CHAPTER II

CITY PLANNING IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES: COMMERCE A LEADING MOTIVE IN CITY BUILDING: BABYLON, EGYPT, ATHENS, AND ROME: MEDIÆVAL CITIES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARIS: CITY PLANNING IN GERMANY: OVERCOMING CONGESTION IN LONDON: WASHINGTON A CITY BUILT ON A PLAN: OTHER AMERICAN CITIES

From earliest times, two motives have governed the location of cities: either the site was selected because it offered natural means of defense, or else commerce gathered men at a particular point, about which they built fortifications. In either case, the necessity of protection against enemies from without conditioned the form and arrangement of the city. Even in this western hemisphere the question of defense has been of moment. Louisburg and Quebec; Boston, New York, and Yorktown; Mackinac and New Orleans; Charleston, Mobile, Vicksburg, and New Orleans again,—are names which recall sieges and battles of three wars; while the walled towns of Europe find their counterparts in the palisaded settlements which sprang up in the Indian country of North America, Chicago itself being a typical example. It is only within recent times that the city has been able to extend its borders free from the restraints imposed by the necessity of warding off a foe.

[Illustration: X. THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS.

From a water-color by E. H. Bennett.]

The first city-builder whose exploits are recorded was Semiramis, queen of Babylon; and although the history of that country, as recorded on its monuments, fails to mention even the name of this war-like ruler, we may not disregard the circumstantial accounts given by classical writers of the greatest commercial city of ancient times. Diodorus tells us that Semiramis, being of an aspiring spirit and anxious to excel all her predecessors in glorious actions, set about building a great city in the province of Babylon. First she had complete plans prepared by her architects and artists, then she assembled from all parts of her empire the men necessary for the work of construction. For the promotion of commerce, she located the city on the banks of the river Euphrates; and round about it she built a wall, very high, fortified with many turrets, and so broad at the top that thereon chariots might be driven abreast. Across the river she threw a bridge five furlongs in length, with arches having a span of twelve feet. Along either shore of the river she raised a bank as broad as the wall; and temporarily turning aside the course of the stream, she made in the bed of the river a passage in the form of a tunnel to serve as a connection between her two palaces, which were also lookouts whence she could command every portion of the city. Other cities on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates Semiramis built, and there she established traffic centers for the vending of merchandise brought from Media, Persia, India, Egypt, and other countries reached by the two great rivers, which in those ancient times vied with the Nile and the Ganges. So by her able policy she greatly enriched the merchants who trafficked in those parts, and advanced the glory and majesty of Babylon.

[Illustration: XI. THE GREEK THEATRE AT SYRACUSE, SICILY.

From a water-color by E. H. Bennett.]

The ancient Egyptians, hemmed in by deserts, relied less on walls than on the defenses provided by nature. Thus relieved from the necessity of building fortifications, they expended their energies in such monumental works as the Great Pyramids and temples that embody a civilization which for at least nine thousand years has been the wonder and the admiration of the world.

[Illustration: XII. PLAN SHOWING NERO’S CIRCUS AT ROME (FIRST CENTURY), BASILICA OF ST. PETER (FOURTH CENTURY), AND THE PRESENT CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER (SIXTEENTH CENTURY).

These structures were built at successive epochs, on the same site.]

Means of defense having been provided, the desire of mankind for order and magnificence found expression in works of adornment, which were measured only by the love of the citizens for their city, the artistic sense developed among the people, and the means at their disposal for carrying out their conceptions. Nowhere else have these conditions been combined as they were in Athens during the days of Pericles. Year by year the patient excavator is bringing to the light the massive walls by which the early Athenians protected their citadel against the invader; and when security had been obtained and the tribute of the allies had accumulated in the treasury, the Greek passion for beauty found expression in public buildings which through the ages have placed the Acropolis at Athens among the world’s famous places. Plutarch lays emphasis on the fact that undertakings, any one of which singly might have required for its completion several successions and ages of men, were every one of them accomplished in the height and prime of one man’s political service. “Pericles’ works,” this same writer asserts, “were especially admired because they were made quickly to last long. For every particular piece of his work was immediately, even at that time, for its beauty and elegance, antique; and yet in its vigor and freshness looks to this day as if it were just executed. There is a sort of bloom of newness upon those works of his, preserving them from the touch of time, as if they had some perennial spirit and undying vitality mingled in the composition of them.”

[Illustration: XIII. AN ANCIENT ROMAN CIRCUS, NEAR THE APPIAN WAY.

From an etching by Piranesi.]

