Full text of "The Urban Pattern City Planning And Design"

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III

EMERGING FROM THE CAVE

The URBAN

PATTERN

CITY PLANNING

AND DESIGN

SECOND
EDITION

ARTHUR B. GALLION

AN D

SIMON EISNER

CHAPTER TITLE SKETCHES BY
ANTHONY STONER

D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC.

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
NEW YORK

TORONTO

LONDON

D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC.

120 Alexander St., Princeton, New Jersey (Principal office)

24 West 40 Street, New York 18, New York

D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, LTD.
358, Kensington High Street, London, W.14, England

D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY (Canada), LTD.
25 Hollinger Road, Toronto 16, Canada

Published simultaneously in Canada by
D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY (Canada), LTD.

No reproduction in any form of this book, in whole or in
part (except for brief quotation in critical articles or reviews),
may be made without written authorization from the publishers.

DEDICATED
TO THE
FUTURE

GENERATION

// you can look into the seeds of time,

and say which grain will grow and which will not,

speak then to me.

William Shakespeare

PREFACE

With the same basic philosophy so well received in the first edition, this second
edition gives new and added emphasis to the planning function. The revisions are
highlighted with an excellent selection of new photographs, and the new census figures
are reflected in the presentation. The material in the second edition is considerably
more concise and consolidated. New chapters include such important topics as urban
renewal and development, new towns, and urban planning as a government function.

Features

1. A wealth of carefully chosen illustrations with extensive and informative captions.

2. A text arrangement that is flexible and adaptable to various academic levels.

3. Arrangement of the book into parts in a manner that permits individual subject
treatment.

4. Wide scope and applicability to a variety of fields as a text or reference work.

5. Discussion of contemporary trends in city planning, both in general and in the
most important details, with desirable patterns indicated.

Although designed to serve as a text and reference book for the student of city
growth and planning, the book will also be of special value to professionals. Because
of its special chapter and section arrangement, it may be used in a variety of courses
in allied fields. It will serve to systematize instruction in the planning field given
through departments of architecture, civil engineering, business administration, polit-
ical science, economics, sociology, and geography. Prerequisites vary according to
the level for which the book is used.

The authors are indebted to the many who have contributed to the rich sources of
information and ideas upon which this book has drawn. We record our sincere grati-
tude to those who have been quoted and to those from whom illustrations have been
obtained.

ARTHUR B. GALLION
SIMON EISNER

VII

CONTENTS

PART I
THE CITY OF THE PAST

CHAPTER 1 THE DAWN OF URBANIZATION 3

From Cave to Village Political Formation Evolution of Physical Form Cities of Ancient Lands

CHAPTER 2 THE CLASSIC CITY 12

Government by Law The Democracy of Athens The Humble City Hippodamus Public Space

The Size of Cities The Dwellings Decline of the City The Hellenistic City Roman Prowess
Monuments and Diversion Slums and Decay

CHAPTER 3 THE MEDIEVAL TOWN 33

Out of the Dark Ages Castle, Church and Guild The Picturesque Town Medieval Dwellings
Medieval Institutions

CHAPTER 4 THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 40

Mercantilism and Concentration Congestion and Slums Gunpowder The Renaissance Monarchy
and Monumentalism The Baroque City Behind the Facades Colonial Expansion-America
From Radials to Gridiron

PART II
THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

CHAPTER 5 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 63

Handcraft to Machines Transportation Communications Public Health and Safety The Factory
Town The Utopians The Model Towns Horizon of Improvement Movement to the Cities The
Spiral of Land Values

CHAPTER 6 THE CITY OF CONTRASTS 79

Last of the Baroque Mid-Victorian Mediocrity The City Beautiful The City of Commerce The
Need for Regulation Zoning Extension of Public Services

CHAPTER 7 THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT 91

Patrick Geddes The Garden City The Common Denominator England The Satellite Garden Town

Sweden France Germany Holland Russia Italy Austria Switzerland

CHAPTER 8 TRANSITION 116

The Speculative Instinct Land Subdivision The Suburban Community The Mobile Population
World War I The Garden Apartment Henry Wright Radburn Housing-An Investment

CHAPTER 9 ISSUES IN FOCUS 137

The Great Depression Inventory "Priming The Pump" Experiments Slum Clearance Begins
The United States Housing Act Meeting the Need The Planning Dilemma War Begins a New
Decade

PART III
THE PLANNING PROCESS

CHAPTER 10 THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 165

Vn Age of Urban Anarchy When Official Planning Began The Police Power Zoning: The First
Step Changing Interpretation of the Law The Public Welfare Zoning and Community Character
- Enabling Legislation for Planning Transition Esthetic Standards Planning as a Government
Function The Planning Consultant The Citizen's Role

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER 11 THE GENERAL PLAN 185

A Comprehensive Plan is Needed Purpose of the Plan The Plan is a Process The Plan for
Land Use The Plan for Circulation Inventory of the Physical Structure Inventory and Classification
of Land Use Inventory of Social and Economic Factors Changing Character of Cities The Plan
is Teamwork Platitudes

,'CHAPTER 12 THE ZONING PLAN 203

The Precise Plans Zoning Defined Zoning Procedures Zoning Districts Height and Bulk
Flexible Zoning Off-Street Parking Some Conventional Deficiencies

PART IV
THE CITY TODAY

CHAPTER 13 SUBDIVISION OF LAND 227

The Use of Land Private Property in Land Land Subdivision and Speculation Escape! People
Need Cities Subdivision Regulations Subdivision Procedure Modern Subdivision Trends Planned
Development: The Community Unit Density Control

CHAPTER 14 THE NEIGHBORHOOD UNIT 250

A Unit of Urban Design The Neighborhood Unit Defined Open Space Neighborhood Recreation
Urban Conservation Schools The Neighborhood Is People

CHAPTER 15 COMMERCIAL CENTERS .... 265

The New Market Places Overzoning Parking Shopping Centers Downtown The Mall

CHAPTER 16 THE CIRCULATION SYSTEM 284

Channels of Movement Traffic Engineering: A Palliative A Place to Walk The RighL-of-Way
Street Design The Regional System The Freeway 'The Traffic Lane The Interstate Highway
Movement of People and Goods Terminal Space: Off-Street Parking Railroads The Third
Dimension Integration or Disintegration

PART V
NEW HORIZONS

CHAPTER 17 REBUILDING OUR CITIES 311

The Penalty for Neglect The Housing Act of 3949 Urban Renewal "Predominately Housing"-
The Workable Program To Sell or Lease Control of Obsolescence Taxation in Rcver.sc -Control of
Obsolescence Renewal Is for People

CHAPTER 18 THE NEW TOWNS 332

British Planning Policy Compensation and Betterment The London Rogion - - The New Towns
Variations of the Theme Chandigarh and Brasilia

CHAPTER 19 THE NEW UTOPIANS 357

The Search for Space The Search for Form The Density Equation On Common Ground

CHAPTER 20 METAMORPHOSIS 377

Symbols of Purpose Eclecticism Cities are Dated Symmetry or Freedom? Now Dimensions
The Penetration of Space The Habit of Congestion The Cultural Vacuum Unity of Purpose

BIBLIOGRAPHY 401

INDEX 425

PART I

THE CITY
OF THE PAST

The People, Yes,

Out of what is their change

from chaos to order

and chaos again?

Carl Sandburg

CHAPTER 1

THE DAWN
OF URBANIZATION

From Cave to Village. When Paleolithic man moved from his cave into the shelters
he constructed of boughs and leaves, he was making the first step toward urbanization.
Then Neolithic man cultivated plants, domesticated animals, and introduced agricul-
ture. He created possessions in the form of crops, animals, and tools, and possessions
bred rivalry, which in turn brought the need for protection. Families collected into
friendly groups and formed villages in which the agrarian population enjoyed the ad-
vantages of mutual protection. The villages were located on sites offering the natural
protection of elevated terrain, islands, peninsulas, or they were surrounded with bar-
ricades and moats. One of the earliest known villages was built upon piles in a Swiss
lake.

Man was a gregarious being. He sought the companionship of his fellowmen and
devised group entertainment and sports. The stronghold of the village became an appro-
priate sanctuary for the altar of his deity. It provided a place for worship, a meeting
place for assembly, and a center for trade. The environment became popular, and
urbanization had begun.

Political Formation. The village brought something new to the lives of primitive
man. It introduced the necessity for mutual responsibility and co-operation. There
were various interests common to all the inhabitants, and they were merged into a form
of society, a social and political organization.

Man did not adjust himself with the utmost grace to the self-discipline that this
responsibility imposed upon him. He retained his primitive instincts for self-preserva-
tion and superstition. Personal rivalry flared within the village, and the most powerful
assumed the role of tribal leadership, maintaining communal order with the aid of the
cudgel. Rivalry spread between villages, armed conflict ensued, and the barricades
were transformed into fortified walls. Several villages came under the domination of
the victorious tribe, and its leader rose to a position of ruler. In time, empires were
created, and rulers took the titles of king and emperor.

Society has been forged in the crucible of natural forces. Being a natural entity
himself, man has inflicted upon himself many of the evils and hardships he has suf-
fered. He has faced the necessity to improve economic security, correct social mal-

4 THE CITY OF THE PAST

adjustments, discard mass superstitions, or resist seizure of power by autocrats bent
upon personal glory and self-aggrandizement. The conflicts have occurred with varying
degrees of pressure upon humankind and under a variety of circumstances.

Evolution of Physical Form. Evolving from these conflicts the development of
cities has marked the culture of a people. Sensitive to the surge between oppression
and justice, the physical form of cities has been shaped by the economic, social and
political forces of society. The degree to which freedom or slavery has dominated the
lives of men, the manner in which war has been waged, the instruments of destruction
and defense, the tools for peaceful pursuits and the way they have been used, the con-
sideration, neglect, or disdain men have shown their fellowmen, all account for the
kind of cities Man has built for himself, and their effect on urban development may
guide us in charting our future enterprise in city building.

Historians have attempted to isolate and codify the variations in the patterns of
cities. However, their development almost precludes such classification. Adjectives
like organic and inorganic, irregular and geometrical, magical and mystical, formal
and informal, medieval and classic, are often so obtuse they obscure rather than clarify
the distinctions, or they describe a form without the substance. The primary distinction
in the pattern of cities is marked by the transitions from a slave to a mercantile econ-
omy and from slingshot to gunpowder warfare.

Two basic forms are discernible: the walled town and the open city. Within these
basic forms a wide variety of patterns has been woven, each color and design shaped
by the character of society at the time.

Few cities in which great cultures thrived began with a plan. They developed by a
process of accretion the growth was irregular in form, sensitive to changes in the
habits of people, and dynamic in character. They began as free cities which men set-
tled by voluntary choice. Geometrical form was introduced according to the manner in
which the land was apportioned among the inhabitants. Colonial cities founded by
great states were given a formal pattern predetermined by a ruling authority. Privi-
leged landowners platted their land for allocation to settlers, the plots being generally
regular in form, almost static in character.

Within these various patterns we may find similar social, economic, and political
habits and customs. Neither the presence nor the absence of geometrical form has
affixed itself upon a people or a period as a conclusive expression of society. It is
rather the manner in which the forms have been manipulated and the purpose for
which they have been devised that give significance to the physical patterns of cities.

With the ebb and flow of civilization the irregular and geometrical patterns have
been grafted one upon the other. Villages which grew into cities because of geo-
graphic, economic, or social advantages may show evidence of geometrical forms
superimposed upon an irregular pattern, or an informal system may have been
grafted upon a city having an original pattern of gridiron streets. Cities have been
subjected to the process of continuous remodeling through the ages, and the variety of
forms is the result of forces which dominated during the successive periods of their

THE DAWN OF URBANIZATION 5

history. We find the motives of city builders, from emperors to subdividers, reflected
in the designs they have stamped upon the city.

We have been accustomed to measuring a civilization by the monuments it produced.
Certain cultural characteristics are revealed by these structures, but it is not enough to
observe the monuments alone. The city is not the palace, the temple, or a collection of
art objects. If we are to discern the characteristics of a civilization, we cannot confine
our attention to the rulers; we must observe the affairs of the people. The city means
the whole people who inhabit it, the entire collection of the houses the people live in,
the shops in which they work, the streets they traverse, and the places in which they
trade. To separate the palace from the dwellings of the populace is like removing
a phrase from its context. When the palace is related to the lives of the people, it
may provide quite a different interpretation than when it is observed as an isolated
monument.

More than the great structures that impress us, it is the dwellings of the people that
mark the culture of cities. Civilization is not measured by inventions alone; it is meas-
ured rather by the extent to which the people share the benefits these inventions make
possible. Progress is not gauged by comparison of an aboriginal village with a modern
city; it is more accurately appraised by the degree to which the people have partici-
pated in the advantages of each. Standards and quality are relative, and it is the con-
trast between the environment of the privileged and that of the poor which provides the
yardstick of the freedom and happiness enjoyed by the people in any period.

History reveals a lag between moments of great social ideals and the structures that
reflect them. Institutions of social and political justice or oppression gather a mo-
mentum which carries beyond their zenith. The substance of these institutions, the free-
dom they have nurtured or denied, may have altered or vanished by the time the physical
structure of the urban environment they engendered is finally completed. Frequently,
the powerful human forces which produced a city have begun to change or disappear
before the physical form of the city has modified. An environment which emerged from
a society of high ideals may then become the dramatic scene of decline. The city form
may remain after the substance of the society has vanished or been replaced.

Stability, in the sense of a sameness of human conduct, a status quo of human institu-
tions, has not long endured. Humanity must continuously have new cultural food upon
which to nourish, or it decays. Civilization has not remained static for any protracted
period /During periods in history when the social and political institutions were molded
to the welfare of the people they provided the very climate of freedom in which the
baser instincts of humanity could forge and wield the tools of oppression, inequality,
and injustice. Unless this tide was stemmed, civilization turned in the direction of
decline. We observe these trends in ancient cities, in medieval cities of the Middle Ages,
in the Baroque Period, and there is evidence of their presence in our cities today.

Cities of Ancient Lands. Early civilization spread along the fertile valleys of the
Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus Rivers where food, water, and transportation were
at hand. A series of great and small empires rose, waged wars, and fell. Supremacy

6 THE CITY OF THE PAST

shifted from one kingdom to another, each adding its contribution to the evolution of
the civilized world, but one characteristic was shared in common by all these civiliza-
tions. Moved by mystic superstition, the people were slaves of the ruling class, and
they bowed before the reigning king as before a deity. All possessions of the kingdom,
the land, and its benefits were subject to the will of the ruling monarch and his
appointed emissaries*

In Egypt the lives of the people were dedicated to the Pharaoh. The towns they built
in the third millennium B.C. were erected upon his order. They housed the slaves and
artisans engaged in building the great pyramids the royal tombs of kings and nobles.
Like huge barracks the cells and compartments of sun-dried bricks were crowded about
common courtyards. Narrow lanes served as open drainage sewers as well as passage-
ways to the dwellings. Walls surrounded the towns. Because the kingdom was broad
and mighty, they were probably built primarily for protection from seasonal floods
rather than the armies of invading enemies.

Concurrent with the Pyramid Period of Egypt permanent towns of burned brick
were built along the Indus Valley. In Mohenjo-Daro and Harrapa the streets were
arranged in a regular pattern and, as in Egypt, the dwellings were compactly built
about interior courts. The heights of buildings were established in proportion to the
width of streets, one and two stories predominating. Sanitation was of a relatively
high order; a system of underground sewers extended about the towns, and there is
evidence that disposal lines were connected to the dwellings. But all trace of the civili-
zation that produced these cities has apparently vanished, and it remains a matter of
conjecture whether the peoples who occupied them influenced the city building of the
Near East in subsequent centuries.

In the second millennium B.C. Egyptian kings built great temple cities on the banks of
the Nile. Monumental avenues, colossal temple plazas, and rock-cut tombs remain as
mute testimony to the luxurious life of kings and nobles in Memphis, Thebes, and
Tel-el-Amarna, but few snatches of recorded history describe the city of the people.
Time and the elements have washed away the clay huts and tenements in which the
people dwelled. The dramatic Avenue of the Sphinxes in Thebes and the broad temple
enclosure, one-third mile wide and one-half mile long, in Tel-el-Amarna tell a vivid
story of powerful autocrats, while historians piece together fragmentary remains of
the homes of people and conclude that slums spread about the towns.

A series of empires rose in Mesopotamia, and humble villages along the valley of
the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers became monumental cities of the kings. Each was
heavily fortified to resist the siege of many enemies. The stately palace-temple
dominated the city, and the people lived their urban existence in the shadows of slavery
and superstitious religion. Economic hardship added to the burden of the masses.
According to Bemis and Burchard a skilled artisan in ancient Sumeria could obtain
housing for 5 or 6 per cent of his income, but the poorest dwellings cost unskilled
workers as much as 30 and 40 per cent of their subsistence allowance. 1

1 The Evolving House, Volume I, A History of the Home, Bemis and Burchard, 1933-36.

EGYPTIAN
HOUSE

KAHUN

The city of Kahun, Egypt, dating from about 3000 B.C. and built for the slaves and artisans assigned for work
on the Illahun pyramid, was hardly more than an assembly of cells arranged in rectangular blocks to which
narrow allevs g*ve access. The apparent difference in the size of these cells indicates a distinction in class
among the inhabitants, the more commodious dwellings occupying the upper-right quarter of the town.

Time and the ravages of weather have washed away the clay villages, and little is known of the average
dwelling of the Egyptian. Deductions from sparse records indicate that the simplest dwelling was a single cell
of sun-dried bricks and plaster covered with a roof of reeds. The city dwelling, such as the humble houses in
Kahun, was probably a group of small rooms surrounding a diminutive courtyard in which the cooking and
other domestic activities were performed. This court may have been used as a work area for the craftsmen.

The climate was favorable to outdoor living, and stairs led to the roof which was the most desirable space
for living and sleeping. In the finer houses of the noblemen, these roof areas were apparently developed with
gardens, lavishly furnished and covered with awnings.

A ventilating device, known as the "mulguf," was installed on the roof to provide some degree of cooling
for the interior rooms. Probably olive oil lamps provided light, and such heat as was necessary was obtained
from charcoal braziers. While sun-dried brick was the principal material with which the towns were built, the
Egyptians, being fine masons, probably constructed the dwellings of nobles with stone and plaster.

A Monastery
B Bath

MOHENJO-DARO

Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro in the
Indus Valley have revealed the re-
mains of a large city built about
3000 B.C. It is apparent that a rela-
tively advanced civilization flour-
ished in this city. Houses ranged in
size from two rooms to mansions with
numerous rooms. The map shows the
archeologists' assumption lhat a
major street ran in the north-south
(First Street) and east -west (East
Street) directions. Areas shown in
black have been excavated and indi-
cate the intricate plan of narrow
roads. Buildings were of masonry,
streets were paved, and considerable
evidence of sewer drainage from
dwellings has been uncovered. The
principal buildings excavated are a
public bath and a monastery.

o ' FEET soo

KING SOLOMON'S TEMPLE AND CITADEL, JERUSALEM, c. 900 B.C.

The splendor of the temples and palaces of the kings in contrast to the congested dwellings of the populace.
(Restoration by Dr. John Wesley Kelchner)

BABYLON

Gate

B Temple
C Hanging Gardens
D Ancient Street System
E Fortress

In the sixth century B.C. Babylon was a large city spanning the Euphrates River. Surrounded by great walls and a
moat, it was a monumental city of kings the processional avenue leading to the magnificent Ishtar Gate, the
Temple, and the Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar's Palace. When Babylon was but a village, the streets were
probably irregular; as il grew into a flourishing city, the avenues were laid with a more regular form as described
iy Herodotus. At that time the palatial monuments were built and the dwellings increased in height and crowding.

REGIONAL PLANNING IN ANCIENT TIMES

While in captivity in the sixth century B.C., the Israelites planned their
return to Jerusalem and Ezekiel described in his book (Ezekiel 25:45) the
plans desired by God for the allocation and use of the land upon their
return. Within their land, from Dan to Beersheba, an area of 10,000 by
25,000 reeds (18 by 45 miles) was to be set aside for the priesthood and
within it was to be the sanctuary of worship. An area 5,000 by 25,000 reeds
(9 by 45 miles) was to be set aside for the people of the city. The land on
both sides of these areas was reserved as princely lands.

There was no indication of the precise location of the boundaries and
it is probable that Ezekiel understood God's wishes were directed more to
the area of land needed for the production and distribution of abundant
goods than the exact location surrounding the city of Jerusalem. Perhaps
the amount of land allocated to production for the people of the city was
less than that for the priests since Jerusalem was a crossroads for trade
routes and the people derived considerable wealth from the resulting com-
mercial enterprise in which they were engaged. The princely lands sup-
ported the kings who maintained residences on the Mediterranean and the
Dead Sea as well as Jerusalem. The land described by Ezekiel lies within
the area we identify today as Judea.

A Lands -for City People B Lands for Priests C Lands for Princes

THE CITY OF THE PAST

Seeking to improve the lot of the common people, the great King Hammurabi, in
2100 B.C., codified his laws of justice. In Old Babylon we observe the dawn of building
regulations. The codes of Hammurabi meted harsh punishment to irresponsible
builders. According to the king's decree, if the wall of a building should fall and kill
the son of the occupant, the life of the builder's son would be sacrificed the doctrine
of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

Out of the slums of thriving imperial cities were carved triumphal avenues con-
necting magnificent city gates. King Sennacherib built his temples and palaces in
seventh-century Nineveh. The processional avenues, great walls, monumental gates,
and hanging gardens of Nebuchadnezzar's palace were the vivid spectacle of Babylon
in the sixth and fifth centuries described by Herodotus. This Greek historian also told
of the narrow streets lined with the three- and four-story dwellings of the populace.
Behind the avenues, laid in regular pattern at right angles to each other, were the
crowded houses of the people. Of more concern to the vanity of rulers was the monu-
mental spectacle of the great edifices with which they adorned their cities.

Perhaps the physical environment of the home did not weigh heavily upon the people
in ancient times. Undoubtedly a beneficent desert climate cleansed the insanitary sur-
roundings in these southern lands. But, human nature being what it is, we can reason-
ably suspect that the violent contrasts in social caste, the servitude in which the multi-
tude languished, and the restriction from participation in public affairs were as
responsible for tfre continuous wars, revolts, and conquests, as the insatiable appetites
of kings for power.

A more enlightened society appears to have been cultivated in the islands of the
Aegean Sea. Kings reigned over city-states, but these rulers were apparently not
accorded the distinction of deification as in eastern lands. In contrast to the austere
detachment of royal palaces in Mesopotamia, the palace served as a center of com-
munity life in Aegean culture. On the island of Crete the town sites offered natural
protection. Ancient cities, like Knossus, were not surrounded by walls. The people
enjoyed free access to the sea and entered into trade with other lands. On the mainland
of Greece, however, cities needed the protection of ramparts; the cities of Tiryns and
Mycenae were heavily fortified.

These early cities of the Aegean were irregular in form. Meandering streets fol-
lowed the rugged topography of the sites. The streets were narrow lanes but they were
paved with stone. Excavations have revealed highly developed systems of water supply,
sanitation, and drainage for the palace and many of the houses. Most dwellings were
one-story in height and, although densely built, the towns did not reach the great size
and congestion which were apparent in cities of the Near East.

A Palace

B Public Square

PALAIKASTRO

100

In the cities of Aegean culture the palace of
the king appears to have been an integral part
of the town life. Broad steps lead to an open
court which was probably a place of assembly
and entertainment.

Built upon rugged hill sites, the streets
were irregular and narrow. Towns in Crete
were not surrounded by walls since their loca-
tion on an island afforded adequate protec-
tion. On the mainland of Greece, however, the
early cities were walled.

Dwellings in the ancient Aegean cities
comprised a few small rooms about a living
room called the "megaron." This room opened
into a small light court, or a portion of the
ceiling itself was open. Rain water from the roof was collected in a cistern in this area. The poor houses wert
probably confined to the "megaron" and vestibule, with access to the roof for expansion of the living area. The
larger houses contained a number of rooms and courtyards. There is evidence of bathing facilities within some
of the better houses, and palaces of the Minoan period
were equipped with drains. One-story buildings pre-
vailed, the construction being mud brick on stone
foundations.

GOURN1A

B Bath

M Megaron

STREET

EARLY CRETAN HOUSE

CRETAN HOUSE, c. 2000 B.C.

CHAPTER 2

THE CLASSIC CITY

Government by Law. On the mainland of Greece the virile shepherds from the
north mingled with the Aegean peoples, merged with iheir city-states, and gradually
absorbed them within their culture. A wealthy landowning noble class rose in power,
and during the eighth century B.C. leaders from this group appropriated much of the
influence previously exercised by the kings. The palace citadel disappeared, and temples
dedicated to the gods of their religion replaced them upon the acropolis. The nobles
assumed the power of kings, dominated the cities, and brought oppression lo the peasant
class. Seeking relief in other lands, the peasant group opened new avenues of coloni-
zation and trade. A merchant middle class emerged. Feuds between this new economic
group and the city-dwelling nobles forced the selection of a common leader, and in the
seventh century the Tyrants of Athens came into power.

Although they were themselves of the noble class, the Tyrants maintained their
leadership by their support of the common people. Estates of the nobles were redistrib-
uted among the people, and a strong land-holding peasant class developed. Under the
successive leadership of Solon, Pisistratus and Clisthenes, the principle of law evolved
as a basis of social conduct, A new form was given to political organization of the com-
munity: a government of laws determined by the people.

During the fifth century B.C., with the inspired leadership of Pericles, democracy
and a high order of morality took root in Athenian citizenship. Political education
was extended by way of free speech and assembly. Magistrates were elected to execute
the laws, and public service was vested with dignity. Sovereignty of the people was
assured and protected by a body of laws to which all agreed and were subject. The
deep sense of individual responsibility was expressed in the vow of Athenian citizen-
ship:

I will not dishonor these sacred arms; I will not abandon my comrade in battle; I will fight for
my gods and my hearth single-handed or with my companions. I will not leave my country
smaller, but I will leave it greater and stronger than I received it. I will obey the commands
which the magistrates in their wisdom shall give me. I will submit to the existing laws and to

THE CLASSIC CITY 13

those that the people shall unanimously make; if anyone shall attempt to overthrow these laws or
disobey them, I will not suffer it, but will fight for them, whether single-handed or with my
fellows. I will respect the worship of my fathers.

The Democracy of Athens. Inspired by the political genius of Pericles the
democracy of Athens in the fifth century acquired a soul. It required wise citizen-
ship to retain this quality, and philosophers like Socrates strove to cultivate the
wisdom and intelligence. Although Socrates sometimes disapproved of the laws
and thought some of them bad, he insisted upon the obligation of the citizenry to
abide by them until they were revised. Esteem for the law was expressed in the
words of the great orator Demosthenes:

The whole life of men, whether they inhabit a great city or a small, is ordered by nature and
the laws. Whilst nature is lawless and varies with individuals, the laws are a common possession,
controlled, identical for all. . . . They desire the just, the beautiful, the useful. It is that which
they seek; once discovered it is that which is created into a principle equal for all and unvarying;
it is that which is called law.

Athenian democracy of the fifth century was described by Glotz 1

as the exercise of sovereignty by free and equal citizens under the aegis of law. The law, which
protects the citizens one against the other, defends also the rights of the individual against the
power of the State and the interests of the State against the excesses of individualism. Before
the last years of the fifth century there is no sign that liberty has degenerated into anarchy or
license, nor is the principle of equality carried so far as to entail the denial of the existence of
mental inequalities.

Democracy in the Age of Pericles produced that inherent dignity of the individual
born of free speech, a sense of unity with one's fellowman, and a full opportunity for
participation in affairs of the community. The Athenian citizen experienced the exhila-
ration of freedom and accepted the challenge of responsibility it thrust upon him with
honor and with pride. The discovery of freedom gave impetus to the search for truth
as honest men desire it. Philosophy was nurtured, and there were no depths which the
wise and intelligent were afraid to plumb. Reason was encouraged, logic invited, and
science investigated. There was no truth which might be discovered and remain undis-
closed. Inspired by this atmosphere it was no wonder great philosophy was born; only
in freedom can such greatness be cultivated, not freedom from care but freedom of
the spirit. This was the environment of culture which produced Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle.

The affinity between freedom and spiritual values was symbolized in the temples
built upon the acropolis. In them was reflected the exalted stature of democratic man.
Some four centuries later another philosopher, this one from Bethlehem, was to recreate
the spiritual values demonstrated by the Greeks at the height of their democracy.

The Humble City. During the early years when democracy was flowering, the
Greek city was a maze of wandering unpaved lanes lacking in drainage and sanitation.
Water was carried from local wells. Waste was disposed of in the streets. There were

1 The Greek City and Its Institutions, Guslave Glotz, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, Ltd., 1929.

Trantt World Airways

THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS

The temple rather than the palace of rulers
dominated the ancient Hellenic city and a meet-
ing place Cor political assembly of the people
the pnyx was added to the urban pattern. As the
power of kings diminished and democracy ex-
panded, the houses of the people and the com-
munity facilities established for their use assumed
greater importance in the city plan.

ANCIENT ATHENS

A Acropolis

B Agora

C Stoa

D Theseum

E Prytaneum

F Areopagus

G Pnyx

H Theater of Dionysus

FEET

2600

THE CLASSIC CITY 15

no palaces and, with the exception of the temples, public buildings were few and simple.
The common assembly place was the pnyx, an open-air podium where the citizens met
to consider affairs of state. The agora, or market place and center of urban activity,
was irregular in form. There was little distinction between the dwellings of the well-
to-do citizen and his less privileged fellowmen. The few rooms that comprised the
house were grouped about an interior court behind windowless fagades facing the
random streets. Most towns were surrounded by protective walls.

For the Greek citizen the temple was the symbol of his democratic way of life, the
equality of men. Upon the temples he lavished all his creative energies, and in them
we find a refinement of line and beauty of form that expressed the dignity and humility
of the Athenian. In later and less happy days Demosthenes reflected upon this period
of the fifth century. "These edifices," he said, "which their administrations have given
us, their decorations of our temples and the offerings deposited in them, are so
numerous that all efforts of posterity cannot exceed them. Then in private life, so
exemplary was their moderation, their adherence to the ancient manners so scrupu-
lously exact, that, if any of you discovered the house of Aristides or Miltiades, or any
of the illustrious men of those times, he must know that it was not distinguished by the
least extraordinary splendor." 2

Hippodamus. It was natural that an atmosphere of philosophy should impel a
search for order in the city. It was a topic that engaged the attention of teacher-
philosophers and politicians alike. In the latter part of the fifth century an architect
from Miletus, by the name of Hippodamus, advanced positive theories about the art
and science of city planning. He has been credited with the origination of the "grid-
iron" street system, although this is not entirely accurate. A semblance of geometrical
form had been present in early towns of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley,
and a formal rectangular pattern was used, in part, for rebuilding some Greek cities
after their destruction by the Persians in the sixth century. The gridiron pattern was
vigorously applied by Hippodamus to obtain a rational arrangement of buildings and
circulation.

The city plan was conceived as a design to serve all the people. The individual
dwelling was the common denominator. Blocks were shaped to provide appropriate
orientation for the dwellings within them. The functional uses of buildings and public
spaces were recognized in the arrangement of streets. They provided for the circula-
tion of people and vehicles without interference with the orientation of dwellings or
the assembly of people in the market place.

Superimposing the rigid geometrical form of the Hippodamian street system upon
the rugged topography of the sites occupied by most Greek cities created numerous
streets so steep they could be negotiated only with steps. Since the movement of people
was almost entirely on foot, this did not present the problem we might assume today
although there were probably some puffing Grecians who reached the top of a long
climb to attend a political meeting in the assembly hall. The principal traffic streets,

p. 302.

S T R E ET

GREEK HOUSE, FOURTH CENTURY

K Kitchen
M Megaron
L Living Room

A Atrium
S Shop

FEE

A Old Agora
B New Agora

OLYNTHUS

LATE GREEK HOUSE

The town of Olynthus conveys some idea of the transition in oily development during the laic fifth and early
fourth centuries in Greece. Excavations indicate a dual town; the earlier portion with an irregular layout of
streets, the complete plan not having been uncovered. An agora was situated here, and the remains of a
bouleuterion (assembly) have been found. The dwellings were small and irregular in form. This part of the city
may be the original plan occupied first by the Boeotians and later by the Chalcidians prior to the last quarter
of the fifth century when the city grow in importance as a Greek "polls." The flippodamian plan was probably
developed after this time, the principal streets Jaid in a north-south direction about 300 feet apart and connected
by east-west streets of narrow width some 129 feet apart. The city was raxed by Philip of Maeedou in 348 B.C.
and did not rise again.

The climate in Greece was more, rigorous than the countries we have previously observed. Protection from
heat, cold, and dampness was a more important factor. The house of early times was centered about the hearth
and contained a minimum number of rooms to heat. The hearth was situated in the. central room called the
"atrium." An opening in the roof permitted the smoke to escape and rain water from the sloping portion of
this roof was collected here. There is no indication of sanitary provisions or water supply other than that col-
lected in the atrium.

The Olynthus houses show the improvement -which developed in both interior arrangement and relation to
the street system. All dwellings were oriented uniformly, although the room arrangement varied somewhat. Tn
general the rooms of the dwellings opened into a courtyard and faced to the south. The north wall gave pro-
tection from winds. The principal southern exposure was advantageous in winter because of the low angle
of the sun which permitted it to penetrate the interiors; in summer the high altitude of the sun was a protection
from the extreme heat. It will be noted that this orientation was applied uniformly to all dwellings regardless
of the relation of the houses to the street. This rational treatment of planning was not again repeated until the
housing program in Europe following World "War I.

The later towns enjoyed paved streets and underground drains. The houses were generally two stories in
height and some were equipped with baths connected to the drainage system. The cistern was prevalent in most
houses and rain water was collected from the roof. The drainage system was apparently not intended for sewage
disposal and sanitation was continued with cesspools and portable latrines.

There is a remarkable similarity in the dwellings thus far excavated in Olynthus, the standards being fairly
uniform. Principal shopping was undoubtedly conducted in the agora, although there is evidence of small
individual shops connected to some of the dwellings. These may have been the workrooms of craftsmen as well
as market shops.

LJ
Ul

^k Plans of Olynthwt after Dr. David M. Robinton

OLYNTHUS Detail plan of shaded area in general plan on opposite page.

B Bath C Storage or Stable D Dining Room K Kitchen P Patio W Cistern S Shop

18 THE CITY OF THE PAST

however, were placed to allow the circulation of the few horse-drawn vehicles which
entered the town.

Public Space. The expanding affairs of government required appropriate facili-
ties. The agora, or market place, was the center of business and political life, and
about it were lined the shops and market booths. Accessible from the agora square, but
not facing upon it, were the assembly hall (ecclesiasteron) , council hall (bouleuterion) ,
and council chamber (prytaneum).

The agora was usually located in the approximate center of the town plan, with the
major east-west and north-south streets leading to it. It was designed to accommodate
all the citizens who would have business in the market place or attend public functions
in the adjacent public buildings. The open space enclosed by the agora occupied about
5 per cent of the city area, the dimensions being approximately one-fifth of the width
and breadth of the town itself.

The plan of the agora was geometrical in form. Square or rectangular open spaces
were surrounded by colonnaded porticoes sheltering the buildings about the square.
The plan was arranged to avoid interference between the movement of people across
the open space and those who assembled for trade and business in the market. Streets
generally terminated at the agora rather than crossing it, the open space being reserved
primarily for pedestrian traffic and circulation.

Common open space in Greek cities was largely confined to enclosure for public
buildings. Because the city was small in area, the city dweller was not far removed
from the open countryside about the town. Olive groves flourished outside the walls
and here the philosophers founded the academy and the lyceum. In these quiet groves
they met their pupils and set the pattern for later institutions of higher learning. From
these academies came the first university, the Museum of Alexandria.

Evidence of attention to building regulations is recorded in the chronicles of various
Athenian writers. There is reference to laws restricting buildings from encroachment
upon the streets and prohibitions against the projection of upper floors beyond the
first floor walls. These are forerunners of the present-day "rights-of-way." Windows
were not permitted to open directly upon the street, and water drains were not allowed
lo empty into the street. Though primitive when judged by the standards acceptable
today, the Greek towns demonstrated a conscious effort to improve the environment
for the whole people, the final test of genuine civic responsibility.

It was in the colonial cities founded by the city-states on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean that the planning theories of Hippodamus found their fullest expression. It is
recorded that Hippodamus himself planned Piraeus, the port city of Athens, as well as
Thurii and Rhodes. The old established cities were remodeled in parts, the agora
assuming a more orderly form as new buildings were erected for public affairs, but
the colonial cities had the benefit of planning prior to their settlement. Although they
were founded by a mother city-state, they enjoyed a degree of political autonomy,
becoming a part of the confederation of Greek cities which comprised the Athenian
"Empire."

THE CLASSIC CITY 19

The Size of Cities. Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries, had a citizen popula-
tion of some 40,000 and a total population of between 100,000 and 150,000 including
slaves and foreigners. Most Greek cities, however, were relatively small. Only about
three towns exceeded 10,000 persons during the thriving Hellenic Period. It was a
theory of Hippodamus that this was an appropriate size, and Plato later concluded it
should range between 5,000 and 10,000. In the settlement of colonial towns it was
customary to dispatch about 10,000 colonists from the mother city-state. The glorious
metropolis with its teeming millions is undoubtedly an exaggerated description of the
actual number of people who dwelt in urban communities in ancient times. The metrop-
olis, as we know it, is of comparatively recent origin.

A number of factors bore upon the size of a city and the population it could support.
The food and water supply was a primary consideration. The tools for cultivating the
soil, the means for transporting the products, and the source and methods for distribut-
ing the water supply established limits on the urban population which could be
accommodated in a single group. As long as people were dependent upon the primitive
hand plough, the horse-cart, and gravity flow of water, it was not feasible to gather
in great numbers and maintain adequate standards of urban hygiene. Hellenic towns
relied primarily on local watercourses, wells, and springs, but supplemental supply
was sometimes available through conduits from more remote sources in higher sur-
rounding hills.

The Dwellings. In their houses the Greeks sought quiet privacy. Most of the social
contacts and all business affairs were carried on outside the home. Small merchants
frequently had shops adjacent to their houses, but business and politics were generally
conducted in and adjacent to the agora. Sports and recreation were concentrated in
the gymnasium ; drama and festivals in the theater. Feasts and other celebrations sel-
dom occurred in the private dwelling. There was usually a small altar in the home,
but religious exercises and worship took place in the temples. Consequently, the house
was unpretentious in its appointments and, as has been previously mentioned, there
was little distinction between the dwellings in the town. A display of affluence was not
consistent with the tenets of democracy in the fifth century.

Early houses were enclosed about a central hearth. A hole in the roof allowed the
smoke to escape and it also permitted the collection of rain water in the cistern. In
late Hellenic towns sanitation was improved by the pavement of streets and installation
of underground drains from dwellings. The town maintained reservoirs, but there
was no distribution system. With the improvement of drainage, however, there was an
increasing number of homes with private baths. Disposal of sewage was apparently
not provided for, and the portable latrine and private cesspool continued in use. Terra-
cotta braziers supplemented the hearth as a source of heat in the larger houses.

Care in planning the dwelling was not less because of its simplicity. On the contrary,
as the center of family life, the proper arrangement of rooms in relation to the site
received attention from builders and philosophers alike.

The climate urged emphasis upon orientation of the dwelling. The maximum amount

PRIENE

A Agora

B Temple of Athene Polias

C Theater

D Stadium

These cities demonstrate the Hippodamian plan as it developed toward the end of the Hellenic Period. The
agora occupies the approximate geographical center of the town. About it are the temple shrines, public
buildings, and shops. The dwelling blocks are planned to provide the appropriate orientation of houses in a
manner similar to that shown at Olynthus. Recreation and entertainment facilities are provided in the gym-
nasium, stadium, and theater. The contours of the site indicate that some of the streets were very steep, steps
being frequently required, but the main streets connecting the gates and the agora were generally placed so
that beasts of burden and carts could traverse them readily.

MILETUS

A Agora

B Theater

C Stadium

D Port

an
ana

BBS

nnnn

Dnazannn
nnnnnnna
anneal

an
anna
nnna

THE AGORA OF PRIENE

A Market Place

B Temple of Athene Polias

C Ecclesiasteron

D Prytaneum

E Stoa

<::%J^WE%%%3^ I r I

I I II I I

The market place was designed for freedom of pedestrian movement, streets generally by-passing or terminating
at the open space. Service to the shops was sometimes provided from the exterior streets surrounding the
market place.

The agora was treated as a series of exterior rooms; although rectilinear in form, the spaces were not
symmetrically arranged.

The shrines and public buildings were located about the agora. The bouleuterion was the meeting room for
the city council, the prytaneum, the private chambers for the Council, and the open-roof ecclesiasteron, the
public assembly hall, these public buildings being accessible from the agora but seldom directly form the
market place. In the plan of Miletus the bouleuterion and prytaneum are shown, but it is believed that the
ecclesiasteron also served as the bouleuterion in Priene.

THE AGORA
OF MILETUS

A Market Place

B Bouleuterion

C Prytaneum

D Stoa

E Port

22 THE CITY OF THE PAST

of sunshine that could be invited into the dwelling was desirable in the winter months,
and if the rooms were shielded from the cold north winds, heat could be conserved.
Conversely, the heat in summer was relieved when the direct rays of the sun were
excluded. These criteria were satisfied in the plan of the Greek house.

The principal rooms were faced to the south, opening upon the private courtyard.
A colonnade projected from the rooms to shelter them from the high summer sun. The
north wall of the house was punctured with only a few small windows. This plan form
was used in practically all dwellings in the town, whether the street entrance occurred
on the north, south, east, or west.

Chroniclers of the period referred to the importance of proper orientation. Aristotle
wrote, "For the well-being and health ... the homesteads should be airy in summer and
sunny in winter. A homestead possessing these qualities would be longer than it is deep ;
and the main front would face south." According to Xenophon in his Memorabilia,
Socrates applied the following reasoning to the dwelling arrangement. "When one
builds a house must he not see to it that it be as pleasant and convenient as possible?
And pleasant is to be cool in summer, but warm in winter. In those houses, then, that
look toward the south, the winter sun shines down into the paestades [court portico]
while in summer, passing high above our heads and over our roofs, it throws them
in shadow."

The effect of these criteria was a planning system that sprung from the elements
of the individual unit the home applied uniformly throughout the town plan. This
consistent treatment is unique in urban planning; we do not find it recurring for 2,400
years when a similar relation between the dwelling and the site was recognized in the
vast housing program in Europe following the First World War.

Decline of the City. It cannot be assumed that political affairs always ran smoothly
in the Age of Pericles. Teachings of the Sophists were disturbing to some of the well-
established customs. A little man by the name of Socrates subjected many of the
prevailing habits to severe questioning. He insisted upon inquiry and application of
reason to the activities of men. He desired that the individual should cultivate an
insight into truth, that he should become neither stronger than the state nor subservient
to it. Socrates raised some questions about the existence of the gods.

There were some good democrats who believed he was wrong in raising these
questions; they had suffered from uprisings of the oligarchic party and feared lest
the faith in democracy be weakened. They brought charges against Socrates for impiety
and subverting the youth of Athens. There were those who loved this wise man whose
only ambition was the quest for truth. They appealed to him to flee his accusers as was
the custom, but Socrates would not. He had suggested changes in the habits of men
which would improve their lot, and if these were unlawful he would remain to face
the people. Found guilty, he was sentenced to die, and in 399 B.C. he drank the hem-
lock.

The lesson of Socrates has been repeated in history. The institutions of men must
change or decay, grow or wither. Socrates showed a way for men to continue command

THE CLASSIC CITY 23

of their destiny by seeking truth. He strove to improve the institutions that they might
better serve the people, and for this his fellowmen found him guilty of treason. More
confidence in the strength of democracy would not have caused him to be so accused ;
more confidence might have saved democracy itself.

During the fourth century there was evidence of growing indifference toward the
responsibility of government. Accustomed to liberty the people were taking it for
granted, and they inclined to allow affairs to run themselves. Freedom guaranteed by
democracy was coming to mean that "the people has the right to do what it pleases."
Some people were, in the words of Demosthenes, "even building private houses whose
magnificence surpasses that of certain public buildings."

Well-to-do citizens spent more of their time in their country villas, whereas the
common people found the difficulty of earning a living more absorbing than participa-
tion in public affairs. The middle class was disappearing, and a wide gap was growing
between those with money and those without it. Plato and Aristotle saw a degeneration
of the democracy of Pericles. They perceived a growing abuse of individual liberty
and became increasingly critical of democracy itself. Others were gripped with cyni-
cism while maintaining the fight for democracy. Demosthenes said:

The objection may be raised that it was a mistake to allow the universal right of speech and a
seat in the council. These should have been reserved for the cleverest, the flower of the com-
munity. But here again it will be found that they are acting with wise deliberation in granting
even the baser sort the right of speech, for supposing only the better people might speak, or
sit in council, blessings would fall to the lot of those like themselves, but to the commonalty
the reverse of blessings. Whereas now, anyone who likes, any base fellow, may get up and dis-
cover something to the advantage of himself and his equals. It may be retorted, "And what sort
of advantage either for himself or for the people can such a fellow be expected to hit upon?" The
answer to which is, that in their judgement the ignorance and baseness of this fellow, together
with his good will, are worth a great deal more to them than your superior person's virtue and
wisdom, coupled with animosity. What it comes to, therefore, is that a state founded upon such
institutions will not be the best state; but given democracy, these are the right means to secure
its preservation. The people, it must be borne in mind, does not demand that the city should
be well governed and itself a slave. It desires to be free and to be master. As to bad legislation
it does not concern itself about that.

Glotz gives the following description of the alarming developments of this period
in the fourth century:' 5

But in Greece as a whole there existed almost everywhere a glaring contrast between the equality
promised by the constitution and the inequality created by social and economic conditions.

The power of money was spreading and corrupting morality. . . . Agriculture was commercialized
to such an extent that by progressive eviction of small peasants and the concentration of estates
in the same hands the system of large estates was recreated. Rhetoricians, advocates and artists,
who had formerly reckoned it a dishonor to commercialize their talent, now felt no scruples in
selling their goods as dearly as possible. Everything could be bought, everything had its price,
and wealth was the measure of social values. By gain and by extravagance fortunes were made
and unmade with equal rapidity. Those who had money rushed into pleasure-seeking and sought
every occasion for gross displays of luxury. The newly rich were cocks of the walk. Men specu-

*lbid, 9 pp. 311, 312.

24 THE CITY OF THE PAST

lated and rushed after money in order to build and furnish magnificent houses, to display fine
weapons, to offer to the women of their family and to courtesans jewels, priceless robes and rare
perfumes, to place before eminent guests and fashionable parasites fine wines and dishes pre-
pared by a famous chef, or to commission some popular sculptor to carve their bust.

What happened to public affairs when "love of money left no one the smallest space in which to
deal with other things, to such an extent that the mind of each citizen, passionately absorbed in
this one purpose, could attend to no other business than the gain of each day" (Plato). Politics
also was a business concern; the most honest worked for a class, the others sought for them-
selves alone the profits of power and barely concealed their venality. We are dealing with a time
when "riches and rich men being held in honor virtue and honest men are at a discount,"
when "no one can become rich quickly if he remains honest" (Plato). Were these merely the
capricious outbursts of a philosopher in love with the ideal or of a character in a comedy?
Listen to the terrible words uttered before a tribunal: "Those who, citizens by right of birth,
hold the opinion that their country extends wherever their interests are, these obviously are
people who will desert the public good in order to run after their personal gain, since for them
it is not the city which is their country, but their fortune."

The struggle between democracy and oligarchy was renewed, and Isocrates sums
up the growing conflict between the widely separated classes;

Instead of securing general conditions of well-being by means of mutual understanding the anti-
social spirit has reached such a pitch that the wealthy would rather throw their money into the
sea than relieve the lot of the indigent, while the very poorest of the poor would get less from
appropriating to their own use the property of the rich than from depriving them of it.

The Hellenistic City. The Peloponnesian Wars weakened Athens financially, and
corrupt politicians began to gnaw at the moral fiber of the people. Athens became easy
prey for a conqueror and succumbed to the Macedonian armies of Alexander the
Great. But the essential qualities of wisdom, logic, and reason, the sensitive, esthetic
character of democratic days, had sunk its roots deep into the soil of Athens. The
Greeks were conquered by mighty armies, but their culture dominated the conqueror.
Greek influence spread throughout the Mediterranean shores, and the Hellenistic period
brought new city building the planning and architecture patterned after the great
works of the Greeks.

