Town improvement; a review of the principles by which physical improvement in the town or city may be accomplished, with observations as to the effect of such improvement upon the life of the community

Front matter

LIBRARY

Brigham Young University

From

Preface

It is the aim of this volume to present to the citizen an outline of everyday methods, suggesting ways in which to set about working for the improvement of the community which each of us affectionately calls “the Home Town.” The terms town and city are used interchangeably throughout these pages and therefore what is said applies to the large city as well as to the small town.

The student of sociology, of civil government, and of business, may be inclined to believe that too much has been assumed in the title, since we deal almost entirely with the improvement of those physical elements of which the town is made up. In its broad sense town improvement implies improvement not only in visible and tangible things, but in other lines also. These several aspects are intimately related, however, improvement in one leading inevitably to improvement in the others, so that we may say that we can approach town improvement from any one of the sides mentioned.

In recent years the study of civics is being made more and more a part of the regular curriculum in the higher grades of our public schools, and in its more advanced form is being studied with greater

IX

PREFACE seriousness in our colleges. The acquisition on the part of the prospective citizen of a sense of his relationship to public affairs is, of course, the aim of such study. It is hoped that this book may contribute some part to this end.

Use has been made of material from many sources, and credit has been given, it is hoped, where due. Special acknowledgment is to be made for criticism and suggestions rendered by the late Professor Charles Mulford Robinson, in an earlier stage of the manuscript production. Thanks are also due Dr. John Nolen for valuable suggestions as to chapter arrangement. This book does not 'pose as a self-appointed authority, but is to be taken rather as a guide. It is not really a book on city planning, though it may be considered an introduction thereto.

Most of the examples cited and practically all of the illustrations are purposely American. This, it is thought, may serve to bring home the idea that our own municipalities have a sufficiently strong tradition to build upon without relying altogether, as is so often done, upon inspiration from abroad, valuable as that is in its proper place and time. The views are not all lovely ones for, though this would make a more beautiful text, it would be telling but half a truth.

More detailed specific comment on various topics might be thought desirable to enforce and further x

PREFACE clarify the principles expounded, but it was early seen that to do so threatened to swell the covers beyond intended limits. With the utmost earnestness the reader is urged as he reads to call to mind scenes and conditions in his own town : the message which the book is meant to carry will thus be the better enforced and the small seed thus planted

will be more apt to produce fruit.

Frederick N. Evans.

Urbana, Illinois.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface ix

Introductory i

Chapter I Forces Creating The Town— Its Life And Growth

Few of us have ever paused to consider how our own town came into being. We have taken its existence for granted. But our town did not just happen. A definite force called it into existence at the very point at which it grew.

Forces Creating Towns. — Towns are to be thought of then as having logical origin and growth. They arise as has been already said, as the result of human needs. Few towns are made to order. “People,” it is said, “cannot be uprooted and moved in large numbers and immediately adjust themselves to the different opportunities of a new environment/ * We are familiar with tales of booms and subsequent collapse in the history of communities whose coming into existence or whose later growth has been forced. The need for which towns arise, and their future growth can be anticipated to some extent it is true, but so varied are the influences affecting their being, that the town planner or the speculator in land values cannot prediet with certainty just what will happen beyond the limited period of a few years.

The forces instrumental in the creation of towns and cities are fairly easy to distinguish at the outset of the town’s history, but as the community grows, early purposes and aims become merged into others. A glance at the most prominent of the forces at work in the creation and growth of towns reveals the following: lf 2

1. Defense against Enemies.

2. Commerce.

3. Manufactures and Industries.

4. Political Forces.

5. Natural Healthfulness and Attractiveness.

6. Social Forces.

Defense against Enemies. — The principle of defense against enemies was one of the chief factors in the rise of towns in primitive times. Men first gathered together for the common protection of life and property. The rise of most of the cities of ancient times is to be traced directly to this origin. Athens grew about the Acropolis — a high hill which could be readily defended and far enough removed from the seacoast to be safe from invasion by sea. Paris grew up upon the small

sThe consideration of these forces is drawn with some modification from the excellent work of R. M. Hurd, Principles of City Land Values pp. 19-21.

2Cf. The American City, by Henry C. Wright, Chap. I.

IO

FORCES CREATING THE TOWN islands of the Seine, surrounded by swampy land to the north and south. Many of the towns of England and the Continent grew from early Roman Camps. The suffix “Chester” attached to the names of many English towns is but a perversion of the Latin castra, camp.