As Athens represents the highest expression of civic beauty which mankind has witnessed, so Rome stands for power and the magnificence thereof. Mistress of the world she styled herself; and to-day she can still lay claim to her other proud title of the “Eternal City.” It is not until we come to Roman times that we begin to obtain the combination of elements which are the chief characteristics of the modern city; namely, opportunities for the healthful life of the great body of the citizens. “Parks, gardens, commons, and public squares,” says Lanciani, “have been happily compared to the lungs of a city; and if the health and general welfare of a city depend upon the normal and sound function of its respiratory organs, ancient Rome, in this respect, must be considered as the healthiest city which has ever existed on earth.”[2] This writer enumerates, as existing at the end of the third century after Christ, eight commons, or green spaces, set apart mostly for foot-races and gymnastic exercises; eighteen public squares, and about thirty parks and gardens, at first laid out by private citizens for their personal comfort, but afterwards absorbed into the imperial domain by purchase, bequest, or confiscation. Besides these were the cemeteries, marble cities of the dead, shadowed by stately cypresses and weeping-willows; the sacred enclosures of the temples, with their colonnades and fountains; the porticoes, expressly built for the sake of allowing citizens to move about pleasantly in hot or rainy weather; and lastly, the great baths, establishments provided with every possible comfort and accommodation to insure the health of the body and the education of the mind.

[Illustration: XIV. THE PONTE MOLLE, ROME.

From an etching by Piranesi.]

Out of the original market-place occupying the marshy ground between the Palatine and the Capitol, the Roman Forum was gradually evolved, with temples, treasure-houses, places for foreign ambassadors, the senate-house, the court-house, triumphal arches, and historic monuments. Here was indeed the civic center of Rome, the place of religion, business, and politics. Adjoining the Forum proper were other forums, gifts to the state, purchased at a cost, in the case of Cæsar’s Forum, of $44.45 a square foot, or over four million dollars. Trajan’s gift of land alone amounted to four times that sum, and the completed work was reckoned the masterpiece of Roman architecture of the golden age.

The baths of Rome, both public and private, had accommodations for 62,800 citizens at a single time, and also every Roman house was provided with bathing facilities. Beautiful porticoes enabled one to cross under shelter the whole plain of the Campus Martius, a space of between two and three miles; and similar structures connected all the great buildings of the city, serving for markets and exchanges and picture-galleries, and ministering to a thousand different wants. Lovely gardens, with thickets of box, laurel, and myrtle, with lakes and fountains, were enclosed by these porticoes, which were in themselves architectural creations of rare marbles, the floors often being inlaid with jasper and porphyry. The surrounding hills and the valleys between, once the dumping-place of the city’s refuse, were converted into magnificent gardens, forming stretches of verdure in length sometimes exceeding two miles in a single composition.

To-day, after centuries of destruction and decay, Rome is taking on new life. Her population is fast increasing; since 1870 scores of millions of dollars have been spent on works of public utility and general improvement; great thoroughfares have been created, the monuments of the past have been opened to the light and air, the pestilential conditions that during the centuries of her decadence hung over the city like a pall have been removed by wise sanitation; the great estates of noble families have been given over to the public; and again the compelling power of Rome is being felt throughout the civilized world.

During the slow centuries which followed upon the destruction and decay of ancient civilization, no great works of civic utility or adornment were undertaken, and the old were no longer maintained. As the consciousness of national life again began to assert itself in Europe, and the unifying forces of Christianity and Roman law began to bind humanity together, the cities of Italy, of Germany, of France, and of England grew strong and rich by industry and traffic; and throughout western Europe the sense of permanence and power found expression in the rearing and beautification of cities. Everywhere the same spirit actuated the people, although in each land the mode of expression took on characteristic form; and since the vital principle was religion, the cathedral became the embodiment of the highest expression in civic art.

No city in the world, says Charles Eliot Norton, appeals more strongly to the poetic imagination than Venice. Rising in the dawn of modern Europe, she linked the tradition of the old civilization to the fresh conditions of the new. The destiny that ruled her beginnings seemed, as she grew, to have had no element of chance, but to have been determined by foresight and wise counsel. Her statesmen were the ablest, her merchants the most adventurous and most successful, her seamen the boldest, her craftsmen the most skillful, of their time. The affection in which she was held by her people had the depth and intensity of a passion.[3] As it was with Venice, so in a scarcely less degree it fared with Florence and Siena, and other independent cities of Italy, which vied with one another not only in power, but much more in beauty and in the love borne them by their citizens. And to-day their charm makes them the resort of people of taste and refinement, long after their power has waned and only their beauty remains.

[Illustration: 1780.]

[Illustration: 1830.]

[Illustration: 1880.

XV. TRANSFORMATION OF THE BANKS OF THE SEINE IN PARIS.

Chronological views of the Petit Pont and Petit Chatelet, showing the evolution of the boulevards.]

