The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1919. TOWN PLANNING MISTAKES.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 May 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1919. TOWN PLANNING MISTAKES.

(With wttich ia meorpnrat«d The Tai--x hape Port and WalEwwiao News).

It is scarcely understandable why there should not be architectural design in the construction of the .towns we live

in .as well as in the erection of the houses we live in. One seems equally as esesntial as the other, but whether all those who are interesting .themselves in the great town-planning 1 movement arc influenced by what is I the first requisite of the housing problem is indeed doubtful. The housing question in relation .to that of townplanning seems to be a mere side issue with many town-planning enthusiasts. Their first idea is to have houses, streets, trees, grassplots and gardens, laid out in geometric design so as to gratify their keen sense of order; to build towns ami houses that will attract people from where they are most urgently needed, rathe r than devise means for getting them back on to the land where the gold to run the whole community business comes from. There is a- commendable desire for pretty /towns and villages, but tins country has not money to spare that warrants anything being done beyond providing houseless people with homes; humane considerations must take precedence of everything in the way of town-planning for some considerable time to come. There is ample evidence ii: this district, and similar evidence obtains almost throughout; the whole Dominion, that the housing problem is largely the result of the land aggregation policy of the Massey Government. We have in mind haw bitterly Mr Massey fought the charge of land aggregation brought by a candidate for Parliament at the last general election, but the old findr-r----out —Time—has proved how ignorant or incapable Mr Massey was, for now may bo seen the empty houses and closed up schools which were, only a. few years ago, the haunts of happy prosperous people and their families. Perhaps our city 1 own-planners have not made themselves acquainted with every phase of the bousing problem, particularly in the way it is forced upon country residents. Let us make what may be a startling statement to some town-planning enthusiasts, in saying that it is doubtful indeed whether there is a shortage of houses in New Zealand. The houses used .to be where the people were; flier* are enough houses in this district to wipe out the housing difficulty if they wore only where the people are. If when huge tracts of country are being aggregated, the migrating people could, snail-like, carry their houses with them on their backs instead of leaving them behind to rot, the town to whence they drift would experience little difficulty. The real cause of house shortage in towns may be seen in the fast rotting untenanted houses and deserted schools in the producing areas the people are rapidly and disastrously being squeezed out of. There is a great Town Planning Conference being held in Wellington, at which every aspect of the housing shortage was mentioned e>eept that which is chief of ail causes, the stream of people that is running from the land .to the towns All that Conference seems capable of

seeing is the houseless people in towns,, they appear to know nothing about the peopless houses in the. country. The Hon. G. W. Russell alluded to the appalling growth of city population; he estimates that 60 per cent of the population of the Dominion are in towns and cities. We wonder how the business of half-a-dozen men would prosper if three-fifths of them did nothing hut make shoes and clothes, and handle the money the otherg earned. That is what the situation really amounts to; two fifths of the people are p.roduicng the money in the comitry while the other threefifths are kept busy in towns and cities spending it. We know there arc many people who will not. realise this, but let them think it out and then say whether a country’s business can be prosperous that is conducted on such lines. Never before was there a proportion of 40 producers to 60 townsmen in this young country. What lunacy has been in operation to produc® such results which cannot but end in disaster? Wo want the Hon. Mr Russell to dig down deeply into the dangerous drift of the people he has pointed out, for. then we know he will strike the tcnantless decaying houses and the deserted schools in the areas from which the people have- been driven to find shelter in towns. He will find that evidence that will open up a new vista of town planning to him. The Minister refers to men who sell their farms and suburban lands for town extensions as wily speculators; surely Mr. Russell will nm contend that the small man who acts in the spirit as well as in the text of the law has not equal right to whatever the Government has evolved for his guidance. We see Ministers, as well as ordinary settlers, acctimulating huge areas of land, and we should doubt tbeir sanity if they did not take and enjoy every privilege the law' has provided for them. What we do say is that whether it be by selfish design or utter incapacity, the land policy of the Government under Mr. Massey can only end in disaster to the country. The first essential move of the Town Planning enthusiasts should be to ascertain where the houses a.re, as well as where the people arc. Wc are unshakably convinced that there are sufficient houses to relieve the housing tension; we are equally convincpcLthat thft houses are in the right place, and people in the wrong place, and no great relief will be possible, that is based on economic grounds, until this is realised, and an order to right-about-face is given. We would slightly .re-arrange the Hon. Mr. Russell’s diction and say revolutions and anarchy are_.not bred amo7ig people on the land, who daily wake to see a beautiful, bountiful nature operating to fill their barns and swell their banking accounts; but their spawn does find fertile soil on Hie.se same men when driven into city slums and town pits of infamy. No re-arrange-ment of transit systems will, or can. materially affect the housing problem; nothing will fill the < bill but the slaughter of the Massey land policy, which is degrading the nation, and the adoption in its place of a policy that will coax the deported families back to their homos on the land.