CHAPTER V 



THE INVISIBLE CITY OF HOMES 



These are the things I prize 



And hold of dearest worth: 

 Light of the sapphire skies, 



Peace of the silent hills, 

 Shelter of forests, comfort of the grass, 



Music of birds, murmur of little rills, 

 Shadows of clouds that swiftly pass, 



And after showers 

 The smell of flowers 



And of the good brown earth: 

 And best of all, along the way, 



Friendship and mirth. 



Henry Van Dyke. 



HOW does it happen that all of our cities are 

 surrounded by a wide belt of nearly vacant 

 land, which, if used at all, falls far short of 

 its best possibilities? True, the city must stop some- 

 where, but why should it stop short of the genuine 

 rural district? Possibly it is an illustration of the 

 law laid down by Julius Seelye: "In truly living insti- 

 tutions, the instinct of development is wiser than the 

 wisdom of the wisest." 



These vacant areas have been waiting for something 

 for something more valuable than the old order of 

 rural life; more valuable, too, than congested city life. 

 They have been waiting for the Era of the Garden 

 Home. Even now, those vacant spaces constitute the 

 City Invisible. 



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