City planning, in the sense of regarding the city as an organic whole and of developing its various units with reference to their relations one to another, had its origin in Paris during the Bourbon period. Among great cities, Paris has reached the highest stage of development; and the method of this attainment affords lessons for all other cities. Paris owes its origin and its growth to the convenience of its location in view of increasing commercial conditions. Its beginnings go back to the century before the Christian era, when it was but a straggling village called Lutetia, occupying one of the islands in the Seine. On the vast level plain adjoining the town, houses could be erected indefinitely, while the numerous watercourses extending into the surrounding regions gave easy access to the trader. Fertile lands furnished an abundance of provisions; and brick-clay, lime, and sand, with timber from the neighboring forests, provided materials for building. The surroundings of Paris, so rich in all the requisites for the creation of a great city, are similar to those of London and Berlin and Chicago; and in each instance there is the same breadth in the landscape.

The architects to whom Louis XIV. entrusted his planning went far beyond the compact walled city of their day. In the open fields which the growth of Paris must sooner or later transform into streets and avenues they drew the central axis of the city. Straight, vast in width, and without limit of length, this avenue passed entirely through open country, with scarcely a dozen buildings throughout its great extent. To the noted city-builders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Louis XIV., Colbert, Le Nôtre, Blondel, and the Academy of Architects,—Paris owes those vast reaches of avenue and boulevard which to-day are the crowning features of the most beautiful of cities. The Paris of their day was indeed a crowded, congested city; but the Paris which they conceived and laid out in the deserts and waste places was the widespreading, well-adorned, and convenient city in which to-day all the world takes delight. The Madeleine, the Place de la Concorde, the Invalides, and the great axial avenue from the garden of the Tuileries to the Place de l’Etoile,—all existed on paper decades before they were finally realized in the progress of city building. The point of interest to us is, that as Paris increased in population, the city grew according to a well-devised, symmetrical, highly developed plan; and that the greater portion of the beauty and convenience recognized to-day was attained at no money cost whatever. Artistic sense and foresight were the only price paid. It is unnecessary to do more than point out the fact that a similar opportunity is open to Chicago.

[Illustration: 1740]

[Illustration: 1841]

[Illustration: 1878.

XVI. CHRONOLOGICAL VIEWS OF THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE, PARIS.

The evolution of the castle and moat to its present form of plaza and boulevard is shown]

Old Paris remained, with its dirty, crowded, ill-smelling, narrow, winding streets, the hotbeds of vice and crime. Napoleon Bonaparte was quick to see that while the Paris of the future might indeed grow in attractiveness and convenience, the Paris of the present demanded his attention. Napoleon was disturbed over the condition of his capital. He realized that the city, then numbering some seven hundred thousand people, was destined to become the home of two, three, or even four millions; and he proposed to give it a splendor never before realized by any city in the world. He began to open the Rue de Rivoli, north of the Tuileries gardens; he created the Rue Napoleon (now the Rue de la Paix) in the axis of the Place Vendôme; from the mediæval bridges he swept the superstructures, adding three superb new crossings of the Seine; he built the first sidewalks in Paris, and lighted the streets at night; and he transformed the banks of the river by the construction of three thousand meters of new quays. He also gave to Paris her great commemorative monuments, the Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile, which was finished by Louis Philippe, the Arc du Carrousel, and the Column Vendôme, all of which were foreshadowed in the designs of Louis XIV.

[Illustration: XVII. THE TRANSFORMATION OF PARIS UNDER HAUSSMANN: PLAN SHOWING THE PORTION EXECUTED FROM 1854 TO 1889.

The new boulevards and streets are shown in yellow outlined with red.]

[Illustration: XVIII. PARIS. PLAN PROPOSED BY M. EUGENE HÉNARD FOR ADDITIONAL RADIAL ARTERIES AND AN INNER CIRCUIT BOULEVARD ON WHICH WOULD FRONT THE PRINCIPAL EXISTING ADMINISTRATIVE BUILDINGS AND MANY PUBLIC MONUMENTS.

The system, involving radical cuts through the blocks and widening of existing arteries, is shown by hatched lines.]

It remained for the third Napoleon, however, to accomplish the great work of breaking through the old city, of opening it to light and air, and of making it fit to sustain the army of merchants and manufacturers which makes Paris to-day the center of a commerce as wide as civilization itself. In 1853, Georges Eugène Haussmann became prefect of the Seine, the appointment being in the nature of a promotion due to the successful administration of the office of prefect in other French cities. Immediately Haussmann began a career which has established for all time his place among the city-builders of the world. As if by intuition he grasped the entire problem. Taking counsel neither of expediency nor of compromise, he ever sought the true and proper solution. To him Paris appeared as a highly organized unit, and he strove to create ideal conditions throughout the entire city. The world gives him credit for the highest success. The people of Paris have always supported those who aimed to make their city grand and beautiful. Proud, ambitious, endowed with good taste and an artistic sense, the Parisians have ever been zealous to make their city the capital not only of the state, but also of civilization.

