BETTER TOWNS BY SANE PLANNING

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 77, 1 April 1914, Page 8

BETTER TOWNS BY SANE PLANNING

A WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT, NEW ZEALAND'S TURN. In a few months, by the generous nid of the English Garden Cities and Town- i Planning Association, people of Now Zealand will have the advice of an eminent expert, Mr. W. R, Davidge, to J assist them in plans for the mapping out of new urban and suburban settlement) and for the extensions of towns. , Mr. Charles Reade, a New Zealandev who has made a special study of this import' ant subject, will accompany Mr. Davidge in the Australasian tour. In a preliminary article Mi 1 . Reade gives some interesting facts, the results of his observations in Britain and on the Continent. CHAOS, Broadly speaking (Mr. Reade writes) there is a distinct similarity between the civic and social problems of old and new countries. In the old countries of the- world the effects of overciowdinjr, slums, poverty, and other social ills are easier to see and understand by reason of their extraordinary intensity. The sharply-drawn _ lines between pauperism and affluence in the great cities of the world arc- unmistakable. The tangle of factories, schools, and thousands of homes heaped and huddled together in -Greater London, in Greater Manchester) and Greater Glasgow are common enough. _ What strikes home to the colonial imagination is the fact that in all the towns of Great Britain there is the same overpowering disorder, the same chaos of buildings, traffic, docks, railways, factories, houses, and of human beings huddled and squeezed together in a congestion both amazing and distressing to the visitor from the Pacific. The effect of this is intensified by the disjointed, irregular plans on which streets and cities in recent years have grown, and, secondly, by the modern and startling changes in new forms of transit— electric cars, _ motors, motor'buses and cabs, electric trains, etc. The mass of this overcrowding and these panting activities have come upon British and European centres during the last few decades^ when there was no systematic planning of towns. It is fallacious to assume that slums are essentially the product of long periods of human activities. They are for the greater part the- product of the last fifty years. For instance, some of the worst slums in parts of Manchester sixty years ago were the suburban homes of well'todo merchants. They have been engulfed in the spread of bricks and mortar, and fallen to the lot of less fortunate people. Districts like Kennington and Southwark or Euston in London are poignant examples of good residential districts that in less than fifty years have been transformed into abominable slums. „ CORMORANT CITIES. The comparatively modern growth of Slumdom, and overcrowding generally, is still more shai'ply illustrated by the development of Gernian and Continental cities. In cities like Paris, Frankfurt, Cologne, Leipsig, Milan, and many others the worst housing conditions are to be found on land that forty years ago was open country. In Cologne, for instance, the greatest density of persons per acre exists not in the old medieval city but on land that was planned and developed thirty-five years ago. Berlin is perhaps the most striking ex« ample of all. In parts of Berlin land that is now crowded with four and fivestory buildings (and people at the l-ate of 800 to 1000 per acre] forty years ago was small farms held by peasant folk. In other words, all this means is that the intensity of these problems has come upon European cities in less than the liietime of cities like Melbourne and Sydney or Auckland and Christchurch. There has been ample evidence of the existence of bad housing conditions and overcrowding in parts of Sydney and Melbourne before recent commissions. New Zealand has also liad its share of revelations in recent years. t The nature of the evidence shows that similar causes and influences which produced the holocaust of British and Continental slums have been and are at work to-day in our " new-born " cities— cities which for the_ greater part in their evolution and their socinal, industrial, and municipal problems arc just as old as pioneers of progress like Paris, Glasgow, and, latterly, the great German towns. A WARNING TO NEW COUNTRIES. The point now is that if the example of Europe has been ignored in the past there is no question that Australia- and New Zealand in the future cannot afford to neglect, the lesson* that their appalling realities teach. In recent years conditions have so changed that the problem of city life in Australasia has become more acute. The problems of_ overcrowded areas in the centre of cities and the unregulated growth of suburbs must be met. That is precisely the point where the town-planning lectures will be of real service. The success of the British and German garden city movement, as far as it has gone, is beyond question. The example and teaching of German city planning in particular is beyond question. These two things in themselves justify the- proposal to utilise Mr. Davidge's services in Australasia in order that _ the message of modern town planning may be given in as lucid and an explicit form as possible. One of the first things to be done is to shape out the future city extensions alons; lines that will as far as possible avoid these social and economic disasters, not to mention those that have been perpetrated already in parts of Melbourne and Sydney. NEED OF STUDY. The object of these town-planning lectures is not to suggest copying the example of England or Germany, but more to adopt the practice of modern townplanning to the distinct conditions of Aithtralasia. It is clear that the English Town Planning Act in its present form, together with the unwieldy procedure regulations prescribed by the Local Government Board would be dangerous to copy. To some extent, towns of Australasia will havo to create and evolve their own machineiy, but before this can be done a cardinal essential is that the authorities should be fully cognisant of the innumerable lessons which are to bo learned in modern England and modern Europe to-day, and, what is still more important, the mistakes of modern town-planning. The dangers of haphazard _ growth and overcrowding, or of ill-considered town-planning, in our cities will not be wholly realised until they are- brought before the public in a way thai no superficial conception or lack of insight will bo able to refute. Mr. Davidge's lectures should furnish this realisation, although it is always pos,'uble that more will be learned by hard, bitter experience than by actual teaching. I .am sanguine enough to believe (concludes Mr. Reade) that these townplanning lectures later in the year will command very much interest and sympathy from all people who value the welfare and believe in the civic efficiency and future of their cities. They will also make clear many points of vital importance in framing legislation to suit the needs of Australasia. ~''~ r