Old cities flourished and new cities were founded. Pergamon, Alexandria, Syracuse,
and Candahar grew large and populous ; the humble quality of the Hellenic city van-
ished. The city became the scene of luxury, ruddy with the display of empire. Mag-
nificent public buildings the odeion, the treasury, the library, the prison were
added to the agora. The assembly retained its traditional place among these monu-
mental structures, but it remained, as Percy Gardner 4 expressed it, for the citizens
"to exercise such functions (a mere show of autonomy) as the real rulers of the
country . . . left to them." Baths, palaestrae, and stadia were built for entertainment
and festival. Gardens and parks were introduced from the Orient, An entourage of
royalty built fine villas in the urban environs, and distinctions in caste grew more*
apparent.

Small kings, wealthy families, and ambitious foreigners desirous of acclaim
within this frame of monumental splendor bestowed generous gifts upon the city.

* The Planning of Hellenistic Citicf T Percy Gardner.

PRIENE

Bettinann Archive

Restoration by A. Zippelius.
The city of Priene was rebuilt during the 4th century B.C. and illustrates the transition from the Hellenic
period to the Hellenistic Age. Having suffered the political disunion of the Greek states, it revived with the
spread of Greek culture under Alexander the Great.

In this town we perceive the great influence of the Greeks upon their Macedonian conquerors while we also*
detect the effect of imperial domination. Alexander was a pupil of Plato, embraced the ideals of Hellenic
culture with fervent enthusiasm, and determined to extend them throughout the world. The physical improve-
ment in Greek cities reflected the deep roots of Hellenic culture and exhibited the refinement of the Athenian
tradition. The Hippodamian plan introduced a more orderly arrangement of the city than was present in the
early Hellenic development. The physical facilities for public assembly, the market place and the theater,
the planning of sites for satisfactory orientation of dwellings, the buildings of temples, paved streets, sanitation
and water supply were improved, and the forms of these facilities expressed the subtle esthetic arrangement
and consummate skill possessed by the Greeks.

But changes from the Hellenic tradition were also in evidence, and the Hellenistic Age was the period
during which these changes occurred. The slave system had always been the foundation of society in the
world, and whereas it continued during Athenian supremacy, the feature of Greek democracy was the intro-
duction of a government of laws decided by citizens in public assembly. The Hellenistic Age, however, departed
from this process and returned to a state of imperialism. After Alexander's successful military expansion and
in the face of his burning ambition to extend the culture of the Hellenes, he succumbed to the spell of personal
power. As has since happened in the world, this power dominated his life, destroyed him and his empire,
and his achievements.

Consistent with imperialism the cities of the Hellenistic Age were embellished with the display of a growing,
monarchy. More and more support for city development came from the noble class desirous for acclaim as
benefactors. Distinction between the ruling class and the populace returned to the city and the physical facili-
ties became more lavish, more grand and monumental in scale. The open-air meeting place the pnyx of the
early Greek town was replaced by the agora and assembly hall; thence more and richer buildings were added
through beneficent gifts from minor rulers and royal satellites. Priene was a city of only some 4,000 people,,
but it was equipped with relatively copious facilities. The gymnasium and stadium were introduced, temples,
were built and improved, and new public buildings were donated in return for popular favors.

When the ruling genius of Alexander disappeared social disintegration was inevitable. Imperial rule had
drained the initiative and dissipated the strength of society. These forces were at work in towns like Priene'
where the refined quality of Hellenic culture shifted to the luxuriant excesses of the Hellenistic Age and set
the stage for the decline of a great period in the history of mankind.

26 THE CITY OF THE PAST

Empty honors were accorded for their beneficence. The great stoa at Priene was the
gift of a king of Orophernes of Cappadocia. Here, one by the name of Zosimus staged
a festive dinner for the whole citizen population of the city in return for receipt
of the "dignity of Stephanephorus". According to Pausanias the bouleuterion at
Megalopolis was named after Thersilius who dedicated it, and the donor of the
bouleuterion at Elis was one by the name of Lalichmium. 5 Inscriptions bear a
quantity of evidence of this surge for popularity through these magnanimous ges-
tures of philanthropy. The genuine character of the Hellenistic city was, in the third
and second centuries B.C., degenerating into a hollow form of a decaying social
structure.

Roman Prowess. In their early migrations to the Italian peninsula, the Greeks
had founded cities. Like other peoples on the shores of the Mediterranean, the
Romans drew upon the Greek culture planted there. They grafted Hellenic forms
upon the irregular patterns of their villages and used these forms for the new towns
they founded in the near and far reaches of their broad empire.

The Romans were calculating organizers. They excelled in technical achievement
and were skilled engineers and aggressive city builders. But they had not the phi-
losophy of the Greeks. Preoccupied with conquest, administration was their prime-
business and they devised political organisation which has continued to this day.
Intense builders with a flair for gargantuan scale, their works were not graced
with the refinement of line and form or the creative spirit of the Athenians. Greek
forms were reduced to mechanical formulae which could be readily applied like 1 ;
parts arranged upon graph paper.

With inventive genius the Romans solved technical problems created by the con-
gregation of great numbers of people in cities. They developed water supply and
distribution, drainage systems, and methods of heating upon which the health of the
masses depended. The great aqueducts for transport of water over tremendous dis-
tances and the underground sewers like Cloaca Maxima were feats of engineering
skill and prowess. The great highways paved with stone represented the tireless
efforts of intense builders.

Monuments and Diversion. The Forum Romanum of the Republic had a human
scale. Its proportions and form undoubtedly caused the citizen to feel he was a part
of the activity that took place there. Here the individual and his identity were merged
with "Rome", The buildings were not so overwhelming in size that they humbled the
individual. The common people had their share of hardships, but one can imagine
the Gracchi pleading their case in the Senate for an equitable distribution of the land
and its benefits. The citizen understood the religion of his temples, and he was proud of
the triumphs of the Roman legions abroad. He could participate in the business affairs
of the basilica and perhaps engage in the money-lending enterprise carried on there.
He felt himself to be one of the actors in this drama as a Greek had been in his
assembly and agora.

G The Political Meeting Places of the Greeks, William A. McDonald, Johns Hopkins Press, 1943.

POMPEII

OS ^

F Forum

T Theater

C Colosseum

B Baths (Thermae)

The forum lies in the center of an irregular street system suggesting the probability that the more regular
pattern was established as the town grew in population and extended its area. The variety of building types
about the forum was unified with a continuous colonnade. The rectangular shape, according to Vilruvius, was
adapted to the use of the forum for gladiatorial demonstrations and other public events. The colonnade supported
a balcony for observers.

THE APPIAN WAY OF ANCIENT ROME

TranaWorld Airway*

28 THE CITY OF THE PAST

This citizen of early Rome saw gracious living like that in Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum or the busy life and fashions of Ostia. He observed distinctions in class among
the dwellings but took these for granted in a day when a slave economy was all he
had thus far witnessed in history. If the citizen was not blessed with wealth, he could
nevertheless indulge himself in the various common forms of entertainment the
community offered the gay combat in the colosseum, the drama in the theater, or a
festival in the forum.

But the scene changed for the Roman citizen. World conquest was the ambi-
tion of Rome, and the citizen saw great riches flow into his capital. He saw intrigue
absorb the military and political leaders and he saw the public lands and wealth
won in campaigns appropriated by them. He saw monuments erected in dedication
of great victories, and the triumphant entry of generals from abroad.

The Roman citizen saw emperors crowned and he saw them build new fora which
dwarfed his Forum Romanum. He saw each new forum exceed in size the one that
preceded it. The Forum of Augustus was greater than the Forum of Julius Caesar;
the Forum of Vespasian matched that of Augustus; and the Forum of Trajan was
the most magnificent of all. He saw the Palace of Augustus crown the Palatine and
the Golden House of Nero span acres.

He saw his attention to social and economic inequities diverted by institutions for
pleasure rather than culture. He saw the huge colosseum where carnal displays were
staged for the excitement of a populace which might otherwise have grown restless.
He saw the Circus Maximus where 150,000 persons could revel in the bloody
combats of gladiators.

The scale of all these structures, the spaces they enclosed, and the architectural
fitments with which they were adorned appalled the Roman citizen. It was not the
plan of a city which he saw emerging, but a series of ever greater monuments to the
glory and deification of his rulers. Even the colonial cities followed the form of the
military camp.

Slums and Decay. Diversion was afforded the citizen, but he saw his city grow con-
gested. He saw men, like Crassus, profess to be civic leaders but speculate in the land
and build huge tenements. He saw the city crowded with slums to become fuel for dis-
astrous fires. The height of buildings reached six, seven, and eight floors and Emperor
Augustus found it necessary to decree a limit of 70 feet for all tenements. According
to the Constantin Regionary Catalog there were 46,602 blocks of apartments and
only 1,797 private houses in Rome in the fourth century after Christ.

This Roman citizen saw nobles, the returning heroes, and the rulers move to great
estates and comfortable villas in the country. The Empire had grown so broad and
so fat no enemy could reach them. Luxury and display were imported from
the Orient, and the leaders grew soft. The city-dweller lived in slums while the
affluent enjoyed leisure in the country. No strong and healthy men with convictions
remained to defend the Empire, and Rome gradually merged with the camp of bar-
barians from the north. Civilization descended into the Dark Ages.

THE CLASSIC CITY 29

The lesson of Rome and the cities it built is well stated by Henry Smith Williams: 6

During the entire ages of Trajan and the Antonines, a succession of virtuous and philosophic
emperors followed each other ; the world was in peace ; the laws were wise and well administered ;
riches seemed to increase; each succeeding generation raised palaces more splendid, monuments
and public edifices more sumptuous, than the preceding; the senatorial families found their
revenues increase; the treasury levied greater imposts. But it is not the mass of wealth, it is on
its distribution, that the prosperity of states depends; increasing opulence continued to meet the
eye, but men became more miserable; the rural population, formerly active, robust, and ener-
getic, were succeeded by a foreign race, while the inhabitants of towns sank in vice and idleness,
or perished in want, amidst the riches they had themselves created.

6 The Historian's History of the World, Henry Smith Williams, The Outlook Company, 1904.

EARLY
ROMAN HOUSES

A Atrium

B Peristyle

C Bed Cubicles

H Hearth

P Reservoir

S Shop

E Entrance Vestibule-

L Living Room

D Dining Room

K Kitchen

STREET

Pompeii was a city largely devoted to residences. It was not a metropolis, as was Rome, and did not suffer the 1
congestion of a large city. Tn it we find a wide range of dwelling facilities. The early "Roman" dwelling adopted
the atrium (A) from Greece. Houses of the more affluent added the feature known as the "peristyle" (B) and
this was sometimes extended into a garden. The House of Pansa shows these several elements. It occupies an
entire block. Along 1 the side street there were attached some small apartment-dwellings which convey some idea
of the contrast between accommodations of the wealthy occupant in the main house and the poorer artisans or
slaves. The street front of the houses was usually devoted to shops. From the entrance door a vestibule (E)
opened into the atrium (A) in which the impluvium (P) for the collection of rain from the roof was located.
Here guests were received and business affairs conducted. A passage connected the atrium and the peristyle,
the heart of family life. Open to the sky, it was surrounded by a colonnade. Various rooms opened from the
peristyle: the lounge (L), dining room (D), and sleeping rooms (C). Beyond the peristyle was the garden.
Portions of the house had sleeping rooms on the second floor for slave quarters.

Heating was provided generally by charcoal braziers carried from room to room, but an ingenious device
called the hypocaust was installed in some buildings. It was a series of ducts through which warm air was
circulated from a central furnace. Cooking was done with charcoal on a stone stove. Lighting was obtained from
oil candelabra.

While the public baths (thermae] occupied an important place in the social life of Romans, some of the
houses were equipped with bathing facilities. Copper pipes have been found, although drain pipes have not
been considered adaptable for sewage disposal. Construction was of stone, brick, and wood, and window glaw.s
was apparently in fairly common use.

LATE ROMAN HOUSE House of Pansa

APARTMENTS ON
SECOND FLOOR

ROME

The original settlement of
Rome lay on the banks of the
Tiber near the later Forum
Romanum. From this center,
protected by the surrounding
hills, the city fanned out in
all directions. It became the
scene for a series of ever-
greater projects glorifying the
military leaders and emperors.
In addition to the temples,
fora, and palaces, huge facil-
ities for entertainment were
built for diversion of the
masses the baths, colossia,
theaters, stadia, and the cir-
cus.

There is no indication that
the street system in Rome
was other than an irregular
pattern typical of great cities
which grew by accretion. In
contrast to a small city like
Pompeii, Rome grew in popu-
lation, suffered speculation in
land and buildings, became
congested, and was overrun
with slums. Buildings in-
creased in height until Augus-
tus found it necessary to de-
cree a height limit of 70 feet.

A Forum Romanum J

B Forum of Emperors K

C Palace of the Emperors L

D Colosseum M

E Circus Maximus N

F Cloaca Maxima O

G Claudian Aqueduct P

H Baths of Caracalla

Baths of Trajan

Baths of Diocletian

Theater of Pompey

Theater of Marcellus

Pantheon

Tomb of Hadrian

Circus Flaminius

Ostia, the seaport for Rome, was likewise crowded and
contained many apartments. The House of Diana is an
example. It was five stories high, built of brick masonry,
although many of the tenements in Rome were constructed
of wood and were serious fire hazards. In the House of
Diana there was a row of apartments facing the exterior and
a row facing the interior court. A balcony surrounded the
third floor. Water was supplied to the tenants at a fountain
in the courtyard, and it is probable that a latrine was lo-
cated on the first floor whence waste could be disposed.
Shops were on the ground floor with interior stairs leading
from each to an apartment above.

There is evidence of apartment buildings more com-
modious than this example, but there were undoubtedly
many tenements offering less space. One poet spoke of the
necessity for him to climb 200 steps to reach his dwelling.

S Shop E Entrance

APARTMENT HOUSE, OSTIA

F Fountain

THE ROMAN FORA

The Forum Romanum was the original
center of business and political life in
the early Republic. In it the triumphant
generals built their memorials to the
successful military campaigns. In the
days of the Empire, the emperors built
additional fora, and the total area was
a magnificent collection of monumental
buildings unparalleled in splendor.
About these great public spaces were
the innumerable shops and crowded
tenements of the people.

nnnnnn

nnnnro

n nnnnnn

nnnnna nnnnnn

nnnnnn nnnnnn

A Forum Romanum

B Comitium

C Arch of Septimus Severus

D Basilica Julia

E Temple Castorum

F Temple Vestae

Atrium Vestae

H Arch of Augustus

J Basilica Aemilia

K Temple of Julius Caesar

L Temple of Augustus

M Temple of Saturn

N Temple of Vespasian

O Rostrum

P Curia

Q Forum of Julius Caesar

R Forum of Augustus

S Forum of Trajan

T Basilica Ulpia

U Temple of Trajan

V Forum of Norva

W Palace of Tiberius

TIMGAD

The Pattern of a Roman Camp

CHAPTER 3

THE MEDIEVAL TOWN

Out of the Dark Ages. By the fifth century after Christ the Roman Empire had
crumbled under the weight of luxury, pomp, and ceremony. Western civilization
declined, trade disintegrated, and the urban population returned to rural life.
Cities shrank in size and importance, and social and economic confusion followed.

Barbaric rulers established city-states and formed the nucleus of future nations.
The economy was rooted in agriculture, and the rulers parceled their domains among
vassal lords who pledged military support for the kingdom. The people were depend-
ent upon the land for their subsistence and entered a state of serfdom under their
lords. The feudal system was the new order.

Wars among the rival feudal lords were frequent. Strategic sites were sought for
their castles, and within these fortified strongholds the serfs of the surrounding
countryside found protection. Through centuries of the Dark Ages monasteries
served as havens of refuge for the oppressed, and the church strengthened its posi-
tion during these trying times. This influence combined with the power of the feudal
lords renewed the advantages of communal existence within the protective walls.
Invention of the battering ram and catapult increased the danger from enemies,
forced the construction of heavier walls, and gave increased impetus for a return to
urban life. The countryside was not safe, and fortifications were extended to include
the dwellings that clustered about the castle and monastery.

Castle, Church^ and Guild. Movement to the towns brought a marked revival
of trade about the eleventh century. Advantages accrued to the feudal lords in
return for protection they collected higher rent for their land. Many new towns
were founded, and sites of old Roman towns were restored. Urban life was encour-
aged by the lords; they granted charters which secured certain rights and privileges
of citizenship to the urban dwellers. This new form of freedom was attractive to those
who had lived their lives in serfdom.

Then the merchants and craftsmen formed guilds to strengthen their social and
economic position. Weavers, butchers, tailors, masons, millers, metalworkers, car-

CARCASSONNE

A Market Square

B Castle

C Church of St. Nazaire

NOERDLINGEN

A Cathedral Plaza
B Moat

Medieval cities of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries usually had irregular street patterns and heavy walls.
Carcassonne was restored hy Viollet-le-duc in the nineteenth century. In it we see the castle (B) with its
own moat and walls, the market place (A), and the Church of St. Nazaire (C). The plan of Noerdlingen shows
the radial and lateral pattern of irregular roadways with the church plaza as the principal focal point of the
town. The city of the Middle Ages grew within the confines of the walls. While the population was small, there
was space in the town, but when it increased the buildings were packed more closely and the open spaces filled.
Sanitation and water supply remained the same. The result was intolerable congestion, lack of hygiene, and
pestilence.

MONTPAZIER

A Cathedral Square B Market Square

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries colonial cities
were founded by young empires to protect their trade and provide
military security. They were platted for allocation of sites to
settlers and the regular plan is a distinct contrast to the informal
development of the normal medieval town.

36 THE CITY OF THE PAST

penters, leatherworkers, glassmakers, all established regulations to control their
production, maintain their prices, and protect their trade. A new social order was
in the making a wealthy mercantile class was rising to challenge the power of
the feudal lords.

The early medieval town was dominated by the church or monastery and the castle
of the lord. The church plaza became the market place and, with citizenship bestowed
upon the people and merchant guilds established, the town hall and guild hall were
built on or adjacent to the market plaza. The castle was surrounded by its own walls
as a final protection in the event an enemy penetrated the main fortifications and
entered the city.

Distinction between town and country was sharp, but this demarcation and the
small size of the city provided ready access to the open countryside in times of peace.
Aiding the protection of cities, the town sites were usually on irregular terrain,
occupying hilltops or islands. The town was designed to fit the topographic feaures.
The circulation and building spaces were molded to these irregular features and
naturally assumed an informal character.

The roads radiated generally from the church plaza and market square to the gates,
with secondary lateral roadways connecting them. The irregular pattern was probably
consciously devised as a means to confuse an enemy in the event he gained entrance
to the town. Although the battering ram and the catapult were instruments for
assault upon the heavy fortifications and hot oil poured from the battlements was a
means for mass defense, hand-to-hand combat was the principal form of military
action. In the maze of wandering streets the advantage rested with the inhabitants
against an enemy unfamiliar with the town arrangement,

The Picturesque Town. The abbes and artisans were sensitive to ihe form and
materials of the buildings they erected. Under their guidance, care was exercised in
the placement of, and relation between, the structures of the town. Buildings assumed
a functional character in both form and location. They were not built to be "pictur-
esque"; that quality emerged from the consideration given to town building by its
builders. Accidents of vista and contrasts of form and color resulted from the contours
of the land and the ingenious selection of the sites for each structure. The commanding
position of the cathedral or church gave a singular unity to the town, a unity strengthened
by the horizontal envelope of the encircling walls.

The entire town was treated with a structural logic that characterized the archi-
tectural treatment of the Romanesque and early Gothic buildings. Open spaces the
streets and plazas developed as integral parts of the sites upon which the buildings
were erected. With the exception of a few main roads between the gates and the mar-
ket place, streets were used as pedestrian circulation about the town rather than traffic
arteries as we know them today. Wheel traffic was generally absent on all but the
main roadways.

Medieval Dwellings. Conservation of heat in the cold climates and the restrictive
area of the town caused the houses to be built in connected rows along the narrow

MONT ST. MICHEL

It was the church rather than the palace that
dominated the medieval town. Encircled by its
protective walls, the town was small. In later
days the battlements were elaborately engi-
neered, as in Naarden, and the populace was
further separated from the open spaces about
the town.

38 THE CITY OF THE PAST

streets. Behind these rows of dwellings open space was reserved and in them the
domestic animals were kept and gardens cultivated. The workshop and kitchen
occupied the ground floor of the dwelling. Here the merchants and craftsmen oper-
ated their enterprises and manufactured their goods. There was little distinction
between classes among the population of the early medieval town. The workers lived
in the homes of their employers as apprentices in the trade or business. The living
and sleeping space was on the second floor of the dwelling. The simple plan pro-
vided little privacy within the house. Some of the burghers enjoyed separate sleeping
rooms, but the accommodations were universally simple and modest in their appoint-
ments. The chimney and fireplace replaced the open hearth of the ancient house.
Windows were small and covered with crude glass or oiled parchment. Facilities
for waste disposal within the dwelling were not usually provided, although some
of the houses were equipped with privies. Construction was of masonry or wood
frame filled with wattle. Thatch covered the roofs, and the fire hazard caused some
towns either to prohibit this type of roofing or to encourage fire resistant materials
by offering special privileges for the use of fireproof materials. Streets were usually
paved and maintained by the owners of property facing upon them. This may account,
in part, for their narrow width.

Medieval Institutions. Meditation and study characterized the monastery. It
was extended to research by scholars intent upon the cultivation of professional skills.
Monasteries and the guilds combined to form the university, and here were welcomed
those who desired to study in withdrawal from the market place. Here also were
conducted research and training in law, medicine, and the arts. Universities were
assisted by the growing wealth of the merchant class. The universities at Bologna
and Paris were founded in the twelfth century and those at Cambridge and Salamanca
in the thirteenth century. The churches also established hospitals in which the sick
could receive care and treatment not theretofore available to the people.

Life in medieval cities had color, a color visible to all the people. The church pro-
vided pageantry and gave drama to the life of every man. It was an institution in
which all men could participate, giving inspiration and adding a measure of beauty
to the existence of the people. It lifted people above baseness and encouraged better
deeds. It offered music and meditation. The sense of participation produced a pic-
turesqueness in life reflected in the picturesqueness of the towns. The people
merchants, artisans, and peasants mingled in the market place, the guild hall, and
the church; a human scale pervaded the informal environment of the city of the
people.

There were innumerable hardships suffered and endured by the people of the
Middle Ages, but in the early towns they did not lose the sense of intermingling. Each
man had the feeling of being an active citizen in his community. This attribute of
the urban environment a social well-being was, however, soon to be dissipated.

MEDIEVAL HOUSE
TWELFTH CENTURY

GROUND FLOOR

Shop

Kitchen

Courtyard

Well

Privy

Living Hall

Sleeping Room

Court

FIRST FLOOR

Entrance to
First Floor
Living Hall
Store Room
Below
Chapel
"Solar" (Sleep-
ing Dormitory)
Above

SMALL NORMAN MANOR
FIFTEENTH CENTURY

THE MEDIEVAL DWELLING

The medieval dwelling was conceived as an individual fortress. Before congestion overtook the town, the average
dwelling was two stories in height. The work-room and storage were on the first floor or "basement." Sometimes
the kitchen was also located here. Living, dining and sleeping took place on the second floor. Masonry was the
usual construction, although wood frame filled with wattle and clay and roofed with thatch was not infrequent.
It was the forerunner of the half-timber construction later used to a great extent.

As crowding increased, each building lot was used more intensively. Rooms were grouped about a tiny
interior courtyard in which a cistern was located. Interior privies were sometimes provided, although there was
no sewage disposal, refuse being discarded in the streets or in cesspools beneath the dwelling floors. Heating
was provided by a fireplace, and lighting was obtained from wicks dipped in fish oil.

Continued intensity in the use of land raised the height of buildings to three and four stories. Half -timber
construction permitted the projection of upper floors beyond each lower floor to further exaggerate the con-
gestion.

For comparison, a small manor house is shown. It contained a "hall" and chapel on the second floor. All
living, dining and cooking were performed on this floor. A dormitory, or "solar," was located in the tower above
the chapel. A drain pipe was imbedded in the wall for disposal of waste. The windows had no glass and were
protected with shutters. The lower floor was a vaulted store room. The manor houses were extended in size and
formed the nucleus of villages in many cases.

SIENA

The informal vista of the medieval town. The streets were pri-
marily for people on foot.

CHILHAM

A village square in Tudor England.
Always desiring to preserve the quiet
repose of their beautiful country-
side, the villages of England did
not mar the natural landscape set-
ting.

C. S. Ferris

CHAPTER 4

THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY

Mercantilism and Concentration. The number of towns increased rapidly during
the Middle Ages, but they remained relatively small in population. Many had only
a few hundred people, and the larger cities seldom exceeded 50,000 inhabitants.
The physical size was restricted by the girth of the fortifications, water supply, and
sanitation, the distance across the town seldom exceeding a mile. Water was avail-
able at the town fountain. There was no sewage disposal, and all drainage was by
way of the streets.

As long as the population remained small, these apparent deficiencies presented
no serious problem. Communication between towns was slow, facilities for transport
were cumbersome, and necessity for mutual assistance in times of conflict urgent.
The towns were built within ready reach of each other. Most were within a day's
journey apart and frequently a round trip to a neighboring town could be made on
foot in a single day.

World travel and trade, however, brought a concentration of people to centers
situated on main crossroads. During the fourteenth century Florence grew from
45,000 people to 90,000 people, Paris from 100,000 to 240,000, and Venice reached
200,000. Successful merchants consolidated their interests in several towns, and
moneylending helped their enterprise. Commerce increased between towns and
countries. The danger of military aggression gradually diminished, and safety for
travel increased.

The mercantile economy expanded, and the power of the feudal lords declined.
Ownership of the land gradually shifted to a new caste of noblemen, the wealthy
merchants. The church accumulated a vast domain and there emerged two privileged
classes, the nobles and the clergy. The guilds declined and medieval serfdom dis-
appeared, but the facilities for processing materials and goods the mills, ovens,
presses came into the possession of the noble class. The peasants were required to
pay tolls of various sorts for the use of these facilities. The feudal economy had been
rooted in the land, and the new economy was dominated by the possession and con-
trol of money.

THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 41

Congestion and Slums. The growing population forced a congestion within the
cities not present in earlier days. The traditional height of two stories for dwellings
changed to three and four stories. The upper floors were projected beyond the first
floor, and the roofs often spanned the street width. Open space within the interior
blocks of dwellings was built up. Population density increased without change in the
systems of water supply or sanitation.

Wheel traffic increased. The narrow streets became congested, dark, and filth-
ridden from refuse thrown from dwelling windows, and provision for elimination
of waste remained inadequate. The call of gare de I'eau was familiar in France and,
contracted to the anglicized "gardy loo," it became equally familiar in Edinburgh.
Excreta were disposed of in cesspools beneath dwelling floors; there or in the streets
it was left to ripen for fertilizer. Odors from filth in the streets was overcome by
keeping the windows or shutters closed. Ventilation was by way of the chimney only.
Disease spread rapidly in times of epidemic; in the fourteenth century the Black
Death, a pestilence of typhus, took the lives of nearly half the urban population.

During this period the cities reverted to a condition inferior to the days of Rome
a thousand years before. The manor house of the nobleman grew spacious while the
typical dwelling of the poor remained cramped and was moved higher into the attic.
The first sewer was installed in London after the Black Death. Water closets were
not introduced until the sixteenth century in Spain, France, and England, and it was
early in the seventeenth century when water supply was connected to dwellings in
London. Fire hazards were prevalent everywhere. As a precautionary measure an
ordinance in London, in the thirteenth century, required that slate or tile roofs replace
the usual reed and straw. It is interesting to note a similar order that appeared in
the American Colonies at a somewhat later date. It read:

New Amsterdam, 15 December 1657:

The Director General and Council of New Netherland to All, who shall see these presents or
hear them read, Greeting! Know ye, that to prevent the misfortunes of conflagrations, the roofs
of reeds, the wooden and plastered chimneys have long ago been condemned but nevertheless
these orders are obstinately and carelessly neglected by many of the inhabitants. . . . The said
Director General and Council have decided it to be necessary, not only to renew their former
ordinances, but also to amplify the same and to increase the fines. . . .*

Overcrowding within the small dwellings of the poorer people further increased
the hazards to health and the spread of epidemics. In 1539 an Act of Parliament
mentioned that "great mischiefs daily grow and increase by reason of pestering of
houses with divers families, harboring of inmates, and converting great houses into
tenements, and erection of new houses."

Gunpowder. In the fifteenth century gunpowder was invented, and new techniques
of warfare were introduced. The feudal lords had relied upon citizen-soldiers to
man the crenellated parapets in time of siege, but the new weapons of attack and
defense required larger numbers of trained professional soldiers. Military engi-

1 Housing Comes of Age, Straus and Wegg, Oxford University Press, New York, 1938.

TOURNAY

The invention of gunpowder marked the beginning of the end of the walled town. Prior to development of
cannon a dry or water moat surrounded the town walls and provided adequate protection from besieging
enemies. Gunpowder increased the range of effective attack and forced the building of ramparts beyond the
walls to extend the distance between the town and the attacking forces. Military engineering became an
important phase of town building and complicated systems of water moats and ramparts were devised outside
the main walls of the city. These broad spaces forced the enemy into more distant positions for their cannon.

The plan of Tournay illustrates the elaborate system of defense fortifications and shows the siege of that
city by the Duke of Marlborough in 1709. The position of mortars and cannon, together with their range, is
indicated in this plan.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries long range artillery was greatly improved and (he old systems of
walls, moats, and ramparts were reduced in effectiveness for military defense, and the form of the city under-
went drastic alterations. The walls and ramparts were levelled, the moats were filled-in and boulevards were
built in the open space as in the famous Ringstrasse encircling the original town of Vienna. These spaces
separated the old town from the surrounding suburbs but, as in Paris, they were gradually built-up in response
lo the ruthless speculation of the late 19th century and open space disappeared from the city.

VIENNA

Vienna before 1857

Vienna after 1857

THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 43

neering became a science. Fortifications were extended, and heavy bastions, moats,
and outposts were built. Extension of the area occupied by the fortifications
created a "no-man's-land", and separation between town and country became more
distinct. Open space outside the walls was further removed from the urban dweller.
People came to the cities in large numbers to participate in the expanding commer-
cial enterprise and fill the ranks of professional armies.

The Renaissance. In France the kings achieved a semblance of national unity in the
fifteenth century. Elsewhere cities remained provincial dukedoms with wealthy mer-
chant families wielding control over them. It became the ambition of rulers to display
their affluence and power by improving their cities. They engaged in intellectual pur-
suits, drawing upon the classic heritage of Rome for this cultural activity. The noble
families of Florence, Venice, Rome, and Lombardy desired to embellish their cities;
the Medicis, Borgias, and Sf orzas built themselves new palaces on which were draped
the classic motifs. A formalism was grafted upon the medieval town although the
buildings retained the characteristic fortress quality of the Middle Ages. The basic
form of cities did not change, but the structure was decorated with fagades of classic
elements.

The Church participated in this movement. Residence of the Popes was re-established
in Rome, and work on the Vatican Palace was begun. Pope Julius planned to replace
the old basilica of St. Peter with a great church which would become the center of
Christendom.

Feverish preoccupation with the arts gripped the merchant princes, churchmen,
and the kings. Practice of the arts became a profession. The system of apprentice
training in Italy prepared men to work in a variety of artistic fields. An apprentice to
a painter would also work in the shop of a goldsmith; a sculptor would study archi-
tecture. Versatility was a characteristic of the artists and their services were given
encouragement. Leonardo da Vinci practiced all the arts and became a planner, military
engineer, and inventor as well. Kings, merchant nobles, and Popes were patrons of
the arts and bid heavily for the services of the growing number of practitioners.

The strange anonymity of the master-builders of medieval towns no longer prevailed
in the Renaissance. Robert de Luzarches, William of Sens (Canterbury Cathedral),
Geoffrey de Noyes (Lincoln Cathedral), Jean-le-Loup, and Henrico di Cambodia
(Milan Cathedral) are seldom recorded in the history of medieval town building,
whereas a host of individuals received personal recognition in the Renaissance and
later periods. The names of Brunelleschi, Alberti, Bramante, Peruzzi and Sangallo
in Italy, and Bullant, de TOrme, Lescot in France, are as well known as their works.
Many others achieved world renown; their names were more prominent than the patrons
who commissioned their works. Mansart, Bullet, Blondel, Lemercier, de Brosse, Le
Notre, Percier, and Fontaine in France; Bernini, Longhena, Borromini, Palladio,
Michelangelo, Raphael in Italy; Inigo Jones, Christopher Wren, the Brothers Adam
in England; all these artists enjoyed the confidence and patronage of Popes, kings, and
merchants.

PIAZZA OF ST. MARK'S

A Cathedral

B Palace of the Doges

C Campanile

Procuriatie Vecchia

E Procuriatie Nuove

F Libraria Vecchia

Formal plazas of the Renaissance -were carved out of the
medieval town and given monumental scale and form rem-
iniscent of classic antiquity. Exterior space was enclosed
with formal fagades, and the shapes were modelled like
sculptural pieces isolated from the rest of the city.

PIAZZA OF ST. PETER'S

A Piazza
B Cathedral
C Vatican

PIAZZA OF ST. PETER'S FROM THE CATHEDRAL

THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 45

Monarchy and Monument alism. The monumental character of the classic re-
turned to the city. Every form had its centerline, and every space its axis. The structural
quality of the Middle Ages was replaced by a classic sculptural form, modeled sym-
metrically. The "barbaric" art of medieval cities was forsaken. With haughty disdain
Moliere called it:

The rank taste of Gothic monuments,

These odius monsters of the ignorant centuries,

Which the torrents of barbarism spewed forth.

The axis and the strong centerline symbolized the growing concentration of power.
Kings of France became monarchs, wealthy merchants in Italy became autocratic
dukes, large landowners in England became lord barons, and the Popes became benevo-
lent partners of all. Louis XIV of France gave voice to the spirit of the times when he
shouted his famous words, "L 9 tat, dest moi"

Out of the cramped medieval town were carved formal "squares." The modeling of
spatial forms absorbed the attention and skills of designers and planners, and classic
elements were ingeniously assembled to form the spaces. Michelangelo created the
Campodiglio on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Bernini designed the huge Piazza of St.
Peter's, the Piazza di San Marco in Venice was completed, Rainaldi built the twin
churches on the Piazza del Popolo, the Place Royale (now Place des Vosges) and
Place des Victoires were built in Paris.

Long-range artillery removed the advantage of the old walls for military defense.
Louis XIV ordered Vauban, his military engineer, to redesign the defense system.
Vauban tore down the walls and built earthwork ramparts beyond the city. Within the
leveled space of the old walls boulevards and promenades were laid. The famous
Ringstrasse of Vienna occupied the open space left when the city walls of that city were
demolished. Cities were opening up, and the city of the Middle Ages was being released
from its clutter. Transition from the Renaissance Period to the Baroque Period was
in process.

The Baroque City. An air of grandeur permeated the courts of kings. Louis XIV
ordered Le Notre to design the gardens of Versailles. Here was space of unparalleled
proportions, scale of incomprehensible size. Here was the conception of a man who,
having achieved domination over the lives of men, confidently set about to become the
master of nature. The egotism of rulers knew no limitations, nor could it brook a hint
of equality; Louis XIV threw the wealthy financier, Foucquet, into prison for his
temerity to build a chateau almost as fine as the king's.

In the eighteenth century the Baroque city expanded, and dominance of the ruler
intensified. The avenues of Versailles focused upon the royal palace, whereas the
whole city of Karlsruhe as well as Mannheim revolved about the palaces and great
gardens of the royalty.

Pla,zas of the seventeenth century had been designed as isolated, enclosed spaces.
They were now opened and less confined, as though moved by a desire to recapture the

VERSAILLES

A Palace
B Gardens
C Town

KARLSRUHE

A Palace
B Gardens
C Town

THE BAROQUE CITY

The centerline and the axis symbolized the
mighty power of the monarch. Louis XIV
ordered the removal of his palace from
the congested city of Paris to the open
hunting grounds of Versailles, and he
ordered the avenues to radiate from his
magnificent palace. The entire city of
Karlsruhe was designed to revolve about
and radiate from the Prince's palace. After
the fire of 1666 Christopher Wren proposed
a monumental plan for the rebuilding of
London. He conceded the new power
dominant in England by placing upon the
major focal point the Stock Exchange. But
the plan was not accepted; the necessary
adjustment of property boundaries and
prices could not be resolved.

LONDON (Christopher Wren's Plan)

A Stock Exchange

B St. Paul's Cathedral

C Tower of London

D London Bridge

E Old Walls

PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, Rome

A Piazza D Church of Santa Maria del Popolo

B Pincio Hill and Gardens E Obelisk

C Porto del Popolo F Twin Churches by Rainaldi

During the Baroque period, the desire for
unconfined space gripped the city rulers
and their designers. The tremendous Place
de la Concorde, designed by Gabriel, was
created as part of the Paris extension plan
to exalt King Louis XV. No longer was it
a plaza framed with buildings like Place
Vendome. It was rather a campus between
other open spaces, the Tuileries Gardens,
the Champs Elysees, and the River Seine.
The Plazas in Nancy were linked with a
broad avenue of trees which was itself a
plaza. Piazza del Popolo exhibited the
same characteristics hi three dimensions. A
series of garden terraces continued the
open space up the Pincio Hill on one side,
and open space extended the vista on the
other.

NANCY

A Place de la Concorde
B Tuileries Gardens
C Champs Elysees

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE, Paris

A Place Stanislas
B Place Carriere
C Place Royale

PLACE VENDOME
Paris

48 THE CITY OF THE PAST

space of the countryside. Design shifted from walled-in architectural forms to an
extension and expansion of open space. Jules-Hardouin Mansart, architect for the
palace buildings at Versailles, designed the Place Vendome with greater dimensions
than previous squares in Paris. The three squares by Here de Corny in Nancy were
connected, the continuity of open space emphasized by colonnades and enhanced by
a tree-lined avenue.

Probably the most dramatic example of the new surge to penetrate the city with
open space was the Place de la Concorde designed by Jacques-Ange Gabriel during
the reign of Louis XV. In this square, space is almost completely released. It flows
from the gardens of the Tuileries and the Louvre on one side into the broad avenue
of the Champs lysees begun by Louis XIV to connect Paris with his palace at Ver-
sailles. The scale is further amplified by the Seine river lying along one side. Opposite
the river is the only group of buildings facing this tremendous square.

Another departure in urban design was the Piazza del Popolo in Rome designed
by Valadier. A three-dimensional transition of space was obtained with a series of
terraces linking the lower level of the square and the gardens on the Pincio Hill above.
Continuity replaced the enclosure of open space as the new direction in civic design.

In England the classic revival came later than elsewhere, the Tudor style having
absorbed the Renaissance shock. Recoiling from the hazards of overhanging upper
stories, a building ordinance in 1619 decreed that the walls of buildings would hence-
forth be built vertically from foundation to roof. Timed with the onrushing wave of
classic formalism, this law aided the introduction of the "Italian Style" ushered in by
Inigo Jones, its leading exponent.

The landowning class had tempered the rise of monarchy in England and the monu-
mentalism of the "grand plan" did not quite take root there. Christopher Wren at-
tempted it in his plan for rebuilding London after the fire of 1666. He went so far as
to place the Stock Exchange at the symbolic focal point of his plan instead of the
traditional palace or cathedral. Even this acknowledgment of the domination of mer-
cantilism in England was not enough to offset disagreement over the necessary
reapportionment of property values destroyed in the fire.

Formalism permeated the English Renaissance, but it was expressed in terms of
quiet repose rather than striking grandeur. This quality is observed in the simple
curved building forms facing broad open spaces of the Circus and Royal Crescent in
Bath designed by John Wood, the younger. The same quality was built into the undulat-
ing surfaces and free curving forms of Lansdowne Crescent, also in Bath. John Nash
carried on these curving plan forms overlooking spacious open parks in his designs
for the Park Crescent and Regent's Park developments in London.

Formalism was unobtrusively introduced in the enclosed squares of London during
the eighteenth century. They were intended not as impressive plazas, but as places for
the quiet relaxation of the surrounding residents. These simple, though formal, open
spaces were created largely by builders who would be classified today as "specu-
lators" ; they were in the business of subdividing land and building homes. Many are

THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 49

unknown, as in the case of Lansdowne Crescent in Bath, but two prominent builders in
London were James Burton and Thomas Cubitt and they lent a dignity to their profes-
sion by the work they performed.

Behind the Facades. The fine rows of formal dwellings and squares in England,
the monumental vistas, royal gardens and the palaces of France, the well-modeled
piazzas in Italy, all had been built for the upper classes, the wealthy merchants, and
the kings. The lot of the people of lesser means had not been substantially improved.
It was not the purpose of the builders of the Baroque town to engage in reforms. They
were concerned with such improvement of the urban environment that would maintain
the prestige and glory of their exalted position in society. The broad avenues provided
more than satisfaction of the ego and vanity in despots, more than delightful prom-
enades for the elegant carriages of the aristocrats; they were strategic means with
which to impress the populace with the power and discipline of marching armies.

Behind the fine fagades of the plazas and wide avenues dwelt the congested urban
population. The city lacked sanitation, sewers, water distribution, and drainage. Epi-
demics and pestilence were frequent, and the poverty was appalling. A breach was
widening between the aristocracy and the masses. Fratricidal wars of religion and
social restlessness of the seventeenth century were followed by the stamp of the des-
potic heel and the courtiers. Oppression brought revolutions in the eighteenth century.
The Baroque city had unfolded its grand open spaces and they were overlapping upon
the people. Another change was taking place: machines were replacing handcraft
methods for making goods for trade.

Colonial Expansion America. Aided by the mariner's compass, courageous
explorers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries extended the net of colonial empires
over the face of the globe. The eyes of people everywhere looked toward the new world
in North America for relief from oppression and chaos. Colonies in the Americas were
settled by pioneers impelled by a burning desire for freedom. Far removed from the
mother-countries and with a whole great land as an ever-widening frontier to the west,
the settlements did not grow as permanent fortified towns. Strong forts were established
at some early settlements Havana, San Juan, St. Augustine, New Amsterdam but
the barricades thrown up as protection from attack by Indians offered no impediment
to the development of villages in the way that fortifications had restricted the growth of
medieval cities in Europe.

The initial settlement was sometimes irregular in plan; the Wall Street district in
Manhattan retains the pattern of the early settlement of New Amsterdam about 1660,
and Boston streets meandered about the Common. But most of the towns were platted
in advance for allocation of the land to settlers. The people who ventured across the
sea to this new land sought opportunities from which they had been deprived in their
homeland. Freedom meant the right to their land and possessions for their households.
The principal occupation was agriculture; the towns were small and within walking
distance from all parts to the countryside about them.

The quiet New England towns reflected the modest character of the puritan. The

BATH

A The Circus

B Royal Crescent

C Victoria Park

Lansdowne*
Crescenf

Open space was sought in England as on the continent. The handsome forms facing broad, informal park spaces
are shown in Lansdowne Terrace, the Circus, and the Royal Crescent in Bath.

The formal squares in the residential districts of Bloomsbury, London, were not monumental in design or
size, but they identify a conscious effort to improve the environment in cities.

These were developments for the upper classes, not the poor. The king ordered the Regent's Park Project
in London as a place of dignified town houses for the well-to-do. The contrast in living environment is indicated
in the plan of the Bloomsbury district, the contrast between the rows of two- and three-story residences about
the "squares," and the crowded buildings in the network contiguous to the Bloomsbury development.

The Royal Crescent

British Information Service,

APARTMENT
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

A Russel Square

B Bedford Square

C Bloomsbury Square

D British Museum

Revival of classicism and a law in Eng-
land requiring exterior walls to run verti-
cally from foundation to roof changed the
appearance of houses but did not alter the
crowded multi-family flats and humble dwell-
ings of the poor. The illustration shows a
plan of an eighteenth-century flat building.
It is six stories high with a common stair
to each dwelling unit, not unlike our cus-
tomary "walk-up" apartments of today. The
accommodations were designed for upper-
middle class families, but lent itself to sub-
division into smaller units for the poorer class.

The residential public gardens introduced
by land developers of the eighteenth century
wore surrounded by the handsome Georgian
faades of fine dwellings. While formal in
design, these open spaces provided an en-
vironment of quiet dignity rather than lavish
display. Behind these dwellings and in the
older sections of narrow streets and alleys
lived the less prosperous.

BLOOMSBURY, LONDON

FEET

PEKING, China

A Forbidden City

B Imperial City

C Tartar City

D Chinese City

Within each of the cells
surrounded by streets in
the sketch is a maze of
narrow minor roads, also
laid out in rectilinear form.

500'

COPAN, Honduras A
B
C
D

Great Plaza

Middle Court

Court of Hieroglyphic Stairway

Eastern Court

Western Court

There is little record of ancient cities of the Orient. Mohenjo-Daro in 3,000 B.C. had a fairly regular layout of
streets, and cities surrounding the great temples of Angkor Vat and Angkor Thorn were probably laid in a
formal pattern. The power of feudal rulers was maintained with military force in China as elsewhere in the
World, and we see the stamp on the plan of Peking.

Although Peking was founded at an earlier date, the present plan stems from the medieval period about
the eleventh century. The original city of the Tartars was extended with the addition of the Chinese city. The
Forbidden City of the Emperor lies in the center. The dwellings are cramped and crowded along an intricate
system of regular narrow alleys, but the royal gardens and lakes occupy a large area of the city.

In South and Central America there arose the highly developed civilizations of the Incas, the AztecK, and
the Mayas. Macchu-Picchu is an Incan city of stone perched, terrace on terrace, upon a dramatic mountain
site. Only the great temple groups of the Mayas remain. Copan is such a group and it probably served as th<*
combined civic, religious and recreational center for the surrounding population. The people must have lived in
dwellings of wood, plaster, and thatch, there being no evidence of habitations. A two-cast c society nobles and
slaves the produce from agriculture was allocated in three parts, one part for the nobles, one part for the
slave-workers, and one part as a reserve supply in the event of drought or disaster.

HOPI PUEBLO, Shupolovi

The Hopi Indian village of Shupolovi was the organi-
zation of a clan or group of clans who built their
villages for protection from their enemies. An agrarian
people, their society was communal in political or-
ganization. Perched atop the mesas of northern Ari-
zona the people sought their scant water supply at
lower levels where they carefully tilled small plot*
of level land.

One-story Buildings
Two-story Buildings
Three-story Buildings

THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 53

center was the meeting house and the Common, and each family had its own dwelling,
albeit humble. The environment was one of beauty in simplicity communities of
neighbors. In the South the towns were settled by folks also eager to improve their lot,
but they reflected the stamp of the Crown. Class distinctions, while dormant for a time,
were retained, and formality characterized the life and pattern of the towns.

In Williamsburg, Virginia, the quiet though formal repose of an English town was
transplanted to a new land. Through the beneficence of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., it was
recently restored and offers an impression of the early colonial town. Williamsburg
was settled in 1633, and in 1693 the College of William and Mary was granted a
charter and located there. The town became the capital of the Virginia Colony in 1699.

The surveyor, Theodorick Bland, laid out the city with formal axes adapted from
the aristocratic mode in Europe. The Duke of Gloucester Street was the main avenue,
extending from the College to the Capitol building. A "green" was placed at right
angles to this street and terminated at the palace. The town was subdivided into resi-
dence lots of one-half acre each. It was a formal plan, but it neither revolved about
monumental features nor was it overpowered by them. A human scale pervaded the
environment; the town appeared to exist for the people who lived there rather than the
rulers who dominated it.

Early Philadelphia and Baltimore may have enjoyed this quality, but it is not
apparent in their plans. The City of Brotherly Love was planned by the surveyor,
Thomas Holme, for William Penn in 1682. It was a rigid gridiron street pattern ex-
tending between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. Two main streets, Broad and
Market, bisected the plan in each direction and intersected at the public square in the
center of the town. A square block was allocated for a park in each quadrant.

The plan had little distinction. Penn expected it to be a town of single houses and
shade trees. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, it was common practice
to build the houses from lot line to lot line and the open spaces were lost within the
walls of brick that lined the gridiron streets. Continuous rows of buildings shut off
access to the rear of the property, and alleys were cut through the center of the blocks.
Then dwellings were built along the alleys, only to become the quaint and narrow
business and residential streets for which the city is known today.