Haussmann never overlooked the great and broad lines laid down by his predecessors; so that to a considerable extent his work was but the continuation of the plans prepared by Louis XIV. in the later years of the seventeenth century. His peculiar task, however, was to provide adequate means of circulation within the old city, by cutting new streets and widening old ones, by sweeping away unwholesome rookeries, and by opening up great spaces in order to disengage monuments of beauty and historic interest. He placed the great railway stations of Paris in a circle about the old center of the city, and opened up fine avenues of approach to them. At times he found it less expensive, and also less disturbing, to build a new street through the blocks, rather than to widen old streets; and it was his special care to create diagonal thoroughfares in order to shorten distances, and also to give picturesqueness to the street system by the creation of those corner lots which the architects of Paris have learned so well how to improve.[4]

The task which Haussmann accomplished for Paris corresponds with the work which must be done for Chicago, in order to overcome the intolerable conditions which invariably arise from a rapid growth of population. At the time he began, the population of Paris was half a million less than the population of Chicago to-day. The work was accomplished at a cost of $265,000,000. That portion of the improvements relating to the palaces was borne entirely by the nation, the remainder being divided between the nation and the city, the former paying one-third and the latter two-thirds of the expense. It was Haussmann’s theory that the money thus spent made a better city, and that a better city was a greater producer of wealth. Experience has amply justified his contention. The convenience and beauty of Paris bring large returns in money as well as in æsthetic satisfaction.[5]

In Europe, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a widespread impulse towards city planning found expression in all the great towns. This movement was made possible by the fact that since the termination of the Franco-Prussian war, in 1870, there has been peace throughout Europe, and the money which theretofore had been wasted on swords and spears now found productive employment in plowshares and pruning-hooks. From out the turmoil and strife which marked the first two-thirds of the century, Germany arose united, alert, vigorous, ambitious, like a lusty youth, realizing both the opportunities before him and his own strength of body, mind, and will to take advantage of every opening. Austria, unwillingly freed from the incubus of Italy, found in union with Hungary a strength never before possessed; and Vienna and Budapest became centers of intense activity, which developed along lines of commercial progress, and also took on forms of convenience and orderliness which have served as examples the world over. Italy, once again shaking off the foreign yoke, became united under the rule of her own people. France, putting aside for the moment ideas of foreign domination, set herself to the task of leading all nations in the world of art and taste. England, drawing her princely revenues from every hemisphere, watched her commerce develop as her industries grew and her wealth increased.

[Illustration: XIX. CITY CENTER. VIENNA. IN 1857, SHOWING THE FORTIFICATIONS.]

Moreover, the past thirty-eight years of peace throughout Europe coincides with the period in which the greatest discoveries in the realm of natural forces, as applied to industry, have been made and utilized. So that the capital saved as the result of peace has yielded returns that have been increased in geometrical ratio, until we have reached the days not only of unparalleled wealth, but also of unparalleled opportunities for increasing wealth. Moreover, peace has widened the field of traffic, so that no nation now relies merely on its own people for its commerce, but out of every nation come the finest fruits of its industry to satisfy the world’s demands. And inasmuch as there are no bounds to human wants and satisfactions, the triumphs and the rewards of commerce find no limits.

[Illustration: XX. CITY CENTER, VIENNA, AFTER TRANSFORMATIONS MADE BY ORDER OF FRANCIS JOSEPH IN 1857.

The Ringstrasse and public buildings replace the fortifications.]

All this commercial activity, suddenly developed by turning the capital of the world into productive channels, found the cities of Europe ill adapted to meet the changed conditions. The great towns, Paris excepted, were still in the swaddling-clothes of the Middle Ages; they were walled towns with narrow, tortuous streets, picturesque indeed, but absolutely unfitted for commerce or manufactures according to the modern scale. All the conditions, therefore, made imperative the transformation of the old portions of cities to meet modern demands for circulation, and the extension of their borders to provide for the constant increase in population. Everywhere throughout Europe the design of the cosmopolitan city as planned by the architects of Louis XIV. became the model; everywhere the work of Haussmann in opening congested regions of old cities by means of straight thoroughfares found imitators. Vienna with its Ringstrasse followed the example of Paris as expressed in the boulevards of Colbert; in each case the old fortifications were cleared away to make park-like thoroughfares. The heart of old London was transformed by cutting new streets; Brussels was divided by boulevards. In Italy, Rome, Florence, and Milan, each carried out extensive schemes of improvement based on French models.