The influence of this force in the creation of towns is none the less apparent in our own country. A number of the cities along the Atlantic coast owe their existence primarily to the idea of defense, New York, formerly New Amsterdam may be said to have arisen under the shadow of the old Dutch fort, at the point of Manhattan Island.3 From this crude redoubt has arisen the most splendid of our American cities.

Parallel with the thought of protection against enemies, we find a gathering of inhabitants about the walls of medieval monasteries. In our own land many of the towns of California owe their origin to the settlements which rose about the old Spanish missions. As time goes on this factor of defense becomes of less and less importance in the rise of towns. Whereas the force first considered was that of “safety in numbers,” later soil more favorable to town growths was to be found.

Commerce. — A second influence is that of commerce. The transportation of commodities from

8Cf. Irving’s Knickerbocker History of New York for a humorous account of early New York Life.

II one part of the earth to another has ever been, next to the primitive end of securing safety and protection, one of the most important activities of mankind. To exchange that which one has in superfluity for something of which one has need for the comforts and conveniences of life is the underlying idea of commerce. Where the flow or transportation is uninterrupted from source to destination the direct influence of commerce on the growth of cities is comparatively slight, but where there is a definite break in the transfer of goods from one route to another, as from ships to train, or from one railroad line to another, facilities for the handling of these are necessitated. The establishment of houses for persons in charge of the work and the building of shops of many kinds, is added to the problem, until we find springing up about such points towns of large extent. It will be worth while to call to mind such cities as Liverpool, San Francisco, and Boston as coast cities, Duluth, Chicago, and St. Louis as interior cities at the side of water, and Omaha as a city whose existence is mainly owing to a former point of break and transfer in an overland transportation system. New York, a site primarily selected for defense, owes its phenomenal growth to the fact that it lies at the point of easiest access for the products of the Middle West through the Appalachian Range to the Atlantic coast.

FORCES CREATING THE TOY.

Manufactures and Industries. — Manufactures and industries have become of increasing importance in the growth of towns and cities. Indeed it may be said that of late years no other force has been as powerful. The nineteenth century has been rightly spoken of as “almost exclusively an industrial product/’4 As diversified industries as are to be found in this country never before existed in any country.5

In earlier times towns and cities were more selfsufficient than we find them to-day. By this is meant that just as the Colonial homestead was the center of a varied industrial life — supplying, by dint of necessity, its own needs, so the town of former times was much more industrially independent than that of the present. Our towns’ industries are becoming specialized in a way never before dreamed of ; for example, with reasonably cheap transportation a town in Michigan can devote its industrial energies almost exclusively to the manufacture of parlor sofas, and depend on a city that is hundreds of miles away for the supply of its breakfast food.

The creation of towns solely by manufactures is not common.6 As a rule industries are drawn to

* The Modern City and Its Problems, by F. C. Howe, p. 48.

5 Noticeably rapid growth in manufacturing towns is to be seen in the United States, England, and Germany, where industrial growth has been very extensive.

#We do find instances of towns such as Pullman, Illinois, the town after its establishment, attracted there by facilities for transportation and means for the housing of employees, reasonably cheap land for building sites, and abundant water. Such has been the case of such towns as Akron, Ohio, which in a period of seventeen years has shown a quadrupling of its population, owing to the enormous growth of the rubber business.

Political Forces . — Though accountable for the establishment of but few towns and cities as compared with the forces spoken of, political considerations have been accountable for the rise of some very important cities. Petrograd and Berlin owe their situation to the fact that they were considered geographically desirable locations for the capitols of nations. Washington, D. C. was located quite arbitrarily, as a convenient point in respect to the thirteen original states, which lay along the Atlantic coast. Evidence of the same force may be seen in the location of such capitol cities as Columbus, Ohio; Sacramento, California, and Springfield, Illinois.

Once such cities have been established, their growth is assured in proportion to the prosperity and political importance of the state or nation which they represent.

Gary, Indiana, and others which have risen about the establishment of industrial interests at those points. At Pullman were established the works of the Pullman Car Company, and at Gary a large steel industry.

H

FORCES CREATING THE TOWN

Natural Healthfulness and Attractiveness of Site. — Certain towns in Florida, in California, in the mountains, and elsewhere, owe their founding to the fact that they offer to those in search of more pleasant environment a good climate, pure air, and beauty of scene. Denver and Colorado Springs furnish us with examples of this. Some communities, such as Battle Creek, Michigan, and Saratoga, New York, have come into prominence as places where sanitaria or springs are situated.