The aristocratic paternalism that characterized the early settlements in the southern
colonies was reflected in the plan of Savannah, Georgia. Laid out in 1733 by James
Oglethorpe, the plan was a rectilinear street system liberally interspersed with park
squares along the avenues. The streets linked these parks and created continuity of
open space whsn the town was built with single houses. It has since been forsaken by
the intensive building coverage of the intermediate blocks.

Trade and shipping thrived in the North and settlers flocked to the Colonies. Land-
owners opened subdivisions and platted lots for sale and lease. Rights to pasture and
timber on adjacent land were sometimes granted to purchasers of lots in the new towns.
Such a development was Lansingburgh on the Hudson, surveyed by Joseph Blanchard
for the large landowner, Abraham Lansing. This, like many others, was a speculative

NEW AMSTERDAM

The Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was built on the
tip of what is now known as Manhattan, New York City.
The pattern of its streets in 1660 still exists Broadway
(called Breedeweg by the Dutch), Broad Street, and Wall
Street. The almost medieval irregular street plan and the
canal are reminiscent of the Dutch towns in Europe.

Market Square

The Capitol

Governor's Palace

College of William and Mary

Bruton Parish Church

Duke of Gloucester Street

WILLIAMSBURG

Settled in 1633, the town of Williamsburg was founded in
1699 as the capital of the Virginia Colony. Tt was laid out
by the surveyor Theodorick Bland. The main street. Duke
of Gloucester Street, was 99 feet wide and extended
from the College of William and Mary to the Capitol. The
land was subdivided in lots of about one-half acre in size.
The town had a population of between 3,000 and 4,000
people. The quiet formality of the town was English. The
> spaces are not "grand"; they have a human scale.

PHILADELPHIA

William Penn commissioned the surveyor Thomas Holme
to lay out the city in 1682. A rigid gridiron plan was
adopted. Two major streets crossed in ihe center of the
town and formed a public square. A square block park was
placed in each of the four quadrants. The early dwellings
were single-family houses. In the middle of the eighteenth
century it became common practice to build dwellings on
the side lot lines resulting in continuous rows of buildings
which cut off access to the rear yards. Alleys were then cut
through the center of the blocks. These alleys have since
become streets.

A City Square
B Park

SAVANNAH

Laid out in 1733 by Oglethorpe,
Savannah was a regular pattern
of rectangular streets with park
squares liberally spotted in al-
ternate blocks. The plan is simi-
lar to Philadelphia with a more
generous allocation of open
spaces.

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THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 55

venture; the plan was a gridiron with a Common reserved in the center as in the New
England villages. Profiting from the precedent in Philadelphia, alleys were platted
in the original subdivision.

The gridiron plan adopted for these towns was not only the simplest form to survey,
but it was not an unsatisfactory form for the small village. A sense of unity was main-
tained by the close relation of all dwellings to the town square and to the agricultural
land on the outskirts. It was when this same pattern was extended endlessly that the
monotony of the checkerboard lay heavily upon the town.

A small settlement begun in 1649 on the banks of the Severn River in Maryland
received the name of Annapolis in 1694. It was the first city in America to adopt diag-
onal avenues and circles as the basic plan form but was followed by a more dramatic
display, the classic plan for Washington, D.C., by Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant.

From Radials to Gridiron. After deliberation of an appropriate location for the
capital of this new nation it was decided to avoid existing urban centers such as New
York and Philadelphia. Ambitious for the future of their newly founded country,
the founding fathers selected a site along the banks of the Potomac River, removed
from the commercial environment of established cities. L'Enfant, a young French
designer, was commissioned to prepare a plan for the new capital city. With his back-
ground in the baroque atmosphere of Paris and inspired by the spirit of the American
cause, it was natural that he should conceive of this new city on a grand scale woven
into a pattern of geometrical order. Such a plan appealed to the aristocratic tastes of
men like Washington and Jefferson, and it was such a plan that was adopted by them
in 1791.

Following the example of their capital city, a number of cities wrapped themselves
in the radial plan, a system of diagonal streets overlaid upon a gridiron pattern. Joseph
Ellicott, brother of Andrew Ellicott who surveyed Washington, D.C., planned the city
of Buffalo in 1804. He adopted a form of diagonal streets crossing a gridiron pattern
at the central square near the Lake Erie waterfront. After the fire of 1805, Judge
Woodward and Governor Hull in 1807 prepared a plan for Detroit. It was a grand
complex elaborated with concentric hexagonal streets and containing most, if not all,
the myriad forms used in Washington, D.C. To implement the plan, owners of property
destroyed in the fire were ceded larger sites conforming to the new layout. New plans
in 1831 and 1853 drew away from the original idea and, with the exception of a few
spots like Grand Circus Square, there is little apparent form in the city today.

Among the other cities with diagonal streets were Indianapolis and Madison. Both
these cities were based upon the gridiron, but diagonals ranged from the center to the
four corners of the plan. The center in Indianapolis was an open circle; in Madison
the focal point was the Wisconsin State Capitol building.

In the midst of this wave of radial planning a significant development occurred in
New York City. In 1800 the city surveyor and architect, Joseph Mangin, proposed a
plan for extension of the city to the north. His plan provided for major north-south
streets with squares and plazas somewhat reminiscent of Washington, D.C. It also

TROY

LANSINGBURGH

Speculative subdivisions were undertaken in the northern colonies in response
to the influx of settlers. One of these was Lansingburgh on the Hudson laid

out by Joseph Blanchard, a surveyor, for Abraham Lansing, a landowner. Purchasers of town lots were allotted
rights to adjoining pasture and timber land. The plan follows the gridiron of Philadelphia with a Common
which was typical of New England towns. Alleys were planned in the original development.

Troy was founded in 1786. It was also a speculative venture and employed the rectangular plan of streets
and alleys.

ANNAPOLIS

Founded in 1694, this little city was the first in this country to adopt
the diagonal street plan inspired by the monumental effects in
France.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

The plan by Pierre L'Enfant, ap-
proved by Washington and Jef-
ferson, began a series of city
planning projects in which diag-
onal and radial streets were
superimposed upon the typical
gridiron layout. The city was
designed as a huge monumental
setting for the Federal govern-
ment of a new nation.

L'ENFANT'S PLAN OF WASHINGTON, D. C

i i c^i en czi C7,

ants
and

ctarrz

BUFFALO

In 1804 Joseph Ellicott, a surveyor, laid out the city
of Buffalo on the shores of Lake Erie. He copied the
diagonal streets of Washington, D. C., with the
plazas and circles of that city.

DETROIT

Judges' and Governors Plan for Detroit, 1807.

NEW YORK CITY

After turning down a proposal of the
city surveyor and architect, Joseph
Mangin, in 1800, a commission was ap-
pointed to arrive at a plan in 1811.
Their plan was a rigid gridiron street
pattern laid upon the irregular topog-
raphy of the city. Open space was not.
generously allocated. A military parade*
ground of 69 acres, 55 acres for a pub-
lic market, and 5 small parks were the only open areas provided in the plan. Despite the "uncommonly great"
price of land, explained as the reason for the economy of open space, the layout of streets can hardly be con-
strued as economical; they occupy some 30 per cent of the land area. This harsh and uncompromising plan is-
reflected in the city of today in which open space has all but completely vanished. It was not until the middle
of the nineteenth century that the great Central Park was definitely established in the plan.

Fairohild Aerial Surveys

58 THE CITY OF THE PAST

suggested a treatment for the waterfront about Manhattan. But Mangin's plan was not
adopted.

Instead, an official commission prepared a plan in 1811. This commission was com-
posed of three members, two of whom were lawyers and landowners and the third a
surveyor. They proposed a rigid gridiron street system to be laid over the entire island
irrespective of the topography and extensive waterfront. Only one angular street was
retained Broadway. The position of the commission was quite clear: "Straight-sided
and right-angled houses/' they reported, "are the most cheap to build and the most
convenient to live in." 2

The matter of economy obviously guided the commission in its deliberations and
dictated its conclusions. They found that "the price of land is so uncommonly great,'*
and their proposal for retention of open space was indeed frugal. A reservation of
69 acres for a military parade ground, 55 acres for a public market, and five small
parks was the limit of open area the commission deemed feasible.

Assuming that the major traffic would continue to move back and forth between the
Hudson and East Rivers, the east-west streets, 60 feet in width, were spaced but 260 feet
apart. This extravagance was offset, however, by economy of streets in the opposite
direction; north-south streets, 100 feet wide, were spaced at distances ranging from
600 to 900 feet.

The commission's appraisal of traffic flow was hardly accurate as the reverse direc-
tion it has since taken readily attests. Nor did it reflect particular optimism for the
future of this great city. But it is the economy of the -commission that poses the most
pertinent issue because it bears strong resemblance to that practiced in later and less
happy days of urban planning.

It will be recalled that Peter Minuit purchased the entire island of Manhattan from
the Indians in 1626. At that time he paid the astounding sum of $24. When the com-
mission laid out its plan in 1811, most of the land was still devoted to agriculture.
The commission, however, considered that the price of land was then "uncommonly
great." Guided by the economy of a surveyor's rod and chain, the island was mapped
in a huge checkerboard. The ultimate cost of fitting the topography, "broken by hills
and diversified by watercourses," to this pattern of land subdivision was overlooked,
to be sure, and the reservation of 30 per cent of the land for streets was possibly
explained by the extensive frontage it provided for the sale of lots. But can the omission
of ample open space be construed as economy?

The commission surely expected the city to continue the growth it was then enjoying:
they obviously did for they so mapped it for subdivision and sale. Even though the
land had been developed with single-family houses on individual lots, the open space
in the 1811 plan would have been inadequate. Forty-five years later (1856), 840 acres
were purchased for Central Park, and it cost the taxpayers of the city $5,500,000.

This is the variety of economy that distorts the planning of our cities today. It is
this experience in the practice of economy from which we are obliged to learn and

2 Early Town Planning in New York State, Turpin Bannister, American Society of Architectural Historians.

THE NEO-CLASSIC CITY 59

profit. Is it economical to avoid the reservation of open space in the name of practical
planning only to find the land value has become so dear we cannot afford the space
when the need is urgent? The value of learning from yesterday is to prepare today
for a better tomorrow.

There were those who protested the formlessness of the commissioners* plan. Many
agreed with Henry R. Aldrich when he claimed its inspiration was "the great facility
which it provides for the gambling in land values and ready purchase and sale of
building blocks" which had "wrought incalculable mischief." It was an omen of the
fate to befall the American city in subsequent years.

PART II

THE
INDUSTRIAL CITY

Sir, if you wish to have a just notion
of the magnitude of this city, you
must not be satisfied with seeing its
great streets and squares, but must
survey the innumerable little lanes
and courts.

Samuel Johnson

CHAPTER 5

THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION

Handcraft to Machines. With the nineteenth century came the dawn of the Machine
Age. Until that time all goods had been processed and assembled by hand. Shops were
modest and generally located in the home of the proprietor. The number of employees
was small, and there was maintained a close relationship between worker and em-
ployer.

There had always been those who worked with inventions. The Renaissance had
been such a period; gunpowder, the printing press, and the processing of various ma-
terials were important developments of that time. Ways were devised to improve the
simple hand machine, but in 1765 Watt invented the steam engine and, with it, mechan-
ical power became independent of hand operation. Enterprising proprietors applied
this power to the work in their shops, and production of goods increased. With produc-
tion increased, trade expanded, the shop moved from the home into separate quarters
the factory and the distinction between employee and employer widened.

In 1776 Adam Smith set forth his theories of capitalism. With the advent of ma-
chines driven with mechanical power a new era was born. Mercantilism moved into
the capitalism of the industrial system. The number of employees in proportion to the
owners increased rapidly, and trade unions among workers, in contrast to the medieval
guilds of proprietors, were formed.

Invention of the machine touched off feverish activity; belt-line production absorbed
the attention of industrial management, and repetition of operations replaced the
variety of handcraft. Each machine had its job, and each man his machine. With each
new device production per worker jumped; mass production made it possible for more
people to have more things, or their counterparts, than had ever been available to them
before. The size of factories grew and the number of workers employed by each fac-
tory owner also increased. The factory was like a magnet, drawing about it an ever-
increasing belt of workers' dwellings, schools, and shops.

Transportation. The industrial system was dependent upon the transportation of
raw materials to the factory and finished products to the consumers. Before the inven-

64 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

tion of the steam engine, goods were hauled in wagons and towed on river barges.
Beginning in 1761 the inland waterways were linked by a system of canals in the
United States, and in 1809 Fulton built his steamboat, the Clermont. In 1825 the first
steam railroad was operated for public transportation in England, and a line was laid
in the United States in 1829. Industrial production increased while domestic and
foreign commerce expanded. Between 1850 and 1880, export trade from the United
States increased from $17,000,000 to $100,000,000.

In the crowded city, the horse-drawn carriage trundled the people leisurely about
the streets. The voiture-omnibus for passenger transportation was introduced to Paris
in 1819 and was adopted, as the "horse-car", in New York City in 1831. In 1832
some rail lines were used by the horse-car, but the rail-less vehicle continued in use for
a long time.

Traffic congestion paralleled the increase in population density, and in 1867 an
elevated cable car was built in New York City. A steam train replaced the cable in
1871, but congestion was hardly diminished. Extending their rails beyond the city,
the steam railroads offered some relief. Suburbs sprung up along them and invited
those commuters who could afford the time and luxury of escape from the city centers.

The electric street railway replaced the horse-car about 1885, and thenceforth be-
came the principal urban transport. By 1917 there were 80,000 cars and 45,000 miles
of track in American cities. As a result, the population scattered somewhat about the
periphery, but congestion persisted. In 1895 an electric elevated line was installed in
Chicago and, shortly thereafter, in New York and Philadelphia.

Still failing to untie the knotty problem of traffic and transportation, the electric
railway went underground. In 1897 a short line was built in Boston, and the first major
subway was started in New York City in 1904. As we are sadly aware today, these
developments aided and abetted congestion. The cities spread, population grew, and
transportation only intensified concentration in the urban centers.

When Daimler invented the internal combustion engine in 1885, transportation
was beginning another step into the tangle of urban traffic. There were four auto-
mobiles registered in the United States in 1895; in 1900 there were 8,000; in I960,
62,000,000. The automobile split the city open at the seams, and to this day we are
frantically trying to hold it together with patches on a worn-out fabric.

It is recorded that Leonardo da Vinci tinkered with a toy flying machine, but in the
nineteenth century men themselves took to the air and by 1903 they were flying in
heavier-than-air machines. In 1927 Lindbergh spanned the Atlantic Ocean, and in
1938 Howard Hughes flew around the world in 3 days, 19 hours, 8 minutes, and 1
seconds. Today commercial planes are traveling to every part of the earth, carrying
120 passengers at 600 miles per hour, and soaring into the stratosphere. How long can
the city remain congested?

Communications. Civilization has moved at the rate man has communicated his
ideas. In ancient times men sent their messages by "runner". The printing press and
postal service were initiated in the fifteenth century, and the thoughts of men could be

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 65

recorded for all to see and read. Their transmission, however, depended upon the
carrier on foot or horseback.

The industrial revolution sprung wide the door of man's inventive genius. The will to
communicate with each other hung by a strand of copper wire. By 1850 messages were
being ticked off on a telegraph key. Then, on March 10, 1876, Professor Alexander
Graham Bell sat in his laboratory and spoke into a gadget. His assistant, listening at
the other end of a wire, heard the words, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you."
Men could talk to each other on the telephone, and the effect of space and time was
drastically altered.

By the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century the miracle of radio not only
further changed the effect of time and space, it exploded them in the face of civiliza-
tion, and adjustment is still far from complete.

Public Health and Safety. In ancient times the tragedy of epidemics aroused
rulers to improve the physical environment. Primitive though they were, there were
efforts to provide drainage and distribute water in the cities of Crete and the Indus
Valley. It was not until the cholera plague of the Middle Ages had violently reduced
the urban population in Europe that sanitary sewer connections and water distribution
were provided as a public service.

Measures for the public health and safety were extended during the nineteenth cen-
tury. The first system of water supply by gravity flow was installed in Boston in 1652.
By 1820 pumping systems were in general use, and methods for the disposal and
treatment of sewage were improved. The heavy coverage of buildings on the land
reduced the natural drainage of the city, but extensive street paving permitted effective
cleaning and storm sewers augmented the sanitary equipment. Urban hygiene in the
factory town did not lag for lack of facilities. It was simply outstripped and nullified
by the congestion of people and the intensity of land use.

Public thoroughfares in towns of the Middle Ages were dark and foreboding lanes.
An occasional oil lamp hanging from a corner building was the only light to guide the
stranger through the night. Artificial gas lighting appeared in London in 1812 and by
1840 was in common use for lighting city streets. The first central generating plant for
distribution of electricity was placed in operation in 1882. Thenceforth electricity
replaced gas for street lighting.

Electricity illuminated the highway and residential street. It made the "great white
way" that brightens the city of today, but it also brought the gaudy display of signs
and advertising that flash at night and droop hideously by day. With degenerate taste
they sell the wares of -commerce and industry but reduce the city aspect to that of a
cheap bazaar.

Services for the health, safety, and convenience of the urban population advanced
farther in a period of less than 100 years than in all past history. This tremendous
progress and the actual living and working conditions of the industrial city present a
bewildering contrast. Glorification of the industrial system and the fruits of its new-born
activity blinded people to the ruin and havoc spreading across the urban community.

66 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

The Factory Town. The steam locomotive extended its rails between the raw
products, the factory, and the cities of consumers all over the land. The railroad with
its sprawling yards penetrated the town with a network of tracks. Every amenity of
urban life was sacrificed to the requirements of industrial production. The factory with
its tentacles of railroads and shipping was the heart and nerve center of the city. Port
cities on the ocean, lakes, and rivers prospered, drawing to them ships laden with coal
and ore and sending from them shiploads of manufactured goods. Railroads and ships
joined at the factories, and the waterfront became the industrial core of the city.

The impact of the industrial revolution was first felt in England. The new industrial
economy brought exploitation of the poor and, with poverty, came the slums. New
slums, mechanical slums, row upon row of crowded workers' houses in the shadow of
the factory, all were added to the traditional slums of the seventeenth century in
Europe. The degraded environment of the factory town hung like a cloud over urban
life for the next century and a half. Engrossed in the technical processes of industrial
production, the homes of the people were neglected. Writing in 1865, Dr. Clifford
Allbutt described the slums he saw:

This is no description of a plague-stricken town in the fifteenth century; it is a faint effort to
describe the squalor, the deadliness, and the decay of a mass of huts which lies in the town of
Leeds, between York Street on the one side and Marsh Lane on the other; a place of "darkness
and cruel habitations," which is within a stone's throw of our parish church, and where the fever
is bred. These dwellings seem for the most part to belong to landlords who take no interest what-
ever in their well-being. One block perhaps has fallen years ago by inheritance to a gentleman
in Lancashire, Devonshire, or anywhere; another to an old lady; a third, perhaps, to an obscure
money-lender. Meanwhile, the rotten doors are falling from their hinges, the plaster drops from
the walls, the window frames are stuffed with greasy paper or old rags, damp and dung together
fester in the doorways, and a cloud of bitterness hangs over all. To one set of houses, appropriately
named Golden Square, there is no admission save by alleys or tunnels, which are only fit to lead
to dungeons; so that for perhaps half a century or more the winds of heaven have never blown
within its courts.

In the new land across the sea there was a vast source of natural resources and an
energetic people inspired by a new-won freedom. The industrial revolution swept across
America unimpeded by traditions. Then one could hear the echo of events in Europe.
As the economy shifted from agrarian to industrial, the people and the resources were
soon to experience the throes of exploitation and the struggle for a decent living environ-
ment.

The air of American towns became polluted with smoke and grime from belching
chimneys of the new age. Railroads ate into the core of cities, waterfronts were ruined,
soot covered the village, and sewage lined the beaches. Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, St.
Louis, all devoted their splendid sites on lakes and river waterfronts to the industrial
plants, the railroads, and the tankers of the new factory system. The land was platted
and advertised as "desirable sites for industry."

Immigration from foreign lands invited the building of tenements. Into them the
newcomers crowded, grateful for some place to live in this country of promise. Indus-

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 67

trial growth in the large centers induced the people to remain in cities rather than
migrate to the more healthful environment of rural communities, and the inevitable
result was the creation of slums.

There was an exception to the concentration in congested cities. A large supply of
labor was needed to obtain the raw products for manufacture, and "company towns"
sprung up at mining and lumber camps in various parts of the country. They occupy
an infamous place in the annals of American town development. Living in deplorable
shacks and shanties, the workers' families were subject to the will of a single employer
for their livelihood. Shelter, food, and clothing were supplied through and at terms
prescribed by the mining company. The depths to which these communities sunk, and
in which many still remain, is a shameful blot on the American scene.

Building tenements for rent was a profitable enterprise in the nineteenth century.
Excessive building coverage on the land and crowding of dwellings within the buildings
brought about population congestion with unbelievable acceleration. The population
density in London was 265 persons per acre in 1870. It was 23 per cent higher than
this in New York City, 326 persons per acre, which then had only one-third the total
population of London. 1

Standards of land use were lax. The first law to regulate tenement building came to
New York in 1867, but only faint improvements were forced upon speculators. Plan-
ning persisted at a deplorably low level; the "railroad" plan was typical of the early
tenements and it had no more evil rival in the world. The usual lot width was 25 feet,
with a depth of 100 feet. Built to the side property lines of these narrow lots, the
"railroad" plan covered as much as 90 per cent of the area. The small space remaining
at the rear was used for privies, no sanitation being provided within the building. With
four apartments on each floor, and five or six stories high, only one room in each
dwelling enjoyed light and air; all other rooms had no exterior exposure.

The unbearable living conditions imposed on the poor did not go unnoticed. A com-
petition was sponsored in 1879 by the "Plumber and Sanitary Engineer" for a "model""
tenement. The results were touched with irony. The winning plan, by James E. Ware,
Architect, was the prototype of the later accursed "dumbbell" plan which covered
85 per cent of the lot and resorted to a narrow interior light shaft along the property
lines. Despite subsequent legislation "outlawing" these buildings, innumerable still
remain to afflict the City of New York.

The Utopians. The industrial city was shrouded in gloom. Class distinctions of
the eighteenth century were present, but the new economy forged links between them.
The fate of the privileged classes was inextricably woven with the welfare of the masses.
The upper classes recognized this, and philanthropy assumed new proportions. Efforts
to relieve the burdens of the working classes pierced the haze all through the nineteenth
century.

As early as 1797 the Society for Bettering the Conditions of the Poor was formed'
in England. While there were nostalgic recollections of the formal city, the struggle

i American Cyclopedia, 1875, Vol. XII, p. 382,

The Seventeenth Century City
The Picturesque Slum

The Nineteenth

Century City

The Mechanical

Slum

Among the deplorable slums of the nineteenth-century
factory town in England, the two-story row-house pre-
dominated. Stretching in long rows with small backyards
and narrow streets, the living environment was dreary
and monotonous. Crowding on the continent, however,
-was even more severe as indicated in the sketch of a
tenement block in Vienna. Built to a height of four and
five floors, it was typical to place a double row of dwell-
ings within the block, the interior row facing on a narrow
interior court on both sides. While it has been customary
to assume that European slums were more crowded than
'housing in this new world, the tenement block in New
York City does not confirm such a notion. The sketch
shows a combination of the "railroad" and the "dumbbell"
tenements, many of which still remain despite the fact
that they were outlawed in 1901.

THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION AND

THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY CITY

The Twentieth
Century City

4 mm ft*

I * r

London

Vienna

New York

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STOKE-ON-TRENT, England

British Information Service

Dutch
Flat

TENEMENTS OF THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

Picturesque slums gave way to mechanical slums in the nineteenth century. Rows
of dwellings were built in the shadows of the factories. A typical workers house
in England was two stories high; living, cooking and dining took place on the
first floor, sleeping rooms were on the second. The wash room and privy were
attached in the rear. In Holland crowded flats in 2 and 3 story buildings were typical.
Tenements took different forms in various countries, but they all had one
characteristic in common excessive land coverage. In New York the "railroad"
plan became as bad as any and was in general use about the middle of the nine-
tenth century. It was outmoded by the "dumbbell" plan developed from the Com-
petition of 1879. The typical lot in New York City was 25 feet wide and 100 feet
deep. The "railroad" plan spanned the full width from lot line to lot line; the
depth varied but generally covered 90 per cent of the lot area. There were four
apartments on each floor and the buildings were six and seven stories high.

Privies were in the rear yard. Rooms were in tandem, and, since there was no light along the side property
line, only one room in each apartment had outside exposure. The "dumbbell" plan, or "double-decker"
offered little improvement except for the concession of a narrow light well along the side property lines. This
feature allowed some semblance of light and air into the rooms, but it is difficult to believe much could
filter down to the dwellings buried on the lower floors, and what air found its way into these wells must have
been foul. Sanitation was improved to the extent of providing two common water closets on each floor. The
"dumbbell" plan was outlawed by the Tenement House Act of 1901. This "New Law" was patterned after the
competition requirements of the C.O.S. in 1899. Illustrated is the winning design by R. Thomas Short, Architect.
The land coverage was reduced to 70 per cent of the lot area, and the tendency to use wider lots was generated;
lots of 50 feet in width began to replace the 25-foot widths. Sanitary conveniences were provided in each
dwelling. Light and air were provided in all rooms by interior courts instead of light wells, and the dwelling
room arrangement was unproved.

English
Row-
House

YARD

1X1

"Railroad"

Plan
circa 1850

Original

"Dumbbell"

1879

"Dumbbell"

Plan
circa 1887

50 FEET

Prizewinning Plan
1899

In 1816 Robert Owen, an English industrialist moved by the problem of the ill-housed industrial workers and
increasing unemployment, proposed a plan for a community which he believed could become self-supporting
and reduce the heavy cost of public relief. Owen further proposed that similar communities could be estab-
lished at appropriate intervals in the countryside. Communal buildings for each community were situated in
the center of a broad Common. About this Common were rows of dwellings, and surrounding the dwellings
were large gardens. The main road encircled the entire compound and the factories and workshops were
located along the outside boundary of the community. Designed for about 1200 people, each community was
surrounded by an agricultural area of between 1000 and 1500 acres to supplement industrial employment.

PLAN OF A MODEL TOWN FOR AN ASSOCIATED TEMPERANCE COMMUNITY OF ABOUT 10,000
INHABITANTS

Proposed in 1849 by J. S. Buckingham, architect, this Utopian plan specified a multitude of features within the
community and recommended that industries using "steam engines" be situated at least one-half mile from
the town. It was also suggested that sites would be reserved for "suburban villas" in the agricultural land sur-
rounding the town.

A 1000 houses 20 feet wide

B Arcade for workshops

C 560 houses 28 feet wide

D Retail shops

E 296 houses 38 feet wide

F Winter promenade arcade

S 120 houses 54 feet wide

H Schools, baths, dining halls

J Public buildings, churches

K 24 mansions 80 feet wide

L Central square

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 71

to improve the living environment of the working people moved steadily on. The
depressing condition of housing for the poor impressed some industrial leaders who
sensed the problems it presented to the future of the industrial economy. The first half
of the century was marked by protests against the "sordidness, filth, and squalor,
embroidered with patches of pompous and vulgar hideousness," and a number of
Utopian communities were proposed. One such scheme was that of Robert Owen.

Owen was the proprietor of a cotton mill at New Lanark. He was familiar with the
problems of industrial management, having successfully introduced reforms in the
working conditions, hours, and wages for employees in his plant. However, Owen saw
beyond these reforms and, in 1816, he set forth an unusual plan for a co-operative com-
munity combining industry and agriculture.

Dwellings were grouped about a large open space in which he located the communal
buildings. Surrounding the dwellings were large gardens, and this entire area was
encircled by a main roadway. On one side of the compound were the factories and
workshops. Beyond, on all sides, was the agricultural belt ranging from 1,000 to 1,500
acres. The village was designed for about 1,200 people. Owen intended his plan for the
unemployed, assuming that the community would become self-supporting and thereby
reduce the heavy cost of public relief.

Another of the Utopians was J. S. Buckingham who, in 1849, wrote a treatise entitled
National Evils and Practical Remedies. In this work he displayed his plan for a
"model" town for an "Associated Temperance Community of About 10,000 Inhab-
itants." Buckingham adhered to the current distinction of class, placing the finer houses
near the center of his plan, receding in class to the humble dwellings and workshops
about the periphery.

The Utopian proposals were not executed, but they focused attention upon the grow-
ing evils of the urban environment. In 1844 the Rochdale Pioneers formed the first
consumers' co-operative organization. In the same year the first Royal Commission on
Health and Housing was appointed in England and the first Public Health Act was
passed in 1848.

By the middle of the century severe epidemics were spreading over England and
continental countries. The ruling classes could insulate themselves from many un-
desirable features of urban living, but they were not immune to disease. Spurred by
alarm, the royalty engaged in a few paternal developments. Prince Albert in England,
Louis Napoleon III in France, and the Berlin Building Society under Prince Wilhelm
in Germany built some "model" dwellings.

These projects represented two extremes. In the congested areas six- and seven-story
tenements were repeated with little improvement in plan and design than previous build-
ings ; they could only decay into more slums with the passing of time. The other extrem-
ity was the suburb of single houses built on the outskirts of the cities. The intention of
these dwellings was encouragement of home-ownership. Being too expensive for the
vast number of low-paid workers, they reverted to the usual middle-class suburbs. The
prospect of selling these dwellings at handsome profits further removed them from the

72 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

income group most in need of improved housing. Consequently, there were no solu-
tions in these spurts of activity.

The Model Towns. Recognizing the desirability of good housing for their workers
and stimulated by the unexecuted proposals of the Utopians, some "model" communi-
ties were undertaken by industrial owners. One of the earliest of these "towns" was
Bessbrook, built in 1846 for workers in the linen mills near Newry, Ireland. In 1852
Sir Titus Salt built Saltaire for some 3,000 workers in his textile mill near Bradford,
England. Extensive community facilities were introduced in this development. In 1865
the Krupp family began the first of several "model" villages for workers in their
munitions and iron factories in Essen, Germany.

George Cadbury, a chocolate manufacturer, moved his plant from Birmingham to
a rural site and began the town of Bourneville in 1879. While this community was
initiated as a "company" town it was converted to an autonomous village about 1900
and has some 2,000 dwellings today. The land has remained in the single ownership
of the village. In France, another chocolate manufacturer, M. Menier, built a worker^"
colony at Noisel-sur-Seine near Paris in 1874. Similar communities were built in
France by the Anzin Mining Company for mine workers at Valenciennes, and M.
Schneider et Cie., for their Creusot Steel Mills near Fontainebleau. Others were de-
veloped at the Crespi Cotton Mills near Capriate, Italy, and Agneta Park near Delft,
Holland, in 1883 for the Van Marken Yeast and Spirit Works.

In 1886, Lever Brothers, famous makers of soap, built Port Sunlight near Liverpool.
The site for this project was 550 acres, and large blocks were employed with interior
gardens and play areas, a forerunner of later planning. Another project that fore-
shadowed subsequent developments was Creswell, built by Percy Houfton in 1895 for
his Bolsover Colliery. A hexagonal pattern was used, the houses facing inward on the
gardens. Sir Joseph Roundtree, cocoa manufacturer, built Earswick near York in 1905.
This, like Bourneville, was made a community trust. It was planned by Barry Parker
and Raymond Unwin, architects prominent in the new direction of town planning.

Some industrialists in America sought to improve the housing for their workers,
probably the best known being Pullman, Illinois, built in 1881. It was built as a
permanent town in conjunction with the plant for manufacture of Pullman sleeping
cars.

The "model" towns of the industrialists in the nineteenth century were so few in
proportion to the real problem of housing in the factory centers that they contributed
little to the solution of that problem. They were flavored with a paternalism similar to
the "model" dwellings built by the royalty at an earlier date. They did demonstrate
some planning arrangements from which later communities were to profit, but the
rarity of the projects rather emphasized the disparity between the living standards
which were possible in the industrial era and the low level to which housing for most
of the urban population had degenerated.

There can be no claim to city planning during this era. The fervor for industrial
expansion had blotted out the original plans for cities in America, and only rem-

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 73

Hants can now be seen. Ambitious proposals like the Judges and Governors plan
for Detroit remained as diagrams of what might have been. Even the distinction
between major and minor arteries established in the early Detroit plan, for example,
was abandoned in favor of a standard street width of 66 feet.

The only plan that remained was Washington, D. C., and it was fraught with dif-
ficulties. The Capitol building and President's Palace had been placed upon the
sites selected for them, but further developments were hardly appropriate to the
dignity and grandeur of L'Enfant's plan. In Lincoln's time the streets were still
muddy roads; Pennsylvania Avenue, intended as a broad and monumental prom-
enade, was lined with nondescript commercial buildings and shops. The Capitol
.building faced east, overlooking the barren marshland which was destined to become
the slums of the city. ]

The gridiron plan of New York City was the beginning of a sterile urban char-
acter. The movement "Westward ho!" gripped the pioneers and with them strode
the land surveyors. By the time this great trek had moved across the United States
the vast land had been mapped in a gargantuan gridiron of mile-square sections.
The pattern of land division was thoroughly bound in a legal straight jacket of
readily recorded deeds. Natural features, rivers, mountains, and valleys were
ignored. Henceforth the grid became the basic pattern of farms, villages, towns,
cities, and counties. Desirability of the land was measured by its prospects for
quick and profitable turnover. Subdivision practices were conveniently designed to
enhance these prospects, and the pattern of future development of cities was fairly
sealed in this package of the gridiron plan.

The Horizon of Improvement. As the nineteenth century wore on governments
in Europe assumed more and more responsibility for the improvement of the city.
The British Housing Law of 1890 empowered the state and local authorities to con-
demn land and build dwellings for rent to the working class. In response to the
growing strength of the trade union movement in Germany a law of 1889 granted
privileges to co-operative housing developments, using funds derived from social
insurance which had been inaugurated by Bismarck. At an earlier date, legislation
was enacted in Holland to provide for the loan of public funds to "public utility
societies" engaged in housing, and a similar program was begun in Stockholm,
Sweden, in 1879. The "public utility society" is somewhat similar to the "limited
dividend company" in the United States, but was subject to closer state supervision
in Europe because of the greater degree of financial assistance it received from
the government.

These various measures set the stage for the more enlightened era to follow in
the next century. There also began a program of social work on behalf of decent
housing which was to extend into the twentieth century. Miss Octavia Hill launched
her crusade for the underprivileged in London in the latter part of the century
a practical program based upon the idea that good and continuous management
could improve living even in existing tenements.

BERN

1300

1600

The early medieval town had space within and
about it. With the increase in trade and the rise
of mercantilism the city form remained the same,
but open space was built up. The methods of
water supply, drainage, and waste disposal re-
mained the same, but more and more people were
crowded into the city. It has continued to grow
in population as have other cities, but, while it
extended its boundaries, the process of congestion
has increased in intensity of land use. Current
undesirable congestion has been bearable only
with the vast improvement in water distribution,
public utilities of gas, electricity, sewage dis-
posal, and mechanical inventions.

ELJL

Just as the medieval town became crowded with the increase
in trade, the new towns gradually became congested with the
development of commercialism. The plan of New Haven shows it
as an open residential community until the industrial revolution.
In the last hundred years, however, the street system has changed
only slightly, but the land has been built-up until little open space
remains.

1641

1812

NEW HAVEN

Today

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 75

Stirred by the gallant efforts of such crusaders as Jacob Riis, there developed
a growing protest against the congested tenements in America. The hideous "rail-
road" and "dumbbell" tenements on 25-foot lots had spread over New York City, but
there were signs of mild and spotty reforms. As early as 1871 the Boston Co-operative
Company began a modest program of rental houses for city workers, and other
"model" dwellings were attempted.

In 1894 the publication of some plans for tenements by the Architect Ernest Flagg
aroused wide interest. These plans provided broader light courts than the standard
practice; they reduced the length of interior corridors and improved the exposure
of the rooms. A competition for better housing was held by the Improved Housing
Council in 1896. It was won by Mr. Flagg with a plan requiring a lot 50 feet in
width but accommodating the same number of apartments per floor as the "dumbbell"
plan on the same area of land. The rooms in each apartment were larger, and their
exposure and arrangement were enhanced.

With this impetus to improve low-cost housing, the Tenement House Committee
of the Charity Organization Society conducted a competition in 1899, The program
specified certain basic planning standards to be followed by the competitors. Among the
prescribed requirements were a maximum lot coverage of 70 per cent, large light courts,
and a minimum volume of air per occupant within the dwelling. The winning design
was submitted by the architect, R. Thomas Short.

This competition spurred renewed efforts for reform and culminated in the passage
of the Tenement House Act of 1901, commonly known as the "New Law" in New
York City. The act was modeled after the standards of the competition, and fairly
established the 50-foot lot in subdivision practice.

Progress became more visible when the twentieth century opened. Several organi-
zations were formed for the purpose of building better housing for the low-income
worker. One of the most notable was the City and Suburban Homes Company of
New York. Starting business in 1896 and assisted by Ernest Flagg, it has since built
some 3,500 apartment units. The by-laws of the company are worthy of note; its
purpose was: "To offer to capital a safe and permanent investment and at the same
time to supply wage earners improved homes at current prices."

In 1879 the Washington Sanitary Improvement Company was established in Wash-
ington, D. C. It was followed in 1904 by the Washington Sanitary Housing Company
and these organizations have built nearly 1,000 apartments for rental to families of
low income in the capital city.

Movement to the Cities. The factory system brought more and more people to
the urban centers. While rural areas in England were decreasing in population from
10,000,000 in 1821 to 9,500,000 in 1936, cities were gaining from 4,000,000 to
37,000,000. In Germany the rural population dropped from 23,000,000 in 1821
to 19,000,000 in 1936, and urban population increased from 2,000,00 to 48,000,000
in the same period. The industrial metropolis and congestion became synonymous.
Between 1800 and 1900 urban population in Europe grew between 300 and 400

76 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

per cent. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, London had a population of
1,000,000; at the beginning of the twentieth century it was 7,000,000. During
the same period Paris grew from 700,000 to 3,000,000, and Berlin from 172,000
to 4,000,000.

The population of the United States was largely agrarian at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Only about 5 per cent of the people lived in towns, and they
were small communities. In 1790 there were but two cities with a population as large
as 25,000. The inauguration of regular steamship service between Europe and
America in 1840 helped to feed the factory system with immigrants seeking the free-
dom of this land. By the middle of the century 20 per cent of the people lived in
cities. From that time forward the acceleration was rapid, and in 1940 there were
3,464 urban communities with 56.5 per cent of the total population of the country.
Four hundred and twelve cities had more than 25,000 population. Of these, twenty
three ranged between 250,000 and 500,000; nine were between 500,000 and 1,000,000,
whereas five exceeded 1,000,000.

The Spiral of Land Values. The century saw the formation of land companies
and the beginning of "real estate" as a business. Land prices boomed as city popula-
tion jumped by leaps and bounds, and speculation was rife with expansion to the
suburbs. Land values in Berlin doubled between 1865 and 1880. In one twenty-year
period, land values in London increased one-third. With this increase in land values
came increased congestion. Between 1836 and 1886, the density of population in
Paris increased threefold. The density of people in London was 265 per acre in 1870,
and, at the same time, there were residential areas in New York City with a density
of 326 people per acre. 2

During the latter part of the nineteenth century speculation in land flourished. Land
valuations pyramided at a fantastic rate. Accommodation of the growing urban popula-
tion in the expanding city became more and more difficult. Increasing the density in
tenements only further inflated the value of land, which in turn bred higher values.
The vicious cycle was in motion.

In New York land values were $742,000,000 in 1870. In 1872 they were
$797,000,000. By 1927 they had risen to $7,780,000,000, and in 1932 they were
$10,150,000,000. A study by Homer Hoyt showed a similar sequence, although less
regular, in Chicago. The valuation of land for the 211-square-mile area occupied by
that city ran the following course:'*

1833 .............. $ 168,000 1861 .............. 60,000,000

1836 .............. 10,500,000 1897 .............. 1,000,000,000

1842 .............. 1,400,000 1926 .............. 5,000,000,000

1856 .............. 125,000,000 1932 .............. 2,000,000,000

3 100 years of Land Values in Chicago, Homer Hoyt, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1933, Tahle
LXXX, Appendix III.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 77

The chaotic effect of this violent sequence of higher density followed by higher land
cost can hardly be understated. The movement of the tide has been stemmed only with
occasional economic depressions, but these intervals have been followed by immediate
recuperation of inflated land values. It is apparent that little hope for any modification
of this cycle can be expected as long as the legal framework for the urban environ-
ment permits unlimited population densities.

PARIS

INCENNES

The dark-shaded streets show
the Haussmann Program

Wall A

Wall B

Wall C

Wall D

Wall E

Built by Philip Augustus, Twelfth century
Built by Charles V, Fourteenth century
Built by Louis XIII, Seventeenth century
Built by Louis XV, Eighteenth century
Built by Napoleon III, Nineteenth century

F The Louvre

G The Tuilleries

H The Champs Elysees

J The Champs de Mars

K The Tie de la Cite

L The Invalides
M The Luxembourg

Beginning as a fortified town on the small island in the Seine River, Paris was known as Lutetia by the Romans.
At the time of the Norman invasion in the ninth century the town had expanded heyond the original lie de la
Cite and was fortified on both sides of the Seine. The fortifications were extended by Philip Augustus in the
twelfth century (Wall A). The left bank (south) was the principal location for churches and colleges, the
commercial center lying on the right bank. The kings made their residence on this bank, and in the fourteenth
century Charles V built Wall B to contain more adequately this growing part of the city. At the east end of the
town was the tower known as the Bastille; at the west end, on the banks of the Seine, was the Louvre which
became the royal palace.

The Louvre was extended in the sixteenth century under Henry IJ, and the Tuilerics Gardens were created.
The power of the monarch was growing, and the Renaissance was ushered in. Henry IV built the Place Royal,
and in the seventeenth century Louis Xlll had the walls expanded to contain the Tuilcries Gardens (Wall C),

During the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King, Paris grew rapidly, and court life extended its influence.
Vauban reduced the fortified walls, and the ramparts were transformed into promenades, the first of the Grands
Boulevards. The Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre were enlarged, and the initial stage of the Champs filysces
was built into the "suburbs" to the west. The Place des Victoires and Place Vendome were built. Monumental
quais were created along the Seine. King Louis XIV, however, moved his court and residence lo Versailles
where he built the great palace and gardens.

The city expanded further under Louis XV who built the Place Louis XV (Place de la Concorde), Rue
Royale, and Church of the Madeleine. Streets were widened and new avenues built for fine residences. The
Champs de Mars was also established, and in the latter part of the eighteenth century the new Wall D was
built to contain the growing city.

Following the Revolution the industrial development of the city increased. The outskirts of the city were
built up, and a new Wall E was built in 1840. Under Napoleon III, the huge program by Baron Haussmann was
carried out. The principal portion of this is indicated in heavy shading. Many new avenues were cut through
the city and boulevards created on the sites of old walls.

As Paris developed, the city underwent remodeling under each of the monarchs but it will be observed
that the greatest projects in each successive period were those along the fringe of the city. The great open
spaces that distinguish the city today were developed in advance of the city expansion, and the walls extended
to include them as the city spread about them. Even as late as Haussmann, boulevards were carved out of the
city, but the most expansive spaces were those like the Champs filysees and the Place de Tfitoile, and boule-
vards radiating from them were laid across open fields. The rapid growth of Paris has spread the city in all
its suburbs and absorbed the open spaces including those created when the walls of 1840 were leveled in the
latter part of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER 6

THE CITY OF
CONTRASTS

Last of the Baroque. Repeated outbreaks of the people caught in the tangled
industrial city were a source of annoyance to the ruling class in Europe. In the midst
of the orgy of urban expansion, a development of monumental proportions was under-
taken in Paris. Sensitive to the restlessness of the working classes, Napoleon III pro-
posed to open broad avenues through the slums in which discontent festered. In
devising his plan he was not unmindful of the advantage these open spaces would
provide his soldiers in controlling mob violence.

Georges-Eugene Haussmann, a bureaucrat in the city administration, was selected,
in 1853, to take charge of the huge program. The result was an amazing demonstration
of administration and organization. The entire boulevard system of Paris was planned
and executed in a period of seventeen years and under the most strenuous circum-
stances. Haussmann was resisted, on the one hand, by a city council reluctant to
appropriate the necessary funds and, on the other, by bourgeois property owners
affected by his broad strokes of planning.

Haussmann was aware of the need to design for the traffic of a new industrial age.
He laid out the new streets in long sweeps cutting through the maze of winding
medieval lanes. With these avenues he connected old plazas and created new plazas.
He laid out the radiating avenues across the open fields from the Place de Ffitoile,
he laid out the Bois de Boulogne, he carved out the monumental Avenue de FOpera
and many other grand boulevards.

The program engineered by Haussmann was stupendous. It transformed Paris and
gave it much of the color of that great city. But can it properly 'be called planning?
A series of masterful projects were executed. Haussmann intended to improve the
circulation of traffic, and the broad avenues that were opened through the congested
districts were an improvement. He had the conception of scale appropriate for the
new city: he saw it as a complex wanting unification. But the tradition of monuments
was deeply rooted in the process of city building. It was not long since the revolution

80 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

against tyranny, and an emperor was again the ruler. The tree-lined avenues and
vistas meant to impress rather than serve the people.

The time was not ripe for solving the new urban problems. Mixed land uses were
not changed, and the avenues became continuous shopping streets along the ground
floor with dwellings on the upper floors. There was no separation between land uses
as in the earlier London residential developments about Bloomsbury, which were
by-passed by traffic arteries and shopping streets. The scheme of Haussmann was
gargantuan in scale, but it was too late to become an effective monument to the ego
of a monarch, and too early to solve the planning of the industrial city. It was the
swan song of the Baroque city.

MidrVictorian Mediocrity. There was a depressing consistency about the factory
town of the nineteenth century. It bred mediocrity in every aspect of life; mediocrity
was its characteristic. Vast areas of mean dwellings lay under a pall of smoke; an
atmosphere of haze hung over the environment. Peaks of creative inspiration were
few and far between. Monotonous order was a natural result of rigid organization of
people and things. The mid- Victorian Period signifies bad taste and dull, routine life.
Here and there a pseudo-gayety pierced the haze, but it was fluffy with gray frills
touched more with half-concealed vulgarity than genuine pleasure. The urban environ-
ment reflected the bawdy "can-can" rather than the graceful waltz. A film of grime
and soot covered it, and the wide range from wealth to poverty meant little more, in
a cultural sense, than the difference between more or little bric-a-brac in the cluttered
surroundings. The cultural energy of the city was sapped by the gigantism of industrial
development. The factory was like a monster that spewed forth its products and then
reached out to clutch them in its expanding claws.

Glorification of the machine was complete, and man had created a master. This
was significant to him. He had proved his power. Here was a creature of man that
could produce anything. It had no need for a brain; it was automatic. It had no
limitations; it could even destroy man himself. And man was tremendously proud
of his achievement.

Proof of the mediocrity of the age were the few who recognized it. William Morris
and John Ruskin cried out against it; Charles Dickens wove it into his classic stories;
muckraking reporters like Lincoln Steffens exposed it; Octavia Hill and Jane Addams
fought it with vigorous social work. They saw the dulling of man's creative spirit, the
shift from quality to quantity as a measure of success. They perceived it in all its
shabby elegance and grime the nineteenth century industrial city.

Apparently, man can move in an atmosphere of mediocrity for just so long, and
then an awareness of a cultural vacuum dawns. Unfortunately he may only peer,
rather than search, for the absent quality, and he often fabricates a substitute, an
artificial air of pomposity that serves rather well and takes much less trouble than
the search for culture. To achieve culture it might be necessary for him to forego
temporarily some material advantages in which he so firmly believes. So he ingen-
iously contrives to have both.

THE CITY OF CONTRASTS 81

This happened in the transition twilight of the nineteenth century.

The City Beautiful. World Fairs had proved a great way to place the products
of industry before the people and it was proposed to hold one in Chicago in 1893. The
Columbian Exposition, as it was called, was to demonstrate amply the great industrial
empire and to give pedigree to this new empire. What more natural way to accomplish
this than by clothing it in the robes of classic form? Had this not been the "cultural"
drape for the great days of the past? Was this not an appropriate cloak for a new
era when men could produce more than at any time in history? With this new power
men could reproduce classic structures that would surpass the emperors. This was
a natural conclusion in the nineteenth century and it was true. Mediocrity had taken
its toll in taste as in exploitation. A reaction was inevitable, and it was violent.