[Illustration: XXI. LONDON. PLAN OF ALDWYCH AND KINGSWAY CONNECTING HOLBORN AND THE STRAND]

With the Germans the cutting through of new streets was undertaken for the twofold reason of facilitating traffic and of admitting light and air into a too congested and unwholesome city quarter. In Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Hamburg, in Berlin, and in Dresden it became necessary to abolish with firm hand evil conditions that had become intolerable, no matter at what sacrifice of buildings enveloped with historical associations. But the Germans have come to modify the French theory of the unconditional superiority of the rectilinear avenue; and now they seek to maintain the essential character of the city, as in the case of Darmstadt, by admitting strong curves, and, wherever desirable, by narrowing or widening the thoroughfare, making compensations by creating open spaces. They have found, also, that a too extensive clearing away of the old buildings which cluster about a great minster or cathedral results in an enhancement of effectiveness only at a sacrifice of scale and a loss of picturesqueness. As a consequence, the Germans have sought a golden mean by creating about a monumental structure free room for the beholder to see the essential parts of the building from a sufficiently remote point of view, while leaving undisturbed single structures small in scale, in order that the main building may appear to have grown out of its surroundings.[6]

[Illustration: XXII. LONDON TRAFFIC COMMISSION’S PLAN FOR NEW THOROUGHFARES TO OVERCOME CONGESTION, 1907.

Revised by Paul Waterhouse, F. R. I. B. A.]

In general, then, it may be said that while the French or classical theory results in monumental effects for a city and establishes unity, the German or individualistic treatment preserves for an old city a homelike feeling and a pleasing variety. It is worthy of note, however, that where city planning has been undertaken by masters, whether in France or Germany, the two theories have been used as circumstances warranted. It is only where designers are not able to handle their subject in its entirety, but have become slaves to a system, that results have been attained at great money cost and with a loss of charm and picturesqueness that by intelligent study might have been saved.[7]

Napoleon Bonaparte, in exile on St. Helena, one day amused himself by planning improvements for London. He would make, he said, a grand thoroughfare from St. Paul’s to the Thames; and two wide streets along the Thames, one on either side of the river. He would build more bridges, and would remove from the vicinity of public buildings the mean old structures which disfigure the fine monuments. It would be easy to do this, he thought, in a city so rich as London.[8] Albert Shaw, in his work on _Municipal Government in Great Britain_, says: “If London within the lifetime of men still in their prime had taken due precautions, what errors might have been avoided! London is now creating a park system, and acquiring land that has quadrupled in value within thirty years. London is widening and straightening streets, and increasing thereby the expense of appropriating frontage that costs twice as much now as it would have cost a few years ago. The people of London suffer an inestimable loss in convenience and actual money through the haphazard nature of passenger transportation facilities.”

After the great fire of September, 1666, London had the opportunity, so frequently offered in America, of rectifying those unfortunate results which occur in all cities that have grown up; and the sin of omission in the case of the British metropolis was the more unpardonable, inasmuch as plans for improvement were prepared by one of the great architects of the world, Sir Christopher Wren, only to be set aside by the perverse self-interest of the then citizens of London. Wren’s plans contemplated a city with streets radiating from central points, and the locations for public buildings were arranged so as to give pleasing objects of sight at the end of long vistas,—principles of civic arrangement which the English architect fixed on paper years before the French city-builders adopted the same principles for the development of Paris.[9] The failure of Wren’s scheme of 1666 has cost London millions upon millions of money to repair in part the errors which might have been avoided so easily, besides years of inconvenience and loss due to congestion of traffic. From 1855 to 1900 one project after another for bettering the conditions in London has been carried out, at a cost equal to nearly one hundred million dollars; and now the new Traffic Commission has reported a tentative plan for diminishing the congestion in street traffic by cutting two great thoroughfares: one traversing the town from north to south, the other linking Bayswater with Whitechapel, the estimated cost of the combined work being in the neighborhood of $125,000,000 for land damages alone.[10]

Recently England has taken up in comprehensive manner the whole subject of housing the working classes and of town planning. In 1890 a limited act was passed for the housing of the working classes; and in 1907 this act was supplemented by “the small holdings and allottments act.” It is now proposed to extend the provisions of these acts to every urban and rural district. The powers conferred center in the Local Government Board, to which local authorities apply for approval of the plans proposed; and in case these local authorities fail to make application, the Board may order schemes to be prepared and carried out. There is also a Public Works Loan Commission which authorizes loans for the purpose of carrying out the approved plans.[11]

[Illustration: XXIII. ORIGINAL PLAN OF WASHINGTON DESIGNED BY PETER CHARLES L’ENFANT, 1791.]

