GIANT CITY SCHEME

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1929, Page 9

GIANT CITY SCHEME

PLAN INVOLVES £600,000,000. NEW YORK HOUSING AND RO ADIN G A grandiose scheme, the execution of which will cost approximately £600,000,000, has been prepared to enable •20,000,000 people to live comfortably and travel quickly and freely in and about Greater New York of the future. The preparation of the scheme has itself involved an expenditure of £200,000 by the Russell Sage Foundation, which was incorporated in 1007 by the late Mrs. Russell Sage, the famous philanthropist, for the “improvement of the social and living conditions of the United States.” The scheme, or “regional plan,” as it is called, is the fruit- of seven years of study and investigation by 150 eminent engineers, architects, economists and city planners. It is now embodied in two bulky volumes and a vast collection of charts and maps. Its outlines were explained and its general principles accepted at a great meeting attended by the Governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and by representatives of 22 counties and 438 towns and villages within the borders of those States. The experts responsible for tlie scheme calculate that Greater New Y’ork will have 20,000.000 inhabitants by 1965. Their proposal is that all improvements in the numerous communities which it embraces shall be designed and carried out in consonance with a general plan. Greater New York of the future, as planned by them, covers an area of 5528 square miles. \ Altogether 500 separate proposals are put forward, embracing a new highway system, a scientifically laid-ont railway plan, new bridges, and tunnels across the Hudson, Harlem and East Rivers, an elaborate series of parks, and for 46 airports to take care of future airplane transportation.