The Life of the City. 



493 



(i) The orderly and sanitary planning of the city in regard to 

 sufficient width and useful direction of the streets, and the proper 

 construction of the same. 



(2) The planting of trees in the streets. 



(3) Cleanliness of the streets. 



(4) The desirability of acquiring land for the poorer classes 

 which may be unsuitable for other purposes. 



(5) Hygienic regulations for the exterior and interior of build- 

 ings, including the forbidding of the erection of buildings contrar}- 

 to the official building laws, the forbidding of the erection of build- 

 ings in unfinished streets, or the following of trades within the town 

 which may be noxious to the public health, and of unhealthy 

 dwellings and overcrowding. 



(6) Adequate provision for' the supply of water and lighting. 



(7) The provision of suitable building plots in sufficient quality 

 and quantit}-, and control of the hygienic arrangement of buildings, 

 workrooms, and dwellings. 



That these greatly to be desired objects may be carried into 

 effect a number of measures of both a private and official character 

 axe necessar)-, such as the establishment of a comprehensive build- 

 ing plan, including a uniform project for the improvement of traffic. 

 The power of providing streets and open spaces should private 

 enterprise fail to meet the demand, including the acquisition of land 

 for the dwellings of the jx)orer classes which may be unsuitable for 

 other purposes. 



(i) As a first condition of healthy life may be put the thorough 

 intersection of the city by wide streets. This is a measure difficult 

 to accomplish except in a modem town, and consequently gives 

 such a first claim for preference as a desirable place of residence 

 over one of ancient foundations, with necessarily tortuous and nar- 

 row thoroughfares. That this is felt may be seen in many cities in 

 Europe, where quite heroic efforts are being made by the Munici- 

 palities to bring their city up to date in this one of the most essen- 

 tial of all health conditions. In the South of France the nucleus of 

 some of the principal towns has been determined by the fact of their 

 having been Roman encampments, which happy condition of birth 

 call be noticed in the central open space and the symmetrical plan 

 of the streets surrounding it. More often, however, we can trace the 

 citji's growth from the Church, of which it forms the centre, which, 

 becoming famous, the lanes and bypaths across the fields leading to 

 it, have slowly become peopled and transformed into busy stirring 

 streets. Perhaps the most wonderful instance of the successful 

 bringing of a city up to modem conditions exists in Paris, where an 

 unhealthy, overcrowded, and inconvenient tangle of lanes and 

 crooked streets was transformed in comparatively few years by a strong 

 hand into the finest and most scientifically planned city in the world. 



English towns and cities are, perhaps inevitably, as due to the 

 condition of their development, the least scientifically planned in 

 Europe, and this may help to account for the comparative indif- 