We have found that those cities which retain their domination over the imaginations of mankind achieve that result through the harmony and beauty of their civic works; that these artistic creations were made possible largely by the gains of commerce promoted by years of peace; and that intense loyalty on the part of the great body of the citizens was the chief impulse which led them to strive to enhance the prestige and dignity of their city. We have found, also, that in modern times the cities of Europe are everywhere making those changes which a rapid increase in trade and population requires, and which the awakened artistic sense of the people demands. We turn now to our own country, to note the conditions which have controlled the development of the American city, and to recount briefly some of the more noteworthy attempts that are being made in the United States to give form and comeliness to our great towns.

[Illustration: XXIV. THE L’ENFANT PLAN OF WASHINGTON AS DEVELOPED BY THE SENATE PARK COMMISSION OF 1901.]

Washington was planned and founded as the capital of a nation. The architects of Louis XIV. drew the lines of the new Paris beyond the walls of the existing town, and mapped avenues converging at central points where only gardens and farms then existed; and their plans were a wise provision for a not distant future. Under the direction of President Washington, and with the aid and encouragement of Secretary Jefferson, Peter Charles L’Enfant, a young French engineer, deliberately drew the map of an entirely new capital city designed to accommodate a population one-third greater than was comprised in Paris at that date. In that plan no element of civic convenience, beauty, or adornment was lacking. The entire city was regarded as a unit, and that unit was to be developed in a form not surpassed by any existing city. Upon a rectilinear system of streets L’Enfant imposed diagonal avenues of stately width, converging upon focal points designed to be the location of important public buildings, statues, or monuments commemorating historic events. The Capitol and the President’s House were connected by a spacious park, and axial relations between the two structures were developed; every other building necessary for national uses was provided for; and canals, cascades, and fountains were located with reference to existing springs and watercourses. This comprehensive and magnificent plan, designed for an area which then consisted of wide swamps and wooded hills, became the laughing-stock alike of foreign traveler and American citizen. But fortunately the foundations were laid broad and deep by means of the donation of the lands necessary for streets, avenues, and parks. Fortunately the plan was adopted and the streets, avenues, public squares, and circles were fixed; and although the development of the city during three-quarters of a century was slow, yet the rapid increase in wealth and power that followed the ending of the Civil War found Washington ready and waiting for the improvements which have lifted it from a straggling, ill-kept town, into one of the beautiful and stately capitals of the world.

[Illustration: XXV. THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT, GARDEN AND MALL, LOOKING TOWARDS THE CAPITOL; SENATE PARK COMMISSION PLAN.]

[Illustration: XXVI. THE PLAZA AND UNION STATION, WASHINGTON, BEGUN IN 1902.]

[Illustration: XXVII. Cleveland Group-Plan.

Proposed civic center, railway station and gardens, now being executed.]

Before the opening of the twentieth century, Washington had begun to expand over the surrounding country; and there unfortunately the L’Enfant plan stopped short. Moreover, within the city there had been perversions of the plan; and there had also been additions to the park area awaiting development. Congress dealt in part with the difficulties by extending the L’Enfant plan of streets and avenues over the entire District of Columbia; and in 1901 the task of preparing a report on the development of the park system of the Federal territory and the placing of public buildings was committed to an expert commission. As Haussmann aimed in large part to carry out the work that had been planned by the architects of Louis XIV., so the Senate Park Commission sought to re-establish and reanimate the plans of L’Enfant, which had the sanction of Washington and Jefferson. In spite of much opposition on the part of those who regard only the present, and take no thought for future advancement, the new plans have been carried to such a point that their general lines are well established, and already works to cost nearly $50,000,000 are in progress, each one of which strengthens the hold of the general scheme.[12]

[Illustration: XXVIII. CLEVELAND GROUP PLAN.

View looking towards the Lake from the proposed civic center.]

The plans for the improvement of Washington were prepared by the same hands that guided the artistic development of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The dream city on Lake Michigan, people said, should take on enduring form in the capital of the nation. Then as the Washington plans fired the imagination of the American people, the cities throughout the country began to ask why they too should not achieve whatever of beauty and convenience their situation and their civic pride would allow. Among the first to feel the new impulse was Cleveland, a commercial city where at the time the forces of democracy were having fullest play. Taking advantage of the fact that a Federal building, a city hall, and a public library must be constructed in the near future, and that a railway station on the Lake front could not long be delayed, a commission of experts was appointed to prepare a group-plan for the location of those structures, with appropriate landscape settings; and high-minded, public-spirited citizens who were behind the movement labored until they brought harmony of action among the political agencies, and so placed the plans beyond the risk of failure. The expense involved approximates $14,000,000 for public purposes, and from three to five millions additional for railway terminals, museums, and the like.

[Illustration: XXIX. PLAN FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENTIRE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO.

Report of D. H. Burnham to the Association of Improvement and Adornment of San Francisco, 1904-1906.]