It was a natural paradox that out of the smoke, soot, and grime of the cities, this
Fair would be called "White City." Cities were cramped, monotonous, and ugly; the
Fair would be big, broad, and beautiful. The Fair would be everything the urban
environment was not, and it was a huge success. It did all the things it purported to do
and something more. It launched a movement of "classic revival" in this country
which was to portray all the contrasts conceived in the nineteenth century and born
in the twentieth.

Daniel Burnham, the chief architect for the Columbian Exposition, uttered the magic
wo-Lxta t : ^l marked the new era: "Make no little plans." The fair rolled up a tidal
wave of "city planning" and it swept across the land. Every large city planned to
become the "Cily Beautiful." Burnham was commissioned to prepare a plan for San
Francisco after the earthquake and fire of 1906. The Commercial Club of Chicago
engaged him for the plan of that city in 1909. He did one for Manila and Baguio in
the Philippines, and he was an active member of a commission of architects who
renewed the plan of Washington, D, C.

Other cities followed suit. Plans were of colossal scale with monumental propor-
tions. Axes shot off in all directions terminating with proposed buildings that put
the visions of past kings to shame. Great plazas and broad avenues, generously punc-
tuated with monuments, were almost a civic obsession. The "City Beautiful" was the
Grand Plan reincarnate; the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris was the fountainhead for
the designers of this period and the plans had to be big to be beautiful.

Civic centers became a popular theme. Nearly every city had its Civic Center
Plan open space landscaped in the traditional fashion, fountains distributed about
plaza and garden, public buildings limited in number only by the size and ambition
of the city, topped off with a frosted dome terminating a long and broad vista.

All this activity was performed in something of a vacuum. An air of haughty
detachment pervaded the planning, an isolation from the affairs of people and
community activities. A monument or public building blithely placed in the middle
of an important traffic artery suggests the characteristic paradox. It was as though the
planners had determined that the people must adjust themselves to the mighty formal
arrangement. It failed to occur to them that the entire development of a city was

82 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

essentially a derivative of human needs. The Civic Center conception itself was one
of removal from the life of the community rather than a functional entity within
it. Removed from channels of enterprise, civic affairs had an air of divorcement.
The grandiose buildings were imposing, not inviting. They held the spellbound cit-
izen at arm's length. They did not fit the city, its life, its habits, or its manners ; theirs
was an air of disdain rather than dignity.

Then these great structures became so laden with excess "architectural" expense,
it was almost too much to bear. The citizen could really not afford the sums of money
they cost. There were some grand gestures made and executed, but the lavish plans
were largely destined for respectable storage in the archives of a more modest city
hall. Most of the work that reached the stage of execution was necessarily and hap-
hazardly remodeled later to fit the requirements of traffic and circulation ignored in the
original planning.

The seeds of city planning had nevertheless been planted. Planning organizations
sprung up in various parts of the country. A Town Planning Board was established
Li Hartford, Connecticut, in 1907. In 1909 the first National Conference on City
Planning was held. This was followed in 1911 with the founding of the National
Housing Association. By 1913 there were official planning boards in 18 cities in the
country, and in the same year Massachusetts led off with the first state legislation that
made city planning a mandatory responsibility of local governments: all cities with
a population of 10,000 or more were required to establish a Planning Board.

The City of Commerce. Meanwhile the real city was shoving its sprouts through
these pleasant but fortuitous efforts. The technical "know-how" of industrial produc-
tion had been learned. The industrial system was no longer primarily a technical
problem; it was now a commercial process. Financing and distribution were the new
emphasis. Selling the rapidly produced merchandise and financing the expanding
facilities to produce more were transforming the system into a financial empire. Fac-
tory management turned its attention from production of goods to commercial organi-
zation, banking, national and world-wide trade associations. The nature of commodities
and their production methods gave way to ticker-tape and figures in a set of books.
The businessman the tycoon of commerce became the main cog in the new era.
Statistics, business cycles, bookkeeping, financing, and the stock market were the stock-
in-trade of those who strove for success. Trade in commodities rather than the com-
modities themselves was what counted now. The city began to bristle with buildings
sheltering acres of floor space for business. The skyscraper was the dramatic manifes-
tation of the commercial city.

It was apparent that affairs must be operated on a practical basis. Cities must work,
the ornamental must be discarded, and only the useful could be tolerated. Land cost
money, buildings cost money, services cost money, and so did time. These required
attention of practical men, not dreamers. It was well and good to have ideas about a
"City Beautiful," but it was far more important that they pay dividends.

To answer these demands there emerged the "city engineer," the practical man who

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL:
The central part of the 1909
plan for Chicago by D. H.
Burnham.

THE INDUSTRIAL CITY: Gary, Indiana.

The City Beautiful and the Industrial City grew up together in
the nineteenth century. The problems of the growing metropolis
were not solved and the crowded City of Commerce emerged to
complicate further the urban pattern.

SILHOUETTE, ANCIENT TO MODERN

American Airlines

PYRAMID OF GIZEH

PARTHENON COLOGNE
CATHEDRAL

WOOL-WORTH RADIO EMPIRE
BLDG CITY STATE
BLDG

84 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

could make surveys and calculations, determine the size of sewer, water, and drainage
systems, lay out rail lines, streets, walks, curbs. City planning became an engineering
process engaging practical men free from dreams. These qualifications appealed to
civic and business leaders and instilled confidence in their judgment and businesslike
manner. It was this individual that businessmen desired for the responsibility of plan-
ning within budget limitations. They had received a huge dose of grand planning,
proposals to embellish the city with architectural trappings costing more than the
problems they were intended to solve.

There was merit in this position; the "City Beautiful" was not frowned upon, it was
simply too expensive. Awed by the monumental dreams, impressed by the vision, it
was not with disrespect that the proposals were sidetracked. These great designs had
simply lost all connection with the commercial city that was growing up in the twentieth
century. It was a thing apart, detached, unrelated to the affairs of men. It solved no
problems, and there was a subconscious recoiling from the classic mold into which it
would cast the physical environment.

The city was a business proposition, and it must pay dividends. Land took on a new
value. There was a time when it was sold as "lots. 9 ' The value was later measured in
terms of street frontage, a price per front foot. It was now being measured by the
square foot. Every square foot of land had a value and none could be wasted. Building
coverage was intense; layer upon layer of floor space was piled upon the land.

Despite resistance to the monumental planning of the "City Beautiful," the classic
treatment had made a deep impression. It gave an appearance of pedigree which was
itself an asset to the business world. The value attached to every square foot of land for
commercial use opposed the fine balance between the buildings and open space of classic
planning. But the appearance could be captured, however, so remnants of the classic
revival were hung upon the fagades of buildings and each thus became a fit associate
for its neighbor along the street. It was a sham, to be sure, but the street assumed a
stylish front and the value of land behind the fagades was protected.

As in architecture and the arts, city planning acquired a Queen Anne front and a
Mary Ann back. The street became a canyon embellished with a galaxy of styles cutting-
through mountains of building bulk. The appearance of dignity was achieved without
the loss of a square foot of land.

Washington, D.C., is not a typical American city, but it dramatically displays the
contradictions of the twentieth century. The job of government in a great democracy
attracted an expanding population to the capital city. With the people came commer-
cial enterprise, and the forces of conflict were set; the commercial city and the classic-
city were diametrically opposed.

The pseudo-classic planning for activities of the Federal government was vigorously
maintained. In 1901 the MacMillan Commission was appointed to restore the original
character of the I/Enfant plan. Some results were obtained. The railroad which had
been cut across the Mall was removed, and the present site for the Union Station was
established. There was agreement on a uniform limit for the height of future buildings.

Fairchild Aerial Surveys

NEW YORK CITY

New York City illustrates the exaggerated chaos of the City of Commerce in the industrial age.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

A city of monumental compromise between the classic and the commercial city. The Capitol is near the
center of the photograph. It is encircled (left and counterclockwise) by the House Office Building, Library of
Congress, Supreme Court, and Senate Office Building. To the right is Union Station. The Mall extends from
the Capitol to the Washington Monument, from which the Reflecting Pool leads to the Lincoln Memorial.

Fairchild Aerial Surveys

86 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

To preserve these accomplishments the National Commission of Fine Arts was ap-
pointed in 1910 by President Theodore Roosevelt. It was followed in 1926 by creation
of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

These commissions performed yeomen services to the preservation of the classic city,
but that city had changed. A new age had arrived, immature but nonetheless a moving
force. Commercialism with its entourage of shops, hotels, office and loft buildings,
entertainment and residential development, traffic and transportation descended upon
the city. Above all, the evaluation of land and the intensity of development that had
overtaken other cities could not be denied in the capital city.

Commercial enterprise paid respects to the monumental street system which had been
laid down. Into this framework the features of the new city were squeezed and fitted.
Classic fagades were likewise draped upon the street fronts, but behind these fronts
formless building space was heaped upon the land, even as in other cities.

The contradiction between the classic and the commercial city was clearly apparent.
To protect its character of monumental buildings and planning, the Federal reserva-
tion was necessarily isolated from the remainder of urban development. With this
separation the prescription of uniform building height and style, building sites, forms,
and open space could be rigidly controlled.

The paradox of the city was substantially complete. The execution of a plan for the
capital of a great democratic government could be accomplished only by freezing its
form into a preconceived and inflexible mold. The reason for the paradox had ap-
parently escaped notice.

It was falsely assumed that a planning "style" could be transferred from another
age and adapted to a new set of conditions. It was overlooked that periods of culture
in the past have been identified by the special stamp of character they evolved from
within the framework of each. Great cultures have not been so recognized because of
their similarities with previous periods, but because of the distinctive qualities they
have contributed to the progress of civilization.

The false premise upon which the plan of Washington, D. C., has evolved is mag-
nified by the design of the structures themselves, the insistence upon classic forms with-
out regard for the essential arrangement of interior space. Exterior space is equally
oblivious to the functional elements of the city. The classic courtyards, their prototypes
treated with fine paving or gracious gardens, have in Washington become oil spotted
parking lots filled with automobiles. The Federal reservation of classic monumentalism
is hollow and unnatural; the commercial city, warped into the pattern of its streets, is
equally artificial.

The Need for Regulation. Laissez-faire took deep root in the affairs of men as
the commercial city formed. The new attitude of practicality presented something of a
contradiction in urban building. It became increasingly apparent that if freedom was
to avoid license some order must be established. In practical terms this meant the
adoption of rules and regulations which, in turn, implied certain curbs upon laissez-
faire.

THE CITY OF CONTRASTS 87

We have observed that regulations over city building were not new in the annals
of history. King Hammurabi codified his rules of justice in 2,000 B.C. The Greeks had
regulations pertaining to the building of dwellings. The Romans established height
limits for tenements. Towns of the Middle Ages adopted various regulations like the
restrictions against fire hazards and projecting upper stories.

The sad condition of housing that developed with the factory system in the nineteenth
century forced the enactment of many laws to curb abuses. Restrictions applying to
commercial and industrial buildings were rare, and with the advent of the skyscraper
the need for appropriate regulations became more and more apparent.

Regulations for light, air, and lot coverage, though lax, were accepted for residential
buildings, but commercial structures were permitted to occupy as much as 100 per cent
of the lot area for the entire height. Steel construction and elevators pushed buildings
higher. Light and air could penetrate on the street frontage only, and this diminished
as buildings rose, floor upon floor, into the air.

Regulations increased in number and scope during the early part of the twentieth
century. Codes establishing standards of construction, mechanical, and electrical instal-
lations were adopted to protect the public health and safety. Fireproof construction was
required where congestion was most acute. Protection was assured for public rights-of-
way.

Mixed land uses, the indiscriminate placement of stores and shops in residential
areas, induced premature depreciation of land values and residential neighborhoods.
The necessity to exercise some measure of public control over land use was pressing.

Zoning. There was some precedent for zoning. When town walls in Germany were
leveled in the nineteenth century, building regulations designated "belts" in which
apartments and single houses could be built about the periphery of the ramparts. Pro-
tection from encroachment of undesirable land uses had been attempted in America.
Exclusive residential sections in some middle-western cities were planned as courts
entered through monumental gates and "block ordinances" were framed to restrict
improvements to high-class residences. Height limits were placed on buildings in
Boston in 1903 125 feet in the central district and 80 feet elsewhere. In 1909 Los
Angeles adopted a regulation dividing the business area into seven "industrial" districts.
The remainder of the city was declared to be residential and in this area "laundries"
were excluded. After a piece of land, in which a brick industry was located, was annexed
to the city another ordinance was enacted to prohibit brickyards in residential districts.
Both these ordinances were upheld in the California courts.

These cases were hardly more than experimental gestures, but the chaotic growth
of cities made it imperative that positive steps be taken to bring some order into the
urban pattern. It is a fortunate characteristic of humankind that when leadership is
needed there is usually available someone willing and capable of assuming the re-
sponsibility. Such a man was Edward M. Bassett, an attorney in New York City. To
Mr. Bassett goes credit for a public service on behalf of the urban population. He
undertook a thorough investigation of the power of the people to regulate their own

88 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

destiny and worked diligently on the preparation of a legal instrument whereby the
people could exercise effectively their powers to control the use of land in the urban
community.

Mr. Bassett defined zoning as "the regulation by districts under the police power
of the height, bulk, and use of buildings, the use of land, and the density of popula-
tion." With this clear-cut purpose, the first comprehensive zoning ordinance in this
country was enacted by New York City in 1916. There is no better testimony to the
remarkable thoroughness of Mr. Bassett and his colleagues than the subsequent history
of zoning in the courts. Tested in a number of cases in later years, the principle of
zoning was upheld in every court.

One of these cases is particularly significant. It fairly confirmed the democratic
nature of planning, and established it as an instrument with which the people could
order the destiny of their cities. In his opinion on the "Euclid Case" 1 Justice Suther-
land of the U. S. Supreme Court said: 1

Until recently urban life was comparatively simple; but with the increase and concentration of
population, problems have developed, and constantly are developing, which require additional
restrictions in respect to the use and occupation of private lands in communities. Regulations, the
wisdom, necessity and validity of which, as applied to existing conditions, are so apparent that
they are now uniformly sustained, a century ago, or even a half century ago, probably would
have been rejected as arbitrary and oppressive.

Little need be added to the words of Supreme Court Justice Sutherland.

Zoning had a profound effect upon American cities. For the first time there was
created an instrument with which to control the use of land in urban areas. It is charac-
teristic of this technique that it protects the general welfare of the people by protecting
that of each individual citizen.

There was nothing in the nature of zoning that confined it to urban development
alone. It was essentially a device for planning the execution of a plan and as such
could be applied at any scale and for any land requiring public control over its use.
It has been applied to counties in a manner similar to that of cities, and it has been
adapted as a means for conservation of natural resources. In 1929 the State of Wiscon-
sin empowered counties to establish districts in which agriculture was excluded from
submarginal lands and forestry and recreational development encouraged within these
privately owned lands.

Zoning is a vital part of the urban machinery, but it can fail through abuse, misuse,
and resistance to essential changes in the urban pattern for the general welfare.

Extension of Public Services. The industrial revolution changed the city into a
metropolis. The urban population became the multitude, and the supply of basic human
wants to this multitude required highly organized services. Transportation via common
carriers, roads, water supply, sewage disposal and drainage, communications, power
and illumination, all vastly expanded in scope. Their impact upon the public health

i Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Company, 272 U. S. 363, November 22, 1926.

THE CITY OF CONTRASTS 89

and safety increased accordingly. Being thus colored with the public interest, some of
these services were subject to public regulation; others were embraced in public owner-
ship.

Public works to control or harness natural resources for the community at large were
not new. We will recall the dikes, reservoirs, and irrigation projects along the Nile;
the aqueducts, sewers, and roads built by the Romans as public projects. This responsi-
bility disappeared for a time during the Feudal Period but returned toward the end of
the Middle Ages. Limited though they were, water supply and sewage disposal were
then considered public responsibilities.

In the early history of this country many of the highways were private toll roads.
They were transferred to public ownership and control, and the sewerage system and
drainage remained a public responsibility. There are other public services, however,,
which are owned and operated as private enterprises. Because of their impact upon the
common welfare, the continuity of their service is essential and they enjoy a monopoly
guaranteed by franchise. Known as public utilities, they are subject to regulation by
public authority.

The railroads, street railways, and other forms of common carriers, the telephone,
telegraph, and radio are with some exceptions regulated public utilities. The same is
true of electric power, illumination, and gas distribution. The supply of water is
generally owned by the public, although there are exceptions.

The "social" control of utility services is an important factor in the future of urban
development. It is therefore pertinent to understand the position of our courts in deal-
ing with this phase of democratic procedures.

In 1876 Chief Justice Waite of the U. S. Supreme Court set forth the theory of public
interest in private property. The case 2 was that of a grain operator who violated a
local statute controlling the rates for storage. The court held that the enterprise was
"affected with the public interest" because of the dependence of the public upon it and
the consequent right of the public to exercise authority over its operations. Justice
Waite stated,

When, therefore, one devotes his property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in
effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be controlled by the public
for the common good, to the extent of the interest he has thus created.

Chief Justice Taft confirmed this position in a later case 3 with this opinion:

In a sense, the public is concerned about all lawful business because it contributes to the pros-
perity and well-being of the people. The public may suffer from high prices or strikes in many
trades, but the expression "clothed with the public interest" as applied to a business means more
than that the public welfare is affected by continuity or by the price at which a commodity is-
sold or a service rendered. The circumstances which clothe a particular kind of business with a

2 Mum v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113.

3 Charles Wolff Packing Company v. Court of Industrial Relations of the State of Kansas, 262 U. S. 522
(1923).

90 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

public interest, in the sense of Mujin v. Illinois and other cases, must be such as to create a pecul-
iarly close relation between the public and those engaged in it, and raise implications of an
affirmative obligation on their part to be reasonable in dealing with the public.

It will be observed that enterprise engaging in public service assumes a dual obliga-
tion. The first is to supply all the needs of the public implied by the nature of the
service, and the second is to provide the services at a cost reflecting reasonable but not
excessive profit. This status of a public utility a public service for which it enjoys a
monopoly imposes obligations beyond the scope of the usual private enterprise. Pub-
lic utilities become an integral part of city planning, and successful development of the
city is largely dependent upon the effectiveness of their operations.

CHAPTER 7

THE LIVING
ENVIRONMENT

Patrick Geddes. Ever present among the complicated urban activities of the nine-
teenth century was the effort to improve the living environment. Urban speculation and
its disintegrating effect upon the environment of man had aroused the public conscious-
ness during the century. The critical essays of eminent men in the literary world John
Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, Lord Shaftesbury, Charles Dickens, Engels, and Benjamin
Disraeli shed light on the issues with the force of their insight and talent.

Among those who spoke out against the evils at the turn of the century was Patrick
Geddes. In 1892 Geddes founded the Outlook Tower in Edinburgh, and through this
medium he presented the whole complex of urban life. He insisted upon a view of all
phases of human existence as the base of operations, an integration of physical plan-
ning with social and economic improvements.

This principle does not sound unfamiliar today, but it was new when Geddes ex-
pressed it. As a contemporary of his said: "There was a time when it seemed only
necessary to shake up into a bottle the German town-extension plan, the Parisian Boule-
vard and Vista, and the English Garden Village, to produce a mechanical mixture
which might be applied indiscriminately and beneficently to every town in this country.
Thus it would be 'town-planned' according to the most up-to-date notions. Pleasing
dream! First shattered by Geddes, emerging from his Outlook Tower in the frozen
north, to produce that nightmare of complexity, the Edinburgh Room at the great Town-
Planning Exhibition of 1910."

Patrick Geddes gave voice to the necessity for what was later to become Regional
Planning.

The Garden City. There was another who rose above the throng at the end of the
century. He was Ebenezer Howard. Disturbed by the depressing ugliness, haphazard
growth, and unhealthful conditions of cities, he had an idea which he set forth in a
little book entitled Tomorrow, published in 1898. The idea was the Garden City.

In this book Howard described a town in which the land would remain in the single
ownership of the community. The dwellings would be distributed about a large central
court in which the public buildings would be located. The shopping center would be

92 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

on the edge of the town and industries on the outskirts. The city would have a popula-
tion of some 30,000 people in an area of 1,000 acres. Surrounding the entire city
would be a permanent belt of agricultural land of 5,000 acres.

Rather than failing of execution as did the proposals of the early Utopians, Ebenezer
Howard, before his death in 1928, saw his idea become reality. The Garden City
Association was formed in 1899 and in 1903 the First Garden City, Limited, a limited
dividend society, obtained 4,500 acres of land 34 miles from London and began the
city of Letchworth. It was designed for a maximum population of 35,000 with an
agricultural belt of 3,000 acres. In thirty years this town had grown to a population of
15,000, with more than 150 shops and sixty industries, and had paid 5 per cent divi-
dends on the invested stock. At a later date a second garden city, Welwyn, was started.
The site was 2,400 acres and it was designed for a population of 40,000. In fifteen years
it had a population of 10,000, with fifty industries.

These cities followed the scheme of Ebenezer Howard, the agricultural belt remain-
ing a permanent protection and not a reservation for continued expansion of the urban
area usually considered the only usefulness of vacant land on the periphery of cities.
These towns have had the added advantage of retaining, for the benefit of the popula-
tion itself, the increment of increased value of land created by a growing and prospering
community.

There is a difference between the usual joint-stock company and Garden City,
Limited, which developed Letchworth. The principal object of the latter is to create
a town for the benefit of the community. In so doing, the rights of the shareholders to
dividends on their stock are limited (5 per cent in Garden City, Limited) and profits
earned above the dividends are applied to the benefit of the whole community. The
company is in a position of public trustee rather than a private landlord. It has proven
a sound, but not a speculative, investment. Land for all development purposes is leased
for a period of ninety-nine years. The town government is the Urban District Council of
fifteen members, elected by the residents, and of these five members retire annually
and are eligible for re-election.

Another feature distinguishes Letchworth. Development and growth of the Garden
City are reversed from the practices of the usual speculative city. Aside from the
merits of planning in either type of town, zoning in Letchworth determines the use of
specific areas and only those uses are permitted; only factories and workshops are
built in the industrial zones, and shops in the commercial zones. In the speculative
town any use of a lesser economic character is permitted in its zoning provisions;
dwellings are found in industrial and commercial zones, and these mixed uses are
largely responsible for the sad state of the urban environment. The overdeveloped
center and underdeveloped periphery of the speculative town are absent in Letchworth.
Open spaces remain for development as the need arises and for the appropriate use
provided in the plan.

Of the 1,500 acres of the town contained within the rural belt, 935 acres are reserved
for residential use, 170 acres for industry, 60 acres for shopping, and the remainder

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT 93

for parks and roads. There are some 4,000 dwellings in the town of which the Urban
District Council has built 1,300 cottages for workers.

The Common Denominator. The house a family lives in is the common denomi-
nator of the city; it is the fiber of the city. The link between it and city building is so
close the two are almost synonymous. Industrial and commercial enterprise strengthen
the structure of the city, but it is the community of homes that marks the health, even
the civilization, of a people.

Haussmann ripped through the slums of Paris with his boulevards, civic centers were
planned for American cities, the impressive garb of classic fagades was hung on the
streets of the commercial city, and zoning was devised as the legal instrument to lend
stability to the urban framework. But housing, the manifestation of the inner structure
of civilization and the culture of people, remained as always the "left-over" in the
urban plan.

Had zoning come early rather than late the urban predicament might have been much
different. It is not exactly practical to plan a city after it has been built. Planning
implies a program before an act, but zoning was adopted after the city had taken shape
and zoning could hardly accomplish more than freeze the mixture. There was no
chance to prescribe the ingredients before they had been poured together and well
stirred. It was inevitable that housing should become the excrescence of urban land use.

City planning was first an urge to improve the esthetic pattern of the urban environ-
ment. Then zoning made of it a statistical exercise and a marathon of prognostication.
These movements were necessary and valuable, but they did not improve the environ-
ment of the people and that is the purpose of city planning. Housing has thus become
the principal instrument to attain that objective. It brings into focus the social, eco-
nomic, and esthetic aims and needs of the urban population. It consequently becomes a
political responsibility.

After World War I the housing shortage became a major crisis in Europe. Building
inactivity through the war years had left the people of all countries with not only a
shortage of dwellings, but monetary systems that, through inflation and war debt,
needed transformation. It was essential that governments take a hand.

Public policy with respect to housing had made considerable progress in European
countries during the nineteenth century. The groundwork for public assistance had been
laid. Financial aid was available to private enterprise through public utility societies
and trade union co-operatives. Local public authorities were empowered to provide
housing for the lowest income families. The exercise of condemnation by public authori-
ties was an accepted instrument to enforce housing improvement, and cities in a num-
ber of countries had acquired large areas of vacant land outlying the built-up city.

The housing program restored to the minds of men that standards of living are more
than a load of mechanical equipment surrounded by walls of a building and covered
by a mortgage. The family and its dwelling had been engulfed by the tidal wave of
the industrial revolution. It emerged from the war as the primary unit of design in city
development.

94 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

The record of this program is of historic importance. The performance in each
country assumed similar characteristics, but each deserves some attention for the re-
markable progress it represents in the total pattern.

England. In England the Housing Act of 1919 superseded the Act of 1890 in
response to the "Homes for Heroes" campaign. It provided for subsidies by the
Ministry to local authorities for clearance of slums and building low-cost housing.
During the twenties and early thirties the purposes of this Act were consolidated and
extended. Compensation to owners in built-up areas declared ready for clearance was
restricted to the market value of the land, and no payment was made for the sub-
standard structures on the site. Standards of occupancy were established to prevent
overcrowding of families within dwellings, and local authorities were vested with
police power to order improvements in physically substandard dwellings or their
demolition.

The housing program had given strong impetus to enactment of the Housing and
Town Planning Act of 1909 which, with subsequent amendments, became the Town
and Country Planning Act of 1932. This was a comprehensive piece of legislation.
Local authorities were not only empowered to prepare and enforce plans for the
urban area, but typical of the British pride in their rural countryside, the Act provided
for the preservation of rural areas and important buildings. It further implemented
the co-operative planning for two or more separate political subdivisions cities and
counties where they required such treatment as a region.

The Housing Act of 1936 brought the relationship between housing, slums, and city
planning into clearer focus. The local authority is required to prepare a plan for re-
development of blighted areas, in which these areas are related to the general plan for
the city. Such an area may then be declared suitable for redevelopment and the author-
ity is empowered to acquire the land, in whole or in part, and arrange for its rebuilding
by private enterprise or public authority. The terms on which this declaration may be
made are that at least fifty working-class houses are contained in the area; at least
one-third of the dwellings are overcrowded or physically unfit, congested, or unsatis-
factory for renovation ; that the area is suitably located for housing, in part, for indus-
trial workers; and that redevelopment of the entire area is necessary to establish
adequate standards of low-rent housing in the area.

The effectiveness of the British program is demonstrated by performance. Accord-
ing to the 20th Annual Report of the Ministry of Health, there were 3,998,366
dwellings built in England between the end of the war and 1939. Of this number,
2,455,341 were built by private enterprise, 430,481 were built by private enterprise
with some degree of government assistance, and 1,112,544 were built by local author-
ities.

Slum clearance was an important phase of the program in England. However, apart-
ment buildings three to five stories in height were considered necessary in order to
restore ample open spaces in the residential plan, and this was contrary to the tradi-
tional dwelling of the English people. The cottage and garden was the type of dwelling

School
Agricultural Belt

Parks

Roads

Railroad

Industry
Business

I MILE

LETCHWORTH

WELWYN

Greenbelt

Parks

Parkway

Roads

Railroad

School

Shops
Shopping Center

BECONTREE

WYTHENSHAWE

THE GARDEN CITY AND THE SATELLITE TOWN

Reflecting the ideas of Ebenezer Howard, the Garden City of Letchworth was begun near London in 1903 and
Welwyn soon followed. Limited in their initial planning to an ultimate maximum population, the garden cities-
were surrounded by agricultural fields similar to the original proposal by Robert Owen. The satellite towns of
Wythenshawe and Becontree are similar to the garden cities with the primary exception that the latter are,
self-contained, each having its own industry, whereas the former are dependent upon the larger industrial
cities, to which they are attached, for industrial employment.

96 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

close to the heart of the Englishman. The most successful housing developments were,
consequently, those in which this type predominated.

The Satellite Garden Town. Two great projects were undertaken in this period
Becontree, a satellite community for 25,000 families on 2,770 acres near London,
and Wythenshawe, adjacent to Manchester.

Sir Ernest Simon has called Wythenshawe a satellite garden town in contrast to a
garden city such as Letchworth and Welwyn. The two have similar characteristics: a
residential area of low density of not more than twelve families per acre, factory and
shopping areas, parks, schools, and other civic buildings, and protective buffers of
permanent agricultural belts on the periphery. However, a garden city is intended to
be a self-contained and self-sustaining community whereas the satellite garden town
is situated close to a large city in which the residents of the garden town may have
their work and places of business.

The city council of Manchester appointed a Housing Committee in 1926 to consider
the possibility of a satellite garden town to relieve the congested slums in the city. An
estate of about 2,500 acres in single ownership adjacent to the city on the Mersey River
was recommended as the site. It was later increased to 5,500 acres, and after some
opposition locally and in Parliament the entire area was incorporated in the city in
1930, most of the land being finally purchased at agricultural value. Mr. Barry Parker,
Architect, was invited to prepare plans for the estate. An agricultural belt of 1,000
acres was reserved, and the original grounds of the estate were retained as a 250-acre
park. A golf course of 100 acres was also provided. Two broad parkways run through
the town connecting with the city. The residential areas which border these parkways
are separated from the roadways by an open space 150 feet wide. Side roads give
access and ingress to abutting property and the main road has been confined to through-
traffic with limited access. The residential area is 3,000 acres with a maximum density
of 12 houses per acre; 25,000 houses are planned with an ultimate population of
100,000.

The land on which Wythenshawe is built remains in the ownership of the city of
Manchester. Both the city and private enterprise may build on the estate and by 1935
a total of about 4,800 dwellings had been completed. Of these the city built some
4,600. It is planned that about two-thirds of the residential area will be used for muni-
cipal housing, and one-third for private housing. About 500 acres are reserved for
industrial, commercial, and civic buildings.

Some criticism was leveled at the city council of Manchester for extravagance in
purchasing a large tract of land and reserving large areas for permanent open space.
Sir Ernest Simon, a staunch leader for improved housing in England, has defended the
policy of the city with a comparison of the method pursued in the usual procedure :

Let us consider first the question of the bulk purchase of land. The question is whether the
City Council has been wise to purchase so large a block of land straight off, or whether it would
have been more economical to continue its previous policy of purchasing relatively small plots
of land as and when required. It has in fact, since the War, purchased nearly 2,000 acres at a

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT 97

cost which has been gradually rising, but which must average about 400 pounds an acre, giving a
total of about 800,000 pounds. In Wythenshawe, on the other hand, the original purchase of
2,500 acres was at 80 pounds an acre. Since then prices have gradually increased. As develop-
ment has proceeded and as it has become known that the Corporation was in the market for more
land, the prices have been put up, and the average price paid for the whole 3.500 acres is perhaps
in the neighborhood of about 100 pounds an acre, or a total of say 350,000 pounds.

If at Wythenshawe the Corporation had pursued its old policy, first of all developing main
roads and main drainage, then gradually buying pieces of land as they were required for housing
and became ripe for building, there is not the least doubt that they would have had to pay a
similar average price to that paid in the rest of Manchester; that is to say about 400 pounds an
acre.

The effect of the bulk purchase therefore is that the land has been purchased at an average
price of 100 pounds per acre as against an average of 400 pounds. So far as the 2,000 acres are
concerned which are to be used for municipal housing, nobody denies that this land was needed
for housing, and that it would, at some time, have had to be bought for that purpose. The economy
through buying in bulk has therefore been 300 pounds an acre, or a total of 600,000 pounds for
the 2,000 acres. Against this saving must of course be set the annual loss in owning the land up
to the time of development; say 4 per cent for interest charges. This amounts to 8,000 pounds
per annum. From this must be deducted the rents receivable from the agricultural land (less cost
of management) which would bring the net burden down to a figure of say 6,000 pounds per
annum, that is to say, against a total saving of 600,000 pounds there is an annual charge, so long
as the land is wholly undeveloped, of 6,000 pounds. The period of delay before full development is,
of course, uncertain, but if Manchester proceeds with its programme of building 3,000 houses a
year, most of them being necessarily built at Wythenshawe, the estate will be fully developed in
less than ten years. Assuming, however, that twenty years were required, the burden of interest,
beginning at 6,000 pounds per annum and gradually falling to nothing, would amount in the
whole period to 60,000 pounds. The net saving on the housing estate owing to the early purchase
would therefore be no less than 540,000 pounds.

Let us now turn to consider the 1,500 acres purchased for factories, shops, public buildings and
private enterprise houses. Development is still in its early stages, and no particulars have been
published as regards the terms on which this land is being leased for these different purposes.
We are informed, however, that the ground rents which are being obtained are such that they
represent on the average a capital value of at least 300 pounds per acre above the bare cost of the
land. When these 1,500 acres are fully developed there will therefore be a profit on the capitalized
value of the land of at least 300 pounds an acre, or 450,000 pounds on the whole area. Against
this item also there will be a set-off representing the interest charges during the period of devel-
opment, which on the assumptions previously made should certainly not exceed 50,000 pounds,
leaving a net gain of 400,000 pounds.

Taking the landlord account as a whole (covering the 3,500 acres) we come, therefore, to the
following conclusion: that the bulk purchase of 3,500 acres by the Corporation as against the old
policy of hand-to-mouth buying of the land required for housing, and not buying any land for
other purposes, will, if the estate is fully developed in twenty years or less, show a capital advan-
tage to the Corporation of approximately 1,000,000 pounds.

Accusations of extravagance against the City Council for the bulk purchase of land are, there-
fore, the exact reverse of the truth. The fact is that the City Council has shown a high degree of
business foresight in making the purchase, which will ultimately be of great benefit to the rate-
payers.

There is only one other aspect of the Wythenshawe development which has been called extrava-
gant: the generous reservation which has been made in the plans for the agricultural belt, parks,
parkways and the preservation of spinneys. Admittedly, the area reserved is an advance on what
has previously been done; but the difference between the normal practice of reserving 10 per
cent of the area for parks, on the one hand, and what has been done at Wythenshawe on the other,
is not great. The total expenditure on open spaces in the whole three parishes of Wythenshawe,
even if the whole agricultural belt is actually purchased by the City Council, will certainly not

98 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

reach 200,000 pounds; it must be admitted that the necessary open spaces could have been pro-
vided for perhaps 50,000 pounds less. But this extra expenditure will make a big difference to
the amenity of the estate. Can anybody seriously call this extravagance when it is set off against
the 1,000,000 pounds which will be gained on the landlord account? 1

Sweden. Mature policies of land acquisition by cities in the Scandinavian countries
resulted in aggressive participation in the supply of housing by private enterprise via
the public utility societies and housing co-operatives. Copenhagen in Denmark, Stock-
holm in Sweden, and Oslo in Norway made outstanding progress in both urban and
rural housing, and standards were maintained at a relatively high level. It is estimated
that 10 per cent of the population in Stockholm live in housing produced by the co-
operative societies alone, and a fifth of the people in Copenhagen and Oslo are accom-
modated in co-operative and public utility housing.

The industrial revolution did not reach Swedish cities until electric power had been
developed as a major power source. As a consequence congestion did not afflict Swedish
cities to the extent suffered by other cities on the continent. Decentralization was feasible
power was brought to the people rather than the people congregating at the source of
power. WMle migration to cities during the nineteenth century had increased ten- to
twentyfold elsewhere, the increase of population in town and country was stable in
Sweden. During the nineteenth century rural population increased from 1,000,000 to
2,000,000, and urban population increased from 2,000,000 to 4,000,000.

The central district of Stockholm contained its share of slums, but they did not
constitute the relatively large problem prevailing in continental cities. The principal
problem in Sweden was overcrowding within dwellings, undoubtedly due to the
rigorous climate and the heating problem it created. More than 50 per cent of the
families occupied apartments of one and two rooms.

Since Sweden was a neutral country during World War I the economy had not
only escaped suffering but had fared quite well. A shortage of housing occurred
because construction had lagged, but the government was in a satisfactory financial
position to render all needed assistance to correct it. From 1917 to 1920 municipal-
ities subsidized public utility societies and co-operative groups that were building
low-cost housing to the extent of one-third the cost. In 1920 this subsidy was reduced
to 15 per cent of the cost because of increased wages and resulting capacity to pay
higher rents. With stability generally restored by 1923 the subsidies were discontinued.
Interest rates on mortgage money were high, and the State Dwelling Loan Fund was
set up to make loans for second mortgages at low interest rates to offset the high first
mortgage costs.

It was a tradition in Sweden for citizens to have the greatest possible freedom
from government aid or interference. This tradition had not only been strengthened
by, but was largely due to, the vigorous and aggressive co-operative movement. It
became an effective and progressive instrument for the maintenance of democratic
procedures and economic freedom. In order to remove itself from housing operations
as much as possible, the government created an independent agency in 1929 to

1 The Rebuilding of Manchester, Sir E. D. Simon, Longmans Green & Company, 1935.

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT 99

administer the Swedish Housing Loan Fund. This agency loaned government funds
at low interest and long terms to continue the building of housing for low-income
families. The successful operation of co-operatives soon obviated any need for
these loans, and financial responsibility was shifted to the co-operative societies. By
1934, 10 per cent of the people in Stockholm lived in housing developments sponsored
by the co-operative societies.

The co-operatives were of two major types. The S.K.B. (Stockholm Kooperativa
Forbundet, or Stockholm Co-operative Society) was engaged in the production of
various consumer goods. Housing built by this society was primarily for its mem-
ber employees. The H.S.B. (Hyresgasternas Sparkassa och Byggnads-forening, or
Tenant Savings Bank and Building Society) was an organization specifically organ-
ized to build dwellings for members of the society, and membership was not restricted
to any particular occupation. Careful research in planning was carried on by this
society, and the projects it developed introduced advanced techniques in planning,
equipment, and community facilities.

Since 1904 the city of Stockholm had purchased 20,000 acres of land surrounding
the city. This land was incorporated and planned for "garden suburbs/' The city
installed streets and utilities, and sponsored a program for working families to lease
lots and build their own dwellings. Loans were available from the municipality up
to 90 per cent of the value of each unit. The loans were in the form of materials pur-
chased by the city, the balance (10 per cent) being the owner's contribution in
labor. Standard plans for the dwellings, ranging from 700 square feet to 1,000 square
feet in floor area, were prepared by the city, and skilled supervision was provided dur-
ing construction. It was a popular and successful program, offering an opportunity
for low-income families to leave the congested slums.

Rebuilding of cities was aided by the Town Planning Act of 1931 which required
all urban 'communities, regardless of size, to prepare a rebuilding plan. All improve-
ments thereafter were obliged to conform to the plan.

In 1935 encouragement was given to rehousing slum dwellers by means of rent
rebates ranging from 30 per cent of economic rents according to family size. There
were other forms of housing improvement such as joint rehabilitation of substandard
buildings by owners of contiguous property for which the municipality advanced
loans. Housing for the aged and for single women were also included within the
scope of municipal programs.

The methods employed in Sweden to maintain good housing were varied. Public
policy was always flexible enough to be adjusted as changing conditions warranted,,
and private enterprise, through the co-operatives and housing societies, was courageous
and astute with its investments.

France. Epidemics of cholera generated some activity in the nineteenth century to
correct substandard housing in France, and the threat of mob violence moved Napoleon
III to build wide avenues through the slums as a means to control them. But it was
not until 1894 that serious legislation was enacted. The Act passed at that time was
similar to the Belgian Law of 1889 which made funds available from the government

A Fifteen-story tower apartment buildings
B Three- and four-story apartment buildings

LA CITE DE LA MUETTE
Beaudoin & Lods, Architects

The first stage of development at Drancy, near Paris. One of the large housing projects built by the Department
of the Seine in the outlying districts around Paris. This unusual project shows the usual difficulties that arise
when urban expansion proceeds independently of adequate plans for the extension of utilities and transporta-
tion facilities. It -was largely vacant because these facilities were lacking until World War II when it was
converted into a military barracks.

MarceZ Lode

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT 10!

at low interest rates for houses to be sold exclusively to industrial employees. In
1912 the Office Public d' Habitations a Bon Marche (Public Office for Low-cost
Housing), an organization of local authorities, was empowered to loan funds for,
and subsidize, low-cost housing. It was augmented several times later until the Loucheur
Act of 1928, which concentrated further upon production of housing for low-income
families and expanded financing through public authorities and private enterprise.
Nearly half the dwellings provided by the Public Office after World War I were
concentrated about Paris.

Despite ambitious plans to rebuild the congested slums the Hots insalubre a
blot was dropped on the housing program in Paris. When the city walls were razed,
it was expected that the open space would be reserved and the surrounding slum belt
cleared and rebuilt with appropriate standards of planning. It was another idle dream.
When the fortifications were leveled, the land was leased to speculative enterprise in
1930 and some 20,000 dwellings crowded into tightly planned tenements eight stories
high were built in the open space. The adjacent slums remained.

There was some encouragement in the late thirties. The Department of the Seine
planned a series of cite jardins in the outlying areas of Paris. While literally trans-
lated as "garden cities," these developments were designed as satellite garden
villages somewhat similar to Wythenshawe in England. In the words of M. Henri
Sellier, Administrator of the Housing Office of the Department of the Seine, the cite
jardins were planned as "essential elements of the City of Greater Paris."

Another blow befell the program. The necessity for co-operation from public
utility agencies in the successful development of the city was amply demonstrated.
Lack of proper arrangements for transportation meant failure for some of the cite
jardins outside Paris and near failure for others. The interesting project at Drancy
La Muette remained vacant because transportation was not provided. Chatenay Mal-
abry, planned for 20,000 people, and Plessis Robinson were partly occupied, but
transportation was not completed.

The post-war housing program in France hardly set a standard to serve as a guide
for urban development. The plan for the cite jardins about Paris was courageous, but,
as indicated above, it was not enough for success. Urban planning is complex, and
the variety of public services makes the difference between success and failure.

Germany. Certain policies had been well established in Germany prior to World
War I. Public utility societies and trade union co-operatives were recognized as
effective instruments in the housing field. State financial aid was an accepted method;
during the last half of the nineteenth century Bismarck had inaugurated social insur-
ance, and this source supplied funds for housing loans for many years. Local gov-
ernments had also assumed responsibility for housing government workers and financ-
ing public utility societies.

During his tenure of office in 1902, Mayor Adickes of Frankfurt obtained passage
of a law (Lex Adickes), permitting the city government to pool private property,
rearrange it to conform to the city plan, and redistribute such land for redevelop-

102 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

ment. In this process the city was further authorized to retain 40 per cent of the land,
without compensation to the owners, for streets, parks, and other public uses. Pursuant
to this enactment in Frankfurt, a policy was adopted in numerous German cities to
acquire outlying vacant land on the periphery. The purpose of this policy was pro-
tection from the inevitable speculation and resulting boom in land prices which
accompanied the rapid increase in urban population.

This policy was fully rewarded after World War I when the need for housing, pro-
duction of which had come to an abrupt halt, became most acute. The cities were
then in a position to lease large quantities of these public lands to private and co-opera-
tive organizations for the construction of housing without the penalty of excessive
land costs. In seventy German towns with more than 50,000 population, more than
6,000 acres of city-owned land were leased between 1926 and the rise of Hitler.
Similar policies were adopted in other countries, Austria, Switzerland, Holland,
and Denmark, and 15,000 acres outlying Prague in Czechoslovakia were made avail-
able for housing.

The first world war left Germany impoverished. Inflation upset the monetary sys-
tem, an inactive building industry left a serious housing shortage, and the country
was undergoing transition from imperial to republican government. High financing
costs rendered it difficult for private enterprise to cope with the housing problem.
Interest on mortgage money had more than doubled, moving from 4 per cent to as
high as 10 per cent. Rents had quadrupled while wages had increased only 50 per
cent. It became imperative for state and local governments to finance a large part
of the housing program-
Property owners had become beneficiaries of the inflation which had the effect of
liquidating all previous mortgages. As a consequence the Hauszinsteuer (House Rent
Tax) was adopted in 1921. Prewar rents were used as the base for a tax levy ranging
from 10 to 50 per cent of the rents, and the funds thus derived were used to
finance second mortgages at a very low interest rate (generally 1 per cent) to
compensate for the high cost of first mortgage money. Administered by local gov-
ernment, these funds were loaned to public utility societies and co-operatives for
housing. The effectiveness of this policy is evident in the production of some 3,000,000
dwellings between the war and the rise of Hitler. More than three-quarters of these
dwellings received financial aid from the government. The housing problem was
not solved, a sufficient supply of dwellings was not provided and the slums remained,
but the program represents a remarkable achievement for what it did accomplish.

German cities had suffered the same kind of chaotic growth experienced by other
cities on the continent during the nineteenth century. It was obviously necessary to
reconsider land utilization and planning if the tremendous housing program were
to result in a permanent asset to the communities in which it was built. It is a
significant contrast with our ^w" experience in the United States. Emergencies have
been the excuse to postpone urban planning in our country; the emergency in republican
Germany was considered the sound reason to engage in the most serious planning.

A Bridge

B Market Plaza

C Future Markef
Place

MARGARETHEN-HOHE, Essen

George Metzendorf, Architect

Emerging from the Garden City movement, this village was developed in 1912 by the Krupp family for workers
in the industrial steel plants in Essen. The community was planned for 2,000-2,500 dwellings (12,000-16,000
population) and the first stage is shown in black. It illustrates a number of planning features. Surrounded by
forest, the principal connection with the city is by way of the bridge (A) on the north boundary. Rather than
bisecting the plan in the usual manner, the main traffic street swings around the village and by-passes the
market plaza (B). This shopping center and the future principal market place (C) are conveniently located
within the dwelling area rather than upon the periphery. The schools (D) are situated within blocks of
dwellings rather than upon the traffic roads. The road system is designed to fit the topography of the site but
is arranged to avoid through-traffic on any but the main roadway. It will also be observed that buildings are
generally set back at road intersections to avoid obstruction of traffic vision at the corners.

It is a curious paradox that this development to improve the living environment of the working people of
Essen was dedicated to the same member of the Krupp family for which the powerful military cannon "Big
Bertha" was named a few years later.

POSSMORWEG, Hamburg

Built in 1927-'28 on plans by Schneider, Elingius, and Schramm. A variation of the "hollow square" planning
characteristic of the early housing program in Germany. Under the direction of the city architect, Fritz
Schumacher, this type of planning continued in Hamburg. The large space in interior courts was a vast im-
provement over high land coverage, but orientation of the dwellings was compromised.

PRAUNHEIM

ROMERSTADT

Praunheim and Romersladt were among the early developments in the extensive program under ihe direction
of Ernst May in Frankfurt am Main. Praunheim with 1,441 dwellings was begun in 1926 and extended through
1930; RomerstadL with 1,220 dwellings was built in 1927-28. The architects were May, H. Boehm, Bangert,
.and E. Kaufmann.

Two-story row-houses predominated in these developments, although some three-story apartment buildings
were included. Orientation was not dealt with as insistently as in subsequent planning, but the houses were
planned somewhat differently on each side of the street. The ample open space is noteworthy, and community
facilities were well considered because of the isolated site location. Schools and play areas, guest houses, shop-
ping, and a theater were planned.

The unit plans show a dwelling for the north side of a street with the living room to the south, or street
side. In this case, it will be seen on the plot plan that these dwellings are set back from the street line. In
the dwelling for the south side of the street, the living room is placed on the opposite side from the street,
facing south. The third unit plan shows the type of minimum dwelling developed in Frankfurt am Main
for an outside corridor giving entrance to the dwellings.

PLAN FOR SOUTH
SIDE OF STREET

PLAN FOR NORTH
SIDE OF STREET

FAS 5 A.O E.

OUTSIDE BALCONY CORRIDOR PLAN
FOR MINIMAL-TYPE DWELLING

HOMERSTADT European Picture Service

Private living gardens are provided for the dwellings and there are allotment gardens for vegetables in some
areas.

106 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

Despite the shadows cast over that country since Hitler's rise to power and the national
frustration it brought, the housing program of the 1920-30 decade looms as an example
of aggressive, though immature, democracy in action.

