ing streets. It will be noted by those familiar with the city that they provide cross-town through connections, some of which are elevated to prevent interference with traffic.

This complete report, made to the City Council before the close of the fiscal year of 1925, was expected to become the basis of discussion for a proposed bond issue early in the year 1926. What was the result? Immediately upon attention being directed to the interests of the city and the discussion for the bond issue, it was apparent that such improvements as would be proposed within the limits of the city's credit would be entirely exhausted by several of the kind of items previously mentioned. Many of these represent the ordinary municipal house-keeping and the necessity of placing public works of the city in a proper condition to perform their functions. It was found that such fundamental items as reconstruction of streets rendered inadequate by heavy traffic, bridges rendered unsafe by heavier motor loads, sewer systems found insufficient to care for storm water flows, new waterworks pumping machinery and reconditioning of reservoirs, incomplete items of previous bond issues for which there was not sufficient funds, institutions for dependents, together would require all the money that could be obtained under the limits of the proposed bond issue. This amount was about $20,000,000, and the question was placed before the people to be voted upon Tuesday, May 18th. Because of the realization of the need and necessity of all of the ten items, each was carried by a large vote. The only item of the bond issue included in the study by the City Planning Commission is the widening of Grant Street.

However, the City Planning Commission and its technical staff are not discouraged, for they realize that an important public service has been fulfilled by this study and by having called attention to the fact that, when and if undertaken, these new improvements should follow a logical and predetermined plan and arrangement. It is hoped that the study will have the effect of preventing ill-considered, piece-meal items being done in the future, in a way not to fit in with the general plan.

Maintenance and Planning

What is the lesson? The responsibility of the city officials and particularly the men in technical service-the engineers—to look ahead and prepare for the future needs, and to see that the ordinary maintenance and up-keep is provided through current funds. When the time arrives for major improvements, there will then be opportunity to carry these out as the demands arise. He who knows the conditions and the need for money should, without ever tiring or ceasing, call attention to these annual requirements, and meet emergencies in the same way that private corporations meet them.

Certain improvements should be met out of assessments upon benefited property wherever situated. This, in many states, requires constitutional changes and new enactments. Some expenses should be paid out of tax levies, notwithstanding the ever increasing pressure to keep these down. Maintenance, repair and renewal of certain types of public works, which are revenue-producing, together with depreciation funds for replacement, should be provided out of rates which will allow these properties to be self-sustaining. Thus there may be accumulation of municipal credit and the opportunity to build new and important improvements out of bond funds, as well as assessments where such are proper.

In addition to assessments for public improvements, another method which is provided in some states is that of excess condemnation, by which large improvements can be carried on with lessened expense to the municipal purse. Where it is possible, the taking by eminent domain should include all of the needed area and, at the same time, the jagged excesses. Then the excess land may be converted into attractive areas or re-sold, with the resultant lessening of the total cost, by virtue of the money received.

There is visible evidence that engineers and technical men are coming to assume more important posts-in advising and sometimes in directing the affairs of municipalities. Through the advent of the City Manager, the thoroughly trained and public-spirited engineer in city

service, and through the advisor to the Planning Commissions, the public has been convinced of the importance of preparing and providing for the accomplishment of a comprehensive plan. Expert service, in consideration of rates for public utilities, has developed a wider knowledge that municipal, as well as private utilities, should be financed on the basis of paying their way. Engineers have long been foremost in understanding and in promoting a realization on the part of the public that complete topographic maps are excellent guides for all developments. Thus we may hope soon to avoid the troublesome examples of rectangular layouts upon rough topography; of offset street intersections, where adjacent developments meet; and examples of sewer systems, found to be inadequate soon after the area is somewhat developed with impervious surfaces. Not the least important result to be obtained from such complete information will be the ability to lay out thoroughfares where they will be required in the future, as well as the planning of narrower streets where topography indicates and where the area is to be largely residential. The combined result of such knowledge and looking ahead will be to prevent undue street gradients and cause the flow of traffic through thoroughfares with less interruption than now occurs with poorly planned intersections.

Last, but not least, is the increasing appreciation that adequate and comprehensive zoning ordinances will aid in the planning for the future. The engineer and the public utility developer realize this and appreciate the importance of knowing in advance what the uses and development of certain property are to be.

These considerations, and many others not mentioned but included within the scope of this article, will make it possible for our cities to look ahead and plan reasonably for the future. They will make the work of the engineering administrator of the next quarter of a century materially less irksome than it has been in the past, and the conduct of our city affairs far more efficient. They will give us cities more convenient in which to do business and more enjoyable in which to live.

OUTDOOR ADVERTISING REGULATION*

THE PRESENT STAGE OF THE BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN By HAROLD A. CAPARN

WO principles of restraint have emerged to the surface of public antipathy to the scenery-defacing billboard in the past twelve years or so. One of them is the growing recognition by advertisers that advertising that is offensive in itself does not pay, but actually creates a prejudice against the goods it aims to market; the other is the formal recognition by courts in two states and one dependency of the esthetic principle of regulating billboards, by which is meant that, under certain conditions, the community has a grievance against things whose offence is conveyed through the sight as much as against those offending through the nose and ears.

The real difficulty behind the esthetic grievance lies in the fact that most people are agreed as to the intolerableness of many sounds or smells, but that great numbers appear quite insensitive to sights that cause discomfort in others. Beauty or its reverse is so much a matter of individual opinion or feeling that these two opposites cannot be classified and put into separate pigeonholes, convenient as this would be for many reasons and purposes. Though the unseemliness of sights, sounds and odors alike passes through physical senses, yet the sights appeal to a different set of sensibilities and one probably far more refined and complex than the other two: sensibilities, in fact, which appear to those who have them, to be more or less dormant in a great part of mankind. So it is no wonder that the practical legal mind is unwilling to admit distinctions so difficult to define as those between the beautiful and the ugly. Yet the attempts to classify these unclassifiable qualities are incessant and widespread; and if there is a great deal of failure, the failure is by no means complete, for there is large consensus of opinion all over civilization as to what is beautiful and

*The writer is much indebted to Mr. Albert S. Bard of the New York Bar who has edited this article and supplied valuable suggestions and legal material, and to Mr. Frank B. Williams who has read it and aided with helpful criticism.