TOWN PLANNING FOR AUSTRALIA.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1861, 22 September 1913, Page 8

TOWN PLANNING FOR AUSTRALIA.

AN INTERESTING REVIEW,

Mr. Charles O/Reado, well known in London for Tiis work in connection with tho Hampstoad Garden Suburb, and organiser of the Australasian 'Town Planning Tour of 1914, recently read before the International Housing Congress l at Ghent, a paper on "Town Planning and Site Tax in. Australasia." After interesting survey of the chief cities of Australia and New Zealand in respect of their original design and their subsequent growth, Mr. Reade commented on tho lack of control there evident, and the need for more comprehensive machinery and wider conceptions of municipal life. Tho effect of the tax on unimproved values was admitted to bo that of undoubted speeding-up of development, but Mr. Reade pointed out • that development controlled only by a' 66-feet roadway requirement and building regulations of an elementary sort, resulted in land exploitation and speculative building, with their inevitable corollary of congestion, high rents, and all the difficulties of a housing problem, to say nothing of slums and other social evils. Moreover, tho town-planning ideal has other things in view than rapid expansion, in that it works for material progress plus "a definite advanco in the homes, the social opportunities, tho health, and tho moral and intellectual standards of tho people. That ideal will no doubt be put before Australians in more concrete shape when the town-planning tour proposed for next year is in being. At present it is progressing favourably towards realisation. Tho Committeo attached to it contains many energetic workers in the cause of modern city developmont, and they will use every effort to bring their civic ideals to the notice of Australian authorities. There can bo no doubt that a tour of this kind, with illustrated lectures, will do more than anything else could do to demonstrate to you the benefits of a wise orderliness in city and suburban design.