This type of activity is evident in all of the major problems affecting the great region of which Los Angeles is a center. Transportation has been the most urgent of the problems because most quick to show any inadequacy of facilities. Immediate economic reaction to the condition of the means of transportation, rail, highway or water, has been a powerful incentive in the determined effort which has analyzed basic principles and is carrying forward a gigantic program. At the same time regional planning has encompassed in its scope other great areas of activity. The basis is being laid for a metropolitan park system which shall conserve and develop the wonderful recreational resources which have constituted one of Southern California's greatest assets. In this there is not merely a plan of results to be achieved, but a definite move to set up a metropolitan jurisdiction able to handle the entire situation. The working out of this program is expected to be consummated within a year. The type of legislation is similar to that upon which is based the Cook County Forest Preserve District in Illinois, except that it is specific in its creation of the district rather than merely enabling. A similar district for flood control was established in Los Angeles County in 1915.

In sanitation two years have revolutionized the administration of the function of sewerage. Over forty separate municipalities and dozens of unincorporated communities struggled separately with the problem. There are over ninety unincorporated communities in Los Angeles County, about forty-five of which are of two thousand population or more, the figures reaching from twenty-five to seventy-five thousand in several cases. These communities are all directly under the jurisdiction of the county government. Today the engineering for sewerage for the entire region is being done on a metropolitan basis. There are two great ultimate units in the system. The first is the city of Los Angeles and seven other municipalities. The other is a joint district system based on regional planning legislation, which will care for the remainder of the metropolitan sanitation area. The first bonds have been voted to carry out this system.

The future supply of water will be upon a metropolitan basis. Present sources of water must be augmented, and the eyes of Southern California are turned toward the Colorado River. A district, to be formed of noncontiguous municipal and urbanized regions, will be the means of financing and of distribution. This is indeed the idea of regional planning expanded in this field to all Southern California.

General Plan for the Arlington Memorial Bridge at Washington

A bridge to connect the Lincoln Memorial and the Robert E. Lee Mansion, now in the National Cemetery at Arlington, was part of the plan of the Senate Park Commission of the District of Columbia of 1902.

The construction of this bridge is the next step in carrying out that plan.

Conducted by FRANK BACKUS WILLIAMS

C

CITY PLANNING LAW IN 1923 AND 1924*

ITY PLANNING includes in its scope the planning not only of the public features of the community, such as streets and parks, but of the land devoted to private uses, such as residence, business and industry, in the effort to direct, so far as may be deemed wise, the development of the community as a whole. For the most part, at present, the private features of the town, city or region, in so far as they are controlled by the public in the effort to create a unified and coördinated community, are regulated by zoning laws and ordinances. In this issue zoning events are considered elsewhere; hereafter they will be included here. In this first article events in the more recent past will be summarily taken up; hereafter, the occurrences of the current quarter will be considered.

REGIONAL PLANNING

There are two administrative methods by which the physical features of any given territory regarded for planning purposes as a region may be coördinated in the attainment of a measure of the unity necessary to its economical, healthful and efficient life. It may consist in the direct coördination of these functions, by a local authority-which may be the general local government of the region or an authority created for planning only, leaving other local functions to the regular local authorities for the region; or it may consist in the coördination or supervision by a superior authority of the planning which the local governments themselves are undertaking. In addition there is local planning in various parts of its territory by a government with jurisdiction over an extensive area, like a county. Commendable as this is, it is not regional planning.

Planning by local governments with authority over large areas is not uncommon in this country. During the last two years laws providing for an extension of such planning have been passed in several jurisdictions, county planning commissions having been authorized.2

In Ohio the legislation3 is more complicated. Under it, counties and groups of municipalities are given the right to create planning commissions, with power to make plans for the region. These plans, when adopted by the planning com

In this article the writer reviews the progress of city planning law since the publication of his book The Law of City Planning and Zoning (The Macmillan Company, New York) in December, 1922. See page 17. See also the writer's review of zoning legislation in the American City Municipal

Index.

Penn. 1923 p. 131; Hawaii 1923 No. 150.

Code sec. 4366-13 to 19

mission of a city in the region, bind it to the same extent as a city plan and can be overruled only by a two-thirds vote of the council and the head of the department concerned; and if adopted by a county, may be reversed only by a unanimous vote of the county commissioners.

Perhaps the most novel provision in regional planning during the last two years is contained in the so-called Nassau County Charter in New York1 enacted by the state legislature, subject to ratification in 1925 by vote of the county. Under it a county planning commission is authorized to which must be referred before final action the planning and zoning ordinances of cities and villages as well as similar action by the county itself through its commissioners, with regard to unincorporated areas.

The new feature relates to the zoning of the strip, 500 feet wide, on each side of the boundary of adjacent communities. In zoning there is a tendency to relegate objectionable developments to the outskirts of the community, to the detriment of a neighboring community. The Nassau county charter provides that in so far as this 500 foot strip is affected by the zoning ordinances, it shall not go into effect until ratified by the authorities of the neighboring village or city; or in default of such ratification, by a three fourths vote of the county commissioners; the provisions with regard to unincorporated areas in the county being similar. In common with all planning and zoning regulations, these ordinances go to the county planning commission for consideration and report before final action on them. It is hoped that in this way both in developed and more outlying territory mutual consideration and adjustment will be promoted among the communities of the county to the common good.

In regional planning Massachusetts is a pioneer. More than fifty years ago she provided for a sewer district to include Boston and 39 cities and towns round about it; followed by similar legislation with regard to water supply and parks. These activities are controlled by a Metropolitan District Commission. In 19232 a Division of Metropolitan Planning was formed in the Commission, with power to investigate transit and advise with and consult the various local governments in the Region.3

Massachusetts also created, in 1924 a Connecticut Valley Regional Planning Commission, with power to investigate and report; and authorized the planning and construction of State trails for forest lovers.5

STATE PARKS

The obvious method of obtaining the unity of action needed for the inauguration and progress of the uniform planning of a region, including within its limits a number of local governments, is the creation of a single agency with the legal

State Laws, 1923, Ch. 863

2Ch. 399

For fuller information on this subject see an article entitled "A Pioneer in Regional Planning" by Arthur A. Shurtleff, in Housing Betterment for November, 1923. The official reports of the commission should also be consulted.

Resolves, Ch. 55

Acts, Ch. 284