They must meet and overcome the obstacles of public and official indifference and inertia; of political expediency; of personal selfishness; and often of sectional, religious or racial prejudice.

These large-scale improvements must surmount the barriers of legal opposition and financial expense. Lack of available funds and limitation of indebtedness cause city officials to hesitate about making huge capital expenditures for civic improvement, and property owners are often more opposed to special assessments than they are favorable to projects which cost them money, even though producing undeniable benefits. It has often been my observation that city planning projects in this country go along rather smoothly up to the point where some one has to dig down and pay for them. That's where the real trouble starts, and that situation marks the end of many a worth-while city planning undertaking.

Judging from my experience plus the knowledge gained from others in similar effort, I would say that success can be attained only by insistence upon continuity of effort. One by one obstacles must be overcome, and this can be done only by sticking everlastingly at it with bull-dog determination. If I could convey a message to every city planner in the United States, I would rather impress upon his mind the importance of never ceasing his effort than anything else I could tell him.

To illustrate what I have in mind let me cite the case of the La Salle Street improvement in Chicago. This $15,000,000 street widening was recommended by the Chicago Plan Commission after two years of study. When a public hearing was duly held by the Board of Local Improvements, a protest against the improvement signed by the owners of 90% of the frontage affected was filed with the Board, thus automatically holding up the entire proceedings for one year. I should say here that the construction of a bridge across the Chicago River at La Salle Street is an integral part of the improvement of the street. In fact, without the bridge the widening could not be made, and the Federal Government refused to grant permission for its construction!

It might seem that a condition such as this would justify any city planning body in admitting defeat and directing its attention to something which held out better assurance of success. On every hand it was freely predicted that the La Salle Street improvement was dead beyond resurrection.

Yet following its practice of never letting up the Chicago Plan Commission continued its fight, with the result that today the 90% opposition on La Salle Street has been transformed into an 80% majority desiring the improvement; the Federal Government has granted permission to construct the bridge; the Board of Local Improvements has held its public hearings and approved the necessary ordinances; and these ordinances have been passed by the City Council, so that the condemnation suit to acquire the property for the widening can be commenced in court within the near future. Surely this bit of city planning experience should encourage any city planning body to adopt "persistency" as one of the words in its slogan.

IDEALS

OF THE NEW YORK REGIONAL PLAN

W

By THOMAS ADAMS

General Director of Plans and Surveys
Regional Plan of New York and its Environs

HAT the planners of New York have to work towards is the ideal set before them by the late Charles D. Norton. In his 'words this ideal is to develop "a plan of great beauty which shall represent in the broadest way all interests in the whole community, and which shall realize to the maximum the economic and social values of this great world capital and port".

The aspiration of the men who have inherited the leadership of Mr. Norton is to realize his aspiration; and those of us who are working under this leadership have no illusions as to the greatness of our responsibilities in trying to attain the ideal that has been set as the goal of our accomplishment.

When Elihu Root said at the foundation meeting of the Plan that a city was a growth, and that it was the object of a plan to give intelligent direction to this growth, he indicated both the importance and the complexity of the problems of city planning. Those who are engaged in the task of city or regional planning require to give more consideration to the dynamic forces that operate continuously in moulding the development of the city or urban region. Whether an ideal is attainable. or not, depends on our recognition of the social and economic elements that enter into all phases of physical growth. To limit our ideal to that of carrying out physical improvements means that however successful may be our accomplishments in the matter of technical presentation of our proposals, or even in promoting sporadic and piecemeal improvements, we shall not have achieved the main purpose of planning the city of the future.

Our ideal in New York must be to plan for that which is good and sound and practical, having regard to the elements of growth and the human actions and reactions that are met at every step in the operation. The quality of the ideal we attain will depend on our power, as city planners, to create, and on our recognition of the value and limitations. of that power; on our understanding of the right objectives; and on our ability to persuade others to seek the achievement of these objectives and arouse the spirit of the city. In a limited sense only will it depend on the essentials of expert knowledge and technique.

Because cities are growths, plans are growths, and no plan can ever reach a stage which can be regarded as finality. Planning in New York must be continuous as long as the city expands and has to face conditions of change in regard to function and movement. Therefore in New York, as elsewhere, we can never attain our utmost conception in our plans; we can only work towards them with unremitting energy, with the exercise of such foresight as we possess, and with adherence to such principles as we conceive to be sound.

