MAMMOTH CITY OF THE FUTURE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3128, 31 July 1922, Page 8

MAMMOTH CITY OF THE FUTURE.

(liy .1. W. Mason.) Now York City has started to plan tor a population as largo as Great Britain’s. One hundred years lienee Now York will contain 117,000,000 people, and the municipality will ho the most chaotic in the world’s history unless plans are immediately begun to guide the inevitable civic expansion. The Russell Sage Foundation is coming to the rescue of next century’s New York, and has promised tc finance a comprehensive survey so that the western metropolis will have its growth under i'ii vo ra blc cm id ition s. Eminent engineers, lawyers, and authorities on municipal government are volunteering their services in the salvage work. The task is stupendous. New York City at present has outgrown itself. When the original gridiron street plan of New York was adopted in 1810 the city’s population was 90.000. The metropolitan area has now spread across two rivers until it embraces a population of 9.000,000. All of these people do not live under New York’s municipal government, hut all dejiend on New York for a livelihood. The greater New York movement cannot he headed oil. Leading authorities declare that one hundred years hence New York City’s boundary will have a radius of fifty miles from Fourteenth street at Union Square. It is this circle which will make New York the greatest cosmopolitan city in the world’s history. and will give it the. population of an empire. The city's expansion is inevitable. It cannot lie stopped. Hot, if it is wisely guided. Mr Hoover estimates the cost of living can he reduced 10 to lo per cent. Besides the financial saving, the gain in health and comfort will he incalculable. At present, a mile of streets along, New York's congested Fast Hide houses two million squalid people, while only six miles away, across the Hudson River, there are 02 miles of wilderness, waiting to bo added to the city. This wilderness is in the Stale of Now Jersey, and in another direction New York City’s natural growth will carry the municipality into the Stale of Connecticut. Hut Congressional action and action by the individual States arc confidently expected to overcome these difficulties of administration. New York originally was planned without any thought of its possibilities of growth. The city was located on Manhattan Island, a long, narrow stretch of land which has compelled the inhabitants to expand into the air by means' of skyscrapers, and beneath the surface with sub-cellar below sub-collar. The traffic congestion in New York is appalling. Imagine mile after mile of confusion such as exists in London only at the Hank and you will have a fair idea of what life in New York is like. Two to eight persons are killed daily in New York by motor-care. The mad and illogical growth of the city promises to end in in icon troll able chaos unless the problem of expansion is solved along proper lines. If the Russell Sage Foundation has its way. Now York eventually will become a garden city. Bridges crossing the Hudson River and the East Fiver will unite the surrounding territories like a mammoth Venice. New roads will he built in the suburbs, diverting traffic from Manhattan Island. Now business centres will he established at the present outskirts, relieving the pressure on New York’s underground transit linos. Great parks will he built and residences will have open spaces for garden- between them. The gateway to the new world will become a fitting entrance to next century’s: republic. AVlial is the most beautiful spot in Great Britain? A preponderance of opinion seems to he in favor of Scottish scenes. Royal Dccside is the most favored district, although the Galloway counties, Bute, and Loch Lomond neighborhood have nearly as many supporters. In England the Lake District, then Cornwall and Devon, conic in for a great, deal of admiration. About Wales opinion seems to have divided abrnotly into two classes, one which considers the far northern districts the most beautiful and one which praises the grandeur of Merionethshire's mountains and—travelling south of the Mawddaeh Estuary—the Cader Idris environment. A Crimean veteran, Mr Charles Emery, Bridgwater (Eng.), who is 90, claims to hold a record among greatgrandfathers. One of his ten children writes “We—the 10 brothers and sisters —are all living. Eight are married and have children, and six arc grandparents. So my father is a greatgrandfather six times over.”