The pressing demand for new dwellings gave neither the time nor the funds for a
real program to clear the slums; this was necessarily postponed until an adequate
supply of dwellings could be built. Two effective means were brought into play in
the early twenties: the public utility society (limited-dividend company) and the
co-operative society. The public utility society, though comparable to the limited
dividend company in this country, was subject to careful supervision by the state
and was eligible to receive the benefits of several forms of subsidies found necessary
to implement a large supply of new housing. They were formed for the purpose of
building low-cost housing and, in spite of state supervision, exercised a high degree
of initiative and ingenuity in the planning of their projects. The co-operatives, or self-
aid societies, were largely organized by trade unions as a means to supply housing
for their members. These companies enjoyed privileges similar to public utility
societies and assumed the same obligations. The effectiveness of these groups is
demonstrated by the extensive operations of the three largest which built 71,000
dwellings up to 1929. These three, known as "Dewog," "Gagfah," and "Heimat," were
among some 4,300 co-operative societies in operation.

In addition to large organizations there were a number of smaller private companies
engaged in the program, but they contributed to a much less degree than the above-
mentioned companies. The government created various agencies under jurisdiction of
the several provinces and municipalities, for research in the technical phases of plan-
ning, construction, and financing. The results of this research were made available to
all private and public organizations in the housing field.

With few exceptions, planning prior to 1925 had been confined to the usual city
blocks. Inadequate building regulations had permitted an excessive density of popu-
lation and building coverage within these confines. The first step away from high
density in the postwar program was the arrangement of buildings about the perimeter
of the usual city block with building coverage reduced within the center of the
block. This "hollow square" form enclosed recreation and service areas, the build-
ings being mainly apartments of three and four stories in height. Many large-
scale developments were placed upon tracts of vacant land. Here freedom from the
subdivision of the gridiron system led to more informal planning and the "row house"
was adopted where density was not a prerequisite. Main traffic streets were confined
to the periphery of the projects, and the internal residential roads were bordered by
parallel rows of dwellings. Apartments of three and four stories were also included
along the marginal areas of the site.

Research in planning techniques soon led to a rational consideration of orientation.
Sunlight in every room was a rule, and the orientation of all buildings to provide
east and west exposure became mandatory. The preferable exposure was west light
for living rooms and east light for bedrooms. The attention devoted to the proper

PAPPELHOF, Chemnitz, 1929

This project of 521 dwellings in
three-story apartment buildings
illustrates a well-organized allo-
cation of land uses. Uniform
orientation is provided all dwell-
ings, and the buildings are
placed perpendicular to the
boundary streets. Access to the
park, the gardens, and the play-
ground is convenient from most
of the dwellings. Six stores are
provided along the transverse
service road.

A Park

B Allotment Gardens

C Children's Playground

NIDDA VALLEY, Frankfurt-am-Main

When the post-World War I housing program was begun in Germany, Ernst May was the architect-planner
engaged to direct the program in Frankfurt-am-Main. Because of the shortage of dwellings the clearance of
slums within the central city was necessarily postponed until an adequate supply was available. May planned
a series of satellite housing developments about the periphery of the city, and the Nidda Valley district is an
illustration. Ample open space was retained about the housing areas which were planned in a manner similar
to Romerstadt and Praunheim located in the Nidda Valley.

A Romerstadt
B Praunheim

HH Developed Building Areas
EgyggH Planned Building Areas
BBSS Open Space

MSB Allotment Gardens
===== Roads

DAMMERSTOCK, Karlsruhe
1929

Architect
Otto Haesler
Riphahn & Grod
Walter Gropius
Frans Rockle
Wilhelm Lochstampfer

SECTION

Unit

A, M, N

C, D, F

E, R

Architect
Fritz Rossler
Hans Rostiger

Alfred Fischer
and Walter Merz

Alfred Fischer

Unit

K, L

This project, 750 dwelling units, demonstrates the rigid formula for site planning that emerged in the German
program :

1. Uniform orientation for all dwellings.

2. Elimination of traffic between buildings.

3. Open space in proportion to building height.

All dwellings were two rooms in depth and the alignment of all buildings in the north-south direction
admitted sunlight in every room of every dwelling. Buildings were placed perpendicular to the streets, and a
maximum number of the dwellings thereby faced upon free open space on both sides of the buildings. Streets
were reduced to a minimum and treated as service lanes. As building heights increased, the angle between the
roof line of one row and the ground line of the next remained constant, as seen in the section.

The project was planned under the direction of Walter Gropius, but a number of architects were engaged
in the design and a wide variety of dwellings resulted. In most of these the relation of dwellings to exterior
space was the same. Living areas faced upon private gardens opposite the entrance side. Apartments were
confined to one row of three-story and one row of four-story buildings located at the east side of the site;
the rest of the units were two-story row houses.

Utility services heat and launo!ry were contained in the individual row houses, and a central heating
plant and laundry (P&L) was provided for the apartments. As in most of the German developments, the small
ownership of automobiles is reflected in the absence of parking space for vehicles.

S L

L S

35-9

2*3

Zl*

C L

18-fc"

c c

PT L

M
K

c c

cT<K

1-2

TIIBIIIT

172

2-1

1-2

DWELLING UNITS

ST. I ST.

35-6'

JM
2

S1EMENSTADT, Berlin
1929-31

Siemenstadt, developed in a suburb of Berlin, comprises three- and four-
story apartment buildings built by several housing companies. It shows the
tendency to arrange building rows in a north-south alignment to provide
uniform orientation for all dwellings, and the elimination of streets between
buildings to avoid traffic interference. A large school, churches, and shops
(S), a central heating plant and laundry (P&L) are provided.

The project was designed by a number of architects and includes a variety
of dwelling plans, but all have been planned with similar consideration for
orientation of the rooms. Unit J is adaptable to different room arrangements, and Unit K, being situated in
a building running east and west, places all living and sleeping rooms with south exposure.

Group Architect Unit

I Hans Scharoun A, B, C

II Walter Gropius D, E, F

III Hugo Haring G
IV, V Fred Forbat

VI Otto Banning

VII Hans Hertlein

H, J
K

EBR fJFT HFI

SPANDAU-HASELHORST, Berlin
1930-32

This project represents the final development in the technique of site planning. Uniform orientation is obtained
for substantially all dwellings. Traffic is confined to streets laid perpendicular to the building rows, and space
between buildings is completely free. A school, cinema, and shops (S) are incorporated. It will be observed
that the dwellings are generally small units, conforming to the tendency to meet the growing need for housing
of the increasing number of small families.

Architect Group

Fred Forbat I

Alfred Gelhorn II

Bohne (not built) III

Banning (not built) IV

Alexander Klein (not built) V

Mebes & Emmerich VI & VII

Jurgensen (not built) VIII

M2 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

orientation for all dwellings at this time is reminiscent of the fifth century B.C. in
Greece.

The process was like a modern planning hygiene. The final step in this rationaliza-
tion was directed to the relation of the buildings to the streets. Buildings located in
parallel lines along each side of a street did not provide equal privacy for living
areas nor quiet for sleeping rooms. The new site planning produced uniform orienta-
tion for all dwellings but did not give them uniform exposure upon the open spaces
surrounding the buildings. The next step in planning technique was the placement
of all buildings at right angles to the streets. The space between buildings was thereby
free of vehicular traffic, although the walks were designed to permit access for small
trucks to facilitate movement of goods and service. This arrangement provided privacy
for all living units, safety for play and recreation areas, and uniform orientation for
all dwellings.

Strict adherence to this planning theme produced a rigid uniformity that increased
during the late twenties, but it served to overcome some of the traditional inhibitions
of the gridiron street system. These principles of planning were recognized as guides
to challenge the designer, and some projects developed in 1931 and 1932 demonstrated
some liberation from the previous regimentation. A more plastic and flexible treatment
was emerging, but progress was interrupted by the political domination of Nazism.

Recreation space for children and adults, shops, meeting rooms for common use,
and kindergartens were provided in the housing developments. Home laundry was
customarily performed by the housewife. In early projects laundry facilities were
placed upon the roof of two-story buildings, one-half being roofed and one-half open
drying space. This practice carried over to apartment buildings until the adoption
of central heating systems encouraged central laundries or "washeries" in conjunction
with them. Private gardens were provided to the extent that space permitted but were
usually confined to the single-family row houses. Some subsistence plots were included
in a few of the large developments.

Probably the most outstanding example of integrated planning occurred in Frank-
furt-am-Main. Ernst May, the architect-in-charge, and his associates undertook a
comprehensive plan for the entire city in preparation for the housing program. May
subscribed to the principle of satellite communities about the periphery of the city.
The housing developments were surrounded by permanent open spaces but were
planned as part of the city expansion rather than detached and self-contained garden
cities.

The best and most enlightened professional talent was brought into play in the
program. Planning techniques were subjected to a complete revaluation. While this
was a natural result of critical material shortages and high building costs, it encour-
aged the evolution of planning methods which had a profound effect not only upon
housing alone but on urban planning and architecture. Stirred by the necessity to
reach basic solutions of social and economic problems, there came a renascence
of architectural and planning thought. It can be said that a new concept of the urban

THE LIVING ENVIRONMENT 113

environment emerged. A new sense of freedom was expressed. It had not yet reached
maturity when it was halted by the insidious spread of Nazism and suppression.

Holland. At the turn of the century, the Act of 1901 in Holland required that every
city with a population of 10,000 or more prepare a comprehensive town plan, in
which new areas for housing were to be allocated. Housing standards were to be
established by the local authorities who were charged with responsibility to ascertain
compliance with them, exercising the power of condemnation where necessary. The
local authorities were also empowered to build low-cost housing. Government funds
were made available to public utility societies at low interest rates and limited
dividends.

During and following World War I these powers were extended and the housing
program was accelerated. In the ten years after the war some 500,000 dwellings
were built in Holland. Because careful attention was directed throughout the program
to meet the needs of the various income levels, it was possible to confine the "public"
housing primarily to the problem of direct slum clearance.

Russia. Since the revolution of 1917 planning and housing in Russia have been
treated with vigor. The contrast between Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union is
apparent. Vast plans for industrial development were made and many were carried
out. New cities were built and portions of old cities rebuilt.

There appears to be a distinction, however, between the tremendous activity and
the standards of planning adopted by the Soviets. The latter does not measure up to
expectations suggested by the former. A city plan like that proposed for Stalingrad,
a linear city, suggests hopeful prospects for the reorganization of the urban pattern.
The executed housing developments, on the other hand, are extensive, but the standards,
the small apartments in multistoried buildings, leave much to be desired and offer
little to warrant particular attention.

The form of government in the Soviet Union and the economic structure are so
different from governments in the western world that comparisons are ineffective. The
political processes occupy such an integral part of urban development that experi-
ence and accomplishments in planning in the Soviet Union are not subject to satis-
factory appraisal.

Italy. As early as 1865 in Italy powers were vested in public authorities to expro-
priate land for streets and roads. The severe cholera epidemic in Naples in 1885
forced these powers to be extended to control insanitary dwellings. In 1919 the same
powers were extended throughout the country. This Act, being directed at the clear-
ance of slums, permitted local authorities to transfer land acquired by condemnation
to other appropriate uses such as parks. In 1928 cities were required to prepare plans
for their extension and rehabilitation.

With the advent of Fascism the state undertook aggressive steps in city rebuilding.
Every effort was directed to the emulation of ancient Roman glory. Extensive clear-
ance was undertaken in the central areas of Rome, and open spaces were preserved
to enhance the ancient monuments.

I 14 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

Families displaced by these clearance projects were encouraged to move to the
outskirts. The government developed large tracts of residential suburbs on the city
periphery. Migration to the city was offset by reclamation of the Pontine marshes
for agricultural enterprise and the establishment of decentralized administrative and
market centers surrounded by farm groups. To eliminate the substandard shacks on
the edge of the city, loans and grants were available to owners for rebuilding. A law
of 1908, which provided loans to public utility societies, was revived, and the Instituti
per le Casa Popolari were accorded low-interest loans and tax exemption for twenty-
five years for "limited-dividend" housing for the working classes.

Austria. Austria emerged from the Empire period and World War I financially
bankrupt. Inflation had reduced to a minimum the capacity of private capital to pro-
duce housing. Municipal government was forced to take the major role and Vienna
undertook an energetic program. Public funds were not available, and it was neces-
sary to obtain them by a tax on rents. This was inaugurated in 1923 and launched
an active program, approximately a quarter of the revenues from taxes being devoted
to housing in 1928.

Switzerland. Switzerland had a housing shortage following World War I, and
local governments rendered financial assistance to co-operative organizations as
encouragement to produce an adequate supply. However the situation in Switzer-
land did not present as serious a problem as most countries because of stable policies
of private finance that prevailed during most of its history. The advantages of demo-
cratic capitalism had always been more evenly distributed in Switzerland, and the
excesses suffered in many countries had been absent to a marked degree. The result
was that this little country had not sunk to such low depths that violent action was
required to restore balance.

30 40 SO

NEUBUHL, Zurich

Architects Artaria and Schmidt*
Hubacher and Steiger, M. E. Hae-
feli, W. M. Moser, Alfred Roth.

This development of about 200 dwellings was built in 1930 and
contains most of the basic planning elements of contemporary
site organization. Most of the dwellings are two-story group
houses. Uniform orientation is applied throughout the project,
but it will be observed that the south exposure is favored
rather than east and west as in most German projects. Living
rooms of all dwellings are located opposite the entrance and
face directly upon a private garden with southern exposure.
The buildings are placed at right angles to the streets, and
no dwelling faces upon them.

Garages are located at three points (P-l, P-32, and 0-3).
Shops and a kindergarten are provided in unit P-l.

Designed by a group of young architects, the architectural
quality of this relatively small development has a refreshing
clarity not frequently apparent in low-cost housing.

CHAPTER 8

TRANSITION

The Speculative Instinct. The development of real estate in the United States
has not been distinguished for its attention to the amenities of a living environment.
Speculation was the moving spirit as the frontiers widened and pushed forward. This
was not a singular characteristic reserved to enterprising Americans alone. It
rather points a difference between the opportunities open to the people of this land
and those of countries elsewhere. It reflects the desires that caused the people to seek
this land. Freedom from oppression and tyranny implied certain rights, and among
them was the right for a man to have a piece of land upon which to build a home for
his family. The search for that right was itself something of a speculation and abuse of
the privilege was not a newly cultivated characteristic of mankind.

During the colonial period it was customary to obtain grants of land from the
mother country, and it was considered a just reward due the leaders of colonization.
The subdivision and sale of the land so acquired were common practice. However,
it was not always a lucrative one, and some of the heaviest dealers in land met with
financial failure. Some of the large land-estates were preserved through the English
system of long-term leases rather than sale.

Speculation in land offered strong temptation in the latter half of the nineteenth
century. Whole towns were used as a speculative medium, and they sprung up almost
at random along the railroads that stretched across the land. Some of these towns
have become cities, many have vanished, and others remain as ghosts of the specu-
lative orgy in gold and silver.

Land Subdivision. The promoter entered upon the stage of this flourishing enter-
prise. He was a super-salesman with highly cultivated powers of persuasion. For him
the land was a commodity for sale or trade. He was not a developer, he was a dealer.
Success depended upon the rate at which this commodity changed hands. With a little
cash and much credit, he would option a piece of land, mark it off in "lots," and
place them upon the auction block. In most cases the purchasers of these lots were
themselves engaged in a similar, though somewhat milder, form of speculation.

116

TRANSITION 117

Hope ran high as these "deals" were transacted. There were occasions, however,
when the turnover was not as rapid as the promoter had anticipated. He then unwit-
tingly became a "developer." To stimulate response to the opportunities he was offer-
ing the public, he found it helpful to "improve" the property. The term "improve-
ment" was at first a rather exaggerated description since it implied hardly more than
scraping the earth's surface and calling the scar a road with a romantic name. The
promoter sometimes embellished his subdivision with a fancy real estate office. Later
it became more customary to install a few utilities and build a house or two as an
inducement to the homeseeker to buy in an "established" neighborhood.

The above description may appear as a caricature, but there are those who still
remember the heydays of speculation it depicts. Exploitation and promotion were
not always accompanied by the most reliable business tactics, but the growing necessity
to improve the property exerted a salutary influence upon the subdivision of land. It
was necessary to apply more serious consideration to the soundness of a venture that
required this degree of financial investment, and it led to the practice of subdivision
control exercised by most cities today.

The Suburban Community. Although the history of speculation in land has not
been of the most savory variety, there were those who chose this medium as an instru-
ment for the improvement of land development. This choice was not motivated by
the high purpose of the Garden City movement in England, for instance, nor was it
prompted by deep concern for the nature of the city or its social and economic welfare.
It was rather the natural result of competitive necessity prodded, no doubt, by that
satisfaction of the creative impulse which achievement invariably delivers. There
were accomplishments, and they altered the future prospects for our cities in a manner
hardly suggested by the subdivision practices employed then and, still too frequently,
now.

With the dawn of the twentieth century high land costs squeezed the single-family
dwelling farther and farther to the outskirts. The swelling city forced these outskirts
to such distances that community facilities which one time served the urban population
were no longer readily accessible. The development of extensive facilities in the
suburbs gave to them the character of satellite communities. Decentralization was in
progress.

Only the surveyor had been associated in the layout of subdivisions. With the
development of independent residential communities, however, the planner became
a more active participant. One of the earliest large-scale residential subdivisions was
a 1,600-acre tract to be known as Riverside, near Chicago. It was designed by Fred-
erick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1869. Garden City, Long Island, was another
such development and it has since become substantially a self-contained community.

The gridiron street system offered the subdivider the most convenient pattern for
surveying and recording deeds. It was typical of real estate development but offered
little in return as a living environment. The exceptions are, therefore, the more note-
worthy for the progress in planning they demonstrated.

RIVER OAKS, Houston, Texas
A Shopping Centers

Begun in 1923, River Oaks con-
tains an area of 1,000 acres sub-
divided in lots ranging from 65
feet in width to 14 acres in size.
Designed as a district of fine
homes, the development has its
full complement of shopping and
residential facilities.

PALOS VERDES ESTATE^
California

Single-family
Apartments
Business
Parks

A Elementary School

B Junior High School

C Senior High School

D Golf Course

Begun at ahout the same time as River Oaks,
Palos Verdes was designed hy the Olmsteds
and C. H. Cheney. Developed on 3,000 acres
of rolling countryside, the residential lots
range from one-half acre to 30 acres in size.
25% of the land was devoted to roads and
parkways, 25% to community facilities, in-
cluding schools, churches, parks, libraries,
etc., and 50% in residential lots.

NASSAU SHORES, Long Island

Nassau Shores was started in about 1926 on
approximately 500 acres and designed for full
advantage of the waterfront location. Subdivided
in lots 20 x 100 feet it was customary to require
two lots for each dwelling.

TRANSITION 119

Roland Park, in Baltimore, was a subdivision begun in 1891. It was distinguished
for singularly high standards of physical development. It was designed for fine resi-
dences, but there were few suburbs not so intended. Another pioneer development
was Forest Hills, Long Island. It was one of the earliest planned residential suburbs,
started in 1913, and the development company undertook the construction of many
of the homes, apartments, and shopping facilities.

After World War I a number of well-planned communities were initiated. Marie-
mont, Ohio, designed by John Nolen in 1921, became a satellite of Cincinnati. It
was devoted primarily to single-family homes with a density of six or seven units per
acre, although apartments were included in connection with the principal shopping
center.

About this time two other distinguished developments were begun in widely dif-
ferent sections of the country. River Oaks in Houston, Texas, occupies an area of
1,000 acres and was planned with a full complement of community facilities includ-
ing a golf course and market center. In 1923 the Palos Verdes Estates was planned
on a dramatic site overlooking the Pacific Ocean south of Los Angeles. The site cov-
ered 3,000 acres, and residential lots ranged in size from one-half acre to 30 acres.
About one-quarter of the total area was allocated to schools, parks, churches, libraries,
shopping, and recreation. A few apartment areas were proposed about the various
shopping centers, but one-half the area was given over to residences restricted to single-
family dwellings. The remainder was in roads and landscaped parkways.

Numbered among other notable subdivisions in this country are Shaker Heights in
Cleveland, the Country Club District in Kansas City, St. Francis Woods in San Fran-
cisco, Nassau Shores, Long Island, and Westwood Village in Los Angeles. Each of
these developments marks a high level of planning a living environment. There was
no serious intention on the part of subdividers to cope with adequate housing for
families of low income in these communities. They were intended for the upper income
group and were promoted accordingly.

The contrast between these developments and the average subdivision is the more
apparent when we observe the rank and file of urban expansion. It was not planned ;
it simply oozed over the edges of the growing metropolis. A minimum of improve-
ments in streets, walks, sewers, water, electricity, and gas distribution was installed.
The unaware purchaser was left to foot the bill at some later date or shift the burden
to the urban taxpayer.

Local governments gradually awoke to the havoc being wrought in the suburbs,
and legislation was enacted to require subdividers to make certain improvements as a
condition to approval of the development. These early regulations were feeble, but
they were an acknowledgment that some measure of control was necessary to protect
the city for the people who live in it.

The Mobile Population. Suburban expansion was encouraged by the growing
urban population but it did not drain off the excess population from the center of
cities. People responded to their natural desire to live near their work, and employ-

QUEENS, New York City

Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc.

The typical living environment of the early twentieth century city. The type of subdivision which Sir Raymond
Unwin and Henry Wright sought to improve in their searching studies of urban planning and housing.

TRANSITION 121

ment opportunities were concentrated in the city center. Then the nature of these oppor-
tunities changed from the pre-f actory system. Stable industrial employment was uncer-
tain. With expanding commercial enterprise the tendency to shift from job to job
extended to movement from city to city. Mobility of the family offered advantages
over fixed tenure.

The urban population thus became transient in character. Freedom to move was
not desirable but it was necessary. The rental apartment satisfied this requirement
and it became popular. The familiar tenement of the nineteenth century remained
for the poor, but the multi-family building was no longer confined to the low-income
family. It achieved a new dignity as a form of urban living. Park Avenue, the Gold
Coast, and Nob Hill were as popular among the well-to-do as the Lower East Side for
the immigrant family.

Oddly enough, the standards of planning did not change with the range of income
groups who found the apartment popular. Lots of 40 and 50 feet in width were more
common than the 25-foot lot of the nineteenth century and the "dumbbell" tenement
of New York was outlawed, but the internal planning, the size and number of rooms
in "high-class" apartments made up for much of the additional lot area. There was
little difference between the open space about the building, whether for the "swank 5 *
trade, the "efficiency-apartment" for the middle-income white collar clerk, or the
low-income industrial worker. Narrow interior courts and side yards and little or
no set-backs at front or rear prevailed as standard practice.

The city was having growing pains. The industrial economy had thrown out of
gear all previous concepts of what a city should be. The traditional dwelling for
the average American family was the single-family house. It had fulfilled the desires
and living habits since early colonial times. Then the village of homes was engulfed!
by the industrial metropolis. Instead of a place to live, the city became a place to
make a living. The family no longer dwelt in its home; it hired apartment space for
temporary occupancy. The speculative opportunities for profit in this form of building
enterprise were obvious, and full advantage was taken of them, but the apartment as,
a form of investment for capital was not yet fully realized. Adjustment to the new-
kind of city was, and still is, slow. But there were signs of improvement.

World War I. During World War I it fell to the lot of the Federal government
in the United States to assume responsibility for housing of workers in war industries.
Two agencies were created to implement this program: The Housing Division of the
Emergency Fleet Corporation, and the United States Housing Corporation. The Emer-
gency Fleet Corporation, through loans to shipbuilding companies, completed some
9,000 family dwellings and 7,500 single-person accommodations. The United States,
Housing Corporation had planned some 25,000 units in 60 projects, but completed
about 6,000 family units in 27 projects, none of which were ready before the war came
to an end.

Services of the most talented professional men in architecture and planning were
enlisted for the program. Among the large-scale projects were Yorkship Village at

CRANE TRACT
HOUSING PROJECT AT

BRIDGEPORT- CONNECTICUT-

c JB^H C|B|K K|B|C f^fel c

SEASIDE, Bridgeport, Connecticut

One of the World War I housing developments
undertaken by the Federal Government, it included
flats and single family residences at a density of
about seventeen dwellings per acre and demonstrated
the advantage of large-scale planning.

Ji| METROPOLITAN PROJECT, New York City
Andrew J. Thomas, Architect

One of the earliest large-scale apartment projects in this country.
The strong habit of the single lot is revealed in the series of
individual buildings repeated upon the large site.

TRANSITION 123

Camden, New Jersey, Alantic Heights in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Buchman in
Chester, Pennsylvania, Union Gardens at Wilmington, Delaware, and a number of
developments at Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was a statutory requirement that proj-
ects built by these war agencies be sold immediately upon termination of the war.
To implement this provision of the law the projects followed the general pattern of
subdivision practice. Superblocks and common open spaces for recreation were absent,
but the studied layout of residential streets and design of shopping centers offered a
decided contrast with the practices to which most people had grown accustomed in
their living environment. A distinct characteristic of the planning of all dwellings was
a unit only two rooms in depth in contrast with the narrow, deep building typical of
the usual restricted lot in the ordinary urban subdivision. The planning of these
projects exerted a strong influence in the decade following the war.

The Garden Apartment. Mr. Andrew J. Thomas, an architect who participated
in the war program, was active in the postwar period. One of the early projects
designed by him was a large-scale development built by the Metropolitan Life Insur-
ance Company in Long Island City. In this project Mr. Thomas applied the simple
principle of "two-room" deep dwelling units, with stairways serving two dwellings
per floor. The units were grouped in a series of U-shaped buildings with a ground cov-
erage of about 50 per cent of the lot area. The open courts faced the garden. It was a
vast improvement over the small, enclosed light courts of the single lot but retained
the characteristic narrow space between buildings.

Thomas carried this simple planning technique further in the development of build-
ings with various forms, using a basic unit of two and three dwelling units per stair.
The essential contrast with previous planning was the relation of the buildings to the
streets. Planning on the single narrow lot under the Tenement House Act of 1901 and
before caused the building to be placed at right angles to the street a narrow front
and long depth. This forced all but the dwellings on the street front to face into a
small courtyard, light-well, or narrow rear yard. With removal of the restrictions
imposed by the narrow lot, large-scale planning permitted the arrangement of build-
ings with a broad front and shallow depth. The interior of the lot was opened up with
improved exposure of all dwelling units toward the street and expanded interior court.
This planning was henceforth known as the "garden apartment."

Henry Wright. In 1926 the City Housing Corporation built Sunnyside Gardens,
a large project planned by Henry Wright and Clarence Stein, on a 10-block site in
Long Island. The architects applied the "garden apartment" in a simple perimeter
form surrounding the interior garden. They also introduced the row, or group, house
and the two-story flat one dwelling above another with separate private entrances.
The ground coverage was less than 30 per cent of the lot area.

Studies by Henry Wright about this time demonstrated the importance of compara-
tive analysis in planning. He emphasized the necessity for a complete analysis of the
costs that enter into housing. The planner and architect had been prone to detach their
functions from that of management. Wright made clear that these functions could not

Monroe Court Apartments

Unit Plans c I

c IB K K B c

B] c

ilill

Interior Garden Court

STREET

Unit A
FLAT

Unit B
FLAT

Unit C
ROW HOUSE

Unit D
FLAT

SUNNYSIDE, Long Island

An early large-scale development within the framework of typical city blocks. This project, planned by Henry
Wright and Clarence Stein, provided further evidence of the advantages of low density and large-scale planning.

TRANSITION 125

be isolated and produce satisfactory housing; that improvement could not be expected
unless plan-analysis was merged with experience in the management and maintenance
of housing.

During this period much speculative building was producing the dreary, monoto-
nous rows of cheap and poorly planned single-family and flat buildings which still
curse so many of our cities. Henry Wright insisted upon the advantages of the group
house, used at Sunnyside, to improve the planning of both dwellings and the space
about them. The row, or group, house was not a revolutionary dwelling type. It was
prevalent in all eastern cities. Baltimore and Philadelphia are famous for their row
houses with clean, stone entrance stoops. But Wright demonstrated the principle of
planning dwellings two rooms in depth rather than the tandem arrangement of rooms
to which the usual row house had degenerated. He showed the improvement in land
planning with the group house in comparison with detached units and their wasteful
and useless side yards. Wright contributed much to the enlightenment that emerged
in the 1920 decade and early thirties.

Radburn. Inspired by the "garden city" idea, the City Housing Corporation
acquired a vacant site in New Jersey within commuting distance of New York City.
On this site Henry Wright and Clarence Stein planned the community of Radburn.
This plan introduced the "super-block." In these blocks, ranging from 30 to 50 acres
in size, through traffic was eliminated. Traffic streets surrounded rather than traversed
the areas. Within them, single-family dwellings were grouped about cul-de-sac roads.

The houses were oriented in reverse of the conventional placement on the lot.
Kitchens and garages faced the road, and living rooms turned toward the garden.
Pathways provided uninterrupted pedestrian access to a continuous park strip, leading
to large, common open spaces within the center of the super-block. Underpasses sep-
arated pedestrian walks from traffic roadways. The community earned the name of
"The Town for the Motor Age."

Radburn allocated space for industry, shopping, and apartments, but permanent
green space surrounding the town, typical of the English garden cities, was not in-
corporated. The development is not yet complete, but the residential character has been
a prototype of sound community planning ever since.

Housing' An Investment. Subsidy was a means to encourage the colonial
expansion of this country, push railroads across the land, and smooth out the peaks
and valleys of economic inequalities. It was used whenever necessity dictated. In
1926 it was introduced to housing with passage of the New York Housing Law which
established the State Board of Housing. This Act granted the privilege of tax exemp-
tion for a twenty-year period to limited-dividend companies engaged in housing within
reach of the lower middle-class. The statutory ceiling on rents was $12.50 per room
per month in the borough of Manhattan and $11.00 per room elsewhere. Investment
in apartment development was encouraged by this legislation.

Fourteen projects, providing a total of nearly 6,000 dwellings, were undertaken
in this program. The best known were three co-operative developments of the Amalga-

40 FEET

i , , I

II
II

12 HOUSES PER ACRE

20 HOUSES PER ACRE

DEVELOPMENT OF 20 ACRES

AVERAGE FRONTAGE PER HOUSE 21ft.
Cost of raw land per acre $1,000

Cost of 40 ft. roads per yd. $51.25

Cost of 30 ft. roads per yd. $41.25

NUMBER OF HOUSES
Gross area
Area of roads
Net area

AVERAGE SIZE OF PLOT
Road frontage:

40 ft. road

34 ft. road

240 400

20 acres 2O acres

2.46 acres 4.76 acres

17.64 acres 15.24 acres

353 sq. yds. 184 sq. yds.

3,732 ft.
2,162 ft.

AVERAGE ROAD FRONTAGE PER

HOUSE 24.54ft.

Total cost of land $20,OOO

Total cost of roads $46,740

Ave. cost of land per house 983

Ave. cost of roads per house $195

Ave. cost of roads and land per house $278
Cost per sq. yd. of plot $.79

GROUND RENT PER PLOT PER

WEEK, AT 6% $.32

10,370ft.

25.9 ft.

920,000

988,575

950

9221

9271

91.47

9-31

(From Modern Housing, by Catherine Bauer)
"NOTHING GAINED FROM OVERCROWDING"

St. Louis

Chicago

TYPICAL FLAT PLANS DURING THE

FIRST QUARTER OF THE

TWENTIETH CENTURY

Early in the century Raymond Unwin
wrote his treatise Nothing Gained from
Overcrowding, in which he compared
the typical subdivision street system with
a more open development using the
cul-de-sac street. In the United States,
real estate development was taking the
form shown in the photograph a mo-
notonous row of houses along street after
street and the single lot persisted with
the building of individual "flat" build-
ings in the Middle-Western cities. These
two-story buildings, wilh one apartment
above the other and with most rooms
facing a narrow side yard between the
buildings, were reminiscent of the
"dumbbell" tenements of New York.

JAMAICA, Long Island

The Architectural Forum

I320 1

<M
<*)

I320 1

200

a oo

980

200

720

/PARK '

Above is a comparative study by Henry Wright to demonstrate the improvement which a modification in the
typical gridiron street and block layout might provide. The sketch on the left is the usual street plan, that
on the right the proposed replanning. With but slight loss of street frontage for subdivision of residential
lots (the usual plan has 11,800 lineal feet of streets while the modified plan has 10,720 lineal feet), an interior
park is gained and through traffic on all interior streets is eliminated.

Wright developed his "Case for the Row House" with studies like the one illustrated below. In this study
the typical block layout with two-story flat buildings facing the street is compared with a revised plan using
continuous rows of two-story flat units; the alley is eliminated, garage courts are consolidated at the end of
each block, and a park space is gained in the center of the block accessible from all dwellings. Tn the typical
plan some of the rooms in the dwellings face on the narrow side yards between buildings (lower sketch).
The revised plan (upper sketch), however, eliminates these side yards resulting in an improved plan of the
dwelling units, all of which face upon ample open space to the front and rear of the buildings.

260 FEET

\RAG

|H IE

p-|

3imi

: :iO
*-:

<: vtlT-v-y;^
r*. PARK--J;

& :*:>;&:

ro\y;:

r-l

In Q

VRAG

Second Floor

First Floor

"&E

^MM

30 1

<\J

Second Floor

{

[fB |

40'

First Floor

A Shopping Center

B Apartment Groups

C School

D Park Space

PATH

GARDEN |

U i

unn)

^^^^^

o |K

STREET

Clarence Stein and Henry Wright,
Planners

RADBURN, New Jersey

The Radburn plan became synonymous with "the town of the motor age." In this plan the cul-de-sac (dead-end)
residential streets became service roads rather than traffic ways, the house being reversed so that the living
rooms face on the rear gardens with pedestrian paths leading to the continuous park space.

TRANSITION

129

PROJECTS APPROVED BY THE NEW YORK STATE BOARD OF HOUSING*

Project

No.
Apts.

Bldg.
Coverage
(%)

Density
(families
per acre)

Height
(stories)

Academy Housing Corpora-
tion

Amalgamated Dwfi]lings, Inc.

476
232

625

43.9
59.7

50.2

149
166

114 (av.)

6 (elevator)
6 (elevator)

5 (walk-up)
6 (elevator)
6 (elevator)

Amalgamated Housing Corp.
First Group 1
Second Group [
Third Group J

Boulevard Gardens Housing
Corp.

958

24.8

6 (elevator)

Brooklyn Gardens Apts., Inc.
Fourth Ave. Project
Navy Yard Project

165
140

52.5
59

181
230

5 (walk-up)
5 (walk-up)

Farband Housing Corp.

129

69.1

172

6 (elevator)

Hillside Housing Corp.

1,405

4 and 6 (walk-up and
elevator)

Knickerbocker Village, Inc.

1,585

317

13 (elevator)

Manhattan Housing Corp.

69.4

184

6 (elevator)

Stanton Housing Corp.

68.8

191

6 (elevator)

Stuyvesant Housing Corp.

72.4

216

6 (elevator)

TOTAL

5,896

* Report of the State Board of Housing to the Secretary of State of the State of New York, 1937.

mated Clothing Workers, providing 625 apartments. In addition to the Housing Board
projects in New York City, other limited-dividend and semi-philanthropic develop-
ments were undertaken. Phipps Houses, Inc., a veteran housing organization, built 344
apartments in four- and six-story walk-up and elevator buildings near Sunnyside Gar-
dens in New York. In 1930 John D. Rockefeller, Jr., built the Paul Laurence Dunbar
apartments in Harlem, 513 apartments designed for acquisition of the dwellings by
the tenants. About this time the Julius Rosenwald Foundation built the Michigan
Boulevard Gardens, also for Negroes, on the south side of Chicago, and the Marshall
Field Estate built Marshall Field Apartments on the near north side of Chicago. Chat-
ham Village in Pittsburgh, built by the Buhl Foundation, was a two-story group house
development planned by Henry Wright.

These projects did not produce speculative profits but were sound investments that
served a high social purpose. This purpose is not nourished by irresponsible interests

PHIPPS HOUSES, New York City
Clarence Stein. Architect

Unit Plans

c IB u

,[.[, [.L i.i j.n K|. fiU

C L

LlC

A limited-dividend development of 344 apartments in
four-story walk-up and six-story elevator buildings. The
building coverage is 43 per cent of the land area, with
a density of about 100 dwellings per acre. This is one
of the early large-scale private projects built during
the late twenties.

LJ ilj I F^- I I U_J L-J

r^T^rV.! r.Kf.i ^tPE^i

i_M .1 I. ! J.l-i

Site Plan

U LlU LI

DLi LO

hp nri

n n

I U LJ LI U

r pti LJLJ pru urn

I TATg

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I In n n

bn nd

Lfa'slL Kf4 L c cfa"

DUNBAR APARTMENTS

Site Plan

MARSHALL FIELD GARDEN
APARTMENTS, Chicago

Andrew J. Thomas, Architect

These projects of four- and five-story apart-
ment developments during the 1920 period
illustrate the transition in planning from
the concept of separate buildings on single
lots of the typical subdivision (Metropoli-
tan, Dunbar, Marshall Field), to continuous
indented rows of buildings arranged about
the periphery of a large site (Phipps, Michi-
gan Boulevard Gardens, Amalgamated).
This trend from smaller building units to
larger and longer buildings was character-
istic of large scale planning during this
period, but we will observe in later devel-
opments that, as familiarity with large scale
planning progressed, the trend is reversed
by a more frequent use of smaller building
units. The essential difference represented
by this change was the tendency to group
possible rather than enclose the open space

Unit Plans

smaller buildings within the open space which large sites made
with continuous buildings. Freedom from the single small lot and
the restrictive pattern of the usual gridiron street
system made it unnecessary to protect the interior
garden space from the surrounding streets and per-
mitted greater latitude in planning the buildings
within the open space.

MICHIGAN BOULEVARD GARDENS, Chicago
K/aber & Grunsfeld, Architects

Site Plan-

I I /I Vs // l\ M-l

132 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

concerned with quick turn-over of capital and unlimited profits, nor does it thrive on
exploitation and speculation in land, buildings, and people.

During this period good planning was demonstrated to be economical planning.
Twenty-five years prior, the typical tenement covered 85 per cent of a narrow, deep
lot. More than half the rooms either had no light or peered into dingy light-wells. Open
space about the dwelling was either the paved traffic street or a shabby refuse-ridden
rear yard. The energetic talents of such architects as Ernest Flagg, Grosvenor Atter-
bury, Andrew Thomas, Henry Wright, Clarence Stein, and Frederick Ackerman served
to bring a vast change in all this. Land coverage was reduced to 50 per cent or less, and
space was planned to enhance the environment and provide room for recreation. Care-
ful planning and better interior arrangement of rooms reduced waste space within
buildings and eliminated unnecessary corridors and halls. Attention was given to ap-
propriate size and use of rooms rather than the greatest number of people that could
be loaded on a given site.

The importance of the period we have been discussing is not the quality of planning
as a standard to which we aspire today, but rather as a comparison with the unwhole-
some planning it replaced and the processes which brought it about. Complete dis-
regard for housing standards and the desire for profit regardless of the exploitation it
entailed had produced high density, excessive land coverage, and decidedly bad hous-
ing. The theory that these evils were essentially good business was exploded. Good
planning was discovered to be an effective instrument to compete with bad planning.
When laws were enacted to curb irresponsible building of slums, the road was cleared
for good planning with financial benefits as well as the restoration of social values.

The period of activity during the twenties and early thirties did not solve our urban
housing ills but it did provide a foundation upon which future progress could be con-
tinued. Building companies became conscious of the advantages of investment in hous-
ing. Large-scale planning opened the opportunity for arranging buildings on land so
that all dwellings were well located on the site. As a permanent investment such factors
were important. Good planning was becoming a good investment. Release from the
long, narrow lot permitted greater efficiency in planning, lower land coverage, better
dwelling units, more space for light, air, and recreation, and safer investment. Per-
manent values were built in by good planning.

Mr. Charles F. Lewis, Director of the Buhl Foundation which built and is managing
Chatham Village in Pittsburgh, said in 1937:

Capital is frankly challenged by this unusual opportunity for sound and productive use of its
funds.

Essentially this will be an investment and not a speculative use of capital. . . .

No less has it been demonstrated by the so-called limited dividend companies, from Boston in
1871 to Pittsburgh in 1934, that limited dividends pay. I refer you specifically to the remark-
able success of the City and Suburban Homes Company of New York, founded in 1896 by Mr.
R. Fulton Cutting and associates. After years of operation, in 1933 in the midst of the depression,
this company could boast assets of nearly $10,000,000, a surplus of more than $1,380,000, and
net earnings of from $263,000 to $445,000 per year through four depression years. Its average

Unit Plans

Site
Plan

DL! AMALGAMATED DWELLINGS, New York City

This project, built in 1930 on plans by Springsteen
and Goldhammer, was one of the first undertaken
under the program of the State Board of Housing. It is one of three built by the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers trade union as a co-operative enterprise. The buildings are six stories high with automatic elevators.
The land cost was $5.61 per square foot.

100

FairchiJd Aerial Surveys, Inc.

HILLSIDE HOMES, New York City

This project of 1,405 apartments, de-
signed by Clarence Stein, was approved
by the New York State Board of Hous-
ing and is one of the seven that received
loans from the Housing Division of
PWA. While the land cost was about 70
cents per square foot, the land coverage
is one of the lowest in the New York
area about 32 per cent and the den-
sity is about 88 families per acre. The
typical city street plan is replaced by
continuous garden courts surrounded by
four-story walk-up and six-story elevator
apartment buildings. Play areas for
children are distributed in this open
space and traffic is confined to the
peripheral streets.

CARL MACKLEY HOUSES,
Philadelphia

Kastner and Stonorov, Architects &, *'"?

CASTOR AVE.

GARAGE EXIT

Built by the American Federation of
Hosiery Workers for the members of
that trade union, this project con-
tains 284 apartments in three- and
four-story buildings, with a density
of about 50 families per acre. It was
financed with an 85 per cent loan
from the Housing Division of PWA.

M STREET

ENTRANCE TO GARAGE
AT LOWER LEVEL

Dallin Aerial Surveys

CHATHAM VILLAGE, Pittsburgh
Ingham and Boyd, Architects

A limited-dividend project originally
planned for 300 units within reach of
the $2,200-3,600 per year income group.
The first stage of development was 128
dwellings. The density is about 12 fami-
lies per acre in two-story group houses,
demonstrating the theory of Henry
Wright who espoused the cause of the
group house on urban land which had
not yet reached the high levels of many
areas. This project was built as an
investment by the Buhl Foundation.

BUCKINGHAM, Virginia

One of the earliest large-scale rental developments undertaken in the FHA
program, Buckingham is located just outside Washington, B.C., for "white
collar" workers in the nation's crowded capital. Designed by Henry Wright,
Allan Kamstra, and Albert Lueders, it was planned for 2,000 units on a 100-
acre site. The first stage (shown in detail) comprised 622 dwellings on 30
acres. The land cost was 25 cents per square foot and permitted low density
about 20 families per acre with a building coverage of about 20 per cent
of the land area. Approximately 13% of the area is in streets. Dwellings
are two-story group houses and flats.

136 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

annual dividend rate, from 1899 to 1939, was 4.65 per cent. Or let us take six non-co-operative
apartment projects built in New York City under the New York State Housing Board. All have been
consistent dividend payers in good times and bad. Or let us take, in the city of Washington, the
Washington Sanitary Improvement Company, which with assets of nearly $1,500,000 can boasl
that from 1897 to 1923 it paid an annual dividend of 5 per cent, and from then on straight
through the depression, of 6 per cent. Or the Washington Sanitary Housing Company which has
paid 5 per cent per annum without interruption since 1927. While Chatham Village in Pittsburgh
has not yet published earnings statements, those statements when released will give further evi-
dence of the investment soundness of the large-scale housing enterprise on the limited-dividend
basis. 1

Every individual in the city has a home. Some may be rooms in a lodging-house o.
a hotel, others fine houses on large estates. Some are slums. Whether the home is *
hovel or a mansion, every person has one. Dwellings of the people occupy nearly three
quarters of the urban area. The economic equation by which the people acquire anc
maintain a place to live measures the social and physical health of a community. The
economics of housing is the base upon which cities rest. It is the foundation on whicr
the social superstructure is built.

If we want to see the real city, we do not confine our view to the great skyscrapers,
the shopping promenade, or the park and boulevard. To see the city, we look at the
dwellings of the people. We see how people live, their streets of homes, the environment
in which they raise their families, the children who will be the fellow-countrymen
and neighbors of our children a generation hence.

It is this view that gives us direction toward the city of the future. When we com-
prehend this aspect of the city, we can guide more accurately the tools with which we
shape the urban environment.

1 Opportunities for Building Rental Properties. Conference on Local Residential Construction, Chamber of
Commerce of U.S., Washington, D.C., November 17, 1937.

CHAPTER 9

ISSUES IN FOCUS

The Great Depression. On the heels of the building boom during the prosperity
decade of the twenties came the crash of 1929 and the decade of depression that fol-
lowed. Financial credit dried up, building stopped abruptly, and unemployment
brought widespread privation to millions of families. As the depression gained momen-
tum, economic and social chaos followed in its wake. Marginal investments in stocks
evaporated into thin air. The "water" that had been poured into building investments
during the craze of the boom was drained off, and "ownership" changed hands in rapid
succession as the level lowered. Homes on farms and in the cities were foreclosed at an
alarming rate. Real estate foreclosures jumped from 68,100 in 1926 to 248,700 in
1932.

The complete state of despair made it imperative for the government to act. In an
effort to stem the tide, President Hoover called his Conference of Home Building and
Home Ownership in 1931. This conference revealed many of the problems that beset
the nation and laid the groundwork for action which ensued in subsequent years. Some
28 states enacted moratoria on mortgage foreclosures in 1931 and 1932. This device
relieved the hysteria but only postponed the solution. The Emergency Relief and Con-
struction Act of 1932 created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. This agency was
empowered to loan government funds to bolster the faltering economy.

The tide of national collapse forced the government to assume increased responsibil-
ity for the helpless economy, and, beginning in 1933, the Congress created a series of
agencies in rapid succession. These acts brought into focus a fact that had been almost
unwittingly overlooked: the people of the United States had no inventory of the national
welfare, the assets and liabilities of a going concern dealing in democratic enterprise.
The blessing of abundant natural resources, the accident of favorable geographic loca-
tion, and the aggressive enterprise of a free people had brought fortune and a position
of world leadership to this country. This achievement had blinded the people to the
corollary of great industrial and financial empires the precipitation of social and
economic hardships that filter into the lives of many in society. The Great Depression
lifted the veil on this scene and disclosed the gap which had formed between fortune

137

138 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

and stability. It was apparent that the country must take stock of its resources in order
to measure the future prospects for its enterprise,

Inventory. The necessity for improvement in the physical condition of our cities
had been recognized. The presence of slums and blight, and the sporadic attempts to
correct the situation, attested to that. As had been fully demonstrated in the successful
business enterprise of this country, however, a factual knowledge of current inventory
on hand, the kind of stock it represents, and a study of the market to be supplied are
essential to the conduct of democratic government as well as individual welfare. The
government therefore undertook the Real Property Survey of 1934 as a comprehensive
inventory of the supply and condition of housing in this country. It was learned that
nearly one-third of the urban dwellings were in need of major repairs and lacked indoor
bathing and toilet facilities. In the 64 cities surveyed 2.3 per cent of all dwellings were
found to be unfit for human habitation, 15.6 per cent were in need of major structural
repairs, and only 37.7 per cent were considered in good condition. Only 34 per cent of
the dwellings had hot and cold running water, 8 per cent had no water supply in the
dwelling, 17.1 per cent no private indoor toilet facility, and 25 per cent had no bathing
facilities. The only fuel for cooking in one-third of all the dwellings was coal or wood.

Unemployment and the depression had produced alarming economic hardships for
millions; it was estimated that the annual income of 37 per cent of all urban families
in 1934 was $800 or less. Further investigations, however, revealed even more signifi-
cant facts about the economic status of the people. Studies by the Brookings Institution
showed that a broad segment of American families had surprisingly low incomes before
the depression had engulfed the nation. In 1929, 21 per cent of the families in cities
had incomes of less than $1,000 a year, 21 per cent were between $1,000 and $1,500,
and 17 per cent were between $1,500 and $2,000 per year. 1

It was apparent that a major reason for the housing problem was a lack of sufficient
income to pay the price of a decent home. The lowest rents were generally in the areas
of substandard housing; it was estimated that rents of $20 per month or less were con-
centrated in the substandard category, and more than 50 per cent of all rental dwellings
rented for less than this amount. The large cities presented a more complex picture.
In Cincinnati, for example, 41 per cent of the families were paying a rent of $28 per
month for dwellings which had only a cold-water sink.

The depths to which the national morale had sunk caused investigations into many of
our economic ills. Studies were made of the costs of urban maintenance. These studies
produced evidence of the economic burden that decaying sections of cities were heap-
ing upon the taxpayer.