[Illustration: XXX. BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE PLAN OF DEVELOPMENT FOR SAN FRANCISCO.

This view shows municipal center, boulevard system, and treatment of surrounding hills as parks.]

[Illustration: XXXI. PLANS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANILA, SUBMITTED TO THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSION BY D. H. BURNHAM, 1905.

The essential elements of this plan are the government center and system of proposed arteries radiating from it, the railway station, and the shore road.]

Boston has developed the most extensive park system in America, at a cost of $33,000,000, and is creating on the Charles River a tidal basin which bids fair to rival any similar work in Europe. A state commission is now studying means to relieve congestion in the city, and to extend its commercial facilities. New York is struggling with many isolated works of improvement spread over the broad domain of that city’s activities; Baltimore is seeking to use the opportunity presented by a great fire to introduce order and symmetry in her street system, and also to create a connected park system; and the citizens of St. Louis have prepared and presented a city plan for the grouping of municipal buildings, for an inner and an outer park system, for civic centers comprising small parks and playgrounds, museums, branch libraries, and like public buildings.[13] San Francisco, even before the great earthquake and fire of April, 1906, was already working on a comprehensive plan to promote, in every practical way, the beautifying of the streets, parks, squares, and public places of the city; to bring to the attention of public officials and the citizens the best methods of instituting artistic municipal betterments; to stimulate the sentiment of civic pride in the improvement and care of private property; and, in short, to make San Francisco a more agreeable city in which to live. This latter movement resulted in a comprehensive city plan which has been adopted by the general committee of citizens and by the Board of Supervisors.[14]

[Illustration: XXXII. PLAN FOR A SUMMER CAPITAL OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, AT BAGUIO.

Submitted to the Philippine Commission by D. H. Burnham, 1905.]

Philadelphia is cutting a great parkway from Logan Square to Fairmount Park, with the expectation of extending the thoroughfare to the City Hall; is acquiring extensive additions to its large parks; and is planning for the grouping of its present buildings. Minneapolis and St. Paul have made common cause in the creation of parkways, and the last-named city is bent on securing adequate approaches for the newly completed state capitol.[15] From Providence and Hartford in the East, to Kansas City and on to Seattle in the West, the city planning is in full progress. The South also has felt the new impulse. Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, was laid out on lines strikingly similar to those embodied in Sir Christopher Wren’s scheme for London; and the plan of Williamsburg, the colonial capital of Virginia, suggests the locations adopted for the Capitol and White House at Washington; so that the new plans for Roanoke, Virginia, seem like the discovery of a lost art.

No sooner had the United States come into the possession of the Philippine Islands than the War Department set about adapting the capital city of Manila to the changed conditions brought about by the influx of Americans, who are used to better conditions of living than had prevailed in those islands. While fully recognizing the value of the historic public buildings, the Department undertook to have prepared a plan for connecting thoroughfares, open spaces, driveways and promenades which should provide adequate facilities for transportation, improved sanitation, and opportunities for those particular kinds of recreation which the climate invites. As a result the expansion which is coming as the result of American occupation, will proceed on comprehensive lines. Moreover, the necessity of providing a summer capital for the rulers of our new possessions has led to the creation on the hills of Baguio of a city laid out on a plan similar to the plan made by L’Enfant for the city of Washington, in that it provides for such public buildings as may be needed for government offices, for the service of the city itself, and for the healthfulness, convenience, and recreation of the people; and all these functions are so arranged as to make a unified and orderly city. Thus without additional expense, but merely by taking thought for the future, the two capitals of the Philippines, even in their physical characteristics, will represent the power and dignity of this nation.

It has been seen that as peace permits the expansion of cities regardless of means of defense against outside foes, and as commerce enriches the people, population increases with such rapidity as to create demands for enlarged facilities for circulation throughout the city; and that these demands are so insistent that they must be met, no matter at what cost. Also, that those cities which have made ample provision for future growth have saved largely in money while at the same time they have accomplished much in the way of convenience and orderliness. Thus it has been well said that Paris is a unified city; whereas London is a collection of towns. Moreover, it is to be noted that throughout the civilized world there is a great forward movement in the direction of transforming cities to adapt them to the improved conditions of living which the people everywhere are demanding, and which, moreover, they feel that they have the power to enforce. As a part of this movement arises the impulse to express in concrete form the feeling of loyalty to and pride in the city; and this feeling finds expression in parks and pleasure grounds, in monuments and fine public buildings, in institutions of art and learning, and in hospitals and other means of alleviating the ills of mankind. Furthermore, there has arisen the conception of the city as an organic whole, each part having well-defined relations with every other part; and the expression of this idea is now seen to be the highest aim of the city-builder.

