 78 
 
 Nature reserves, 146, 164 
 
 Neolithic tracks, 106 
 
 241 s 
 
7 INDEX 
 
 Nero, reform in construction, 20 
 
 Netherlands canals, 115 
 
 Newcastle, 30 
 
 New York, 225 
 
 New York, zoning ordinance in 1916, 
 123 
 
 Norman builders, 43 
 
 Northumberland Avenue, 183 
 
 BLIQUE alignment, 127 
 Old Sarum, 44 
 “ One-way ” routes, 114 
 Open ports, 129 
 abbe eG of industry subdivided, 
 12 
 Orvieto, 10 
 Overhead railway lines, 117 
 Owen, Robert, 68 
 Oxford Circus, 
 angles, 184 
 
 AGAN tombs, 11 
 Presisine Hill, 21 
 Palladio, employment of detail 
 from, 139 
 Palma Nuova, ideal city plan, 49 
 Palmyra, 25, 27 
 Panama, ship canal, 115 
 Parasitic character of the city, 
 220 
 Parks and gardens, area for, 164 
 Parliament Square, 172 
 Passenger traffic underground, 
 goods on the surface, 227 
 Pelasgic towns, 10 
 Perret de Chambéry, ideal city plan, 
 
 four truncated 
 
 49 
 Perugia, 10 
 Petit Trianon, Versailles, simulated 
 rusticity, 81 
 Pheenicians, 16 
 Physique in occupations, 100 
 Piazza della Signoria at Florence, 
 
 4 
 
 Piazza del Popolo, Rome, 49 
 
 Piccadilly Circus, congested point, 
 11 
 
 prec rectangular planning, 14 
 
 Pittsburg civic centre; 154 
 
 Place de la Concorde, 52 
 
 Place Royale, 51 
 
 Plague camps, 201 
 
 Planting pit mounds, 162 
 
 Playing fields, 147 
 
 Pliny, 22 
 
 Policeman on traffic duty, cost of, 
 114 
 
 Pompeii, 20 
 
 Pope Nicholas V., remodelling of 
 the Vatican, 48 
 
 Porsena, 28 
 
 Port Sunlight, 69, 72 
 
 Port Sunlight club group, 156 
 
 Port Sunlight, road next railway, 117 
 
 Post-Roman times, 27 
 
 Preneste, 21 
 
 Priene, rectangular planning, 14 
 
 Proportions of streets, 183 
 
 Protected communications, 226 
 
 Public buildings overshadowed by 
 commerce, 234 
 
 OO ground, use of, 
 13% 
 
 AILWAY era, reduction in 
 main roads, 192 
 
 Railways, lack of a co-ordi- 
 
 nating authority, 117 
 
 Rangoon, 200 
 
 Recreation grounds, 146 
 
 Rectangular plan, the elementary 
 scheme, 6 
 
 Regent’s Canal, 116 
 
 Regent Street, 183 
 
 Regent’s Park, the 
 treatment, 159 
 
 Regional and local roads, 111 
 
 Regional studies, 103 
 
 Renaissance, 48 
 
 Reorganising our cities, 92 
 
 Republican Rome, abandonment of 
 hill sites, 15 
 
 Restriction on heights, 225 
 
 Revivals in the arts, 233 
 
 Rhine ports, 116 
 
 Richard I., regulations, 136 
 
 Ringstrasse at Vienna, 54 
 
 River traffic, 43 
 
 Road service wv. railway facilities, 110 
 
 Road surfacing, 108 :. 
 