The cost to maintain blighted districts and slums was many times the revenue the
cities collected in taxes from these areas. A relatively small section of Cleveland con-
taining 2.37 per cent of the population showed a net loss to the city of $1,750,000 in
the year 1932; one square mile of blighted area in Chicago cost the city $3,200,000

1 Americans Capacity to Consume, Maurice Leven, Harold G. Moulton, and Clark Warburton, The Brookings
Institution, Washington, B.C., 1934.

ISSUES IN FOCUS [39

in services as compared to the tax levy of $1,191,352 and an actual tax collection of
only $586,061. The low rent areas of Boston cost the city $92.30 per capita but paid
the city only $13.30 per capita in taxes. The high rent areas paid into the city treasury
$312.80 per capita but cost the city only $73.80 to maintain. In Indianapolis the
blighted areas cost $27.29 per person while the maintenance of other areas cost but
$4.00 per person.

The wholesale foreclosure of mortgages on homes and stoppage of home-building
made it imperative to examine the status of home-ownership. It was the general policy
of financial institutions to loan about two-thirds of the construction cost or appraised
value of homes. It was necessary for the prospective home-owner to invest the balance
of one-third as his "equity." When costs were high during the boom of the twenties,
the number of families who had managed to accumulate, in savings, this proportion of
the dwelling cost was relatively small. Because the urge for home-ownership was
strong, the device of the "second mortgage" came into use. This provided the prospec-
tive owner with a source for supplementary financing and reduced the amount of
equity needed. Lenders of second mortgages held only a secondary right in the prop-
erty mortgaged and the length of such loans was usually short and interest charges
high.

This device expanded the number of home-owners, however. It appeared easier to
make high monthly payments to finance a home than to accumulate the savings for the
equity required for a first mortgage only. As long as incomes remained stable the home-
owner paid his monthly installment with the knowledge that he would some day have
title to the home and then be relieved of the burden of rent. But the depression violently
altered this situation. The earning capacity was not only lowered, but millions of fami-
lies had no incomes at all. The foreclosures in the early depression years demonstrated
that numerous families had assumed financial obligations they simply could not carry.

"Priming the Pump." All of the conditions described in the foregoing paragraphs
were obviously not the result of the depression alone. They were aggravated by the
economic plight into which the nation had been plummeted, but they were the result of
decades of indifference and neglect for the economic health of the nation. Furthermore,
they were conditions for which there could be no quick and immediate cure. Govern-
ment action was therefore devised as a "pump-priming" process. It was immediately
necessary to stall the wave of foreclosures on homes, and the Home Owners Loan
Corporation was created.

Although too late to save one and one-half million homes, this agency was able to
hold the line for more than a million with direct loans to threatened home-owners. Loans
were made for a period of 15 years at an interest rate of 5 per cent, with the principal
amortized in regular monthly payments. By June 1936, the HOLC had made 1,017,948
loans on urban dwellings in a total amount of $3,093,450,641. Between 1937 and
1940, 12 per cent of the outstanding mortgages in the country were held by HOLC.
More than 500,000 loans were advanced to distressed farm owners by the Federal Land .
Bank (originally created in 1917) and the Farm Mortgage Corporation.

140 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

According to the 1941 Statistical Abstract of the United States, the number of fore-
closures on urban real estate ran the following course:

1926 68,100 1934 230,350

1927 91,000 1935 228,713

1928 116,000 1936 185,439

1929 134,900 1937 151,366

1930 150,000 1938 118,505

1931 193,800 1939 100,961

1932 248,700 1940 75,310

1933 252,400

There were nearly as many homes foreclosed during the ten-year period between 1930-
39 as the number of new homes built. An average of 180,033 homes were foreclosed
annually, whereas an average of about 270,000 new homes were built per year.

In 1934 the National Housing Act created the Federal Housing Administration. It
was the purpose of this agency to encourage credit for home financing and to revive a
badly beaten house-building industry. FHA was a Federal government insurance agency.
Its function was the insurance of loans by private lending institutions for construction
of housing, and it tackled the problem on three fronts. Loans were insured for con-
struction of new single-family homes, for alterations and repairs of existing dwellings,
and for rental housing.

Restoration of the home-ownership principle was not enough to revive the industry.
Construction had bogged down so badly and credit channels were so clogged that a
gross broadening of the whole market for home-ownership was necessary. Whereas
financial agencies had previously loaned some two-thirds of the cost of dwellings, FHA
guaranteed mortgages up to 90 per cent of the cost. Under Title II of the Act, 90 per
cent loans were insured for dwellings costing $6,000 or less, including house and lot,
and 80 per cent loans were insured for dwellings not exceeding $16,000 in cost. This
was later modified to provide insurance of 90 per cent of the first $6,000 and 80 per
cent of the balance for homes not exceeding $10,000 in cost. Prior to our entry into
World War II in 1941, FHA-insured loans for new housing under Title II amounted
to $3.11 billions for 725,000 mortgages, and nearly all dwellings built during the
depression decade enjoyed the benefits of this program. Insurance of loans was also
extended by FHA (Title I) for repairs and alterations to existing houses. This program
reached $1.24 billions of insured loans.

Another feature of the Act was directed at the encouragement of rental housing. The
depression had nipped in the bud the fruitful prospects for investment housing begun
early in the century and sponsored by such agencies as the New York State Board of
Housing. The National Housing Act was intended to renew this program and provided
for insurance by FHA of 80 per cent loans for limited-dividend large-scale housing
developments. Despite the broad market and the urgent need for rental housing in this

ISSUES IN FOCUS 141

country, the popularity of the home-ownership program had sapped the incentive to
engage in this phase of the program to the extent warranted by the market and invest-
ment opportunities. Although there were 335 projects undertaken, there were only
about 35,000 dwellings produced.

The FHA program was government insurance against loss by financial institutions
for loans they extended for home-building. There were some who observed the novelty
of the Federal government guaranteeing lending agencies against the risk of loss, but
this inconsistency with the traditional operation of our economic system was over-
looked because the application of a "hypodermic" had become essential to stimulate
the building industry. Being welcomed by financial institutions, it was an effective
instrument.

Accompanying this treatment for home-building was an improvement in financing
residential construction. The second mortgage practice was eliminated, systematic re-
payment of loans regular amortization was introduced, and interest charges for
borrowed money were reduced, the FHA interest being 4^ per cent plus % per cent
for insurance.

FHA established minimum standards for construction and planning as a condition
of its mortgage insurance. The fact that this policy brought about an improvement in
the quality of residential construction is a sad commentary upon the standards of local
building regulations and the laxity of their enforcement.

Experiments. "Pump-priming" assumed a variety of forms. Huge sums were
spent for public works, highways, dams, bridges, public buildings, and relief. Cities
benefited through projects for new sewers, drainage, streets, schools, recreation centers,
but there were no essential changes in the character of the city. The emergency created
by the unemployment of millions of people left no time, or so it seemed, to deliberate
the possible reformation of the urban framework.

On the other hand, the vast displacement of workers in paralyzed industrial plants
disturbed many serious reformers. Some inclined to the theory of subsistence home-
steads located near decentralized factories as an effective antidote to periodic unem-
ployment. There ensued a series of experiments with the forms of urban and rural
patterns.

The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 established the Subsistence Home-
steads Division in the Department of the Interior. This Division built rural projects
in which part-time industrial workers could acquire a house and subsistence plot. No
down payment was required, and long-term loans were made by the government to
eligible homesteaders.

A key to recovery was rehabilitation of the agricultural economy of the country.
In 1935 the Congress created the Resettlement Administration and there began a pro-
gram of soil conservation and agricultural adjustment the country had long found

wanting.

The subsistence homesteads were transferred to the jurisdiction of the Resettlement
Administration and merged with the rural resettlement program engaged primarily

WYVERNWOOD, Los Angeles Witmer and Watson, Architects

This FHA-insured rental project for "white collar" workers is composed of 1,100 two-story apartments on a
72-acre site with a coverage of about 25 per cent of the land area.

EDGEWATER PARK, Seattle

Graham, and Painter , Architects

A 305-dwelling, FHA-insured development on
the shore of Lake Washington, it comprises
two-story apartments and flats.

S Ik- -ir-x:

INTERLAKEN GARDEN APARTMENTS, Westchester County, New York
Young and Moscowitz, Architects

This project, planned for 3,500 units, is one
of the largest approved for FHA in-
surance. The first stage was 525 dwellings
of two stories with a building coverage of
only 14 p^jp cent of the land area.

BALDWIN HILLS VILLAGE, Los Angeles

Reginald Johnson, Lewis Wilson, Edwin E. Merrill, and
Robert Alexander, Architects

An attractive large-scale rental development of the early 1940*s, Baldwin Hills Village, consisted of 627
dwellings in one- and two-story group houses and flats on an outlying 80-acre tract. The low land price, $2,300
per acre, permits low density, about 8 families per acre, and a coverage of only 7.3 per cent of the land. A
feature of this project is the private patio for about two-thirds of all the dwellings. It will be noticed in the
plan that the boulevard along the north boundary (bottom of plan) is separated from the project by a park-strip
and a service road from which the various garage courts are accessible. Additional parking space is provided by
indented parking areas along the service drive and along minor boundary streets. Small playgrounds for
children are distributed about the development in addition to the "village green" in the center.

Vie Stein

THE GREENBELT TOWNS

As a component part of the Federal government's search for ways and means to cope with the modern city
and its living environment, the Resettlement Administration planned four "greenbelt towns" beginning in 1935.
They were satellite communities near large cities. The designs were inspired by Howard's Garden City idea, but
they were not planned as self-contained towns; they were more like dormitory villages, the sources of employ-
ment for the residents being in the near-by cities. Each was surrounded by a belt of permanent open space,
part of which could be farmed or gardened. A full complement o community facilities was included in each
town shopping, schools, and recreation space.

GREENBELT, Maryland

1 Water Tower

2 Disposal Plant and In-
cinerator

3 Picnic Center and Lake

4 Community Center

5 Store Group

6 Rural Homesteads

7 Allotment Gardens

This development is on a 2,100-acre site about 25 minutes' drive by automobile
from Washington, D.C., and includes 712 dwellings in group houses and 288
in apartments, a total of 1,000 units occupying an area of 250 acres. There are
500 garages. The sixteen-room elementary school is jointly used as a com-
munity center, and the shopping center includes space for a post office, food
stores, a drug store, a dentist's and a doctor's offices, a 600-seat theater, and
such service shops as shoe repair, laundry, tailor, barber, and beauty shops.
There are a bus terminal, a garage and repair shop, a fire station, and a gas
station. The recreation facilities include an athletic field, picnic grounds, and
an artificial lake. The super-block is used, each block containing about 120
dwellings with interior play areas. Underpasses provide continuous pedestrian
circulation without crossing main roads. The commercial and community
center, in the approximate center of the plan, reduces to a minimum the
walking distance from all dwellings.

GREENBELT, Maryland

A semi-rural residential character was retained within the urban environment of the "greenbelt" towns.

GREENHILLS, Ohio. This development is a satellite of Cincinnati, about 11 miles from the central
district. The entire site is 5,930 acres. Planned for 3,000 dwellings, 1,000 comprised the first stage of building.
Twenty per cent are single- and two-family units, nearly half the units are in group houses containing three
to six units per building, the rest about one-third are apartments. Garages are available for 17 per cent of
the dwellings, although space is arranged to provide them for all dwellings if necessary. A total of 168 acres
is used for housing, 12 acres for the community center, and 35 acres in roads; 50 acres are for allotment
gardens, community parks, and playgrounds. Protective open space occupies about 695 acres. The remaining
4,970 acres in the site are devoted to farms and wooded and wildlife areas. In this, as in Greenbelt, the super-
block is the basic element, each averaging about 25 acres and housing between 400 and 500 persons per
block. The community center contains the shopping district and the combined grade and high school for
1,000 pupils and auditorium-gymnasium to seat 1,100 people.

Town Common
Commercial Center
Community Building
Athletic Field
Interior Park
Swimming Pool
Sites for Future Resi-
dential Development
Greenbelt

GREENDALE, Wisconsin

This site of 3,500 acres is about one-half hour from Milwaukee. Planned for 3,000 units, only 750 dwellings
have been built. The single-family detached house predominates, 380 units being of this type, 370 being twin
houses. Most dwellings have attached garages. The community center and school and the shopping area at the
center of the plan are within one-half mile of all dwellings. Generous park spaces are adjacent to the central
part of the town, and permanent open agricultural space surrounds the built-up area.

This project was not built because of legal entanglements. The proposed site, between 3,800 and 4,200 acres, was
within one-half hour travel time of a number of industrial centers between Philadelphia and New York City.
The ultimate plan would have accommodated some 4,000 families, but the initial development was intended to
be 750 units. A few single detached houses and apartments were proposed, but the row or group house pre-
dominated. The super-block and cul-de-sac roads, with large interior recreation space, were featured.

GREENBROOK, New Jersey

1 Pumping Station

2 Sewage Treatment Plant

3 Gardens

4 Athletic Field

5 Community Building

6 Shops and Garage

7 Future Town Center

8 Water Tower

ISSUES IN FOCUS 147

in the removal of rural families from submarginal lands, of which there were an
appalling number, to good farm land. The Resettlement Administration assisted
the financing of these families with long-term amortized loans for land, buildings,
and operating capital. Included within this broad program were rural projects for
migratory workers in the western states. This combined the subsistence principle
with part-time agricultural employment and its attendant quasi-industrial opera-
tions.

In addition to its rural operations, the Resettlement Administration engaged in an
experiment with "greenbelt" towns. Four projects were planned, three of which were
built: Greenbelt near Washington, D.C., Greenhills near Cincinnati, and Greendale near
Milwaukee. The idea of a permanent belt of agricultural land surrounding these
communities was borrowed from the Garden City pattern of Ebenezer Howard. The
resemblance stops there, however, since the Resettlement suburban projects otherwise
functioned largely as residential "dormitory" satellites for the near-by metropolis
similar to any other suburban development.

In 1936 the Resettlement Administration became the Farm Security Administration
which continued the rural program, with the addition of aid in the acquisition of farms
by tenant farmers provided in the Farm Tenant Purchase Act of 1937. All these
functions were subsequently transferred to the Department of Agriculture where they
now reside.

Slum Clearance Begins. The depressing environment of the urban dweller in
the slums was aggravated by the poverty of unemployment and public relief. When
the National Industrial Recovery Act was drafted in 1933, a policy expressed by
President Hoover's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership was remem-
bered. That policy referred to the problem of the slums. It read: "Unless this prob-
lem can be met by private enterprise, there should be public participation, at least
to the extent of the exercise of the power of eminent domain. If the interest of business
groups cannot be aroused to the point where they will work out a satisfactory solu-
tion of these problems through adequate measures for equity financing and large-
scale operations, a further exercise of some form of government powers may be
necessary in order to prevent these slums from resulting in serious detriment to the
health and character of our citizens."

The reminder of this policy appeared in the NIRA with the following slender
clause: ". . . construction, reconstruction, alteration, or repair under public regula-
tion or control of low-rent housing and slum-clearance. . . ," 2 As a result of this pro-
vision the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration was created.

It was the intention of this agency to loan funds to private enterprise for slum- clear-
ance and construction of large-scale low-rent housing projects. The Reconstruction
Finance Corporation had been empowered, in 1932, to make loans up to 85 per cent
of the cost of similar developments by limited-dividend companies operating under
the jurisdiction of state legislation. New York was the only state prepared with adequate

2 Title II, Sec. 202.

KNICKERBOCKER VILLAGE,
New York City

Knickerbocker Village is a slum-clearance
project built by the Fred F. French Com-
pany with financial assistance from the Re-
construction Finance Corporation. Situated
on the site of the notorious "lung block"
on the lower east side of Manhattan, the
land cost was extremely high. According
to the 1935 Report of the State Board of
Housing the average cost per square foot
was $14.06. No form of subsidy was avail-
able from the RFC, although the interest
rate was only 4 per cent on the borrowed
funds. The State Board of Housing re-
quired that rentals not exceed $12.50 per room per month ($11.00 p.r.p.m. in areas other than Manhattan) to
receive the benefit of tax exemption. Despite the advantage of this financing arrangement, it was necessary to
produce a very high population density on the site to support the investment. Although the land area covered by
buildings is less than the surrounding slums, the buildings are thirteen stories high and house 1,593 families.
This is 50 per cent more than originally occupied the site.

Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc-

WILLIAMSBURG
HOUSES, New York City

Board of Design: R. H.
Shreve, M. W. Del Gaudio,
A. C. Holden, William Les-
caze t Samuel Goldstein, Paul
Trapani, G. H. Gurney, H. L.
JFalker, J. W. Ingle

| [SCHOOL

"(6

S STORES

S STORES WITH APARTMENTS OVER

SCM.E IN FEET

50 100 800 300 400 500'

One hundred years ago the
site of this project was a
country village. When the
project was built in 1936,
the site was occupied by
1,279 families at a popula-
tion density of 166 persons per acre. Two-thirds of the buildings were two- and three-story frame structures.
More than one-half the number of dwellings had no running hot water, two-thirds had no private toilets, and
three-quarters were without baths. The area was a fire hazard and refuse-ridden. This is the slum that had grown
from a farm land within a period of 100 years. Williamsburg Houses is a development of four-story walk-up-
apartment buildings of fireproof construction. The site covers 25 acres and the project provides 1,622 dwellings.
The total cost per unit was about $7,700 of which about $2,500 was the cost of the land and "improvements""
demolished. It was the largest project built by the Housing Division of PWA.

The Original Site

WILLIAMSBURG HOUSES

Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc.
The Finished Project

Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc.

WESTFIELD ACRES,

Camden, New Jersey

Architects J. N. Hettel, C. L. MacNelly, F. H. Radey, A. B. Gill, Oscar Stonorov, H. N. Moffett, H. E. Hall,
J. C. Jefferis, G. L. J. Neutze

A project by the Housing Division of PWA of 514 apartments in three-story buildings. The site was a vacant
area of 25 acres, the area of buildings covering only 15 per cent of the land. The cost was about $5,300 per
dwelling. No through-traffic bisects the site, and garage compounds are located on the periphery. In this project
we again observe the advantages of large-scale planning over the usual city street system and lot subdivision.
The original planning of streets indicated outside the project area is replaced by interior roads designed only
for service access to the buildings. Large open spaces flow throughout the site and provide safe recreational areas
and gardens for adults and children. (The aerial view below was taken during construction of this development.)

. S. Lincoln

ISSUES IN FOCUS 151

legislation and only one project was financed by RFC: Knickerbocker Village, a slum
clearance project approved by the New York State Board of Housing.

The Housing Division of PWA embarked upon such a program, loaning 85 per
cent of the project cost to limited-dividend corporations whose applications demon-
strated satisfactory evidence of the 15 per cent equity required of the applicant. Only
seven projects could be approved and the necessity for a broader construction program
caused the Housing Division to alter its course. It launched a program of direct con-
struction of low-rent slum-clearance projects.

Coupled with the objective of creating employment in the building industry was the
social aim of adequate housing for families of low income living under substandard
housing conditions. Although there had been experience in European countries as
far back as the nineteenth century, government in the United States had not ventured
into the field of housing prior to 1933. Touching, as it did, upon most of the social
and economic ills of our urban communities, it is needless to say that the Housing
Division was beginning a stormy career.

The Housing Division met with numerous set-backs in its short career of about 4
years, but finally completed some 22,000 dwellings. The right of eminent domain for
the acquisition of sites divided into multiple ownerships was denied by the courts
in connection with a slum clearance project in Louisville in 1935. 3 This right was
denied on the premise that condemnation of land for housing was not a "public pur-
pose" within the domain of the Federal government. Thenceforth the Housing Division
was forced to select sites which could be acquired without recourse to condemnation.
This forced, in turn, the use of vacant land for many projects. Despite this apparent
handicap, twenty-seven of the fifty-one projects were built on sites which had been
previously occupied by slums.

Construction costs were higher than seemed warranted. To claim this to be the
result of waste and inefficiency is to beg the real issues that confronted the Housing
Division and the entire recovery program. The chaos of emergency had filtered into
every nook and cranny of our economic and social life. This entailed a degree of
waste in human and material resources beyond any possible measurement. Recovery
was neither expected nor claimed by way of economy and efficiency, and the housing
program of the Housing Division was construed as one means to accomplish this
recovery. It is to the credit of the agency that enduring standards of decent housing
and constructive principles of urban planning were treated as integral parts of a pro-
gram intended primarily as an instrument for economic recovery and creation of
employment.

The United States Housing Act. The aggregate accumulation of substandard
housing in this country adds up to a national problem of no small proportions. To
that extent it is in the public interest for the national government to assume respon-
sibility for assistance in improvement of housing conditions. However the direct impact

3 Decision by District Court of U.S. for Western District of Kentucky, January 4, 1935, upheld by U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 2 to 1 vote, July 15, 1935.

152 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

of bad housing occurs at the local level, the community we define as the city. Direct
responsibility for maintenance of adequate housing standards rests with the local
government.

Recognizing the essential need for local responsibility and administration of hous-
ing affairs, and the necessity for assistance to families of low income in obtaining
decent housing within their capacity to pay, the United States Housing Act was passed
by the Congress in 1937. This Act created the United States Housing Authority
charged with the power to loan funds to local housing authorities established by state
law to build low-rent public housing for families otherwise unable to obtain decent
housing they could afford. The USHA was empowered to make annual contributions to
these local authorities to bring rents within the range of low-income families. Accord-
ing to the Act the purpose of the law was "to assist the several states and their political
subdivisions to alleviate present and recurring unemployment and to remedy the unsafe
and insanitary housing conditions and the acute shortage of decent, safe, and sanitary
dwellings for families of low income, in rural or urban communities, that are injurious
to the health, safety, and morals of the citizens of the United States."

When the Act became law there were only fifteen states with legislation creating
local housing authorities eligible to receive loans from USHA. There were forty-six
local authorities in these states. The necessary legislation was enacted in rapid sequence
and when the United States entered the postwar era, there was legislation in forty-one
states, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, with a
total of 448 authorities in cities and 368 in counties.

The foundation of the Housing Act was decentralized control, with local initiative
and responsibility. USHA may be considered analogous to a banker who loans funds
to build houses; the local authority is the borrower; the purpose is building a pro-
ject for rent to families in a community who, because of their low income, can afford
only substandard housing facilities. The need for public housing arises from the fact
that the low-income families cannot afford to pay an "economic rent." The USHA
therefore makes annual contributions to the local authority, in addition to its func-
tion as a "banker," to offset the difference between an economic rent and the rent the
low- income families can afford.

In conducting this program full responsibility rested with the local authority to
determine the need for public housing, the location of projects, the planning, con-
struction, and management of the developments. These projects are the property of
the local authority. USHA loans 90 per cent of the total cost of a project at a low
interest rate (about 2^ per cent) for a period up to 60 years. The remaining 10 per
cent is borrowed by the local authority through the sale of its bonds to other lending
institutions. The annual contributions from USHA are fixed by the Act at not more
than 1 per cent above the current rate of interest on the loans (about 3^ per cent)
and, in practice, the maximum contributions are substantially equal to the annual
interest and amortization charges for the entire loan. However, they may be adjusted
annually as the income levels and operating costs in a community fluctuate.

ISSUES IN FOCUS 153

It becomes the obligation of the local authority to ascertain that the rents are main-
tained at a level which meets the needs of the lowest income families who could not
otherwise find decent housing facilities. The Housing Act provided that rents could
not exceed one-fifth of the income for families with less than three dependents and
not more than one-sixth of the income for families with three or more dependents.
By administrative ruling only families living in substandard dwellings were eligible
to become tenants.

The local authorities, being created by the states, derive their powers from the
states. They are vested with the right of eminent domain in order to assure the acquisi-
tion of sites for projects. According to the Housing Act it was required that one sub-
standard dwelling be eliminated for each new dwelling built by the local authority.
This requirement could be fulfilled either on the site of a project or, if the site was
vacant or more dwellings were placed upon it than prior to demolition, the remainder
could be eliminated by the city through the exercise of its police powers.

The program has been fraught with heated criticism and support. Proponents were
often overzealous ; opponents frequently socially unaware. The former claimed that
housing should become a political issue but alienated the politicians. The latter insisted
it should remain free from politics and proceeded to make their opposition a major
political program. Early debate was focused upon the question of whether USHA
was remaining within the area of housing for the low-income families and was clear-
ing slums; more recently it has become popular to identify public housing with
socialism and un-American activities, alleging it to be contrary to the interests of free
enterprise. These are issues that remain thus far unresolved in terms of national policy.

Meeting the Need. The depression uncovered convincing evidence of poor hous-
ing conditions and the economic burden of blight on the urban community. Vast
unemployment emphasized the plight of millions of families with insufficient incomes
to buy or rent decent dwellings. Financial assistance from the Federal government
was not only accepted, it was invited by local governments and enterprise generally.
Public works contributed much to the physical wealth of the country. The Federal
Housing Administration was welcomed by financial institutions, the construction trades
and businesses, and prospective home-owners. The public housing program was too
small to make a dent in the slum problem of cities; a total of 168,000 dwellings
were built by local authorities with USHA loans in the 4 years of the program before
the war, but the housing problem of the urban population was only revealed, it was
not solved.

According to the Final Report of the Executive-Secretary to the Temporary National
Economic Committee on Concentration of Economic Power in the United States in
1938, less than one-fifth of the new housing was in the market for three-quarters of
the population with incomes under $2,000 a year. The lower third of the income
group, below $1,000 per year, could only afford 1 per cent of the new houses; the
income group between $1,000 and $1,500, being 24 per cent of the urban families,,
could afford only 3.7 per cent of the new houses; and the $1,500-$2,000 income

ni ii ii ii ir

COLUMBIA VILLA, Portland, Oregon
Stanton and Johnson, Architects

A project of 400 dwellings built by the Housing Authority of
the City of Portland, Oregon, with financial assistance of
USHA. This project has an unusually low density and com-
prises one-story twin houses and one- and two-story four-unit
buildings. Designed as a series of dwelling courts, the dwellings
face upon free open space. Parking spaces are combined with
each court and laundry buildings are distributed about the
site for convenient tenant use.

Although the public housing projects, of which this is one,
were financed and owned by the local housing authorities
and built for rent to families of low income who were other-
wise unable to afford the cost of decent housing in their com-
munity, the standards of planning the projects were similar
to those financed as private investments insured by the Fed-
eral Housing Administration. The distinctions between the
private and public housing developments were therefore less
in the amenities of the living environment they provided than
in the methods of financing to cope with the various economic
levels of the people in the community.

Being permanent improvements in the community, just as
all other housing developments, the public housing projects
were built to standards of planning considered adequate for
a permanent neighborhood environment. The type of project
varied with the characteristics of the community in which they
were built and ranged from those of low density and ample
open space, such as the one illustrated here, to tall apartments
with high density in the more crowded large cities in the
country.

Leonard Delano

ISSUES IN FOCUS 155

group, representing 15 per cent of the population, could afford only 15 per cent of
the new houses. The rest of all houses, 81 per cent of the total production, was avail-
able to only 24 per cent of the families in the income range above $2,000 per year.

This ratio of incomes to the cost of new houses was not a phenomenon; it was not
a new development in the housing market. It was more or less typical, but the depres-
sion made it more apparent. It was customary to assume that second-hand houses
would filter down to successive income groups as production of new houses supplied
the upper-income brackets. This process is rather natural but it has one distinct weak-
ness: it encourages the accumulation of substandard houses. This will be treated later
at more length since it presents an obstruction in the path of full production to meet
the wide range of income groups in the housing market. This situation, however, must
be recognized in appraising the combined efforts to supply housing through the nor-
mal channels of private enterprise, through government guarantee of private lending
institutions against loss on loans for housing, and through public housing for low-
income families.

The issues have not remained in clear focus. The program was new in this country;
there had been little previous attention to housing for families in the slums with the
exception of social settlement and charity organizations. Criticism of public housing
diverted attention from the problem of housing for families of the lower income brackets
and the rehabilitation of the decaying city. This criticism was not always accurate.
Frequent claims were made that public housing did not reach the families for which
it was intended.

Nathan Straus, former Administrator of USHA, reported the following income
groups housed in the public housing projects sponsored by USHA prior to the war:

Annual Income per Family Percentage of Families Housed

Less than $500 7.7

$500-749 32.8

$750-999 33.4

$1,000-1,249 21.4

$1,250-1,499 4.8

Over $1,500 0.1

According to Mr. Straus in his book. Seven Myths of Housing, the average shelter
rent, that is, the rent for an unfurnished dwelling but including the mechanical
equipment such as refrigerator and cooking range, was an average of $12.79 per
dwelling per month in USHA-aided projects over the entire country. The rent including
the cost of utilities electricity, heat, water, and cooking fuel, was an average of
$17.98 per dwelling per month. The average income of tenants was $832 per family
per year.

The average construction cost for the dwelling, exclusive of land, site improve-
ments, and overhead, was $2,700 per unit in USHA-aided projects; the average cost
of FHA-insured dwellings was $3,601 between 1938-40. The total cost including land,
site improvements, such as roads, walks, utilities, landscaping, and community facil-

(56 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

ities, commissions, and administration, was an average of $4,307 per dwelling unit
in USHA-aided projects; and $5,332 per dwelling in FHA-insured houses in the
same period.

In evaluating the USHA program there was reference to alleged high costs. Some
confusion prevailed because USHA inherited the projects built by the Housing Divi-
sion of PWA; these latter had cost in excess of USHA-aided developments, as indi-
cated in the following comparisons where both types of projects were built:

Average Construction Average Monthly Average Family
Place Cost Rent Income

Charleston, S. C.

PWA $3,732 $19.33 $1,349

USHA 2,939 12.26 765

Jacksonville, Fla.

PWA 2,746 15.32 850

USHA 2,667 10.58 750

Toledo, Ohio

PWA 4,328 16.64 1,208

USHA 2,996 14.25 839

The principal issue that emerged from the public housing program was the dual
character of its avowed purpose: to clear slums and rehouse families who, by force
of their economic status, could not afford the full cost of decent housing. The causes
of physical decay in our cities and the economic level of a large segment of the
people who live in slums and blighted areas are interwoven. It is necessary, how-
ever, that they be untangled if we are to see clearly a program designed to rehouse
urban America.

The most obvious reason to separate these two phases of the problem is the fact
that slums and blight cannot be remedied without displacing the people who occupy
them. If the cleared areas are to be rebuilt with housing low-rent housing the dis-
placed people must find a place to live during the operation. The shortage of decent
dwellings at low enough rents is a chronic condition. To force people out of one blighted
area into another simply lends credence to the oft-quoted statement that people make
the slums.

Slum clearance is a popular phrase and an essential objective, but it is necessary
that the sequence of clear slums and rehouse be reversed to rehouse and clear slums.
This later sequence has been followed in other countries where intelligent steps have
been taken to improve urban housing conditions and remove blighted areas from the
city. Housing estates were built on the periphery of English cities, garden towns in the
suburbs of Swedish cities, and Holland and Germany planned town extension programs.

Slum clearance is more than pulling down old houses or tenements. It drives straight
to the heart of urban rehabilitation. It immediately becomes part and parcel of urban
planning for commercial and industrial land uses, and transportation as well as

ISSUES IN FOCUS 157

housing. In a word, it implies the planning of our cities. Slum clearance should be
treated as urban redevelopment. Much of the misunderstanding that arose from the
public housing program was due to the confusion between a program to clear the
slums and blight from our cities and a program to build decent housing for low-
income families.

Housing is a part of the whole urban complex. It proceeds independently of slum
clearance and, to the extent that city planning produces a pattern for the appropriate
locations of new housing, it precedes rather than follows the clearance of slums.
This is not to suggest that families should not be rehoused in the areas cleared of
slums. Many blighted areas are particularly well suited for housing; many blighted
areas would become desirable locations for income groups that can well afford
housing requiring no suggestion of public subsidy. But the issue of the public housing
program was the appropriate use of urban land in our cities, and it was not probably
could not have been resolved for want of adequate planning preparation.

It was quite natural to suppose that a "slum clearance" project would be located
in a "slum." It was likewise natural to assume the worst slum would be the best
place for such a project. These assumptions pressed heavily upon the prewar pro-
gram because they are not necessarily true. In many instances they led to completely
erroneous conclusions with respect to the selection of sites.

Mixed land uses have induced blight. Dwellings intermingled with industrial and
commercial surroundings are utterly incompatible. They lack the essential ingredients
for stability; they create an environment in which blight is built-in and slums are
inevitable. It would seem to be normal logic that an area zoned for business or industry-
is no place for housing. However, blighted residential property is, with few exceptions,
found in just such zones of land use. To replace slums with good housing in these
areas is not appropriate land use, it is not good investment for the city, and it is due
to a lack of planning.

The absence of local planning, added to the popular zeal to get rid of ugly slums,
presented the major dilemma of the prewar program to begin a comprehensive pro-
gram for slum clearance and low-rent housing in this country. The experience demon-
strated that a housing program cannot be carried on in our cities, whether by private
enterprise or the public, until it is preceded or accompanied by appropriate urban
planning.

The Planning Dilemma. At no other time had there been a more pressing need for
the benefit of city planning than the years of the Great Depression. Nor could there
have been more convincing evidence of its absence. Much lip-service had been rendered
the cause of planning in previous years, and a small but vocal profession had grown
up around this theme. Yet cities were unprepared for action when the time was ripe.

The state of the Union was desperate at the beginning of the thirties. A program for
action was imperative. There was encouragement when the Administrator of Public
Works appointed the National Planning Board in July, 1933. For the first time in the
history of this country the advantages of research and analysis of our great natural

158 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

resources were available for the general welfare. Prior to this time it was customary
for separate offices of the government to collect facts; it was now provided that these
facts should be correlated and thus become the pattern for appropriate action by the
respective agencies of government.

The National Planning Board became the National Resources Board by executive
order of President Roosevelt in June 1934. It was the purpose of the Board "to prepare
and present to the President a program and plan of procedure dealing with the physi-
cal, social, governmental, and economic aspects of public policies for the development
and use of land, water, and other national resources and such related subjects as may
from time to time be referred to the Board by the President." The National Resources
Committee succeeded the Board in 1935, and in July 1939 all these functions were
transferred to the National Resources Planning Board.

The Board and its predecessors were organized on a regional basis. Probably the
most significant work was performed by way of encouragement of planning at local
levels and technical assistance to local planning agencies. Regional, state, and city
planning was reviewed and organized, comprehensive reports on the state of natural
resources and recommended plans for appropriate conservation and use were made,
developments and the relative importance of technological changes were recorded, and
valuable data were assembled on urban growth and population. 4

In 1943 the National Resources Planning Board was discontinued and its functions
have since been performed by various committees of Congress.

The work of the National Resources Planning Board and its predecessors was directed
at issues of national scope. The resistance to planning these agencies confronted was
reflected at the local level. Cities were unprepared when the depression struck, the few
exceptions emphasizing the general absence of plans. Faced with an immediate op-
portunity to establish permanent improvements in their environment, there was little
evidence that the people had concerned themselves with the question of their future
urban development.

The issues of emergency and sound planning were confused. Building and maintain-
ing the city constitute a complex and a vital problem. It requires planning to cope with
this problem. The housing program during the depression demonstrated the tragic
results of its absence. Subdivisions sprawled across the city without consideration of
a plan into which the urban development could be integrated with the future use of land
and become an effective means for improvement of community welfare. The public
housing program was too frequently interpreted as an opportunity to get rid of some
isolated eyesore or festering slum that pricked the civic pride.

By the time that cities had become aware of their plight, the economic cost of blight,
and the social hazard of slums, there was no time to plan. That would have to wait
until the depression had spent itself and prosperity had returned. Had civic leadership
glanced back upon the history of city development it would have been abundantly clear
that planning can never wait. The course of human affairs marches steadily on and the

4 See Bibliography, Part II, for partial list of publications.

ISSUES IN FOCUS 159

direction of its course is determined by the degree of planning which precedes it. When
goals are set, they can be reached ; when they are absent, the urban community drifts
like a ship without a compass. The goals have not yet been considered, and our cities
are still adrift.

War Begins a Neic Decade. Then came war, and another stroke of irony marked
the affairs of human conduct. Planning assumed proportions never before conceived in
history. With destruction of civilization a grim prospect, the scale of planning was
gargantuan, staggering the imagination, even in retrospect. However, it was military
planning.

When the ominous spread of Nazi domination engulfed central Europe and threatened
another world war, Congress enacted the National Defense Bill of June 1940. Industry
turned its attention to production of war materials, and the Lanham Act authorized
funds for housing workers in the defense plants. Numerous government agencies
entered the housing program. In July 1940, the Office of Housing Co-ordinator was
established to determine the need in places of acute shortage and allocate Federal
funds to the various agencies.

New construction by private enterprise insured by FHA was stepped up, HOLC
assisted in the conversion of existing facilities, the low-rent program under USHA
was stopped, and 100 per cent loans were extended to local housing authorities to
build defense housing. The Public Buildings Administration, Defense Homes Corpo-
ration, and Maritime Commission undertook construction of large-scale permanent
government housing, and the Federal Works Agency launched a large program of
prefabricated temporary dwellings.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, all the energy of the nation
was directed to the successful prosecution of the war. Peacetime and defense housing
was supplanted by a vast program of war housing, and huge plants were constructed
to build ships, airplanes, and armaments.

In February 1942, all Federal housing agencies were consolidated in the National
Housing Agency. The National Housing Act was amended to include Title VI, provid-
ing insurance by FHA of 90 per cent loans, amortized in 25 years, for housing built
by "operative" builders for sale or rent to war workers. The necessity to conserve
materials was critical. The floor area of dwellings and the critical materials used in
them were rigidly restricted. The Lanham Act was amended to provide for the construc-
tion of temporary dwellings by the Federal government.

More than 800,000 new dwellings were built and about 200,000 existing units con-
verted by private enterprise, for a total estimated cost of $4,000,000,000. Nearly
550,000 family dwellings and 170,000 dormitory units were built, and 50,000 existing
structures converted into family dwellings, through the direct operations of the Federal
government. There were, in addition, about 80,000 "stop-gap" shelters provided in
the form of trailers to permit mobility for shifts as changing needs dictated. The cost
of this program was some $2,300,000,000 for a total of 850,000 living units.

It has been estimated that migration of industrial workers to man war jobs created

WAR HOUSING, San Francisco

Within the range of this aerial photograph are five of the war housing projects built in San Francisco for
workers engaged in shipbuilding and allied industries during World War II. They were planned and built
by the Federal government as temporary dwellings intended, according to the Lanham Act authorizing their
construction, to be removed within two years after the President declared a termination of the war emergency.
Being temporary dwellings and built during a period when the conservation of critical materials was of para-
mount urgency, they were planned with consideration for economy in cost, space, quantity and quality of
materials, and construction time.

Since the end of the war these dwellings, and thousands of others built in a similar manner and for the
same purpose in many localities, have been the subject of criticism for their "substandard" planning and
construction. The criticism is justified and the dwellings should be removed as soon as production of housing
with adequate standards of planning and construction absorbs the housing shortage.

An examination of the photograph, however, causes one to ponder the criticism of this ''substandard'*
character attributed to these projects. The fact that they are readily distinguishable in the picture suggests a
reason to raise this question. Among the criteria for appraisal of the quality of a living environment is that
of appropriate planning of the streets, their relation to the topography of the site, and the resulting harmony
between the dwellings, circulation about them, and the shape of the land upon which they are built.

San Francisco is a series of hills and valleys, and the picture casts some doubt on the validity of an assumption
that the war projects are below the standard of the more permanent development about them. Laid in a
gridiron, the street system of the city ignores the geographic nature of the beautiful site of this great city.
The hills, on which the war projects were built, had been platted for this same gridiron street pattern. The
war projects, however, demonstrated a standard of urban planning that cannot be ignored in an appraisal of
their value. The contrast between them and the "rectilinear habit" is too apparent to be overlooked. This con-
trast is further enhanced by the development of the central shopping centers and parking facilities within the
war projects in comparison with the inorganic spotting of retail business strung along the streets of the
permanent residential districts throughout the city.

Maintenance Building

Shopping Center

Community Building

Administration Building

Clinic

Elementary School

Junior High School

Water Supply Towers

Water Reservoir

Electric Power Sub-station

AlcLOUGHLIN HEIGHTS, Vancouver, Washington

This was one of the largest single World War II housing assignments by the National Housing Agency about
5,000 dwelling units. The initial project of 1,000 acres required facilities for a population substantially the same
as the city of Vancouver itself. Seven groups of architects were assigned areas for planning in the entire
development, being co-ordinated by the local housing authority.

The plan has been criticized for an absence of a single over-all pattern. This criticism exposes the usual
nostalgia for monumental uniformity to which we became accustomed during the eclectic nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Although the project reflects a lack of mature study because of its emergency nature,
the plan is nevertheless fairly well organized. The principal highway from Vancouver, situated to the west of
the site, splits into two major traffic routes with transverse arteries crossing at points between ^ and 1 mile
apart.

The long buildings indicated in the plan were added at a later date and interspersed among the initial units
along the highways and remaining open space. Except for these later additions, an examination of the plan
shows that most of the dwellings were arranged about minor residential roads, the main highways being
largely left free from frequent intersections.

The site is a plateau above the Columbia River, the source of employment for war workers having been
located along the river to the south of the project.

162 THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

a need for housing some 9,000,000 families. War work was distributed in all parts
of the country, but the most pressing need was in large centers for the tremendous new
industrial plants. Individual projects of 5,000 units were built in such places as Willow
Run near Detroit; Norfolk, Virginia; Vancouver, Washington; and San Diego and
San Francisco, California. The largest single operation was 10,000 dwellings for the
Kaiser shipyards at Portland, Oregon.

The influx of great numbers of workers and their families strained every urban
service. Housing was not complete without new streets, utility systems, parks and play-
grounds, theaters, shops and markets, and restaurants. Whole new communities were
created in a few months, and war production was sustained.

The war was won. The goal had been clear the survival of freedom. Planning
guided the campaign. The production and distribution of goods, materials, food, weap-
ons, and man power were planned. It was necessary, and well done.

Thus ended another paradox in the course of human events. While military planning
was winning a great campaign, planning for the peace to come was abandoned. It will
be remembered that the National Resources Planning Board died during the conflict,
and the planning process, with which our institutions were saved in war, was
denounced as an enemy of freedom. We have need to learn from yesterday so as to
prepare today for a better tomorrow.

PART III

THE PLANNING
PROCESS

If -we could first know where we are,
and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do, and
how to do it.

Abraham Lincoln*

CHAPTER 10

THE LEGAL
FOUNDATION

An Age of Urban Anarchy. A century before the Golden Age of Athens, a Greek
philosopher, Heraclitus, said the problem of human society is to combine that degree
of liberty without which law is tyranny with that degree of law without which liberty
becomes license. The democracy of Athens and the Constitution of the United States
were wrought from the same precepts. An organized society was formed about a group
of laws, a set of rules to guide the people in their conduct. The purpose was to
guarantee liberty and justice for all.

Inspired by this freedom the people of America created a vast domain of commercial
and industrial enterprise. And they built great cities.

Today we see these cities scarred by congestion and decay, speculation and ugliness.
We see the science and invention of our remarkable age snarled in a tangle of the urban
network. The mediocrity of our cities is a travesty on the productive genius and creative
energy of America.

It is not the desire of the people that their cities should be so built. It is rather their
ambition to create fine cities, else the forward strides that have been taken would not
have been attempted. It is the essence of democracy that the people shall be masters of
their destiny, that their behavior shall be guided by the precepts of law and order. Yet
our cities suffer disorder and confusion as though born of anarchy. The most frantic
antidotes of regulation appear inept and futile. The reasons for this state of urban
affairs may be apparent upon examination.

Who are the city builders? They are the multitude of city people who invest in urban
property and improvements. All the people participate. Some share by their invest-
ments of capital in physical improvements for conduct of profitable enterprise; others
invest in municipal revenue bonds which pay for public improvements. All participate
through their payment of taxes for the public services that make urban investment
feasible.

165

166 THE PLANNING PROCESS

Forty per cent of the city area is public property: the streets, parks, schools, and a
variety of public improvements. Within this area local government may shape the
streets, traffic arteries, and open spaces according to the designs of official planners. But
the bulk of city building, 60 per cent of the total urban area, proceeds parcel by parcel
as industry, business, and home-seekers find opportunity for investment.

Those who invest for personal profit are guided by the "market" for improve-
ments. The measure of this "market" is double-barreled. Investment in a city implies
stability of values. By its nature the city is a permanent institution whose purpose is to
shelter the continuing activities of people. It is not a natural speculative medium. An
immediate "market" induces investment, but a continuing "market" makes of it a
sound investment.

Stability depends upon the quality of the improvement itself. It also depends upon
the quality of the other improvements that have preceded and those that will follow.
It depends upon the standards at which a community maintains itself, the maintenance
of existing facilities, and the standards it demands for future improvements. These
standards determine the difference between environmental degeneration or stability,
and upon them rests the difference between speculation and sound urban development.

Nor do the physical improvements on private land alone affect the health of urban
investment. The warp of the community pattern is the network of streets, utilities, and
transportation. The city functions through the circulation of goods and services; the
strength of the urban pattern is measured by the adequacy and convenience of the
circulatory system, the stability of investments by the level at which the community
maintains itself.

Urban growth is, in some respects, analogous to processes in nature. The soil of
fertile and prosperous citizenship is tilled, the seeds of investment are planted, and the
garden is cultivated with urban management and maintenance, both public and private.
All urban activities and functions are inseparable. The only area in which they may be
isolated is that of speculation, and, for that reason, speculation is damaging.

Speculation quick turn-over for quick profit contributes in large measure to build-
ing a city, but the speculator assumes no responsibility for his product since he is not
concerned with the use of the improvement. That responsibility and the obligation for
maintaining it are shifted to others when he transfers ownership. The motive of specula-
tion consequently induces inferior quality; it is concerned only with the least possible
initial cost.

Speculative improvements are none the less an investment in the city. They are in-
vestments in which the public participates. Public services must be made available to
all property, and the cost of these services is paid by taxes and public utility rates.
These costs are measured to a large degree by the quality of the improvements that
comprise the city. High quality holds stable values, resists spotty shifts in urban land
use, and wasteful extension and duplication of public services.

What determines the physical form of the city? It emerges from the initiative and
enterprise of many people, acting individually and in groups. However, the people are

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 167

guided by a set of standards and not from some preconceived model of the future city,
however brilliant or inspired. This set of standards is the law. The real plans for our
cities are the standards prescribed by law the codes and ordinances that regulate the
development of urban property.

It is a cardinal point of our constitutional form of political organization that ours is
a government of laws the rules by which our democratic "game" is played. City
building is guided by the maximum quantity and minimum quality the law allows. Laws
form an integral part of the whole planning process, and it is appropriate to the
democratic process that the people who design and invest in urban building shall find
free expression and action within the limits prescribed by law.

That this process imposes a singular responsibility upon the citizen must be self-
evident. It is the obligation of the people to determine the standards they deem appro-
priate for their city and translate these standards into effective rules and regulations.
It can be fairly stated that this responsibility has not been discharged with the intel-
ligence and devotion demanded of citizenship in a democracy. Our cities bear violent
testimony to that fact. If we are to bring improvement to the urban environment it
devolves upon the people, civic leaders in business, industry, the arts, and public
office, to assume this responsibility with vision, integrity, and an unflinching will
to serve the public interest. In the final analysis it is only the few who reap profitable
reward through violation of the general welfare.

Urban development implies a continuing responsibility, all forces acting together
and interdependent^. The degree to which these forces are integrated reflects the
aspirations, ambitions, and convictions of a community, and the initiative and respon-
sibility of the citizenship in whole and in each of its parts. When the forces that con-
tribute to city building are unbalanced, inequities develop and the city declines. The
energy is sapped, the city no longer provides a field for sound and continuing busi-
ness investment, and the environment degenerates.

Since the laws applying to the physical development of the city set the standards for
that development, it is important to examine the effect of these regulations and the
prospects for improvement in them. It is important for those who invest their capital
for profitable return and for those who pay the taxes that maintain the community.
The cities themselves bear testimony to the ineffective nature of many of our laws.
The legal framework that molds the urban pattern provides some advantages, but cities
appear to have drifted into a state approaching anarchy.

Until recently public contact with city planning has been limited; even today most
people have little knowledge about planning, its practices, its limitations, or its sig-
nificance to their daily living. First contact usually comes when a building permit is
sought and the aspirant is either granted a permit or informed that he may not proceed
with the improvement as he desired. If the permit is granted, the relationship of the
individual and planning is a fleeting one and his lack of knowledge continues. If,
however, the permit is denied, the citizen may inquire the reason. When informed that
the law denies him that right because it is inconsistent with the welfare of the com*

168 THE PLANNING PROCESS

munity, the citizen may depart from the planning office, accepting this interpretation
of the law. Or he may have the temerity to ask: What law? How does a community
come by the right to restrain him from the free exercise of his will in developing
property he owns? Is this not the confiscation of private property without due process
of law and without just compensation, both of which are violations of the Constitution
of the United States? 1

It is in the interest of the people that they be informed on these questions; they are
the foundation of planning in democracy.

