THE TOWNSGAPE 83 



new street or improving the street and street lights, he must also, for 

 example, pay for the putting in of the street trees. 



The kind of protection which Mr. Gray pointed out as so im- 

 portant in saving our heritage can actually be implemented through 

 policies of a city's capital budgeting process, through changes and 

 modification in the quality and arrangement and design of subdivi- 

 sions through local ordinances, through urban renewal policies and 

 public housing projects and other planning or house development 

 and through changes in the building code. 



We should examine most critically the key relationships between 

 freeways, streets, and the total environment. The essentials of good 

 design in creating excellence in urban forms and particularly vehic- 

 ular ways, must be identified and followed. These include : 



Good proportion : Too many engineering structures in this coun- 

 try are bulky and poorly designed. 



Harmony of the road to its environment : Unfortunately, the en- 

 gineers do not really concern themselves with the relation of the 

 road or street to the environment. Adding a little more land to the 

 acquisition or being much more careful in its gradient can make a 

 road infinitely more beautiful. 



The symmetry of the road relative to beautiful views: Look at 

 the contrast between the New York Thruway and the New Jersey 

 Turnpike. Focal points should be strengthened by the orientation 

 of the road. Structures and grading should be either in contrast 

 or in harmony; so many big highways and city streets build great and 

 ugly retaining walls. Adjacent areas should be integrated into the 

 roadway design so that we really have an effective development. 



It seems to me at the city level, the county level, and the State 

 level, through public policy changes, new ordinances and selling our 

 councilmen and our legislatures, we can begin to implement specific 

 policies of this kind. 



Mr. YASKO. "Townscape" is a relatively new word in the vocabu- 

 lary of design, but I expect that after this White House conference 

 it will be a common word. 



The design of a townscape must recognize the specific needs and 

 qualities that make one place different from another. One of the 

 most meaningful pleasures in a city is to encounter the shockful con- 

 trast between two contiguous places of different patterns and shapes, 

 a contrast which was not artificially supplied through a science of 

 town planning, but through genuine developments which contributed 