SURVEY OF CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING

M

IN THE UNITED STATES, 1924

By THEODORA KIMBALL HUBBARD
Hon. Librarian, American City Planning Institute

(For the List of Plan Reports for 1924, see page 65)

ORE generously than ever before news has been sent from all over the country for the Annual Survey, perhaps because this year it appears in the first issue of CITY PLANNING.* The abundance of interesting itemsfar more than could be used in the allotted space-augurs well for the quarterly "Progress" department of the new magazine. It is gratifying that many of the items relate to legislation, enacted or proposed. Even the set-backs to the movement in the form of adverse court decisions or sometimes political deadlocks are being used as incentives to start over again on the right legal basis. The legislative history** of the year 1924 will be found covered in a separate review by Frank B. Williams, Esq., on page 52.

For the first time we are using illustrations with the Survey. The Indiana state map, we hope, begins a series which will be compiled ultimately to cover the whole United States. Were the inactive states to be shown in solid black on a map of the country, as on the monthly business maps issued by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, from the news at hand for 1924 there would be only six black states. Twenty-one states would be marked in gray to show that the condition of city planning was only fair, and twenty-two states-California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennesee, Texas, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia-would be white to indicate that business was active.

Up-to-Date Cities.

The roster of cities and towns from which there has come some kind of city planning news in 1924 is about three hundred and fifty, a hundred more than in 1923. Over sixty of these places had a population less than 5,000, over thirty between 5,000 and 10,000, over eighty from 10,000 to 25,000, over a hundred and ten from 25,000 to 100,000, while fifty-seven were among the sixty largest cities. The 1924 figures from the National Conference on City Planning indicated that there were some three hundred city planning and zoning commissions in the country, * The series of Surveys began in Landscape Architecture, covering from 1910 on, in the April issues of 1912 and 1913, and the January issues of 1915, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, and 1924. No attempt has been made in the series to include the important field of housing, because this is covered so fully and so well by Mr. Lawrence Veiller in the files of Housing Betterment. Acknowledgment is here made to the many officials and consultants who have contributed information for this present Survey.

** For suggestions as to future progressive legislation see the article by Mr. Bassett in American City, December, 1924.

most of which were active. Last June the weekly Public Works published replies to questionaires which included information on city planning commissions, and the American City in conjunction with the National Conference on City Planning has an extensive questionnaire under way which may increase our count.

These statistics go to show that official recognition of the practical value of city planning has become widespread. Because planning is already successful in many communities, others are emboldened to undertake it, or in a spirit of competition afraid to be left behind. Groups and interests formerly unconvinced or antagonistic are often turning into leaders. The realtors of the country are backing the movement more strongly than ever. The City Planning Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers has been conducting an instructive series of meetings, with valuable published proceedings. Programs of the National and State Municipal Leagues, the American Society for Municipal Improvements, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, have all included city planning as an established municipal responsibility. In addition to the splendid work for zoning carried on by Secretary Hoover through the Division of Building and Housing, he was responsible for calling the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety and appointing a City Planning Committee as one of its eight subdivisions. That Secretary Hoover, commanding the confidence of the country, is to continue his headship of the Department of Commerce, leads us to hope that he may during this term establish the collection and dissemination of city planning information as an organized function of the federal government.

Foreign recognition of American achievement in city planning comes this year with the holding of the International Town Planning Congress in New York. We have learned much by participation in the European meetings, and we hope that our friends from across the seas will be repaid by seeing in process of expression what we have learned and what we have evolved under our more individualistic tradition.

That we do not lack boldness must be apparent in such recent regional projects as the Detroit Super-Highway Plan, reaching far out into the undeveloped suburban territory with 204-foot thoroughfares, the great inter-state and county park schemes of New York State, the waterfront reclamation and Michigan Avenue achievement in Chicago, the huge bond issues recently voted by the citizens of St. Louis and Philadelphia, the port development of Baltimore and of Seattle, the studies of the Regional Plan of New York and the Port of New York Authority, the rehabilitation of our Federal City, the many new industrial and residential towns and large land subdivisions under construction. That we do not lack ingenuity and patience must be evident from our civic publicity campaigns. Known as a nation of advertisers of goods, we may become equally known as salesmen of ideals.