SLUMS AND TOWN-PLANNING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14729, 11 July 1911, Page 9

SLUMS AND TOWN-PLANNING.

Town-planning is exciting great interest in London, and a point is being made which is worth considering even in London. " Town-planning is all to tho good : on one condition," says one critic. "The suburbs must be properly organised, planned, and laid out systematically with suitable regard to health, recreation, open spaces, and constructional amenities. Otherwise wo may be clearing tho cities only to reproduce their disadvantages outside. This indeed has happened. Local authorities cleared away some of the worst slums of Central London, and the inhabitants hived by into almost- equally deplorable nests of mean streets thoughtfully provided for, them by the housepoacher and the jerry-builder just beyond the boundary line. On the other hand, we have the quite recent evolution of the Garden Suburb, which is dealing with the population in the right way.' "The 1911 census figures contain some surprises and a moral," says another. " The moral is that the Town-Planning Bill was not passed an hour before it was needed, and that co-ordination of local authorities is vital in regard to problems of the future. In some of the poorer suburbs a new congeries of slums is growing up on once pleasant meadows, and a local government bossed by publicans , and jerrybuilders does nothing to organise and coordinate its public facilities. If this outward impetus goes on we shall find the L.C.C. electric trams largely used by those who live outside the county and. contribute ouijJjiofi; to its r^tes*"