Notes

Progress, Volume XII, Issue 5, 1 January 1917, Page 855

Notes

‘ L ’Humanite, ’ the well-known French newspaper, -contains, in a recent issue, a long article on the reconstruction of the destroyed French cities, and what is possible to be done. The burden of the ■article is a strong plea for the adoption of the whole -of the garden city principle in the national rebuilding which will take place after the war, not only as regards the lay-out plan or the town-planning portion, but also in regard to the financial policy. At the end of the article, after reproducing and emphasizing the arguments for garden cities, the author says : ‘ ‘ The reconstructed cities must no longer be a wretched mass of dirty dwellings, sad and insanitary, and of houses of ill-fame, but of a varied succession of garden cities of from 30,000 to 35,000 inhabitants, each one clean, happy, healthy, at the same time agricultural and industrial and almost ■autonomous, respecting the liberty of the individual ■and assuring to him at the lowest price the maximum •of comfort. To that end every town, even the industrial towns, must be surrounded for ever by a belt ■of agriculture and park land. In that way the central portion of the area will form the town proper, while the rural part, which must be the greater, will provide farms and small holdings, which will allow the cultivators of the soil to have at hand all the facilities for their calling.”