Each city differs from every other city in its physical characteristics and in the nature of its opportunities, so that the development of every city must be along individual lines. This very fact allows full scope for the development of that peculiar charm which, wherever discovered and developed irresistibly draws to that city people of discrimination and taste, and at the same time begets a spirit of loyalty and satisfaction on the part of the citizens.

It is not to be expected that the people of Chicago will stand still while the movement for better civic conditions is sweeping over the whole civilized world; or that the stirrings of the new impulse that have begun among this people will be suffered to die out, without accomplishing the possibilities so abundantly offered to make this city pre-eminent among commercial cities.

The experience of other cities both ancient and modern, both abroad and at home, teaches Chicago that the way to true greatness and continued prosperity lies in making the city convenient and healthful for the ever-increasing numbers of its citizens; that civic beauty satisfies a craving of human nature so deep and so compelling that people will travel far to find and enjoy it; that the orderly arrangement of fine buildings and monuments brings fame and wealth to the city; and that the cities which truly exercise dominion rule by reason of their appeal to the higher emotions of the human mind. The problem for Chicago, therefore, resolves itself into making the best use of a situation, the central location and resources of which have already drawn together millions of people, and are clearly destined to assemble many times that number; and planning for that civic development which promotes present content and insures permanence.

[Illustration: XXXIII. FLORENCE, ITALY.

This silhouette of towers is characteristic of Italian towns in the Middle Ages. From La Toscane.]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Ancient Rome, Chap. IV.

[3] Church Building in the Middle Ages.

[4] Baron Haussmann and the Topographical Transformation of Paris; by Edward R. Smith, Reference Librarian, Avery Architectural Library, Columbia University. The Architectural Record, 1907.

[5] A reasonable estimate, for the single year 1907, of the gold imported into France by travelers, to be spent in hotels, transportation, amusements, and purchases, is $600,000,000, a sum equal to the highest gold reserve of the Bank of France. Americans commonly exaggerate both their numbers and their expenditures in France; but one-fifth of this sum ($120,000,000) may safely be set down as their share.—_French Finance, by Stoddard Dewey, Atlantic Monthly, August, 1908._

[6] German City Planning; by Cornelius Gurlitt. Translated for the Metropolitan Improvements Commission of Boston, by Sylvester Baxter.

[7] The magnitude of the movement for city planning in Germany is so great that literally hundreds of cities are now prosecuting schemes of systematic extension and development; and a school of city planners has grown up within the past twenty-five years, with such men as Gurlitt, Stübben, Theodor Fischer, and Baumeister among its masters. A well-edited magazine, “Der Städtebau” (City Planning) is published; and in 1903 the first German Municipal Exposition was held in Dresden.

[8] Talks with Napoleon; by Dr. Barry E. O’Meara. The Century Magazine, February, 1890.

[9] History of London Street Improvements, 1855-1897; by Percy J. Edwards. The Making of a Plan for Washington; by Glenn Brown; Park Improvement Papers; Washington, 1903. It is interesting to note, however, that the Thames Embankment improvement was a portion of Wren’s scheme.

[10] Some observations on the report of the Royal Commission on London Traffic; by Paul Waterhouse. Read before the Royal Institute of British Architects. Journal of the R. I. A., May 26 and June 16, 1906.

[11] Mr. John Burns now advocates the proposition that town planning schemes may be made as respects any land which appears likely to be used for building purposes; the general object being to secure proper sanitary conditions, amenity, and convenience, in connection with the laying out and use of land. To this end the Local Government Board may authorize a local authority to prepare such a town planning scheme, with reference to any land within or in the neighborhood of their area, which scheme, when approved by the Board, shall immediately take effect. The use of land for building purposes shall include provision for open spaces, parks, pleasure, or recreation grounds; and where in any town planning scheme the area extends beyond a single local authority, a joint body is provided for. Also the Board may take the initiative in preparing a plan, in case the local authorities fail or neglect to act. See Housing, Town Planning, etc., Bill, 8 Edw., 7.

[12] The Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia; LVII. Congress, First Session; Senate Report No. 166.

[13] A City Plan for St. Louis; reports of the several committees appointed by the Executive Board of the Civic League to draft a City Plan, 1907.

[14] Report on a Plan for San Francisco; by D. H. Burnham, assisted by Edward H. Bennett; presented to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors by the Association for the Improvement and Adornment of San Francisco; edited by Edward F. O’Day, 1905.

[15] A comprehensive summary of the progress of municipal improvement in the United States is to be found in _Charities and The Commons_ for February, 1908.

[Illustration: XXXIV. CHICAGO. DIAGRAM OF LOCATION WITH REGARD TO THE SEVEN CENTRAL STATES.

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY COMMERCIAL CLUB OF CHICAGO ]