When Official Planning Began. The time when land was first allocated to specific
uses is, of course, shrouded in prehistoric mystery. The failure of land to respond to
cultivation demonstrated that certain land was not adapted to agricultural use but,
since there were few ways of passing this information on to others, it was probably
necessary for successive users to learn by trial and error what marginal areas were
unfit. 2

Tribal experience indicated that certain land was suitable for raising crops, other
land was better for grazing animals, and some was unproductive. When these expe-
riences were transmitted from generation to generation by word of mouth and tribal
custom, we had the first haphazard land-use plan. Certainly enforcement was effective;
struggle for survival in a not too friendly world left the line between life and death
too thin for a man to cultivate land a second time after it had refused to give him
food the first time. Thus land was identified as either agricultural or nonagricultural
and, if the latter, it had little value. Since there was much land and the people were
few in number, man, living a nomadic life, found little need to fight for or limit him-
self to any single area. In those regions where the land gave bountiful harvest from
the seeds planted, the wanderers settled down and formed the first permanent agrarian
communities.

The customs of land use in the earliest days defined the planting seasons, the har-
vesting seasons, the first descriptions of crop rotation, and the idea of resting the land
after a number of years of use. The priesthood wielded tremendous persuasive powers,
and many codes of land use were incorporated in religious doctrines, some of which
are still part of religious observations today.

With the development of civilization, the building of cities, and the growth of popu-
lation, land took on other values than that attached to agricultural use. The fixed market-
place became a land use of great value, the public open space, the forum, and the
commons being the important center of the town. Special places were designated
for the storage of explosives, for the slaughter of animals, and for the residential

1 Federal Constitution, 14th Amendment, 1868, Section I : "No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws."

2 "Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered
their heads. Yea, the hind also calved in the field and forsook it, because there was no grass. And the wild
asses did stand in high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was
no grass." Jeremiah 14, 4-6.

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 169

developments of the aristocracy. It did not take rulers long to recognize that the
relationship between land uses was of paramount importance, that the slaughter-
houses had no proper place on the windward side of their palaces. In our present-day
cities we have taken far less care in locating smoke- and dust-producing industries.
It is true, of course, that protection of a few homes from obnoxious conditions was a
far simpler task than controlling industrial development in relation to the mush-
rooming residential areas that crowd our urban landscape today, but some applica-
tion of this principle might have given us a far less objectionable environment in our
urban communities. 3

While the storage of powder in a convenient place was important to the people's
defense, it was soon recognized as a menace when stored too near their homes. With
these early concepts of danger and discomfiture began the first official designation
of areas within which certain uses were segregated as a matter of protection to the
people in a community.

In ancient cities people were themselves regulated as to where they might live.
Workers were restricted to areas outside the fortress walls and were called within when
required to protect the interests of rulers. As cities grew in size and power, certain
minority groups were restricted to areas commonly called "ghettos." These minority
groups differed in various periods and in different parts of the world, but history
repeatedly records their plight, their misery, and deprivation. These ghettos were
always the overcrowded slums and the center of poverty, and when disease struck the
city the people in these areas suffered most. Fear of these plague-ridden spots gen-
erated hatred and conflict, and confinement of living quarters was extended to restric-
tions on the work the inhabitants might perform and the places they might travel.
Seldom did such imposed regulations have legal foundation, but since they were
enforced by the police and with public sanction they were accepted as equivalent to
legal control.

To assume that such conditions are confined to history or remote places would be
unrealistic since there remains today considerable regulation over minority groups; the
areas in which they live are not called ghettos but they retain many historic char-
acteristics.

The Police Power. Use of the police power to carry out the official aims of a
group in power has always been considered proper, but abuse of the power by ruling
governments in the past gave rise to actions by the people to curtail that power. Anglo-
Saxon and French legal procedures are the outgrowth of the struggle of the people
against the autocratic, whimsical, and sometimes frivolous use of powers by the heads
of states and nations. The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights were
created to guarantee that there would be no punitive action by an individual or gov-

3 Ex parte Shrader, 33 California 279, 1876: "Habeas Corpus to review judgement of conviction for violating
order of the Board of Supervisors .of the City and County of San Francisco prohibiting the maintenance of
slaughter houses, the keeping of swine, the curing of hides or the carrying on of any business or occupation
'offensive' to the senses or prejudicial to the public health or comfort, in certain portions of the city." The courts
held this to be a valid use of the police power.

170 THE PLANNING PROCESS

ernment against persons without just cause and with full and open trial in the courts
of law.

Today it is a widely accepted principle that the source of all power lies in the hands
of the majority of the people. This implies that the people of a city or town, through
the governing body, have the right to enact laws and regulations that support their ideas
of what is best for their community. The distinction between this principle and the
exercise of power in the past, whether by a minority or a majority,, is our recognition
that regulations of law today apply to all the people, and no class is expected to be
immune. The principal restraint upon law is that it shall not be in conflict with the
Constitution of the United States nor the constitution of the state in which it is enacted.

The power to pass and enforce laws to protect the welfare of all the people, whether
they be enacted at a local or a national level, is called the exercise of the police power. 4
Enforcement of the legislation enacted by the people or their representatives generally
rests with the police department, which apprehends persons accused of law violation.
The police department is required to explain the charges preferred and turn the accused
over to the courts for a decision on innocence or guilt and the terms of punishment
prescribed by the law. The United States Constitution assures that the punishment meted
out shall not be cruel and unusual, or arbitrary.

It is necessary that the police power be exercised for a worthy purpose and with
definitely stated objectives. In cases where police power is used to regulate or deny the
use of property without compensation, it must be clearly shown that the continued use
of that property would be inimical to the best interests of the community. A house
that is structurally unsound or badly infested with rats may be dangerous to the public
in general as well as the persons living in it, and it is thus subject to being closed under
the police power without compensation to the owner. The equity for such actions rests
upon the assumption that the people are obliged to maintain their property at standards
which will not impose a nuisance upon the community and the necessity to exercise the
police power to abate such a nuisance does not warrant compensation to the owners of
the affected property.

Taking land for a public purpose when the owner does not want to sell is known
as exercise of eminent domain. Condemnation of the property is instituted in the courts
which then establish a fair price based upon testimony from witnesses representing
the owner, the community, and impartial appraisers. Use of the right of eminent
domain is not to be confused with use of the police power: the principal difference
between the two powers lies in the matter of compensation to the owner; under the
police power the state does not "take" the property from its owner it regulates the
right of use on behalf of the public welfare.

4 Police power was expressed in ancient law as: "Due regulation of domestic order of the kingdom where
members of the state, like a family, are bound to conform their behavior in good propriety ... to be good
members and an orderly part of the community"; and later: "Police Power ... is the name given to the inherent
sovereignty which is the right and duty to exercise when the public policy demands enforcement of such
regulations for the general welfare as are necessary for the regulation of economic conditions to provide for
adequate community life." Parker v. Otis, 130 California 322.

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 171

The police power of a community is limited to the area within its political bound-
aries. Thus the state laws may be enforced within any part of the state unless other-
wise provided in the laws, the county laws only within the county, and city or township
laws only within their limits. Beyond this, cooperation between governmental agencies
constitutes the only effective method for coordinated action or regulation.

The police power was retained by the sovereign states at the time of formation of
the Federal government. Only when the national welfare is involved and when the
local government is unable to cope with a situation does the state deem it necessary
to call for assistance from the Federal government. Federal laws, however, do affect
the relationships between the states; we have an Interstate Commerce Commission
to regulate rates on railroads dealing in interstate commerce, and the national labor
laws regulate wages and hours of persons employed in industries which sell their
products through interstate commerce. These instances are uses of the police power by
the Federal government.

Some states give the police power to cities and counties by specific legislative acts;
others grant this right to communities in their state constitutions. The purpose of the
police power is to protect the health, safety, and general welfare of its citizens, but
the manner in which the power is granted differs in the various states. The power to
make laws and regulations dealing with the activities of the citizens of a community
and the property they possess is a key to the planning process and particularly to that
phase called zoning.

Zoning The First Step. The first steps in the direction of modern city planning
can be traced to practices of establishing districts within which certain rights of cit-
izens were legally curbed. King Philip of Spain, 5 in outlining the procedure for estab-
lishing communities in the New World, instructed his explorers that streets were to
be oriented in such a manner as not to be windswept, and that slaughtering places
for cattle were to be located on the outskirts of town so odors would not prove offen-
sive to the townspeople. In Boston the segregation of the storage place for gunpowder
from the center of the city was one of America's first recorded acts of zoning. In
1810 certain Napoleonic decrees and the Prussian codes of 1845 contained land-use
regulations.

Most early laws were concerned only with those uses considered a menace to life
itself, and regulations against most of these uses were based on presentation of evi-
dence in court that the uses were existing and had proven themselves dangerous. This
proof was possible, in most instances, only after some great loss of life directly trace-
able to the specific use. In most cases, such as the tenement house fire disasters in
New York City, continued construction of the dangerous buildings was prohibited
but little was done to eliminate the danger that hung over the thousands of people who
continued to live in "outlawed" fire-traps. It was considered a critical point in all legal
action at the time that the establishment of dangerous uses could be prevented, but that
such laws could not be retroactive.

5 Law of the Indies, King Philip of Spain, 1573.

172 THE PLANNING PROCESS

Legal action on zoning affairs passed through two stages of development before
it arrived at the place it enjoys today. The first stage included a group of court cases
which actually preceded zoning and served to establish the base for zoning law and
gained its recognition as a legal use of the police power. These cases dealt with
"nuisance uses" which the courts treated as separate and individual matters, the court
deciding in each specific case whether a use was detrimental to the health, safety, and
public welfare. As time passed, the courts required more evidence as a base for refer-
ence, evidence "indicating the character of a community," before it was willing to rule
upon the validity of a use. This call by the courts for a comprehensive city plan is
now answered in the General Plan of land use.

In California 6 an ordinance which prohibited a slaughter house, hog storage, and
hide curing in certain districts of the city was upheld in the courts. In Los Angeles, 7
in 1895, an ordinance which prohibited the operation of a steam shoddying plant
within 100 feet of a church was upheld; in this latter case the court passed not only
upon the nature of the specific use but upon the relationship between uses.

The legality of the establishment of fire zones or districts has been upheld in most
courts, the structural nature of buildings and their relation to space being admitted as
an important factor in determining the uses permitted within a structure. In San Fran-
cisco, because of the great number of wooden buildings with party walls, certain dis-
tricts were established by ordinance within which hand laundries were prohibited;
wood fires were burned in the stoves upon which the laundry was boiled and several
serious fires resulted. This ordinance was taken to the state Supreme Court 8 and was
held unconstitutional and invalid, not because of the regulation itself, but because it
was a breach of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution ; it empowered
a man or group of men at his or their absolute and unrestrained discretion to give or
withhold permission to carry on a lawful business in any place. It was pointed out
that the washing of clothes was not opposed to good public morals nor was it sub-
versive of public decency, but the court cited the fact that all but one of the non-
Oriental applicants were issued permits in a similar business in like areas and were
permitted to continue in business whereas the petitioner and two hundred others of his
race were denied permits. The court held that the ordinance was not unreasonable,
but that its application was arbitrary class legislation discriminating against one group
in favor of another. It thus violated the 14th Amendment of the United States Con-
stitution, and the ordinance was declared to be invalid. The fair administration of a
law is integral with the provisions of the law in the eyes of the courts.

One of the earliest decisions in this country upholding an ordinance in the nature
of a zoning regulation was made by the courts in 1920. 9 In sustaining a town plan
before it, the court stated: "It betters the health and the safety of the community; it
betters the transportation facilities; and it adds to the appearance and the wholesome-

6 Ex pane Shrader, San Francisco, 1867.

7 Ex pane Lacey, 108 California 326.

8 Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 1885.

9 Windsor v. Whitney, 95 Connecticut 357, 363.

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 173

ness of the place, and as a consequence it reacts upon the moral and spiritual power
of the people who live under such surroundings."

Changing Interpretation of the Law. The series of laws which establish the right
to zone and enforce zoning is like a chain linking all the powers of government with the
needs and desires of the people. As in all other legal procedures in a democracy, there
is always available to individuals and groups of people the final recourse to the courts
for determination of the reasonableness of a law or the fairness with which it has
been applied.

Some very significant changes have taken place in the interpretation by the courts
of laws regulating the use of property. The growth of communities into large cities
has necessitated detailed and involved legislation governing self-discipline in human
relations. What may have passed unnoticed in a small community may be viewed as
dangerous in cities. Thus the keeping of pigs, horses, and chickens would be considered
as an accepted right in a farm town, but would be looked upon with horror on Man-
hattan Island. What may be tolerated in a small community as a necessary nuisance is
contested and actively combated in a metropolis. The maintenance of open privies in
backyards may be accepted practice in nonurban areas with no funds for sewage dis-
posal, whereas the same condition in any large city would have the entire population
declaring it a menace to the health and life of all the people.

There has been in the eyes of the court a necessity for recognizing the problems
created by the concentration of people in our cities. The dangers of disease, crime,
delinquency, fire, and injury from traffic are rapidly multiplied as the housing, com-
merce, and industry of the large city absorb the open space which formerly insulated
people against these dangers. Thus there came into being the concept that people have
the right to protect themselves against these and other hazards by planning and zoning
an environment which will meet the requirements of urban living. Where we would
have relied in the past upon the police power to prohibit acts which the courts deter-
mined to be a violation of a law, today we enact laws which tend to discourage in
advance those acts which can be prevented.

Our philosophy of urban conduct is no longer confined to the public health, safety,
and general welfare but has extended to the use of the police power for the mainte-
nance of such matters as "public convenience and comfort." The Supreme Court of
the United States has said: 10 "The police power of a state embraces regulations
designed to promote the public convenience or the general prosperity as well as regu-
lations designed to promote the public health, the public morals, or the public safety."
Traffic laws which prohibit parking on certain streets are justified on the grounds that
they make access to important areas a matter of greater convenience as well as assure
the safety of people. Laws which prohibit dangerous or obnoxious uses from resi-
dential areas are considered to protect property values from depreciation and, in this
manner, protect the general prosperity.

Some efforts have been made to incorporate in zoning laws such matters as archi-

10 Chicago B. & Q. Ry. Co. v. Drainage Commissioners, 200 U.S. 561, 592.

174 THE PLANNING PROCESS

tectural control, seeking thus to protect the esthetic feeling of people, but the courts
have not yet given much comfort to the prospect for wide acceptance of the enforcement
of this device through the police power. 11 Restrictive covenants to enforce discrimi-
nation against minority groups by race restrictive provisions in zoning ordinances
were declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in 1927. 12

The Public Welfare. The courts were called upon to rule on some mighty prob-
lems in the early days of zoning. What was the public welfare? When was public
health or life endangered? What was an obnoxious use? At what point is the estab-
lishment of a district reasonable and at what point does it become arbitrary? Was it
proper for the court to substitute its judgment for that of the legislative body on matters
of the "substance" of a zoning ordinance? When can a community permit a use in
one area and deny it in another?

A series of court decisions records the differences of opinion held within the
courts themselves, but filtering through them all are decisions accepted today as a
sound precedent for interpretation of the community's right to establish zoning dis-
tricts and regulate the use of property. The Hadacheck case 13 in Los Angeles, 1913,
cites one of the basic considerations in all zoning law. Although it preceded recog-
nized zoning statutes, it dealt with the violation of a city ordinance prohibiting the
maintenance of brickyards and kilns within a designated residential district of
some three square miles. The court ruled that this use of property must cease and
desist since the smoke, dust, and fumes emanating from the plant were damaging to
the health of the people living near by. In this case the brickyard was located and
operating in the area before it was occupied by residences, but the court did not con-
sider the property right claimed by the owner to be as important as the health and
welfare of the people. The claim of discrimination was raised by the owner since
brickyards and kilns were permitted in other areas near residential developments, but
it was disallowed on the grounds that "it is no objection to the validity of the ordi-
nance that in other districts similarly situated brick kilns are not prohibited. It is
for the council to say whether the prohibition should be extended to such other
districts."

In another case 14 the city of South Pasadena attempted to restrict the operation of
a rock-crusher in a high-class residential district. This district was then sparsely
developed, whereas similar operations were permitted in other and more heavily

H Soho Park and Land Co., 142 Atlantic 548.

12 Buchanan v. Worley, Louisville, Kentucky, 245 U.S. 60 ; 62 Law Edition, 149. Ordinance regulated occu-
pancy of blocks of city; colored people could not occupy buildings in blocks where greater number of dwellings
were occupied by whites and vice versa.

The United States Supreme Court, 38 Supreme Ct. Report, 16, ruled this ordinance unconstitutional because
it forbade the sale of property to a person because of his color . . . this was not a proper use of the police power,
even though the City of Louisville claimed that mixing of the races (colors, Ed. comment) would create riots.
This use of the police power was a violation of the 14th Amendment of the Federal Constitution, for it prevented
the use of property and deprived its owner of use without due process of law.

i*Ex pane Hadacheck, 165 California 416, 1913; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 2390 Supreme Court, 394; 60
Law Edition, 348.

" Matter of Throop, 169 California 93 (1915).

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 175

populated residential districts. The ordinance was declared unreasonable and void. It
was ruled unreasonable to prohibit such use in a sparsely settled district when the
same use was permitted in a densely populated district The court made much of the
fact that the poorer class of homes surrounding the industrial district are entitled to
the same protection as the fine homes. The courts held in the Throop case, and in
others dealing with the mining of natural resources, that these minerals must be
extracted where they are found, and if this use is denied there would be no material
for construction.

Another controversy deals with the relative value of natural resources. In the
Roscoe area within the limits of Los Angeles rock was quarried for many years and
each pit was abandoned when the supply became exhausted; the area of mining was
then extended to a new site for extraction. In this same area, because of the excellent
climatic conditions, great numbers of health-seeking individuals established their
homes. The expansion of rock-quarrying, it was contended, undermined the value of
the climatic resource to the point that the lives of the people were jeopardized. The
residents pointed out that the air was filled with dust particles, that the unfenced and
abandoned pits were dangerous, and that children had been killed and injured. The
Planning Commission of the community upheld the contention of the residents, whereas
the City Council reversed this stand. The lower courts upheld the legislative body.,
refusing to substitute its judgment for that of the council on matters of "substance."

The interpretation of the general welfare clause is fundamental to all zoning, and
planning rests upon the thesis that regulation of property use will secure to the
community numerous benefits. Among others it will lessen congestion on streets,,
secure greater safety from fire, panic, and similar dangers, promote health by requir-
ing adequate light and air, prevent overcrowding of the land, avoid undue concentra-
tions of population, facilitate the provision of adequate transportation, water supply,
sewage disposal and other basic necessities such as schools, parks, playgrounds, and
civic and cultural amenities. The preservation and stabilization of property values
are also important to both individual and community; the more these values are con-
served, the greater will be the city's income from taxation, and the lower will be the
tax rate to supply the required services. Blight, obsolescence, and slums are discour-
aged, the city retains a good "character and appearance," and improvement in the
physical and moral fiber of the community reduces the need for, and cost of, many
social services.

Maintenance of the "general welfare and prosperity" as a reason for imposing
race restrictions by means of zoning was termed an illegal use of the police powers by
the U.S. Supreme Court. The property owners sought to prove that the intrusion of
"nonwhite" families into a "white" district caused a loss of property values and thus
endangered the prosperity of the community. The court held that the agencies of
government could not be used to enforce a law which specifically violated the 14th
Amendment of the Constitution. The courts in many others cases have ruled that

176 THE PLANNING PROCESS

financial gains or losses are not, in themselves, sufficient to decide the validity or
constitutionality of a law. 15

Tests of the community's right to prescribe the manner of development within its
boundaries "spread-eagled 59 the courts during the 1920's. In these early days decisions
were more likely to support the individual against the community welfare, the courts
being reluctant to take action which would infringe upon property rights. Inexperience
in the framing of zoning laws was reflected in some phrasing which suggested dis-
crimination to the courts. The courts hammered at a thesis which has become a
cornerstone of zoning: to be valid the law must be reasonable and fairly applied,

As zoning received wider acceptance as a proper use of the police power, a variety
of features were incorporated in the ordinances. There were efforts to use the law
as a device to protect the property of the few while permitting the remainder of the
city to continue unprotected. Occasionally, in concert with the land speculator, prop-
erty was zoned for a use which would bring the highest price at the moment;
whether the use was commercial, residential, or industrial was of little concern. A
weird pattern of "spot" zoning covered the land like a crazy quilt. Purchasers of
vacant land were informed they could use the land for any purpose they willed, and
their neighbors were helpless to protect their investments. Efforts of public officials to
maintain conformance with the "character" of a neighborhood when called upon to
issue building permits were hotly contested. "Interim Ordinances" were sometimes
enacted to forbid encroachments upon "fine" residential districts and, although some of
these were sustained, the courts generally found them invalid because c-f the arbitrary
nature of their boundaries; the courts viewed the guarantee of a special area from
detrimental uses as a discriminatory act since the same encroachments were per-
mitted unchecked elsewhere.

In all these decisions the courts were actually leading the way toward the planning
of cities; the courts were appealing for a "comprehensive plan" which would provide
a foundation for zoning acts and decisions of equity in the shaping and administration
of these acts.

Zoning and Community Character. One of the most important legal decisions
in the history of zoning was the Euclid case 16 in 1926. In his decision, Justice Suther-
land of the United States Supreme Court pointed out that each community had the
right and the responsibility to determine its own character, and, as long as that deter-
mination did not disturb the orderly growth of the region or the nation, it was a valid
use of the police power. Justice Sutherland stated:

Point is raised by the appellees that the Village of Euclid was a mere suburb of Cleveland, and
that the industrial development of the latter had extended to the village, and that in the obvious
course of things would soon absorb the entire area for industrial enterprise, and that the effect
of the ordinance was to divert such natural development or expansion elsewhere, to the con-

15 Smith v. Collison, 119 California Appellate 180, 1931. Depreciation in value of property is not fatal to the
validity of the ordinance.

i Village of Euclid, Ohio v Ambler Realty Company, 272 U.S. 365 (1926).

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 177

sequent loss of increased values to the owners of land within the village. But this village, though
physically a suburb of Cleveland, is a separate municipality, with powers of its own and authority
to govern itself as it sees fit within the organic laws of its creation and the state and federal consti-
tutions. The will of its people determines, not that industrial development shall cease at its
boundaries, but that such development shall proceed between fixed lines. If therefore it is proper
exercise of the police power to regulate industrial establishments to localities separated from
residential sections, it is not easy to find sufficient reason for denying the power because its effect
would be to divert an industrial flow from a course which would result in injury to the resi-
dential public to another course where such injury would be obviated. This should not exclude
the possibility of cases where the general interest so far outweighs the interest of the municipality,
that the latter should not be allowed to stand in its way.

This decision made it abundantly clear that a community may determine the nature
of development within its boundaries; it may plan and regulate the use of land as
the people of the community may consider it to be in the public interest. Justice Suth-
erland also enunciated another principle: a community is obliged to relate its plans
to the area outside its boundaries. Again the courts anticipate the planning process.
Cities are not surrounded by walls, they are each a part of their region and each is
obliged to plan the spaces within its boundaries as an integral part of the plan for
spaces outside its boundaries. This suggests, for instance, that a highway plan pre-
pared without consideration for the routes of major importance within the regional
plan would constitute an improper use of the police power. A community has both the
right to determine its character and the obligation to relate its plan to its regional
environs.

Enabling Legislation for Planning. The grant of police power by the states to
the cities and counties vests these political subdivisions with the power to regulate their
affairs and enforce the regulations. It is nevertheless found necessary on occasion for
the state to enact legislation for the specific use of that power and such legislation is
generally termed "enabling acts." Its purpose may be twofold. It may be for the pur-
pose of affirming the state policy in matters of vital interest to the people at any given
time and thereby encourage local communities to act, or the special legislation may
be for the purpose of removing doubt that the police power was intended for the spe-
cific subject of the act. Such enabling acts are drawn to establish clearly the relation
between the use for which the police power is granted and the public health, safety,
convenience, and general welfare, and the preamble states in detail the purposes of
the legislation.

Zoning enabling acts are sometimes passed by the state even though cities and
counties have been previously delegated the police power but are reluctant to exercise
it until the state has specifically signified that it be so used. These special enabling
acts are usually written in greater detail than the general grant of the police power.
In the case of zoning they define the scope of zoning, the procedure for adoption of the
ordinance, the composition of the zoning board and its powers and functions, the
methods for modification or exceptions to the ordinance.

State Planning Acts are a form of special enabling legislation, although they gen-
erally establish a state agency to co-ordinate planning functions at the state level in

178 THE PLANNING PROCESS

addition to the specification for local planning activities. Such acts describe the func-
tions of a state planning board and prescribe the process for each city and county to
accomplish a complete planning job for itself. These laws usually call for the prep-
aration of a General Plan, list the scope of the General Plan, and specify the methods
for its adoption and enforcement. Power is sometimes given to the local planning com-
mission to levy a tax upon the general public for funds to administer the law, but this
power is seldom invoked; planning commissions prefer to work within the departmental
family of the city government and draw their support from the general tax funds.

Another form of enabling legislation is that which creates new agencies in the
state, cities, or counties to cope with problems of a particular nature. Housing and
urban redevelopment acts are of this type, local agencies being created with powers
.conferred upon the city or county to engage in the program prescribed in the state
statute.

Just as specific enabling legislation is created at the state level to cover certain
fields of urban activity, so special ordinances are drawn at the local level to define in
detail the manner in which city charter provisions are to be executed. In cities where
there is no "freeholders' charter" 17 the state laws are in effect, whereas in cities
having charters which define the exercise of the police power in stricter terms than
the state, the local law takes precedence. 18 Thus, if a state speed limit in a school zone
is 20 miles per hour and the city law restricts the speed to 15 miles per hour, the city
law is enforceable. If, on the other hand, the city has a limit of 25 miles per hour or
no regulation at all for those specific areas, the state law is then enforceable. City
charters often define in terms almost identical to the state enabling legislation the
functions of a planning commission, and as long as all the duties included in the
state law are included in terms not less restrictive, the city charter provisions apply.

Too frequently there is no provision for a penalty for failure to abide by the require-
ments of state legislation. An example would be the case in which states call for all
counties to have planning commissions 19 and many small counties ignore the require-
ment. Since there are few ways to compel the local government to conform, great
resources are sometimes dissipated without control. In some states the local govern-
ments are restricted from the benefits of funds appropriated by the state for public
improvements until they conform with state laws. There are occasions when funds for
the state highway system are withheld until the counties adopt General Plans for high-
ways which show the relationship between the state routes and local roads.

Transition. Since the inception of action against the use of property deemed a
menace to health and life of neighbors, zoning has passed from the stage of regulating
land uses for the preservation of property values to the present position of responsi-
bility, not only for protection of the status quo, but for the creation of a better city,
better state, and more prosperous nation. It is true that, as zoning becomes a more

17 An act of municipal incorporation, provided for in the constitutions of the individual states.

18 Brougher v. Board of Public Works, 205 California 426, 1928. A charter city need not follow the procedures
of the State Zoning Enabling Act.

19 State Planning Act, California, 1959.

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 179

effective instrument for improvement of the good city, it becomes less like the tradi-
tional instrument called "zoning" and more like the act of planning the city, for many
other factors than those usually identified with zoning enter the scene.

Recently zoning has become a means for both conservation and planning; the
narrow concept of zoning is extended to the broadest interpretation of the use of the
police power for the protection of the public welfare. In these instances zoning law
anticipates the future and guides the development of areas through planned uses
rather than waiting until the die is cast and merely fixing land uses that already exist,
In the cut-over areas of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, where erosion threat-
ened to rip the growing heart out of the soil and create "dust-bowl" conditions, steps
have been taken legally to label as submarginal the worst of the land. In this way
use of rural land was discouraged until such time as the top-soil could be replaced
and refertilized. Further "mining" of trees in the areas not entirely destroyed was
forbidden and a reforestation program, under the guidance and with the assistance
of the Federal government, now assures the people of a continuing supply of lumber
for future generations. Thus the priceless possession of fertile land will not be wantonly
wasted. The State Zoning Act of 1961 in Hawaii encompasses more than conservation.
It provides for urban, agricultural, and conservation land-use classifications, and
requires that tax-assessing authorities be guided by these zoned land uses in establish-
ing assessed values for real property.

J. H. Bradley, in his Autobiography of Earth, has stated: "The fabric of human life
has been woven on earthen looms." We must use every device in our legal system to
protect our land and devote it to its highest and best uses for we cannot escape to new
frontiers after abusing and ruining what we have. Almost two centuries ago George
Washington observed: "Our lands . . . were originally very good; but use and abuse
have made them quite otherwise. . . . We ruin the lands that are already cleared, and
either cut down more wood, if we have it, or emigrate into Western country." 20 The
use of the police power zoning to insure our future seems neither arbitrary nor in
contradiction of any freedom assured to the people by the Constitution. 21

Esthetic Standards. The drab, uninspired appearance of our cities approaches
offensive ugliness. The lack of a long tradition of the arts in society has dulled our
response to the visual plunder in our surroundings. The grace and charm of a European
village, a New England town, the delight of Paris, Venice and Vienna, came by way
of the manners and morals of the time quite as much as by craftsmanship. Our values
have undoubtedly been contorted by materialism and the sheer preoccupation with the
practical chores of everyday urban housekeeping. It should not be conceivable in a
democratic society with balanced cultural values, but improvement of the esthetic
quality of our cities has been attempted through legislative action.

In the past, legislative bodies have been reluctant to embody esthetic considerations

20 To Hold This Soil, Publication No. 321, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1938 (U.S. Government Printing
Office, Washington, D.C).

21 "The Why and How of Rural Zoning," December 1958, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

180 THE PLANNING PROCESS

in legislation. Judge; Swayze of New Jersey specifically expressed this sentiment:
"No case has been cited, nor are we aware of any case, which holds that a man may
be deprived of his property because his tastes are not those of his neighbor. Esthetic
considerations are a matter of luxury and indulgence rather than of necessity, and it is
necessity alone which justifies the police power to take property without compensa-
tion." 22

An early step toward esthetic control was directed to regulations against the use of
billboards along highways. As the advertising mania spread, the extravagant use of
signs and billboards along the highway reached intolerable proportions. The police
power was invoked when, in 1905, the Metropolitan Park Commission of Massachusetts
sought to prohibit signs near a parkway. This regulation was held invalid by the court,
but, spurred into action, restrictions against the wanton blight of the billboard rash
gained momentum. In 1935 the same court in Massachusetts supported the use of the
police power to regulate signs and billboards.

Although there is precedent for esthetic control in areas of particular historic
importance, 23 the device of architectural control is usually avoided; the prospect of
imposing an hierarchy of taste upon a community is approached with caution. Quite a
different matter was presented to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954. In
the unanimous opinion set forth by Justice Douglas, it was clearly affirmed that a
community need not tolerate ugliness and may take legal steps to correct it: 24

- . . . Public safety, public health, morality, peace and quiet, law and order these are some of
the more conspicuous examples of the traditional application of the police power to municipal
affairs. Yet they merely illustrate the scope of the power and do not delimit it. Miserable and dis-
reputable housing conditions may do more than spread disease and crime and immorality. They
may also suffocate the spirit by reducing the people who live there to the status of cattle. They may
indeed make living an almost insufferable burden. They may also be an ugly sore, a blight on the
community which robs it of charm, which makes it a place from which men turn. The misery of
housing may despoil a community as an open sewer may ruin a river.

We do not sit to determine whether a particular housing project is or is not desirable. The con-
cept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. The values it represents are spiritual as well as
physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that
the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well-balanced as
well as carefully patrolled. In the present case, the Congress and its authorized agencies have made
determinations that take into account a wide variety of values. It is not for us to reappraise them.
If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the Nation's Capital should be beautiful
as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way. . . .

... In the present case, Congress and its authorized agencies attack the problem of the blighted
parts of the community on an area rather than on a structure-by-structure basis. That, too, is
opposed by appellants. They maintain that since their building does not imperil health or safety
nor contribute to the making of a slum or a blighted area, it cannot be swept into a redevelopment
plan by the mere dictum of the Planning Commission or the Commissioners. The particular uses
to be made of the land in the project were determined with regard to the needs of the particular
community. The experts concluded that if the community were to be healthy, if it were not to revert
again to a blighted or slum area, as though possessed of a congenital disease, the area must be

22 Passaic v. Paterson Bill Posting Co.

23 333 Mass. 773 and 7831955.

24 Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 75 Sup. Ct. 98, 99 L. Ed. 27 (1954).

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 18 f

planned as a whole. It was not enough, they believed, to remove existing buildings that were in-
sanitary or unsightly. It was important to redesign the whole area so as to eliminate the condi-
tions that cause slums the overcrowding of dwellings, the lack of parks, the lack of adequate
streets and alleys, the absence of recreational areas, the lack of light and air, the presence of out-
moded street patterns. It was believed that the piecemeal approach, the removal of individual
structures that were offensive, would be only a palliative. The entire area needed redesigning so
that a balanced, integrated plan could be developed for the region, including not only new homes
but also schools, churches, parks, streets, and shopping centers. In this way it was hoped that the
cycle of decay of the area could be controlled and the birth of future slums prevented. Such
diversification in future use is plainly relevant to the maintenance of the desired housing stand-
ards and therefore within congressional power. . . .

This decision acknowledged that the visual image of the city stands with other
features which involve the public interest. It pertained, however, to conditions which
existed and found that the spiritual welfare of the people was imperiled by these condi-
tions. It provides a foundation for legislation which employs the police power to
discontinue such conditions. We apparently have yet to establish means by which such
conditions may not be created.

There are two areas in which the public can assert its intentions directly. One is in
the public domain, some 40 per cent of the city area in streets, walks, parks, and civic
reserves. Herein is a broad and impressive scope for creative treatment of space
arrangement, landscaping, street furniture, lighting, signs, and structures. The other
is in the realm of public regulation of three-dimensional volumes related to com-
munity design. This involves integrated use of land open space and landscape
structures, the character of building fronts, advertising media, ingress and egress for
pedestrians and vehicles, and setbacks related to public rights-of-way. Sensitive
attention to the formulation of these regulations may accomplish some effective results
without engagement of "rules of taste." In the final analysis, the creation of beauty
is the result of a desire that it be produced as well as the talent to produce it, and this
demands the cultivation of cultural values.

Planning as a Governmental Function. Planning is accomplished through the
activities of many agencies and authorities. The number of persons involved and the
process may vary with different levels of government and with different enabling
legislation, but the responsibilities are largely similar in most parts of the country.

The Legislative Role. The role of the legislative body is that of decision on the
character the city shall aspire to achieve. It activates the Planning Commission, pro-
vides finances for its staff, approves its membership, and supports its activities through
regard for its recommendations. Except for the relatively narrow limits reserved to
administrative determination by the Planning Commission, decisions on all planning
policies rest with the elected representatives of the people. The legislative body, acting
upon recommendations of the Commission, translates the plan into action. It may also
act as a board of appeals on decisions rendered by the Commission, but this function
is usually assigned to an administrative committee specifically charged with this respon-
sibility. Policies which direct the shape of the city reflect the capacity of the Planning
Commission and the stature of the legislative body.

182 THE PLANNING PROCESS

The Planning Commission. The planning commission is the legal agency of the
<;ity through which most planning is performed. In many cities the official family is
few in number and the planning commission may have no staff, the city engineer or
clerk being largely responsible for the preparation of all plans. Large cities, how-
ever, usually have well-staffed organizations of qualified personnel.

The commission is a group of private citizens appointed by the mayor and approved
by the city council. These commissioners are leaders in local enterprises, real estate,
banking, chamber of commerce, or attorneys, architects, doctors, labor representatives,
.and social workers. It might be assumed that some commissioners, by the nature of
their background and personal interests, would be devoted to preservation of prop-
erty values rather than the general community welfare. Although it cannot be denied
that such has been the case in some instances, it is not infrequently found that men
with experience in the private business of city building are well qualified to serve
the public interest and respond accordingly when given positions of genuine public
responsibility.

New commissioners are not always adequately informed about the planning proc-
ess, its purposes or objectives, and they may require some time for training and
familiarity with the nature of their responsibility. Some cities appoint ex officio
members to the board of the planning commission to assist the commissioners in their
tasks. These members may be the heads of various departments of the local govern-
ment, the city engineer, the road commissioner, the county surveyor, city attorney,
the public works officer, health officer, or members of the legislative body. They
advise the commission on matters in which they have special knowledge, but they
seldom enjoy the privilege of voting upon the proceedings before the commission.

Exclusive of ex officio members, the commission varies between five and nine in
number according to the provisions of local charter regulations or the state legislation
which creates the planning commission; the civic interest and qualifications of the
members are more important than the numerical quantity. Frequency of commission
meetings depends upon the extent of the planning program which, in some large
cities, is sufficiently active to warrant the establishment of a separate commission to
administer the zoning ordinance.

The planning commission usually serves in an advisory capacity to the legislative
body, the council and the mayor referring matters of planning to the commission for
reports and recommendations which the legislative body may accept or reject. As a
rule, the preparation of the General Plan and other plans for civic development are
specified in the enabling legislation which creates the commission, and in such activ-
ities the commission requires no specific instructions from the legislative body although
these functions require legislative appropriation of funds for an adequate staff and,
unless the council is sympathetic to the planning program, it can effectively delay
the commission's performance.

Being an advisory rather than an executive agency of the local government, the
planning commission recommends plans to the legislative body after it has held public

THE LEGAL FOUNDATION 183

hearings to ascertain the response and opinions of citizen groups. 25 When a plan is
adopted by the legislative body, it becomes a law which governs the actions of all
the people in the community including local governmental agencies. Consequently, all
city departments are required to refer their plans for specific improvements to the
planning commission for review and approval. The service performed in the general
public interest by this coordination avoids duplication of services and cross-purposes
which can readily occur in the wide range of urban activities.

Matters which generally fall within the legal responsibility of planning commissions
are the General Plan, zoning ordinances, and subdivision codes, but the coordinating
functions are becoming a more important service as the city grows. While the planning
commission administers the zoning ordinance in most small cities, some large cities
have a separate zoning administrator and board of appeals. This board is responsible
for interpretation of the zoning law and such variances from the ordinance as unfore-
seen conditions may warrant. The planning commission prepares the ordinance, and
the zoning administrator, or local building and safety department, enforces it.

Relief from the requirements of the planning policies established by law is pro-
vided every citizen if the law deprives him of property without just compensation or
if it is applied in a discriminatory manner. This relief may be obtained by appeal
to the planning commission and the legislative body. In the event that these appeals
fail to bring a satisfactory resolution of the case, it may be referred to the courts for
decision. It is from such cases that the great fund of judicial opinions on the planning
process have emerged.

Being an advisory body only, with no legislative powers and with limited adminis-
trative authority, some persons have questioned the necessity for the Planning Com-
mission. It has been suggested that a competent planning department should report
directly to the administrative or executive office and the legislative body. The Plan-
ning Commission, however, plays a vital role as a catalyst for the variety of interests
concerned with the objectives and the consequences of planning. Providing a forum
for deliberation of facts and opinions, the Planning Commission can serve in resolv-
ing issues and offering to the legislative body a well-defined and supported foundation
for policy decisions.

The Planning Department. Organized as one of the official family of government
agencies, the Planning Commission depends for its effectiveness in large part upon
the competence of the technical staff in the Planning Department. Whether the
city charter provides for the Planning Director to report directly to the Mayor or to
the Planning Commission, the policies finally adopted by the legislative body are
dependent upon the competence, skill, and enlightenment of the staff in the Planning
Department. It is the staff which prepares the General Plan, probably the most impor-
tant single action affecting the future development of the city, and it is the staff which

25 The State Planning Act, in California, requires both the Planning Commission and the Legislative Body
to hold public hearings. However, each body may act as it sees fit, regardless of the expressed public sentiment
or prejudice.

184 THE PLANNING PROCESS

formulates the provisions of the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations. Imple-
menting the General Plan, it coordinates with other departments of government with
respect to streets and highways; health, education, and recreation facilities; utilities;
police and fire protection; and all building and engineering activities. The depart-
ment cooperates in preparation of the city budget for both administration and the
capital improvement program. When the staff is endowed with that rare combination
of vision, technical skill, and administrative talent, it becomes the heart of urban
government.

Zoning Board. The variety and volume of improvements in a large city become
immense and may require an independent board for administration of the zoning
ordinance. This board renders interpretation of the zoning ordinance applicable to
specific cases and may provide relief by Variance Permits when wan-anted. Deci-
sions may be appealed to the Planning Commission, City Council, Appeals Board, or
court of competent jurisdiction.

The Appeals Board. As affairs of local government grow in complexity, usually
proportionate with the size of cities, action on zoning interpretations and variances
has encouraged the creation of an Appeals Board. This agency has a composition and
derives its authority similarly to the Planning Commission. It conducts hearings for
appeals from decisions of the Planning Commission or Zoning Board, and offers
objective attention to appeals warranting reconsideration.

The Planning Consultant. A consultant can bring to the Planning Commission
the advantage of particular experience, judgment, and technical knowledge, but his
most vital contribution is courage, conviction, and inspiration for the staif and Com-
mission. His role varies from that of performing in lieu of a full staff in small com-
munities, to that of expert counsel on planning problems of particular complexity.
In the performance of his services it is essential for the consultant to work intimately
with the leaders of the community as well as with government agencies and their
staffs. This may include participation in public gatherings and hearings on legislative
proposals, including the adoption of the General Plan. This important policy state-
ment would thereby enjoy some assurance of favorable acceptance and action in the
community. It is equally important that the staff be equipped to maintain the planning
process or arrange with the consultant to serve in that capacity with regularity.

The Citizen 9 s Role. In many communities the planning program has its most effec-
tive support from citizen's planning associations or committees. Citizen organizations
serve as links between professional planners, the legislators, and the general public
in the development of plans. They assist in shaping planning objectives and, through
their vigilance, insure the effectuation of the plans. They can perform an important
function in support of bond issues and other financial programs to secure the amen-
ities of the plans. In a sense, an active citizen's committee can serve as the conscience
of the community.

CHAPTER 11

THE GENERAL PLAN

A Comprehensive Plan Is Needed. After the early adventures in zoning prop-
erty for specific uses it became increasingly apparent that this use of the police power
to safeguard the public welfare could not stand by itself. The courts had upheld the
right of a community to exercise the police power in legislating regulations govern-
ing the use of land. They had granted that a community has the right to determine
its own character. Great conservative minds like Justice Sutherland had supported this
right of the citizens, and there was a growing popular acceptance of zoning as a means
to protect the interests of a community.

But the courts perceived the necessity for a community to appraise the use of all
land within its political jurisdiction and give consideration to conditions in areas con-
tiguous to it in order to determine properly the appropriate uses and provide a firm
basis for the control of land use prescribed in zoning ordinances. The courts had found
good reason for this view. They had observed numerous abuses of the police power
to establish arbitrary and discriminatory districts. There was a tendency to establish
many small districts as a means to restrain the construction of some particular improve-
ment or deny a use deemed undesirable in some existing structure, and there were-
cases in which a zoning ordinance was intended to create or protect a monopoly.

In order for the courts to have assurance that zoning districts were not arbitrarily
determined, they required evidence that the various districts were related to an overall
evaluation of land use in the city. There was a growing insistence upon a "compre-
hensive plan" for land use to form a foundation for zoning ordinances, and the opinion
of Justice Sutherland in the Euclid case clearly expressed the need for this evidence.
In the fulfillment of this need the process of the General Plan was evolved.

Seeking techniques with which to satisfy the requirement for a comprehensive plan?
some communities willfully avoided the issue by employing specious devices. One of
these was the zoning of all land in a community to the least restrictive use with the
exception of certain limited "refined" districts. A community could thus allege in
court that it had enacted a comprehensive zoning ordinance since every parcel of

185

186 THE PLANNING PROCESS

land in the city was within a zoning district. Although the statement was true, it was
not a plan. The other technique was to zone all land not specifically zoned for other
purposes, as a residential district with the provision for variances from the residential
use; in the administration of the ordinance each variation was then interpreted as an
act of making more "precise" the original plan. Neither of these techniques could have
stood the test for long since they were evasions of the basic principles of planning.
Too frequently zoning practices resolved themselves into a process of "freezing"
the existing land uses including all the misuses which had previously established them-
selves. In some communities, an inventory and classification of all existing land uses
were adopted as the "Plan" of the city. Travesties on planning, these practices are
gradually being replaced by a more enlightened concept of planning and its advantages
to civic growth and development. As a means to provide a pattern for future develop-
ment of the city, the General Plan has become a generally accepted instrument. 1

The difference between "comprehensive planning" and a comprehensive plan should
not be confused. Comprehensive planning may range from the preparation of a series
of highly specialized studies to an intensive study of a development plan for an entire
area. The comprehensive plan, however, must include a review of the physical struc-
ture of a city or planning area, a measurement of development trends, a definition of
goals and objectives for future growth and change, and specific recommendations in
the form of maps and charts which delineate the plan and establish standards of density
and building intensity in support of the plan.

Purpose of the Plan. The modern city is a complex organism. It is a great human
enterprise serving the material and spiritual needs of man. It is a segment of the land
on which the people have selected their places to live and to work, to learn and to
trade, to play and to pray. It is a mosaic of homes and shops, factories and offices,
schools and libraries, theaters and hospitals, parks and churches, meeting places and
government centers, fire stations and post offices. These are woven together by a network
of streets and transportation routes, water, sanitation, and communication channels.
To arrange all these facilities properly as the city develops is the function of the
General Plan. The city is a cumbersome affair, at once sensitive to the multitude of
small shifts and yet capable of absorbing great shocks. A change in any part affects
other parts of this structure. A new home means more traffic on the streets, extra mail
in the postman's bag, another customer in the supermarket, more children in the school,
more water for the lawn, more picnics in the park, and it means more revenue in taxes.
But growth does not always mean strength and prosperity for the community. This
rests with the standards a community determines to maintain and the balanced use of
its land and resources.

The term "Master Plan" has been applied to almost every scheme for property
development from an individual lot to a large estate, a shopping center, or a city. The
term "General Plan" identifies long-range, comprehensive planning by or for a gov-
ernment agency as a foundation for overall land development policies within specific

1 The Master Plan, Edward M. Bassett, Russell Sage Foundation, 1938.

THE GENERAL PLAN 187

corporate limits. These terms are interchangeable, but "General Plan" has been adopted
to distinguish it from the varied nongovernmental applications associated with
"Master" plan.

The General Plan is a guide to orderly city development to promote the health,
safety, welfare, and convenience of the people of a community. It organizes and coordi-
nates the complex relationships between urban land uses. It charts a course for growth
and change. It expresses the aims arid ambitions of a community, delineating the form
and character it seeks to achieve. It reflects the policies by which these goals may be
reached. It is responsive to appropriate change and, to maintain its essential vitality ?
is subject to continual review. It directs "the physical development of the community
and its environs in relation to its social and economic well-being for the fulfillment
of the rightful common destiny, according to a 'master plan* based on 'careful and
comprehensive surveys and studies of present conditions and the prospects of future
growth of the municipality 9 , and embodying scientific teachings and creative experi-
ence. In a word, this is an exercise of the State's inherent authority, antedating the
Constitution itself, to have recourse to such measures as may serve the basic common
moral and material needs. Planning to this end is as old as government itself of the
very essence of an ordered and civilized society." 2

The Plan Is a Process. State legislation usually requires the preparation of a
General Plan and sets forth the scope. A passage from the California Law reads, in
part:

"Each Commission or planning department shall prepare and the commission
shall adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of
the city, county, area, or region, and of any land outside its boundaries which in the
commission's judgment bears relation to its planning. The plan may be referred to
as the master or general plan and shall be officially certified by the planning com-
mission and the legislative body." 3

After the General Plan has been adopted by the legislative body, ". . . no road,
street, highway, square, park, or other public way, ground or open space shall be
acquired by dedication or otherwise, and no street, road, highway or public way shall
be closed or abandoned, and no public building or structure shall be constructed or
authorized in the area . . . until the location, character, and extent thereof shall be
submitted to and shall have been reported on by the planning commission." 4 It is
such statements of official policy that establish the planning process in our cities, and
it is such statements which have been upheld by the courts of our land because they
recognize the necessity for a city plan*

Ladislas Segoe described the General Plan in the following terms:

The comprehensive city plan or master plan, while it must be thoroughly practical and sound
economically, must give expression also to other than the purely materialistic aspirations of the

2 Mansfield & Sweet, Inc. v. Town of West Orange, supra.

3 Laws Relating to Conservation, Planning and Zoning, State of California, 1959.

4 Ibid.

188 THE PLANNING PROCESS

people of a community. Only then will the plan possess in addition to its influence toward a
more convenient, efficient economical development the inspirational force that will force civic in-
terest, devotion and loyalty essential for building better cities.