Social Forces. — A force more subtle than those named is that called the social force. Though its operation is sometimes the reason for the town being founded; more generally it is the cause of later development. Many towns owe their growth if not their founding to the fact of an educational institution being established there as Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is the seat of Harvard University. The social force naturally gains in momentum as the town enlarges. Where numbers gather together, there others congregate, not, at the present day, because there is safety in numbers, but because in numbers there is inspiration. This social force is largely accountable for New York’s late growth, and for that of other prominent cities which one may call to mind. Pleasure resorts owe their development to this social element. This force is evident in many less prominent communities; we have only to recall instances of the moving of retired farmers into town giving as a reason that “that is where the old friends are.”

The Life Cycle of the Town. — As towns and cities grow, we usually find evidence in their life of several or all of the creative forces mentioned; for example, a town which grew up as a shipping point may develop into a community in which industries are first.

Constant change and progression, is taking place within the town itself. Sections in it devoted to one activity may be later devoted to another. The retail shopping district in cities is often seen moving gradually on into the older residence section, which in turn retreats unwillingly, but steadily before it.

An interesting parallel can be observed between the life cycle of a town and that of a living body. Both pass from youth into adolescence and on into maturity. In the history of the town’s life there is apparent a real struggle for existence. Some towns survive for centuries, are almost eternal, others have passed into oblivion or are remembered only in classic story. The demise of a town may have been violent and sudden, as from earthquake, volcanic burial, fire or flood, or it may have been slow and gradual. The ancient and prosperous city of Ephesus, mentioned in Scripture, died a natural death, due to the filling in of its once excellent harbor by drifting sand.7 In dredging, harbor cities * Principles of City Land Values, by R. M. Hurd, p. 22.

FORCES CREATING THE TOWN today possess a means of continuing life which the cities of ancient times did not have. As in the case of human ills, modern science has come to the rescue. A town’s death, on the other hand, may be due entirely to economic reasons, as when there is no longer a demand for a certain commodity produced, or to an exhaustion of a once abundant ore. This has come about in the history of many of the gold mining towns in the West. The community’s growth is then checked, its formerly busy stores are closed and its inhabitants move away.

Under favorable conditions the life of towns and cities is of indefinite length, the chances of winning through and of becoming a great city, depend partly upon economic conditions, and partly upon the character and energy of the citizens. Temporary disasters offer only temporary hardship. San Francisco, in its early history is said to have been burned six times in eighteen months,8 but so dauntless was the determination of the forty-niners, and so disciplined were they to hardship, that the city rose again and again, even as it has in its present form after the disastrous fire of 1906.

The Town as an Organism. — The suggestion of the life cycle through which the town passes, and the fact of its increasing complexity9 leads to a

8 Ref. An Intimate History of California, by Gertrude Atherton, p. 151.

"Above, p. 5, par. 2.

consideration of the town’s organic character. All of its elements, such as markets, public buildings, streets, and transportation facilities are the result of a clear evolution, arising from necessity. An interdependence exists between all parts, each contributing toward the fulfillment of the purpose of the whole.

In the business section of the city we have what resembles the heart of this municipal organism; in the flow of life along the streets and in the water and sewer mains buried in the ground, we have a distinct circulatory system. The lungs of the city are the parks and open spaces, which must be of sufficient size and number to supply the city population with needed fresh air. The highways and railroads are like hands reaching out to bring in nourishment. The city has a mouth in the point of entrance of highways and railroads. Further, in its electric light and telephone lines we find a nervous system not unlike that of a living body. In its administrative center there is evidence of a mind controlling action; finally it may be said that in the aspirations and sentiment of its citizenship, the city gives evidence of having a soul. When all is said and done, it is for the nourishing and development of this that the other agencies are designed.

Individuality of Towns. — All towns possess individuality. Even when climate and geographic

FORCES CREATING THE TOWN situation seem to decree that communities should be made in the same mold, we find that towns like people, steadily refuse to be produced identically alike. Conditions of site, of purpose, and finally of individual taste prevent it. We need not go to our Baedeker, nor to a collection of maps to see the immense variety that may be found in ground arrangement. Even supposing that town layouts were identical, there would still be found differences in the form of buildings and street furnishings that would render towns unlike in appearance. To the town improver this individuality is a very real and interesting thing.10

Summary. — Towns are not made to order; rather, their rise is the result of certain human needs at certain points. / The principal forces calling towns into existence are the following : ( i ) Defense Against Enemies; (2) Commerce; (3) Manufactures and Industries; (4) Political Forces; (5) Natural Healthfulness and Attractiveness; (6) Social Forces.

