sorbed by the student in his earliest years, and the connection between a house and its surroundings as a fundamental principle has been implanted in the minds of the growing generation of architects-not until then can we hope that our dreams of beautiful cities, built according to the principles of the art of City Building, can be realized.

And furthermore, not until then, when the results of the architects' common efforts become visible, shall the interest and the understanding of the people in a greater measure be awakened and the people admit the truth of Ruskin when he says that the outside (the appearance) of a house does not belong only to the owner of the house but to the whole community. Not until then shall "City Planning" become artistic city building.

ZONING AND THE MOBILITY OF URBAN

A

POPULATION

By NELS ANDERSON

Research Fellow in Sociology, University of Chicago

CONTROLLED growth is the outstanding problem of the medern city, and zoning is the popular answer in terms of building regulations and the occupation of areas. Any effort to understand the role of zoning in city building brings to our attention four basic and important facts of urban life. These are: (1) the natural division of the city into various areas according to the status, interests, and activities of the people; (2) the high mobility of urban population; (3) the friction and unrest resulting from change, and (4) from a feeling of insecurity, the desire for stability and control.

The city is no longer a homogeneous community but a complex of communities, an aggregate of many areas, few of which have anything in common with each other. Many are not good neighbors though they may play a legitimate role in the life of the city. Many industrial areas, business areas, amusement areas, areas of single homes,

hotel and apartment areas, or tenement districts have formed without previous purpose and often in spite of the best laid plans. Some of them, particularly the better residence districts, are communityconscious and for their own security have been demanding restrictive ordinances.

Urban mobility is best described in terms of invasions and evacuations. To the fact of mobility we are able to trace the more complicated social and economic problems of the metropolitan centers. With the shifting of business, the movements of industry and the migrations of population, the face of the city is constantly changing. Change itself is not disconcerting. It is the rate of change and the unexpected things that happen, the uncertainty of what neighbors the future will bring. Cities have turned to zoning in the hope that it will protect them against the invasion of uncongenial interests. They accept real segregations in demanding a controlled mobility.

Champions of zoning do not object to mobility if it means the invasion of elements congenial to the community. When they organize it is to keep out objectionable intruders. Most urban organizations, the kind that promote zoning, are defensive moves. They ask legal support in doing the thing that voluntary organization and community sentiment cannot do. This is the practical demand for zoning. In less numbers there are advocates of zoning who think positively and idealistically of a planned and orderly city.

The American city is in constant flux. Change follows change in ruthless succession. The city that does not build some sections over entirely during the course of a generation is not keeping pace. Some districts are remodeled again and again to accommodate the different types of occupants. And always these newcomers meet with opposition if it is felt that their presence will lower property values or lessen the status of the area. Once an area begins to decline physically each successive occupation hastens the process. In view of such possibilities home builders and investors search for some device for ordering these forces for change. How well does zoning meet this need?

Zoning proposes to protect an area by determining the kind of buildings that may be constructed within its limits and also for what purposes such buildings may be occupied. Ordinarily zoning protects residential areas against the undesirable encroachment of commercial or industrial interests. Zoning may go no further. It has no control over social invasions, and after all these are the most vital and the most disturbing. Many who look hopefully in this direction for protection have yet to learn that zoning can have little or no influence over the migrations of people.

In the mobility of people we find two sets of forces, attracting and impelling. The first are evidenced in the struggles of people to climb from one social level to another as they become more and more financially secure. Thus they migrate from poor houses in squalid sections to better houses in more "select" neighborhoods. The "select" neighborhoods are always on the defensive against certain types. Race, nationality, and lack of culture are often no bars in the American city to people climbing out of the less favorable quarters. Such migrations regardless of their merit are disturbing to the social balance of the invaded areas.

Another type of attractive force is illustrated by the evacuation of the Prairie Avenue district of Chicago. In the 80's and 90's the "Avenue" was the center of the city's social life as the "Gold Coast" is today. But some of the leaders moved north where there was more space and more opportunity to build along modern lines. It was not long before there was a general rush to the North Shore while their abandoned homes were converted into rooming houses. Most American cities have witnessed such migrations. Three old residence areas in Chicago, abandoned in this manner, have never regained any social unity or importance since.

The last families to leave the "Avenue" were probably moved as much by impelling forces as any other. They fled before an incoming population of much lower social and economic standing. The impelling forces are better illustrated in the movements of immigrant peoples.

In some of these quarters we find a different class of aliens almost every decade. The former occupants have been crowded a little nearer the outer edge of the city. Such movements are always toward the periphery. This means that each new immigrant settlement near the center causes a general shift toward the outer circle.

The Negro is probably the least assimilable of the many types in the American city. Since the war large numbers of colored people have found their way into the industrial centers of the North. The old Negro quarters, already overflowing, burst their bounds and little "black belts" sprang up in other parts of the city where opposition was slight. Wherever the blacks went there was a displacing of the whites who moved into other areas. A sudden increase in Negro population in one city brought about an attempt to segregate Negro districts by ordinance, a form of zoning. After considerable controversy the ordinance was found unconstitutional.

As lines of transportation determine the location of business and industry so lines of transportation determine the direction of popular migrations. This is well shown in the movement of the Jews in Chicago. The earlier moves were not so important, but the last one, which involved the breakup of the Ghetto, is interesting. Before the shifting began there was a movement to run a street car line through the Ghetto westward to the community of Lawndale which was a non-immigrant population. Lawndale organized in protest but to no avail. The new line was the signal for two migrations, the Jews to Lawndale and the former occupants of Lawndale toward the suburbs. Lawndale has since become an immigrant area with many of the characteristics of the old Ghetto. Already there are the beginnings of decline while the more prosperous Jews are moving from Lawndale to more desirable neighborhoods from which people who object to their presence are migrating. These are the disconcerting forces of city life over which zoning can have no influence.

The so-called "segregated districts" of American cities have passed into history. We still have vice and crime areas but they are not so

easily identified. Without semi-official sanction, vice and crime hide where they can. They go to the rooming house and apartment areas. Only recently a high class family hotel in Chicago was shocked to learn that it was the stage of a war between bootleggers. Life is so anonymous and transient in such places that it is no easy matter to distinguish between respectability and the underworld. Where can people turn for protection against these objectionable elements?

Zoning is not a futile effort to stabilize urban growth but it is a limited one, nor is it without some promise of social security. If an area of single homes can keep out apartments it is better able to retain the face-to-face community relationships. The apartment breaks down neighborhood spirit and is not congenial to family life. Perhaps there are other indirect benefits that might easily emanate from efficient zoning.

The inner areas of the city, however, can expect little from zoning. The chief benefits go to the suburbs, but neither the inner nor the outer circles can hope for anything in the form of direct social control. People come and go at will and these migrations are likely to continue. Whether good or bad they must be accepted as incidental to urban life. The time may come when the movements of people can be directed as we can now direct the development of business and industry by zoning. Before that is possible we need to learn more about the mobility of people. It's the task of the psychologist, the sociologist and the political scientist to tell us how groups behave and how their behavior may be anticipated and to some extent controlled.