The comprehensive city plan or master plan must therefore be first, a balanced and otherwise
attractive general design best suited to present and probable future needs; second, in scale with the
population and economic prospects of the community; and third, in scale with its financial re-
sources, present and prospective. The satisfying of the above criteria calls for the application of
scientific as well as artistic effort, in order to produce a city plan of attractive form, pleasing
balance and detail, attuned to the economic and social activities of the community. . . . 5

It is probably more accurate to define a General Plan as a process rather than a
conclusive statement. It is a pattern for the physical development of the city, a pattern
to guide the city builders in locating their investments and measuring the prospect for
success. It is a design for the physical, social, economic, and political framework for
the city; it welds the sociological, economic, and geographic properties of the city into
a structure.

To suggest that the plan is a fluid process may imply that decisions are not repre-
sented in it. The plan for a city will be modified as conditions may alter the affairs
of people from time to time, but a General Plan represents certain decisions of vital
importance to the welfare of the people and their city. It represents a decision on the
number of people the city may be built to accommodate; it represents the standards by
which the city will be developed. It represents decisions on the appropriate relation
between the uses of land, the relation between the land to be developed for residential,
commercial, and industrial enterprise. It calls for decisions on the lines of communi-
cation that link these areas the circulation system. And it represents decisions on
the plan for reservation of open space throughout the city.

These are broad decisions, but they are essential to the formulation of a pattern for
city building. It is upon these decisions that the health of urban development rests for
they express the aspirations of a community and set the goals toward which the city
may advance.

The General Plan has been sometimes regarded as only a reference guide for the
Planning Commission, being subject to neither formal public hearings nor official
action by the legislative body. This arrangement appears to avoid the cumbersome
proceedings which accompany formal action to modify the plan, thus affording maxi-
mum flexibility at the discretion of the Commission and staff. But it also opens the
possibility for personal decision-making in response to special pressures. This status
of the Plan fails to recognize the essence of the Plan itself. Affecting the future of all
the people and property in the city, the Plan represents the policy which directs future
growth and development of the city. It is a public policy for protection of the public
welfare and investment in the urban community.

This public document has an order of importance which demands that it be subject
to public response and discussion, thorough consideration by the legislative body, and

5 Local Planning Administration, Ladislas Segoe, International City Managers* Association, Chicago, 1941,
first edition.

THE GENERAL PLAN . 189

adoption as the official plan. It, and subsequent revisions to it, should be adopted by
resolution of the legislative body. It serves as the basic frame of reference for all
administrative and regulatory measures relating to the physical development of the city
the zoning ordinance, subdivision regulations, urban renewal, the capital improve-
ment expenditures. The financial solvency of a city hinges upon a program of public
facilities which maintains a balance between expenditure and revenue. The Plan aids
in weighing this balance.

Two basic elements comprise the General Plan: the Plan for Land Use and the Plan
for Circulation. Each of these elements is supported by complete documentary evi-
dence, the social, physical, and economic facts and premises from which they were
derived.

The Plan for Land Use. This plan designates the areas of the city adapted to
development for the various urban land uses: residential, commercial, industrial and
open space. It sets forth the standards for density of land use in terms of population
or building bulk; it specifies the areas for multiple-residential and single dwellings;
it defines the areas to be reserved for recreation, conservation, and agriculture.

This plan establishes the allocation of neighborhood units with their several facilities,
schools, parks, playgrounds, and shopping. It is the plan which sets the standards to
guide the city builders in their various enterprises, and a complete plan will be more
than a single map of the city. It will be a compilation of all the data from which the
estimates of required areas were calculated and the standards determined. It will
become a reference for all who are engaged in urban development.

This plan will chart the relation of the city to the region and indicate its integration
with its satellite communities, and will define the areas and standards for subdivision
of new land. This is the plan which forms the foundation for the precise plans for
zoning, parks and recreation, schools and other public buildings, the civic center, cul-
tural and sports centers. It is the plan which will guide the city and public utility
corporations in the design of utilities sewers, gas, water, electric distribution, and
street lighting. And this is the plan to which all can refer for guidance in determining
their investments in the city.

The Plan for Circulation. This is the plan for major highways and streets, routes
for mass transportation, railroads, airfields, and waterways. It defines the through-
traffic arteries, freeways, parkways, and their intersections and interchanges. It charts
the course of rail and bus routes about the city and its environs. It is in this plan that
all lines of communication are integrated for the circulation of the people and goods
in and about the urban area.

This system of circulation will define the boundaries of neighborhood units. The
street system within this broad framework need be determined only to the extent that
it impinges upon the through-traffic arteries and mass transportation routes. The inter-
nal design of the streets could remain unspecified until development is imminent and
then be made precise.

As the city develops, this plan will become the reference for improvements and

190 THE PLANNING PROCESS

extensions of the circulation system. Precise plans may be made for railroad passenger
and freight lines, yards, terminals and stations, air terminals and fields, and internal
helicopter connections. Harbor and waterway development may be guided by this plan
as improvements are proposed.

The Plan for Circulation and the Plan for Land Use require integration, and they
may require occasional modification, but there is no development within one category
which can remain unrelated to the other.

Inventory of the Physical Structure. Before any plan can be made, the physical
structure of the community must be known and understood its rivers, its mountains,
its plains and prairies, its hills, its climate, the direction of its winds. Is the land
suited for agriculture, is it good for grazing? Are there oil or mineral deposits, is it
subject to floods, are there natural or historic features to be preserved? The geology,
hydrography, meteorology, and geography must be rediscovered beneath the blanket
of the built-up city. Thus we can comprehend the three primary elements of nature
without which there is no life; land, water, and air.

The constant relationship of land, water, and air is necessary to the support of
human life. One can imagine controlled air conditions, and we know that water can
be transported from distant mountain sources to semi-arid regions, but the land is
where you find it. Perhaps it can be built up, the marshes drained, fertility improved,
and water can increase its growing yield, but land itself must have the basic capacity
for response to man's treatment and we classify it as good or bad according to its
fitness to provide life for mankind.

Because a parcel of land may be suitable for a variety of uses, it is the relationship
between these uses which becomes the problem of planning. Some uses are favorable
to each other, whereas some are not only detrimental but dangerous. Recognizing that
land may have many uses and that the relationship between them is the most important
consideration, the plan begins with a definition of land uses and the appropriate loca-
tion within the topographic, geologic, and geographic structure of the city. Upon these
the city pattern should be developed.

Inventory and Classification of Land Use. Regardless of the high aspirations
a people may share for the future of their city or the distant range over which they
prepare their plans for its development, the planning process must obviously begin
with the city as it exists. It is consequently necessary to know the way in which the
land is used and maintain the inventory as a current record. From this inventory the
physical characteristics of the city are discernible, those which warrant change or
necessitate retention in the General Plan may be determined, and some existing uses
may become key controls over the pattern of future land use.

This prospect is particularly marked by the fact that zoning laws are not retro-
active, and the transition from an existing land use to another classification may span
a great number of years. According to Anglo-Saxon theory, if land has never been
used for a particular purpose it does not constitute a deprivation of property rights
to deny the right to so use it in the future. On the other hand, it is assumed that zoning

THE GENERAL PLAN 191

ordinances must not restrict property to uses considered less liberal than the existing
use. The courts have held that zoning may not be retroactive, that existing land uses
may not be "zoned out of existence." They must be permitted to continue as "noncon-
forming" uses if they are inconsistent with the use the zoning ordinance prescribes.

This may appear to permit the continuation of a nonconforming use which would
prove to be a detriment to the surrounding development., like an obnoxious industry
in a residential zone. The courts have pointed out that other means are available for
relief from such intrusions; proof that a nonconforming use is a nuisance and dan-
gerous to the life and health of the inhabitants and the public welfare may be sufficient
reason for the courts to deny a use to continue.

Nonconforming uses may not be renewed if destroyed by fire or act of God. In
such cases the new structure must conform to the provisions of the current zoning.
In some ordinances a nonconforming structure may be repaired or slightly altered,
but it may not be modified to the extent that the space or facilities are enlarged, nor
may a different nonconforming use replace that which is removed.

Some zoning ordinances specify a period during which a nonconforming use shall
be retired. This time is equivalent to an amortization period with an established date
for removal of the structure, the period being related to the years of use already
experienced in the structure and the investment in it. In this way property values and
human values may be reasonably balanced, and intruding uses gradually removed
to be replaced by conforming uses. The logic and equity of such a method would seem
enough to impel cities to adopt it in the public interest.

Most cities classify their land in four major categories: agricultural,, residential,
commercial, and industrial. Each of these broad groups is subdivided into uses rang-
ing from the most to the least obnoxious, from the most to the least restricted, from
the most concentrated to the most open. This is generally identified as "step-down"
classification as it is applied within each of the four broad groups. Thus the general
industrial classification contains heavy industry and light industry, expressing the
difference between a boiler works and a tin shop, for example. A large department
store would be classified in heavy commercial, whereas a neighborhood grocery store
would be placed in the lightest commercial zone. Likewise, a multistory apartment
building would be in the least restricted residential zone, whereas a single-family
detached house is in the most restricted area.

The number of intermediate steps between the most intense use and the least
intense will vary in different communities as the complexity of the community may
warrant. In a very large city there may be as many as fifteen classes of land use,
whereas in a small town there may only be nine. This difference in the number of
classifications does not suggest less accuracy in determining the classifications; it indi-
cates that the manner in which the land is used in a small town is less complex
than in a large city. The number of classifications should be as few as possible con-
sistent with a complete coverage of the various uses of land and an accurate description
of each.

192

THE PLANNING PROCESS

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THE GENERAL PLAN 193

A city should have a record of the way in which the land within its boundaries is
used, as well as the quantity of space and structures which comprise it. A periodic
inventory of these assets should be undertaken just as a well-organized and well-
administered business maintains an inventory of its stock and the value of it. During
the depression of 1930-40, land-use surveys in a number of cities were conducted
under auspices of the Works Progress Administration of the Federal government.
These data were of immeasurable value to the planning commissions in the respective
cities, and yet there are few instances in which the records were subsequently main-
tained in current form.

A continuous record may be maintained by reference to building permits and the
tax assessor of the city. Other sources of reference are The Sanborn Insurance Atlas;
the Building and Safety Department of the city, which records changes in building
occupancy and alterations that indicate a change in the use of existing structures; the
Health Department, which maintains data on substandard structures, pest infestation,
lack of sanitation facilities; and the local housing authority from which information
may generally be obtained on the physical condition of housing. Banking and lending
institutions frequently maintain valid information on new building activity.

The record of urban land use is not for the purpose of only ascertaining the con-
dition of the physical structure. It provides the information necessary to observe the
rate at which the city is increasing or decreasing its physical plant in the various clas-
sifications of land use. It offers a basis for measuring the amount of land to be reserved
in zoning for future developments of the city, the quantity of land, and the most
appropriate location for the various uses.

The land-use inventory is good urban business and should be maintained of cur-
rent record. It is not a plan; it is part of the vital data from which plans may be made.

Inventory of Social and Economic Factors. If the data on the nature of the
physical character of the city seem to be a complicated process, the social and eco-
nomic facts are even more so. People are not inclined to conceal the manner in which
they use the land unless an evasion of the law is involved, but they are reluctant to
divulge their ages, incomes, or personal health; such information is naturally consid-
ered to be of a personal nature. To plan for the community welfare, however, it is
important to know about the people who make it and for whom it is intended.

The principal source of economic and social data is the U.S. Census; included in the
census are data on family incomes, family sizes, dwelling rent, condition of structures,
owner and tenant occupancy of structures, years of schooling, age composition, occu-
pation of the wage earner, and other information. Based upon these data, the Bureau
of the Census analyzes the spending habits of the various income groups which indi-
cate the amount in each income group spent for rent, clothes, food, amusement, and
other living necessities. Much of the latter data is given for the whole city and is
therefore difficult to relate to the census tracts which are the units in which urban
statistics are usually tabulated. Housing data in the census are listed by blocks and
provide a source of information for the land-use survey.

194 THE PLANNING PROCESS

Although most public and private local agencies normally assemble only the infor-
mation on the social and economic structure of the community in which they are
directly interested, the planning agency may obtain and correlate this special infor-
mation to form an overall picture. Since the various agencies may interpret similar
data in different ways, these differences must be resolved by the planners on the basis
of the best available known facts.

It is a well-known cliche that anything can be proved with statistics; the corollary
is that statistics may not prove anything. It is important that they not be misleading.
As an illustration, the increase in the number of families and the number of houses
built may be substantially identical and thereby indicate no shortage of dwellings.
These "pure" numbers mean little as an evaluation of the housing supply in relation
to the housing need. The number of families formerly "doubled-up," the cost brackets
of the new residences, the absence of a normal vacancy factor, and the occupancy of
substandard housing facilities are among the statistics to be evaluated with those on
the number of families and the housing supply.

Juvenile delinquency and crime data in the local police and probation department
files record the location of the incidents and the residences of offenders. Other social
statistics support as well as guide the preparation of the General Plan and the building
of a good city. Data on disease and health can be obtained from the health depart-
ments of the cities, counties, and state, as well as the tuberculosis and health associ-
ations. Many other private agencies, such as foundations, service clubs, veterans' organi-
zations, universities and charitable groups, have valuable data. Material on the birth
rate, death rate, infant mortality, marriage, and divorce rates are other social factors;
and the rate of population immigration and emigration, the years of schooling, occu-
pations of the working force, and the cultural inclinations are among the data which
the planning commission must necessarily correlate objectively.

Information on the economic development and prospects of the community is usually
available through the Chamber of Commerce, and these data can be cross-referenced
with reports by Dun and Bradstreet and the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S.
Department of Labor, State Employment Offices, and local agencies and industries.
Trends in industrialization and increases in the working force can be traced through
the U.S. Department of Labor, the State Employment Services, and local industries.
The trends in the industrial population will have a decided effect on the planning
process. Data on the earning capacity, the average years of employment, the social
security structure, types and diversification of employment, and the income groups
represented in the working population are necessary to calculate the purchasing power
of the community and the ability to pay rents and taxes. These statistics are important
as a basis for the General Plan.

Too frequently the social scientist has been cast in the role of historian of economic
facts, reporting past trends and current conditions. The economic aspects of planning
have thus been limited to an inventory of data which presents the status quo. Statistical
techniques are employed in the projection of population and related fields of impor-

THE GENERAL' PLAN 195

tance to planning, but the general effect is a kind of resignation by all concerned to
the prospects which these projections imply. If planning means anything, it is the
endeavor to direct future growth and development, being quite the opposite of drifting
with the currents of unregulated trends. The tools of socioeconomic analysis are there-
fore essential to seek a balance among the basic urban activities. And this balance may
require that accepted trends be altered, diverted, or redirected but this is planning.

The increase in population is a natural phenomenon, and the trend of population
growth in cities is a consequence of broad economic and social pressures. But, to be
effective, urban planning cannot succumb to the weight of statistical evidence.
Survival of the urban population is at stake, and so is the prospect for building decent
cities. Means may be developed to control the number of people who are born as there
have been means to lengthen the life span. With the reduction of pestilence and
famine, means to stabilize the population, short of war, are meager. However, we have
the means, through planning and legislation, to regulate the distribution of the urban
population, the amounts of land required for the various functions of an urban com-
munity, and the standards for the development of the land. To determine the appro-
priate allocation of land, in amount and location, the economic demands must be
measured. The physical structure must be arranged to accommodate the facilities
required for economic survival, and accommodate them in a manner that will produce
good places in which to live and work.

The social scientist carries a heavy responsibility for creative analysis of the rela-
tionships between people and their employment opportunities, the production resources,
and the commerce and industry needed to support an urban population. The city must
be built upon a firm economic base or it cannot provide the amenities of a civilized
community. The future of cities as desirable social environments will depend upon our
capacity to integrate physical and economic planning. Walter Blucher has stated: 6
"What is the responsibility of the planning agency for a determination of employment
possibilities outside of public works? You may not think the planning agency has any
such responsibility. I don't see how we can do an effective planning job in any com-
munity, however, unless we know what the population of the community will be and
what the economic possibilities for that population are."

Changing Character of Cities. With the assembly of the data previously sug-
gested that part of the planning process identified as research we learn the nature of
the existing city. This is the knowledge needed for analysis of the city; from it we learn
why the city was begun, how it grew, and why it prospered.

There are reasons why cities are located where they are ; they were important reasons
in the history of the city and they bear upon its future. They may be important as a
pattern for the continuous development of the city or they may reveal what changes
have overtaken the city and thus indicate the new directions for which the city must be
planned. The reasons for the founding of a city may have multiplied, or they may have

6 Walter H. Blucher, Executive Director, American Society of Planning Officials, in Planning, 1945, Part I,
May 16-17, 1945, Chicago.

196 THE PLANNING PROCESS

vanished. There may be entirely new purposes for the city than those which moved its
original settlement.

The sleepy village of the eighteenth century has apparently little in common with
the metropolis of today. There may remain reminiscent marks of its historical origin,
but the functions may have altered completely. As the city grew in size, as the popula-
tion increased, and as new enterprises developed, the character of the city may have
altered. Perhaps the quality of community living deteriorated as the city grew from
a small, intimate town to the unfriendly metropolitan machine it now seems to be.
Much may have been lost in this process, enough to question whether the city can
recover the human values by which the living standards of people are measured.

The changes in urban character reflected in the growth and the deterioration of
neighborhood life are illustrated in all our cities. It is apparent in a growing metrop-
olis like Los Angeles. Hardly more than 30 years ago this community was reputed
for its climate, its recreational opportunities, its beaches, and the grandeur of its
mountains. The quality of its living environment and the pleasant mildness of its
atmosphere made this city a haven for travelers from all parts of the world.

The population of Los Angeles was 500,000 in 1920; in 1960 it was almost 2,500,000
and the city had spread over the 450 square miles of its area. From its beginning as the
center of a predominantly agricultural area it has developed an important industrial
economy. Industrial plants have sprung up with little or no attention to their probable
effect upon the living conditions of the region and its inhabitants. Water was brought
more than 250 miles to supply the growing population. Congestion overtook this city
of "open space," blight and slums are taking their toll, and smoke and fumes taint
the air.

This story differs only in degree and detail in all our cities; it is the tale of the
metropolis. The native advantages of our urban communities have not been respected
by the people who built them; in the name of a bigger and more prosperous city, they
have been desecrated and, the people are retreating. The people are fleeing the city and
it remains neglected, but the same indifference is guiding development on the outskirts.
Rather than making capital of the native characteristics of a region, exploitation of the
urban community is undermining its own investments.

The General Plan of a city or region has two objectives: forestalling the drift into
chaos in the yet undeveloped areas of the city and gradually reconstructing the devel-
oped area of the city with particular attention to blighted sections and improved
circulation. The present chaotic development of the city is a trend, but this trend can
be corrected and redirected to benefit all the people through planning.

The changing nature of the city must be appraised and the natural character defined.
Shifts in the emphasis of the urban economy and the services and functions it performs
require adjustments in the living habits of the people, the land use, and the transporta-
tion, if they are to continue as favorable environments in which to live and work. The
General Plan will reflect these adjustments and thereby become a guide for the future
growth and development of the community. This demands inquiry into every facet of

THE GENERAL PLAN 197

urban existence; it calls for the coordination of a team of trained people and enlight-
ened and enthusiastic citizens.

The Plan 1$ Teamwork. Knowledge of the physical structure of the city will
reveal certain natural uses for the land and existing uses which deserve particular
respect in the plan. There may be well-established industrial areas, commercial centers,
residential developments, a great park, waterways, railroads, and historical and natural
features. This knowledge will also indicate some apparent maladjustments in current
land use for which corrective measures are obviously necessary. It will also indicate
an appropriate relation between industrial and residential areas. With these broad
strokes the General Plan is begun.

'The city is linked with its neighbor cities and towns and its environs by the highways,
railroads, and mass transportation facilities; these form the main arteries of circu-
lation about the city, and they will form the boundaries of the neighborhood units. The
freeways, parkways, rapid transit and railroads will establish the relation between the
sources of employment in commerce and industry, and the residential neighborhoods.

Laid upon this general plan will be the reservations of open spaces, the areas
adapted for natural parks, or the submarginal lands unsuited for active urban develop-
ment. In this process the General Plan begins to take shape.

The General Plan will reflect the local policies on the density of population desir-
able and consistent with the character of the city in its residential areas, and it will
indicate the standards for the relation of building bulk and open space in these areas
and in the commercial districts. Within the broad land-use plan and guided by these
standards, the precise plans for the various areas of the city may be refined as the time
for their development approaches. The schools and playgrounds may be located within
the neighborhood units, and requirements for the local shopping centers may be deter-
mined. Space may be reserved for the freeways and rapid transit rights-of-way.
Detailed plans for the improvement of the "downtown" business center may be for-
mulated, and the reconstruction of blighted areas in the central sections of the city may
be planned and executed. The General Plan will set forth the appropriate use to which
the land in the city should be devoted so that the enterprise of city building may have a
tangible guide in its determinations for investment.

It takes teamwork to produce the General Plan, a plan that contains the inspired
will of a people bent upon building a decent and fine city. The decisions emerge from
the coordinated teamwork of sociologists and economists, statisticians and engineers,
finance advisors and lawyers, politicians and architects, health authorities and public
administrators, and public-spirited businessmen and consumers. It takes boundless
enthusiasm and enlightened civic interest, and it takes a competent staff of trained
planners to perform the job of coordination and translation.

The General Plan represents a set of ideals, the aims and ambitions an enlightened
people hold aloft as standards of civic welfare. These are not easy words to utter
they have been so frequently ground into grains of dust which settle promiscuously upon
the motives of men. Yet ideals move people toward deeds of human welfare, and it is ,

198 THE PLANNING PROCESS

upon such deeds that good cities will depend. If we choose to set aside ideals in city
building because they have been often branded visionary, we are choosing the course
of nihilism. If the standards of city building are not founded upon a set of ideals for
our cities, we will pursue the process of anarchy. It is not therefore amiss to acknowl-
edge that ideals shall guide the decisions represented in the General Plan.

Platitudes. Planning is plagued with platitudes. Some familiar expressions have
almost reached the stature of symbols, the mere mention of which presumably being
sufficient to convey a significant message. It would be well to examine some of these
phrases in order to recognize their meaning.

We frequently refer to the necessity for "flexibility" in city planning. It is suggested
that city plans must be adjustable to changing conditions, that cities grow like "living
cells." These are convenient terms and contain much truth. Unfortunately they too
generally become picturesque phrases. There are some very specific limitations upon
their value and application.

A city is more than buildings, streets, utilities, steel, concrete, and glass. Never-
theless, these are the materials of which the physical structure is made. They are inert.
They have chemical properties, but they are not elastic. Once in place they cannot be
shifted about to suit either fancy or "changing conditions." They are static. The width
of a street does not pulsate with the intensity of traffic flow, nor can a building flex its
beams and columns.

In these important particulars the analogy of city building to a "living organism"
is literary confection. The pictorial similarity between a medieval town plan and the
cross section of a tree or the veins in the human arm becomes pure poetry. Lifted out
of the rarified atmosphere of romantic fantasy, "flexibility" means enough space to
bring the products of industrial genius into useful service in the city structure.

Cities are inflexible because they are so crowded there is no room for the various
elements to "work." They are frozen into congestion, and flexibility will be attained
only through the establishment of adequate standards to guide those who participate
in building the city.

There comes a moment when decisions must be made. When that moment arrives,
there is a degree of finality implied by the act of decision. The structure of the city
does not float; it cannot be tugged or pushed about. When a building or other civic
improvement is erected, it is there to stay. Flexibility in the plan of a city will be
accomplished by standards for city building that preserve enough space for all
improvements without overcrowding.

In nearly every kind of business enterprise there is reference to "trends." New
conditions, scientific development, and social improvement require adjustments in the
conduct of enterprise. They likewise require adjustments in the city. Shifts in the
growth of cities prompted by such changes and accompanied by some degree of orderly
direction serve as a measure of trends in healthy city development.

But these shifts are confused with quite another sort of change: the urge to escape
from the contagious disease of obsolescence and unrestrained speculation. Healthy

THE GENERAL PLAN 199

enterprise shuns association with derelict neighbors; unbridled physical deterioration
repels improvement. Shifts in the urban pattern compelled by these desultory forces do
not mark trends. They report a rout, a desperate and disorderly retreat. Diagnosing
this disease as a trend is to spread the contagion further, and ignore or misinterpret
the only value that observation of trends can provide: a guide to the natural and
appropriate use of land in the growing city.

Economy is a familiar slogan. It is also a worthy aim. In practice, however, it has
unfortunately been too frequently reduced to a fiction. Expenditures for civic improve-
ments are generally decided upon by their budget appeal, not their adequacy. Patch-
work improvements display such an appeal; they appear to be "economical." The
question of whether they may actually solve any particular problem is usually over-
looked or avoided. Economy may really be, and usually is, quite another matter. We
have seen a street widening prove inadequate almost upon the day it was completed.
We have seen the immediate need for another improvement added. We have seen the
value of adjacent land enhanced with each such piecemeal improvement, and new
buildings erected about it. We have then seen the public forced to pay the added incre-
ment of land and building "value" each of these improvements has induced. This
process is characteristic of urban "economy," but it is not economical.

Each new or improved utility service introduced to a city crowds some equally
needed service. The utility system sewers, water, gas, electricity distributes the
energy to operate a city of a million people. Yet these vital veins are, with some rare
exceptions, buried beneath, or suspended above, the arteries that carry the stream of
daily traffic. The conflict between these services is experienced day in and day out. A
utility line breaks down and the repair job stops the circulation of automobiles and
street cars. These conflicts choke an already congested city and it is not economical.

"Efficiency" is another ingrown term. Efficiency obviously has virtue; that virtue
is the elimination of waste. In the name of "efficient" planning, however, there are
examples of the creation of waste. We have observed acres of subdivisions, planned
with alleged efficiency, which are actually a waste of the urban resources. We have seen
the width of a street, the size of a house, or the lot it occupies squeezed to an efficient
minimum so low it is reduced to nothing more than a cheap commodity.

In the light of the studies by Sir Raymond Unwin and Henry Wright, efficient plan-
ning is more than an obsession to save; it is also a method to improve. Standards are the
measurements by which we must be guided rather than remain content with what
Elizabeth Denby called "the intellectual pleasure which the architect got from a tri-
umphant arrangement of inadequate space." 7

It must be clear that space in a city must first and foremost provide for adequacy;
it must be ample.

The measure of adequacy will be the capacity of the space to receive the buildings
of a city without itself being lost completely. It means enough space so that buildings
may stand alone or together without violating the sensibilities of those who see and use

7 Europe Rehoused, Elizabeth Denby, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., New York, 1938.

200 THE PLANNING PROCESS

them. It means that cities will provide space into which the buildings are built rather
than a solid mass of buildings through which the fissures we call streets are carved.

The concept of space means a relatively constant limitation on population density
regardless of the heights that structures may reach. The prospect of squeezing more
people into the same space creates instability, not only in land value, but in urban
Services. It imposes an extravagance on the installation of service facilities. Water,
sewers, gas and electric distribution, telephones, streets, walks, transportation, fire,
health, educational and recreational facilities cannot be estimated with any possible
degree of economy. These services must be installed of sufficient size and quantity to
meet unlimited future requirements, or be repeatedly removed, altered, and replaced
as the demand may fluctuate. Either course is an extravagant venture as city budgets
and utility bills attest.

Within a reasonable concept of space in the urban environment is the room for the
vehicles of transportation to circulate with ease and safety. This means enough room
to separate the different types of vehicles and the direction of their travel; room
enough to move about on the surface of the earth rather than burrow into the ground
with subways. This means the city will no longer be a maze of streets and alleys slicing
through a solid bulk of buildings.

This concept means that parking space for the free-moving vehicles of our con-
temporary age shall be a component part of all floor space provided within or adjacent
to buildings, and it means that this integration will bring the relation between open
space and building floor area into some degree of balance.

There will be enough room for all the essential utility conduits, a network of vital
service arteries so aligned within their respective rights-of-way that interference is
avoided at all times.

This concept of space means room enough for people to walk in safety and some
degree of beauty; trees would not be unwelcome. Finally it means an environment in
which the human spirit can rise above mediocrity; it means relief from the din and the
danger that fray the human nerves and dull the human mind.

It may be suggested that the concept of space within the city described above is not
a "practical" one. The planning of cities is rather cluttered with bromides, but hardly
any is so overworked as "practical." Compromise is the inevitable road to satisfactory
human relationships. The capacity to compromise is a requisite to accomplishment.
It implies, however, that an objective is clearly defined. The objective of planning is
the solution of a problem; in city planning the problem is that of an environment that
is rapidly disintegrating under the spell of congestion and ugliness.

Opinions may vary as to the way in which to arrive at the objective of decent cities,
but no purpose is served until some area of agreement can be reached about the nature
of the objective itself. Solutions call for ideas. They deal in ideas. Ideas are the tools
with which we shape an objective, and they cannot be dismissed only because they may
at first appear "impractical/* We see about us the results of thus being "practical";
we see these results repeated time and again : more congestion, tnore traffic problems.

202 THE PLANNING PROCESS

more deterioration, more expense, and boundless confusion and bewilderment. If we
peer behind this scene, we may well find the reason: the process of planning began
with a compromise. The ideas that are the stuff of progress never reach the surface
where they may be observed and tested for their validity.

Nor is this approach really practical. The first test of practicality is whether a thing
"works." Can it be claimed that our cities work? Is traffic congestion practical? Or the
crowded business centers? Or the blighted areas and slums? Are the extravagant
devices for parking automobiles overhead and underground practical? Is the
mediocrity of the living and working environment, and the obsolete transportation in
our cities really practical? Is it practical to spend huge sums on surveys, consultation,
and plans, then ignore them all? The urban malady of congestion is like the itch:
scratching produces a sensation of relief. But common sense tells us the only practical
treatment is a cure, not more irritation.

Must it be considered impractical to propose standards which have as their sole
purpose a restoration of permanent values in the urban environment? Ample space for
London was rebuked by F. J. Forty, Chief Planner for the rebuilding program, with the
words, "I want it [London] to be the leading place of commerce in the world and not
as some planners suggest a park." 8 Must this be the interpretation of the need for
adequate space within our cities? The original plan proposed for the City of London, a
plan that offered little improvement over the city that was destroyed, was commented
upon by Donald Tyerman in the Observer as "timid rebuilding proposals." He said,
"The makers of this plan are not planners but pessimists." 9

We might hark to the words of Lewis Mumford:

"As so often has happened during the last quarter century, the self-styled practical
men turned out to be the weak, irresponsible dreamers, afraid to face unpleasant facts,
while those of us who were called dreamers have, perhaps, some little right now to
be accepted at least belatedly as practical men. By now history has caught up with
our most dire prophecies. That is at once the justification of our thinking and the proof
of its tragic failure to influence our contemporaries." 10

8 Architectural Forum, September 1944.

9 Ibid. The plan to which Mr. Tyerman referred was that proposed for the mile-square "City" of London by
the Improvement and Town Planning Committee.

w Architectural Forum, May 1945.

CHAPTER 12

THE ZONING PLAN

The Precise Plans. The General Plan sets the basic policies for development of
the city, the general relation between the various land uses residential, commercial,
and industrial and forms the framework of the urban structure. From time to time
this general framework is translated into precise plans which specify the zoning for
land use, streets and highways, mass transit, recreation and conservation, subdivision
expansion, utilities, railways and airports, civic centers, schools, and urban redevelop-
ment. The precise plans interpret the basic policies for urban development reflected in
the General Plan and serve to adjust the Plan to new situations and conditions as they

arise.

The precise plans serve a dual function. On one hand, they define the standards for
development of the city, the standards of population density, the design of the circu-
lation system, and the amount and location of open space and physical facilities for
business and residence. On the other hand, the precise plans provide a program for
development, a basis for timing proposed improvements in the city, the location,
design, and installation of utilities, schools, parks, the extension of subdivision develop-
ment, and the redevelopment of blighted areas. Thus, the need for public improve-
ments may be geared with the ability to finance such improvements and maintain a
coordinated pace with expansion of private development.

These functions presume continuous attention to the process of urban planning. A
General Plan which collects dust in the archives of the city hall is a monument on the
grave of lost opportunities in urban improvement. Planning is a process which antici-
pates the needs of a community, proposes ways and means for the satisfaction of these
needs, and relates these proposals to the orderly development of the city and realiza-
tion of the General Plan. The precise plans are the instruments with which these func-
tions are performed.

Zoning Defined. Zoning is the legal regulation of the use of land. It is an applica-
tion of the police power for the protection of the public health, welfare, and safety.
The regulations include provisions for the use of property and limitations upon the

203

204 THE PLANNING PROCESS

shape and bulk of buildings that occupy the land. The law comprises two parts: the
ordinance in which the regulations are defined, and the zoning map which delineates
the districts within which the provisions of the ordinance apply.

Zoning is not a substitute nor an alternative for the General Plan. The General Plar
expresses the basic policies which shape the community character, the general lane
use, circulation, and relationships among the variety of urban facilities. The zoning
plan establishes the specific limitations which apply to the use of land as an instru
ment for achieving the goals set forth in the General Plan. Serving as a comprehensive
guide for urban development, the General Plan is usually adopted as a resolution by
the legislative body. The zoning plan is adopted and rendered effective as a legal
ordinance.

Validity of the zoning ordinance has been subjected to several tests by the courts,
whose decisions have generally supported the following criteria:

1. The plan shall be comprehensive.

2. The same regulations shall apply to all districts having similar zone classifica-
tions.

3. The plan shall demonstrate protection of public health, welfare, and safety.

4. There shall be no discrimination nor capricious intent in the plan.

5. Administration of the ordinance shall be reasonable and free from arbitrary
decisions.

Zoning Procedures. Complications inevitably arise in the administration oi
zoning, and procedures must be provided to cope with them. These situations may
involve natural or man-made conditions of the land, unusual demands not evident
when the ordinance was adopted, or developments in which the exacting limitations of
zoning do not accommodate reasonable latitude for the adaptation of new ideas.

The Zone Change or Amendment. The most frequent alterations occur when property
owners request a change for the classification of their properties from one zoning
district to another, usually for the purpose of enjoying greater economic values from
the use of their land. Changes on the Zoning Map should be made only when such
changes conform to the General Plan. Otherwise they may, while being beneficial to
an individual, be detrimental and costly to the community in terms of the effects on
utilities and public facilities.

Amendments to the text of the ordinance are also made quite often. These amend-
ments include changes in terminology; inclusion or deletion of certain uses; changes
in standards, either raising or lowering them; and changes in procedures.

Regardless of whether the map or the text are modified, the procedure requires
public hearings and discussions prior to any changes becoming effective. The pro-
cedure is generally identical with that required for the adoption of the original
ordinance.

The Zoning Variance. A variance is a permission granted as relief from some
specific and unusual hardship imposed by the strict interpretation of the ordinance.

THE ZONING PLAN 205

It is a means to adjust the property development standards of the ordinance which, by
reason of specific location, topography, shape, or size, are impossible to comply with.
The variance permits a property owner to use his land at the same intensity allowed
others in the same zone; it should not allow uses not permitted in the zone. Being
readily subject to discriminatory administration and unsound planning, the variance
is perhaps the most abused of all zoning procedures. It is not an alternative to "spot"
zoning or a device to circumvent the intent of the ordinance by a grant of special
privilege, nor is it a means to solve personal problems. The following advice by a high
state court, in its review of a case involving rezoning, brings the issue into clear focus: 1

We feel impelled to express briefly our view of the proper theory of zoning as relates to the
making of changes in an original comprehensive ordinance. We think the theory is that after the
enactment of the original ordinance there should be a continuous or periodic study of the devel-
opment of property uses, the nature of population trends, and the commercial and industrial
growth, both actual and prospective. On the basis of such study changes may be made intelli-
gently, systematically, and according to a coordinated plan designed to promote zoning objectives.
An examination of the multitude of zoning cases that have reached this court leads us to the con-
clusion that the common practice of zoning agencies, after the adoption of an original ordinance,
is simply to wait until some property owner finds an opportunity to acquire a financial advantage
by devoting his property to a use other than that for which it is zoned, and then struggle with the
question of whether some excuse can be found for complying with his request for a rezoning. The
result has been that in most of the rezoning cases reaching the courts there has actually been spot
zoning and the courts have upheld or invalidated the change according to how flagrant the viola-
tion of true zoning principles has been. It is to be hoped that in the future zoning authorities will
give recognition to the fact that an essential feature of zoning is plannifig.

Conditional Use Permit. There are occasions when a special "use" is necessary for
the welfare of a community, but not permitted within the applicable zone. Permission for
such uses may be granted by the Conditional Use Permit. Unlike the variance, evidence
of unusual hardship in the development of a property is not required. The Conditional
Use is for the purpose of meeting a special need of the community based upon evidence
that the proposed location will serve this special purpose. Protection from adverse
effects on abutting property must be assured and measures for this must be included in
the Permit. As with the Variance, the Conditional Use is not a substitute for rezoning.
It is designed to meet a special situation in the public interest; it is not a device by
which a new use may be indiscriminately introduced within an established zoning
district. The zoning ordinance does not usually provide for a variety of sharply defined
uses within a district, and the Conditional Use offers a degree of flexibility in adjusting
to new demands within the framework of the ordinance.

There remains a difference of opinion on the manner in which a Conditional Use
Permit should be granted. Some authorities hold it to be essentially an administrative
decision at the discretion of the Planning Commission. Others contend that it should be
subject to approval by the legislative body. It is generally agreed that the ordinance

iFritts v. City of Ashland, Court of Appeals of Kentucky [highest court], June 16, 1961, 348 S.W. 2d 712,
quoted from Zoning Digest, October 1961, American Society of Planning Officials.

206 THE PLANNING PROCESS

should clearly stipulate the circumstances and indicate the areas under which Condi-
tional Use Permits may be granted as a protection to investors in property.

Administrative Committees. Zoning ordinances contain a variety of provisions, com-
pliance with which may require some form of review and approval. Among these may
be the location and size of signs, or engineering and architectural design and arrange-
ment. The ordinance may therefore provide for Administrative Committees vested
with the responsibility and authority to pass upon plans subject to these provisions.
Such committees are particularly effective when both public officials and lay persons
comprise their membership.

Zoning Districts. In the zoning plan the community is divided into districts in
which the land is restricted to certain classified uses. The size, shape, and location of
these districts reflect the major uses indicated by the General Plan and should be
formed to invite the natural development of neighborhoods. The General Plan may
indicate an area to be appropriate for single-family dwellings, whereas the zoning plan
may permit a commercial use within specified limits to be developed as a shopping
center and contribute to the neighborhood quality of the area. A site for a school and a
park may also be provided within such an area. Such developments of the precise plans
are refinements of the General Plan, their purpose being the creation of balanced
community design.

Most zoning ordinances provide for different densities of population in different
districts. One residential district may permit only single-family houses with a density
of five families per acre, whereas another district may permit "unlimited multiple
residential" use in which the density can reach hundreds of people per acre. These
variations in population density must be reflected in other precise plans for the city
since they affect the provisions of all community facilities and services. The size and
location of schools, commercial land use and transportation, police and fire protection,
and the size of utility services vary considerably with the number of people to be served.

The following description of land uses indicates the variety of districts which may
appear in the zoning ordinance. The classification of these districts will differ in
various communities, and local customs and requirements will determine the definition
of each classification:

Open Land Districts. This classification of land use, though not included in most
ordinances, applies to areas in which the public interest requires the prohibition or
restriction of urbanization to protect or enhance reasonable growth and development
of the community. Open land districts may include areas of particular scenic or
historic importance, areas too steep to be built upon, areas subject to flooding, and
areas where water and sanitary facilities or police and fire protection cannot be pro-
vided without excessive cost to the community.

Agricultural districts permit the use of land consistent with economically feasible
agricultural enterprise, the subdivision of land being governed by the type of agricul-
ture normal to the area. Agricultural districts about some urban areas may establish
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this classification. Uses considered generally permissible in this type of district include
farming, poultry-raising, dairying, and cattle and horse grazing. Restricted residential
uses may also be permitted provided the agricultural uses are not adversely affected.
Hog raising may be prohibited in some agricultural zones because it is generally inter-
preted as an obnoxious use. There are usually provisions in the zoning ordinance for
exceptions by special permit if an investigation of the particular situation demonstrates
no prospect of endangering the general welfare.

Estate districts are sometimes created to provide property owners the opportunity
to establish a character of residential development measured primarily in terms of
large-size lots. In some suburban areas it is desired to develop a rural quality, and
the estate zone is for such a purpose. This is generally the most restricted residential
zone, the minimum lot sizes ranging from 20,OOO to 40,000 square feet or more in area.
Some "agricultural" uses are frequently permitted in this zone, like poultry for
domestic consumption or saddle horses, Estate zones are usually established at the
behest of the property owners or developers \vho desire to attract clientele wishing
reasonably large tracts protected from the infiltration of small-lot subdivision. Other
factors sometimes warrant the establishment of estate zones; when facilities for sewage
disposal are absent or limited, or "where police and fire protection are not readily
available, or community facilities such as schools or commercial districts are remotely
situated, it may be advisable to limit the population an area is permitted to accom-
modate.

Single-family districts are zones in which the land use is restricted to a single dwell-
ing unit per lot. The zoning ordinance establishes a minimum lot area permitted in
these zones and frequently specifies the minimum lot width. The standards vary con-
siderably, some cities still permitting lot widths of 25 feet street frontage, but a width
of 60 feet or more is being accepted in most communities as the minimum, with a
minimum lot area of 6,000 square feet. Such restrictions are not retroactive, and
property owners are not obliged to comply with area and lot size regulations enacted
subsequent to the recording of subdivisions "with lesser restrictions.

Multiple-Family Districts. This classification applies to any residential district in
which more than a one-family dwelling is permitted to occupy a single lot. A gradation
of dwelling densities is usually provided within this classification.

Two-Family Districts. This classification has been rather generously used in the
past to permit the "duplex" type of dwelling, i.e., two dwelling units within a single
structure. With the increasing use of density control rather than classification of
building type, a provision which specifies the density, such as a minimum lot area
per dwelling unit, is more equitable than a limitation of two dwellings per lot.
Application of a uniform density provision offers a desirable flexibility for lots of
varying size, rather than freezing the limitation regardless of the lot area.

Medium-Density Districts. The density permitted in this classification will be quite
different in a great city than in a small tovm. In large cities a medium density
ranges from 20 to 40 dwellings per net acre. It may be prescribed as four times the

THE ZONING PLAN 209

density of the single-family district. If the minimum single-family lot area is 6,000
square feet, the medium density would then require 1,500 square feet of lot area
per dwelling. Some communities permit a lot area as low as 1,000 square feet per
dwelling in this district.

High-Density Districts. Densities ranging from 50 to 150 families per net acre
are not uncommon in large cities, and 200 to 300 families per acre are permitted in
some laws. With the increasing congestion of traffic and intensity of the parking
problem, zoning ordinances are due for a critical review of these high densities.
The classification may be defined as a multiple of the minimum single-family lot
size. Assuming a density standard of some 50 dwellings per acre and a minimum
lot size for the single-family district of 6,000 square feet, the high-density district
would permit about eight times the single-family density, or about 750 square feet
of lot area per dwelling unit. Some ordinances further grade these requirements
according to the size of the dwelling apartment. Thus 300 square feet of lot area
may be permitted for "bachelor" units, 400 square feet for one-bedroom units, 600
square feet for two-bedroom units, and 800 square feet for three-bedroom units.

Mobile-Home Districts. The mobility of the population in this country is demon-
strated by the expanding use of the "trailer" as a relatively permanent dwelling
type. It possesses unique characteristics and plays an important role in the housing
supply in moderate climates. The essential amenities for this mode of living should
be regulated in zoning ordinances. Well-designed mobile-home "parks" accom-
modate a density of between 10 and 15 trailer units per acre, or 2,500 to 4,000
square feet of ground space for each unit. The Federal Housing Administration
standards and the recommendations of the Mobile Homes Association support the
lesser density as the desirable space requirement.

Hotel Districts. The density and lot area requirements for hotels are the least
restrictive of the residential zones, except in areas where the particular character of
the environment warrants special attention to density. Hotels may also be included
in the provisions for Commercial Districts. With the exception of limitations upon
setbacks for side, rear, and front yards, there has been little control of density in
these districts, but reconsideration of hotel densities is as urgent as high-density
apartment and commercial zones.

Commercial Districts. The complex structure of the modern urban community has
introduced changes affecting the arrangement of commercial facilities as it has in other
land uses. The "mamma and papa" grocery store has blossomed into the neighborhood
convenience center, the expanding suburbs have forced the decentralization of retail
enterprise and the development of the regional shopping center. The destiny of "down-
town" hangs in the balance. Special service facilities, ranging from professional offices
to light manufacturing establishments where commodities are also sold across the
counter, must be accommodated within the fabric of commercial zoning regulations.
Consideration of the relation between these several commercial functions and other
land uses must be reflected in the General Plan as a foundation for the zoning plan.

210 THE PLANNING PROCESS

Excessive land area and permissible floor space, typical of present zoning, is related to
traffic congestion and the parking problem. Transition from the burden of "strip"
zoning for business uses along the major streets to the consolidation of commercial
centers will be an arduous task and require a long period of time. The shopping center
has confirmed the necessity and provided the impetus for this conversion in the pattern
of commercial land use.

Industrial Districts. This classification ranges from the most restricted uses for
"light" industry, in which electric power only may be employed or in which smoke,
odors, and sound are rigidly controlled, to the unrestricted "heavy" industrial areas
in which any type of manufacturing enterprise or process is permitted. Certain indus-
trial uses which may endanger the public are frequently restricted to specific areas,
whereas still others may require special permits by legislative action in order to con-
duct business. The manufacture of fireworks or fertilizer, or the dumping of refuse and
garbage, may be confined to areas at least 500 feet from other unrestricted uses.

The manner in which operations are conducted, rather than the type of the industry,
is the basis for classifying industrial districts in recent ordinances. The adoption of
"performance standards" may obviate the need for arbitrary distinctions between
"light" and "heavy" industry and provide a more rational utilization of industrial
land. It could also become a means for closer integration between places of employ-
ment and places of residence.

Performance standards prescribe regulations for control of smoke, odor, glare,
vibration, dust, sound, radiation, water or sewer pollution, moisture. They are enforced
through the measurement of the effects of plant operation at prescribed points.

The "industrial district" has acquired an unsavory association with run-down hovels
in the shadow of the factory. The successful development of the planned Industrial
District, or Industrial Park, has therefore been a singular advance in planning. The
intensity of land use identified with the crowded workshops of the past is relieved in
the Industrial Park. A density of some 30 to 50 workers per acre is not uncommon in
industrial areas, but the density in Industrial Parks ranges between 15 and 20 per
acre, with areas of heavy industry having less than 10 workers per acre. Regulations
prescribe restrictions on building height, space between buildings, setbacks from
property lines, signs, off-street parking and loading, and landscaping.

The reservation of Industrial Parks for the exclusive use of industry encourages the
planned integration of residential communities, with mutually beneficial results:
efficiency in industrial operation and convenience to employment in a desirable resi-
dential environment.

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS FOR INDUSTRY 2

A. Fire and Explosion Hazards

All activities involving, and all storage of, inflammable and explosive materials shall be pro-
vided with adequate safety devices against the hazard of fire and explosion and adequate fire-

2 This material is derived from the zoning ordinances of the Cities of New York, Chicago, Denver, and others,
and critical analyses of this type of regulation by the Urhan Land Institute and the American Society of Planning
Oificials.

THE ZONING PLAN 211

fighting and fire-suppression equipment and devices standard in industry. All incineration is pro-
hibited.

B. Radioactivity or Electrical Disturbance

Devices which radiate radio-frequency energy shall be so operated as not to cause interference
with any activity carried on beyond the boundary line of the property upon which the device is
located. Radio-frequency energy is electromagnetic energy at any frequency in the radio spectrum
between 10 kilocycles and 3 million megacycles.

C. Noise

The maximum sound pressure level radiated by any use or