Towns and cities pass through a life cycle in progressing from youth to maturity. Constant change and progress is going on in the life of the town as a whole, and in its various parts.

The community is comparable to a living organism with various organs evolved from use. Towns possess marked individuality.

10 Cf. Town Planning in Practice, by Raymond Unwin, Chap. II.

Chapter II

Let us take up the plan of some town, preferably a plan with which we are not familiar, because such a plan will help our present impersonal examination.

Look at this plan. Prominent on the sheet before us are to be seen curious double lines which cross and recross at different angles. Toward the center the lines converge and become irregular. These are the streets. Though they are the most noticeable thing by far, they do not entirely constitute the plan. It is in the areas that lie between that the real life of the town is carried on.1 (Vid. Diagram II-A. )

Looking further at the plan before us we see black lines representing railroads crossing the sheet seemingly at random. We see also areas showing the position of parks. Shaded forms, like small toy building blocks, represent schools, hospitals and

*A helpful suggestion is that of regarding the town plan as made up of solids and voids — the solids being the blocks or space between streets, the voids the streets themselves. — Figure used by F. L. Olmsted, Lecture, Havard University.

other public structures. Here and there are irregular spots marking the sites of industries. If we were to take up another town plan we should notice

Diagram II-A.

THE PLAN OF A TYPICAL MODERATE-SIZED AMERICAN COMMUNITY.

that, though it showed an entirely different pattern of lines and areas, much the same features would be found scattered over it; in other words, it is to a certain extent similar to the plans of other communities.

The Town Plan ; A Patchwork of Activities . — This plan is the skeleton as it were of an underlying patchwork of activities, representing the town or city’s life. (Vid. Diagram II-B.) For convenience the most important of these activities may be named as follows:

1. Business and commercial.

2. Industrial.

3. Governmental or administrative.

4. Educational.

5. Health and Recreational.

6. Residential.

As we study plans, we find that there is, broadly speaking, a usual place or position on the map where each of the activities mentioned is to be found. We can even speculate with reasonable accuracy on a strange plan as to what sort of activity is most in evidence at any particular point. Recognizing certain lines as streets, others as railroads and shore lines, and noting their arrangement, we may read the past life history of the town, a good deal as the geologist reads the story of the elements from a rock’s surface, or as a forester tells the conditions under which a tree grew, by its general shape and branching. Let us examine into the activities named.

Business and Commercial. — The point of convergence of street lines that one sees on the plan

Diagram II-B.

THE SAME PLAN WITH THE LOCATION OF VARIOUS ACTIVITIES MARKED IN PATCHWORK FORM.

coincides in a general way with the business center of the city. Here property values are highest, and here business acitivity is most concentrated. The business of a down-town district is of several kinds, consisting of (i) the shipping and warehouse section, where incoming or outgoing commodities are handled. This portion lies naturally near railroads or water shipping points. (2) The wholesale section, where goods are stored pending distribution to retail merchants. This usually lies between the shipping and the retail district. (3) And lastly, the retail and office section, which lies near the center of the town within easiest access from all parts.

Industrial Section. — The industrial district is commonly removed from the heart of town, in proximity to some water body and to railroad lines, typically toward the edge, though as towns expand, industrial plants may be found well within the town’s limits.

Government and Administrative. — The administrative center may be looked for just apart from the retail business center, its most favorable location as regards town activity being in a position which does not cause a division of the retail business district.

Educational. — Features in this group include schools of all kinds, churches, libraries, art galleries, theaters, etc. The location of these varies according to local needs. Generally schools and churches lie within the residence section; libraries, art galleries and theaters are naturally found more centrally located.

Health and Recreational. — In the health and recreational group belong plants for water supply and sewage disposal, hospitals, and park areas, whose typical situation is away from the business center and nearer the edge of town. However, among the latter are open spaces distributed throughout the town, in general the smaller toward the center, the larger farther out.

Residential. — The homes of the citizens claim more of the town’s area than any other of the activities mentioned. They permeate all parts, even the crowded downtown portion where people are to be found living above shops and perhaps in crowded tenements. For the most part the residential section forms an irregular, broad outer rim, the extensive homes being farthest removed, the smaller lying nearer to the center.2 A noteworthy fact in this connection, brought out by J. S. Nettleford, is that poor people live on more expensive, the rich on cheaper land.

The Location of Towns. — “Location” and “site” are not identical. The term location in its broad sense is closely linked with the purpose for which the town came into existence. Site has to do with the existing topographical features in a particular vicinity.

