THE TOWN PLANNING BOOM.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 138, 17 July 1914, Page 9

THE TOWN PLANNING BOOM.

FREE PUBLIC LECTURES. The forthcoming visit of Mr W. R. Davidge, F. 5.1., and Mr Charles C. Reade, the eminent British authorities on town planning, to Christehureh is causing considerable interest. They are to deliver here free public lantern lectures, which will give in as graphic and lucid a manner as'possible a bird's-eye view of this very interesting topic. "It is quite a mistake," says an authority on the subject, "to imagine that charity or other similar sentiments play any part in garden city management. The essence of the movement consists in helping a man to help himself, helping his children by healthy environment, social opportunity, and technical training, to get as quickly us possible on to the high - road of good citizenship." Messrs Davidge and Reade will be able to illustrate this by some striking examples from the garden cities of England and Germany. The example of Germany and France will be shown by a magnificent series of slides and diagrams revealing the rapid civil progress made by the towns of these countries under properly organised planning methods. Curiously enough, in Germany, for instance, it is the smaller towns like Ulm, Karlsruhe, and Mannheim which are among the more progressive. Mr Reade will be able to prove that town planning depends not upon vast numbers of people or large municipal revenues. It is a matter of methods, economy, and skill on the part of those in authority. Town planning seeks to create a more orderly and scientific growth of towns instead of permitting haphazard development under a series of laws and by-laws which are more or less defective. The first of the series of three lectures will be given in the Canterbury College Hall on Monday evening, July 20, when the subject will be " Town Planning for New Zealand." His Worship the Mayor will preside.