TOWN PLANNING

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 21, 27 October 1919, Page 4

TOWN PLANNING

There was a fair attendance at the town-planning lecture on Saturday night by Mr. A. Leigh Hunt, president of the Greater Wellington Town-planning Association, lie pointed out that town planning stood for something more than liho forming of boulevards and the pulling down of slums. Town planning provided for the convenience of future generations, as well as for greater economy and efficiency in present-day life. Towns in New Zealand had been allowed to grow in a haphazard manner, with tho result that o.uito unnecessary overcrowding had come about. When speaking of town planning to a farmer, Mr. Hunt mentioned that in one part of Wellington there wero twenty-nine houses to an acre. The farmer, oxnrcssin<r tho greatest surprise, declared that he did not know how so many people not on. but ho know what would happen if ihe tried to make twenty-nine beasts live on. one acre of laud! The lecturer iwid n tribute to Urn business men of London who, early in tho last century, wt nside 1000 acres as a. (own belt for Wellington. Such remark, able foresight was hardly paralleled in tho history of the Dominion. He stress, ed tho necessity for reserving areas for pnrks ond playgrounds, and said ,'tlmt Ottawa had provided open spaces sufficient for three times its population. A large number of slides, illustrating various garden cities, slums of Wellington, hud general views bearing on town planning, were shown at the end of the lecture. Mr. C. Ti. C. Robiesnn. of the Workers' Educational Association, was chairman.