346 " ANNUAL EEPORT. 



and rendering them attractive confer upon them a value they could not otherwise 

 attain. If, as in tlie case of tlie Central Park, their natural character is picturesque 

 from its rugged and forbidding nature, the style of improvements should corres- 

 pond, and their chief attractions w^ill lie in the contrast they afford to the luxurious 

 elegance of the surrounding city. But there are other natural causes which often 

 render large areas uninhabitable or so undesirable that they are liable to become 

 offensive districts unless prevented by timely forethought and wise provision for 

 their improvement. It may be that there is danger of malarial diseases from natural 

 causes which can only be removed by the action of the city or perhaps the state, 

 or it may be only that a wide area is of such monotonous character as to offer no 

 special attraction to those whose means enable them to choose a more agreeable 

 locality, and is therefore offered in small lots at a low price and grows into a dreary 

 wilderness of mean or very ordinary streets which are avoided by all but those who 

 can afford nothing better. 



There are miles upon miles of such streets in Chicago, lined with cheap and flimsy 

 structures or with hideous cooking tenement houses, pregnant with disease from 

 stagnant pools, foul gutters and filtby alleys, and apparently irredeemable from 

 their squalor by any power short of that exercised in Paris by Napoleon, yet the 

 mode he adopted for converting such quarters into elegant and sightly sections may 

 teach our new and growing cities how to avoid the dreaded evil w^hich only such 

 arbitrary power can cure. Paris was formerly filled with narrow streets lined with 

 low buildings. Now it is mapped out into a magnificent system of boulevards on 

 each side of which are elegant buildings and double rows of trees. — When a boule- 

 vard is to be opened through such a precinct, the property is taken by appraisement, 

 — not only of suflicient width for the avenue, but for one or two hundred feet back 

 from the curb-stone on each side. The avenue is then made and planted, and the 

 land on each side re-arranged and sold in lots with proper restrictions as to the 

 kind of buildings to be erected, and their distance from the street. It is well for us 

 that such arbitrary power of eviction is impossible in our cities, but it is all the 

 more essential that we should take such early action as may prevent the evil which 

 can only be cured by such means. 



In the neighborhood of almost all cities there are more or less extensive tracts 

 which possess no natural features to render them attractive, and although no seri- 

 ous objection can be urged against them, are not largely in demand for the erectioji 

 of fine public or private buildings. 



As the city expands these areas fill up with streets and buildings so monotonous 

 in their style that they can hardly be distinguished from one another, and though 

 there may be nothing disreputable or offensive in their general character, the quar- 

 ters never comes to be considered a desirable one, and can never become a source of 

 such rich revenue to the city treasury as miglit liave been secured by a more judic- 

 ious arrangement in the first place. The lack of naturally attractive features should 

 have been supplied by intersecting the area with broad ornamental avenues, con- 

 necting with parks of greater or less extent, so arranged and decorated with tasteful 

 designs of trees, shrubbery, lawn and flowers as to render them attractive resorts for 

 all coming time. The experience of old cities has amply demonstrated that the 

 creation of such improvements, when judiciously located, never fails to give such 

 tone and character to a wide section of adjacent territory, that sites are eagerly 



