The Daily News. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29. TOWN PLANNING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 197, 29 November 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29. TOWN PLANNING.

"There is," said the famous Pasteur a few years ago, "under modern conditions, ] as good a chance of long, healthy and useful life for the child born in the city as in the country, Aggregations of people have made it necessary for the authorities to devise the best possible means for safeguarding the health of the community, and it therefore happens that the death-rate in most modern cities is frequently lower than the death-rate in smaller and more remote communities, where sanitary science is behindhand and hygiene not understood." The great cities of the world are to-day infinitely more healthy and beautiful than they were when they contained but a proportion of their present population, and in regard to the more modern cities—we may instance Melbourne and the newer American cities —they have been able to avoid the mistakes that the ancients made. Architecturally there seems to be no doubt that mere utilitarianism has largely succeeded the grandeur that distinguished the buildings of remote times, and, apparently, even in these days of clever engineering, the feats of the ancients could not be copied. Lately in England a great Town-planning Congress was held under the auspices of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and at it there were twelve hundred delegates from all over the world, excepting the British dominions beyond the seas. The Townplanning Congress was by way of stirring up local bodies and authorities to the value of perfectly-planned towns, for all modern bodies recognise the vast importance of making towns as beautiful and convenient as possible. The most eminent authorities in the old countries attended this Congress, and the prevailing assertion was that "garden cities" were not more expensive to build than slums. In England, when the town-planning idea has been accepted with enthusiasm, work will not proceed on grandiose lines. Mr. John Burns' Town-planning Act is an Act for the ordered development of districts that are at present undeveloped, and big improvements in cities and towns will be carried on much in the same way as hitherto, except that greater control will be exercised for the benefit of the public. Continental nations have been "townplanning" for many years and have made many mistakes. It is because of this that eminent German and French authorities attended the English Congress so that Britain might avoid the mistakes made by others. As there has not yet been in New Zealand any serious attempt made to plan towns on the best possible lines, it is well worth the while of public bodies • to study the question that is interesting all countries, including the Australian Commonwealth. One of the most useful features of the late Congress was that delegates exhibited models and plans of towns, which, of course, would be of great assistance to members of the local bodies represented. Germany is to the fore in this matter, and at the Town-planning Exhibition in Berlin last year 65,000 people attended. German town authorities, mainly owing to the initiative and statesmanship of the Burgomaster of Ulm.have adopted a policy of steady accumulation of land, and this gives the municipalities the necessary chance for rearrangement. The benefits of municipal acquisition are patent, for the greatest evil of city lifeovercrowding, as the result of private greed—is eliminated. Sweden and other Scandinavian countries had town-plan-ning laws even before Germany, and in all these countries which sent models to the English Congress, the benefits have been enormous, the gains, of course, being in the better health of the communities, their personal enjoyment, and, in some cases, their joint ownership. We have already mentioned that in New Zealand the system of town-planning is higgledypiggledy. It is remarkable that in a country with millions of acres of unused country city sections should be shockingly overcrowded with badly-built houses and that the land should be valued as highly as if it were in the heart of Manchester, Paris, Berlin or St. Petersburg. If New Zealand is advanced enough at any future time to place a Town-planning Act on its Statute Books, its strongest aim should be to make it impossible to overcrowd town areas. According to the location and size of a city or a town and their suburbs, such an Act should definitely define the minimum area of land on which a dwelling should be built. Open spaces—which are the "lungs" of a town —are as important to business as huge warehouses and splendid shops, for the business vigor of a people is affected by their ability to obtain fresh air and recreation. It is remarkable that private enterprise—the enterprise of millionaire business men—has done more for the beautification of English towns than the enterprise of municipalities. Therefore when the foreign delegates went to England, they were necessarily shown Bournville and Port Sunlight, garden towns built for the employees of Messrs Cadbury and Lever respectively. Australia is showing examples of town improvements, and the man who has not visited Sydney for some years would find that acres of more or less picturesque rookeries have been wiped out of existence. All over the world a determined onslaught is being made on insanitary dwellings, slums, dry-rot, wet-rot and sunlessness, and it is everywhere necessary, because of the deplorable inclination of folk to flock to centres of population. In New Zealand the marked feature of small towns is their architectural ugliness and that the buildings are in no sense permanent. This is merely an indication of the youth of the country, and that people have not yet had time to plan towns consonant with the beauties of our country. There is at present little being done to prevent the overcrowding of city areas, and, no doubt, the success of oversea town-planning may yet spur colonial authorities to make very necessary laws on the subject. '■-> '