MAKING BETTER TOWNS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28523, 28 February 1958, Page 3

MAKING BETTER TOWNS

Appeal For Public Support

“Town and country planning needs the aid of law if it is to be effective. We in New Zealand have the laws required. What we now require is that the public get behind the town-planning movement and make it succeed in its goal of making towns better places to live in.” This was said by Mr D. J. Edmondson, assistant regional planning officer in Christchurch, to the annual conference yesterday of the New Zealand branch of the Royal Society of Health. It had been stated that within 20 years 80,000 fecres of farm land would go out of production because of urbanisation, and possibly another 80,000 acres would suffer a quite substantial loss in production It would appear, he said, that so far as farm production was concerned, there was nothing to be lost and a good deal to be gained by keeping the growth of towns in check, or at least arranging for it to take place in as orderly a way as possible.

The towns were growing and changing fast. The perimeters were expanding while the inner parts slowly became decadant. In other parts of the world, the suburbs had spread and city values fallen. The accent now was not upon providing more and more houses at the perimeter but on the redevelopment of the obsolescent areas. At the same time, commercial interests, which were attempting to stop *the flood, were accelerating the process by providing modern super markets in the suburbs. That was happening in Auckland and, if the present trend continued, it would happen in Christchurch. First Step

From the analysis of Christchurch it would appear that if economies were to be made in development costs the ‘first step could possibly be taken in raising the density of development in the city as a whole and in the residential areas in particular. He was not advocating a wholesale exodus into flats and tenements. It would oe possible to maintain the present approach to housing by retaining for the growing family the detached home in its own section, although some sections could be reduced in size. Other sections of the community did not necessarily require detached houses with large sections. Any reduction in land requirements would reduce the cost of public utility and social services and reduce the loss of agricultural land on which they were dependent for their standard of living.

“At the same time we must not forget the older residential parts of the town,” said Mr Edmondson. “They, too, could be designed to a different pattern to cater for those people who wish to live rearer to the centre of city life. While catering for them, redevelopment could stimulate the central area and stop the decline which is inevitable if our suburbs continue to sprawl indefinitely further from the city.”