Dc Cities Stop Growing.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13596, 16 May 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

Dc Cities Stop Growing.

(ttv "Tohunga" ia "N.Z. Herald. 1 ' When do cities stop growing? When will Auckland stop? Wellington? Christchurch? Dunedin? When will London stop? Or New York? Or Paris? Or Berlin? And what may not be the size of the Pekins and Cantons and' Calcuttas, if ever the city conditions of the East parallel those of the Wetsb For obviously there must be some law governing the size of cities, as there have been Jaws governing the size of planets and the size of animals and the size of trees. As obviously wc live in the beginning of the Age of Great Cities, for within the past, generation a. score of civilised cities have attained a size incredible, even to our grandfathers, and impossible but for modem conditions.

Take Anckland! The population of the' province is approximately 230,000, of whom more than a third—over 85,0CK) — live in Greater Anckland. It is comon knowledge that the proportion of citydwellers, as compared with the countrydwellers, is steadily rising, and the probability is that when Anckland Province' contains a million people at least half of them will live on or about the WaitemataManukau Isthmus, will be massed in a huge city, more or less defined by a line drawn from beyond Takapuna on the northern coast to Henderson, Blockhouse Bay, Otahuhu, back to the eastern coast at "Howick. The only interference with this growth of Greater Anckland which can be foreseen, if civilisation continues, i.s that other great industrial centres may arise to share its trade, and thus to retard its expansion. Some such city may of course, appear at Whangarci in the North, or at Kawhia in the south, at Opotiki in the east, or even at Hamilton in the middle lands. But it is extremely improbable that any provincial city will ever be more than "tributary to Auckland itself. It has the position and the start. It mav not be among the leading ernes of the" world, but it will in all human probability remain the leading city of New Zealand.

Now, what makes this stupendous tendency, which, whether we like it or dislike "it, has to be accepted as among the hard facts of modem civilisation? As we do accept it. Xobody is astonished to-day at the suggestion, that before tho close of the century, half a million people may live in a place which grew fern and tea-uee when " Doctor" Campbell saw it first from what we call Moun« flobson. But what would have been thought of the man who suggested 30 or 40 years ago that Auckland would soon have a population of one hundred thousand? Very naturally he would have been regarded as an idle- "dreamer, for under old-time conditions city growth was limited by all number of restrictions, which have now ceased to operate. The modern city is the product of 6team and electricity, of specialised industries, and of applied science. Tho majority of civilised men are gathering of set purpose into the great citks of the world, because of certain advantages possessed by the cities—that goes without saying. We may call it " drafting " into the cities, if we like. But the cities grow all over the world, just exactly as Auckland is growing under our eyes, and for reasons plainly to be seen. Spencer tells us somewhere that the conditions directly limiting the growth of species are the necessity for food and the muscular exertion required to secure food. A tree grows to immense size, because it may find abundant food without moving. A tiger is not as large as an elephant because of the disadvantage of enormous weight in springing upon the fleet-footed food of the camivora. The whale > immense because it moves easily in the ocean, and finds" food in abundance. And birds are all comparatively small in the body because of the greatly increased muscular power required to lift every additional pound weight in the air. Similarlv. we may postulate, cities may growas long as their food supply is unrestricteff, and so long as their inhabitants can move freely between their dwellings, and the location of the industries whoso centralisation and specialisation gives the greater industrial and commercial centre its irresistible economic advantage over the smaller centre. The development of modem trade, with its vast steamship lines, huge railway systems, telegraphic understanding between all markets, storage systems, and manifold appliances, has solved the food supply of cities, if thev have the, wherewithal to buv it. London pays little, if any, more for its bread, its butter, its meat, and its wool, than does Auckland. And so with all the civilised world. Only those who have nothing to buy food with starve in civilisation; whereas under barbaric conditions the difference between the cost of food in the cities, as compared to the cost in the smaller towns and cyountry districts, perpetually broke down the economic advantage of centralisation. As far as the food supply gots all the modern cities might be merged into one without particularlv affecting it. As a matter of fact it would be easier and cheaper to | feed a London of twenty million people than to feed the same number now distributed among the score and a half of large British cities.

So much for food! As for transit: The suburban railway and the electric tram are making it as easy to live ten miles from shop or workshop, or office as it was once to live over one's work. Even in Auckland it is as convenient to live in Itemnera or Epsom to-day as it was in Symonds.street a few years ago. And when the Government awakens lo the true cause of overcrowding -the need of people t.» have fast, constant, ami cheap access to the outer .suburbs—we shall find that the railway, for mileage distance, is a very successful rival even to the popular tram. There is quite no reason in these modern

days, jib tho great cities of the world are Uncling out, why hundreds of thousands cannot be carried in and out of town, daily, not only in comfort and safety, but swiftly and cheaply. This enables trade, commerce, industry, business of every description, to be developed upon a scale impossible otherwise. Business can be organised and expanded as it could never bo when the tradesman had to live over tho shop, or within walking distance—■ when the greater pa it of the inner city was required for dwelling purposes, and when the congestion of cities led to such abject conditions that the country-town mechanic and artisan looked with horror upon city life. A city of .half a million may now be as wholesome and as pleasant to live in —provided it is properly designed and administered —as once was only possible to a small country town. The man who works in a mill with a thousand fellowworkmen; the girl who sells ribbons in a modern emporium; the craftsman who builds ships, and the craftsman who rears city warehouses (with the thousand and one others, of different and specialised city callings), may each and all breakfast and dine a dozen miles away, stroll at evening in fair suburban parks, and wake to know, through open windows, the perfume of geraniums and roses. Tho limit of the size of the City, is, therefore, nothing but the limit of the food and material producing power of the Country—taking the world as a whole. In any given city, the limii of its growth is set* by its power of out-competing other cities, in the trading and manufacturing from which it obtains the wherewithal to buy its food and its raw materials. All trade and all manufacturing tend to contrlise on the most convenient spot—the carriage and transit difficulties being so far settled that a city may extend over hundreds of square miles and may supply by rail the general requirements of great provinces and by water the specil requirements /to the entire Earth. It is more than -possible that within the century here may be fifty civilised- cities containing from one to twenty million inhabitants apiece, and with the rest of the population of civilised states living in the country or small country towns. But what sort of cities will these be ? And what will the Country be like as the City thus absorbe the great bulk of civilised men and women.