Town Beautiful

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 47, 18 May 1927, Page 12

Town Beautiful

PARAGRAPHS FROM ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSOR’S ADDRESS. J “PLAN ON BUSINESS LINES” “The most difficult city to plan is the one in which apathy exists.”—Professor C. R. Knight at the W.E.A. last evening. “We must combine with our civic sense of a need of spaciousness, an appreciation of good architecture. * * * “Those horrible growths, the backyards of cities, should be done away with. Even in Auckland there are streets and areas which should not be here.

“Some industries in many towns might be done without altogether. Others would thrive more if they were given their own part of the town.

“The tourist in New York sees Ffth Avenue, Central Park, Broadway and its lights. The student of civics plunges eastward to find the workers living like ants in heaps, the sub-way rushes, the hideous houses, where beauty and nature are non-existent.

“Town-planning, as an ideal, aims at the eradication of all unpleasant things, of inefficiency and wasted effort. It tries to build a healthy and beautiful city. Town-planning legislation is the most democratic of all legislation.

“Before the invention of cannon, cities sprang up because they were military posts or because of commercial reasons. Since defence has become a subject for nations commerce has been the deciding factor. The great towns of New Zealand are at the cross-roads of the country.

“Most colonial cities, unlike older ones, have been planned. The rectangular or grid-iron plan was the most common, and Christchurch and Melbourne are examples of it. It is one with a great many faults, and though it is suitable to level ground, it cannot be reconciled to places like Wellington, Auckland Sydney. “Auckland was planned with a centre in Albert Park and with Victoria Street as the main thoroughfare, but the city could not have the front street running up and down a valley. I must pay tribute to the earlier planners, however, for the chaos of our troubles at the present time would have been multiplied if the plans had not been prepared. .* * * “The problem of town-planning may be solved simply by the application of business methods to city development. Under the legislation of the past it % has been impossible to control the growth of the city on business lines.

“To run on business lines there must be one central organisation with power of veto over the area. Townplanning is useless without one great authority to hammer the scheme. The central organisation must act as a kind of Upper House to decide matters of policy and development. * * * “There are four broad headings to be considered: 1. —Transportation. 2. —Zoning. 3. —Housing. 4. —Open spaces. * * * “There is no economic solution to the housing problem in this country until areas are planned definitely as housing schemes. The scheme at Bower Hutt, though subject to minor criticism, gives homes at a cost of 25s a week, and the Government is said to be making a profit on the investment. * * * “Our city is seething with information of what we may do to-morrow. It will pay us to get busy and study. We may find out how big the city is going to grow, the factors of development and the existing faults. * * * “The city of Adelaide was set out on an admirable plan. But now we find a delightful centre surrounded by the suburbs of an ordinary colonial centre. Planning is the first labour only; constant vigilance is necessary.”