48 PARKS 



landscape beauty, rival the most beautiful of landscaped public parks. 

 The plan of designing cemeteries whereby the conventional monu- 

 ments are forbidden and only plain slabs or small stones sunk to a level of 

 the ground are allowed, makes possible still more beautiful landscape 

 treatment of these areas. This plan is slowly coming into vogue in some 

 sections of the country. 



IX. STREETS 



Streets, as such, cannot properly be classed as units of a park system, 

 but in many municipalities the park department is responsible for street 

 planting, the care of trees and of parked areas along streets. 



From the standpoint of play of children, streets always have been, 

 and very likely always will be, in large cities, important areas of play. 

 Many community recreation systems have made organized use of streets 

 as playgrounds, safeguarding them not only by supervision but also by 

 temporarily barring from traffic the areas used under special authority 

 from the city council or the chief of police. 



SECTION II FIRST STEPS IN PLANNING A PARK SYSTEM 



The process of determining which of the types of unit elements dis- 

 cussed in the preceding section any given administrative area (munici- 

 pality, metropolitan district, county) should have, and the number, location 

 and the individual sizes of each type desired, constitutes the preliminary 

 and basic step in planning a park system. 



This section is limited to a brief consideration of this phase of park 

 planning together with some notes on putting a plan into execution when 

 once formulated. Those phases of planning which relate to the design and 

 construction of individual areas are considered in subsequent chapters. 



SOME PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN FIRST STEPS IN PARK PLANNING 



1. The allocation of areas for recreation (parks, playgrounds, neigh- 

 borhood playfield-parks and similar areas) must be considered an integral 

 and fundamental part of general city planning. Areas for recreation 

 cannot be considered apart from the uses of land for streets and trans- 

 portation (land and water); for housing (numbers and distribution of 

 population); and from the probable growth and movement of population, 

 the location and distribution of industrial and commercial establishments, 

 and the number and location of institutions of different kinds, such as sites 

 for schools and sites for other public and private-public institutions. 



2. The plan should take under consideration not only present needs 

 but also the estimated needs twenty-five to fifty years hence. 