2 The retirement of homes before the on-creeping business section has been spoken of above. Chap. I, p. 16, par. 3.

There are various general purposes which towns serve, as evidenced by their location: there is, for example, the seaport town found usually in a bay, where shelter from the high seas may be secured to shipping. Such a town is usually situated at the innermost point where the carry by water may be for as great a distance as possible.3 Philadelphia is such an example. Lakeport towns, as Duluth and Buffalo, correspond with this group in location.

Then there are manufacturing and industrial towns, located at points where raw materials can be most cheaply assembled. For example, the region from Pittsburgh to Cleveland is a region of iron and steel mills; at this point coal from Pennsylvania meets the iron brought from the upper lake regions, and an immense industry of steel milling has there sprung up. Fruit and grain towns are located at the shipping center of the regions where such products are raised. The list might be indefinitely extended.

The Tozvn Site. — “Site” implies, as has just been said, a consideration of local topographic features over which the town spreads, features which are incorporated into the plan of the town as it develops; thus we speak of a level site or an irregular site, having in mind the form of the ground upon which the town grows. Streams and water bodies are a part of such. The effect of site 3 Principles of City Land Values , by R. M. Hurd, Chap. III.

upon the development of the town or city is great, but so much has been accomplished by the ingenuity of man, enabling towns to adapt themselves to site, that we may say that towns grow equally well on any site, though naturally some sites involve greater problems and slower growth than others.

The Relation of Site to Civic Beauty. — Beauty, ever a desirable asset for a town or city, is dependent in a comparatively small degree upon site. This should be an encouraging thing for those towns which are born unblessed with natural beauty of location. It must of course be said that some locations favor beauty more than others, but “of itself (the site) can neither secure nor prohibit civic beauty. A dozen cities make some pretense of splendor without the slightest regard for the features of their site, and a hundred are plain or ugly on a site that might have been rendered splendid.” 4

Two further considerations in regard to civic beauty in its relation to site are worthy of notice; the first is that most of the world’s great cities lie by the side of water, and the second that most of them are situated on uneven ground.5

*The Improvement of Towns and Cities, by C. M. Robinson, Chap. I, p. i.

6 Ref. ibid., p. 3.

The Relation of Site to Utility. — Unlike the relation of site to beauty, the relation of site to utility is extremely vital. We may assume a town’s original location to be due entirely to a regard for ideas of use. The question of usefulness being the determining factor in choice of site, the second consideration is whether, as the town grows and expands, it has made the most of the site upon which it stands. The original activity, be it flour mill, wharf or warehouse, may be trusted to have made good use of the immediate ground upon which it was placed, else another site would have been chosen. A vital question then arises concerning the use of the rest of the area round about.

Various sites suggest various uses of the ground in streets and open spaces. The town in its effort to secure efficiency must recognize that a wrong use of the site or topography means waste and discomfort to the town itself.

Summary. — The town is a patchwork of activities more or less similar in various communities. These activities are: i. Business and Commercial,

2. Industrial, 3. Governmental and Administrative, 4. Educational, 5. Recreational, 6. Residential. Though the boundary of each group merges, each has a typical place on plan.

The location of a town or city is closely bound up with the purpose for which it came into existence. Site has to do with topographical conditions,

69674 and plays an important part in influencing the general layout of towns. Though a beautiful site is favorable to natural beauty, beauty may be secured by a town having a commonplace site, through proper effort on the part of the builders.

Chapter III

The streets were seen to be prominent features on the plan. Like the veins and arteries of the body, their business is to conduct the currents of life on their way from point to point.

The Importance of Streets. — The importance of streets to the life of the community is very great. In the history of civilization, highways have always played a prominent part. Though no longer the sole means of communication between communities, their necessity is still recognized, as proven by the fact that the art of road making is being carried to-day to a degree of perfection never before attained. Of such recognized importance are the streets of modern cities considered, that we find the department of streets among the foremost activities of any city government.

The town or city finds it expedient to devote a larger per cent of its area to streets than is commonly supposed. The amount averages from 20% to 40% of the total city area.1 In New York,

‘See also Town Planning for Small Communities, by C. S. Bird, p. 49.

35% of the area is taken up by streets; in Washington, D. C., the figure is as high as 54%. The land used for street purposes is theoretically of great marketable value. It is evident then that streets should so be planned that valuable land be not thrown away,2 and that the street system should render a proper return in efficiency to the city. If the streets of a community are ill planned, an extra burden is placed upon the community. Loss of time and temper are but a part of the toll of a poor street system ; direct financial loss as well is entailed.