 Road systems under town planning, 
 109 
 
 Roman colonisations, 32 
 
 Roman gods, temples of the, 17 
 
 Roman harbours, 17 
 
 Roman practice as to roads, 106 
 
 “Romantic ”’ school, 76 
 
 surrounding 
 
 242 
 
INDEX 
 
 Rome, origin in three villages, 12 
 Royal hunting parks, 158 
 Ruskin, 232 
 
 149 
 
 St. James’s Park, naturalistic 
 treatment, 159 
 
 St. Louis civic centre, 154 
 
 St. Louis of France, 32 
 
 Salisbury, 36 
 
 Salt, Titus, village for workers, 68 
 
 San Francisco exhibition, 150 
 
 “* Satellite ’ towns,” 142 
 
 Sauveterre, 32 
 
 Scale in towns, 178 
 
 Scamozzi, ideal city plan, 49 
 
 Scandinavian countries, the present 
 attitude, 208 
 
 Science of city construction, 230 
 
 Scottish ideal, tenement blocks, 141 
 
 Segregation, where a mixed popula- 
 tion, 205 
 
 Selinus, rectangular planning, 14 
 
 Servius, wall of, 21 
 
 Shaw, G. B., his anticipations, 223 
 
 Sitté, Camillo, of Vienna, 81, 209 
 
 ** Slum improvement,” 92 
 
 Social centres, 155 
 
 Social hygiene, 87 
 
 South Africa, 196 
 
 South Wales, 74 
 
 Statues and monuments, plethora 
 of, 172 
 
 Street lighting, 176 
 
 Suez Canal, 115 
 
 Surrey Canal, 116 
 
 Surrey commons, cut up by rail- 
 ways, 116 
 
 Sweden in a foremost place, 206 
 
 Sydney, 196 
 
 ANKS and channels in Indian 
 towns, 203 
 Tarquin, 28 
 
 Telford, 108 
 Temporary decorations, 176 
 Terminal features, 53 
 Termini, neglect of, 118 
 Terramare, 12 
 Teutonic countries, 
 attitude, 208 
 Teutonic peoples, 27 
 Therme at Rome, 21 
 Thirty Years’ War, 56 
 
 SG: BARTHOLOMEW’S fair, 
 
 the present 
 
 Timgad, in Algeria, 25, 27 
 
 Tokyo, canals, 214 
 
 Tokyo, destroyed by earthquake and 
 firey 203 
 
 Tokyo, public open spaces, 214 
 
 ‘Topography of the town, 97 
 
 ‘Towns operate parasitically, 88 
 
 Town Planning Act of 1909 and 
 zoning, 123 
 
 Town walls, 30 
 
 Tradition, 185 
 
 Trajan, 21 
 
 Transit must be convenient and 
 economical, 122 
 
 Trees for town planting, 165 
 
 Tropical town planning, a separate 
 study, 205 
 
 Tudor dynasty, 45 
 
 Tunbridge Wells, 46 
 
 Turin, 25, 27 
 
 “Turnpike ”’ roads, 108 
 
 Two-level traffic routes, 228 
 
 N cal R GROUND transit, 
 22 
 “* Unearned increment,” 222 
 United States, latitude as to build- 
 ings, 55 
 University, position of, 154 
 Unwin, Raymond, 209 
 “ Utilitarian ”’ planning, 69 
 Utilitarian plans, 47 
 
 ANCOUVER, 196 
 Vauxhall Gardens, 148 
 Venice, 13, 50, I15 
 Vested Base taken into account, 
 22, 
 Victoria, congested point, 114 
 Viterbo, 10 
 Vitruvius, 16 
 Volterra, 10 
 
 ANDLE, preservation of 
 river banks, 162 
 Washington, L’Enfant’s 
 plan, 55 
 
 Water effects, 174 
 
 Water frontages, 127 
 
 Wellington, N.Z., 198 
 
 Wells, 36 
 
 Wells, H. G., his anticipations, 223 
 
 Welwyn, 90 
 
 West end, reasons for, 63 
 
 243 
 
INDEX 
 
 Wimbledon, winding roads, 80 ORK, 39 
 Winchelsea, 44 Young children, playgrounds 
 Winchester, 36 for, 148 
 
 Wood, architect of Bath, 60 
 Wren, St. Martin’s, Ludgate Hill, 
 
 173 ONING principles, 120 
 Wren’s plan for rebuilding London, 
 58 
 
 The Whitefriars Press, Ltd., 
 London and Tonbridge 
 
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