GENERAL MUNICIPAL AND COUNTY PARK PLANNING 73 



seat towns often serves the purpose. This type of property is virtually an 

 outdoor social center where people may visit, where band concerts, political 

 meetings, church socials, small fairs and similar gatherings may be held. 

 If properly landscaped and maintained it helps beautify the village. 



4. One naturally wooded type from ten to twenty acres in extent for 

 large gatherings for the people of the village and the surrounding country. 

 This type of property serves as a gathering place for civic celebrations, 

 country fairs, church and school picnics and other general community 

 gatherings. 



5. It is desirable, if local conditions permit, to have a community 

 house located as near the center of the village as possible. This structure 

 might provide a combined auditorium and gymnasium with a stage at one 

 end of the hall and dressing rooms on either side of the stage, dressing 

 rooms for those taking part in sports and games, a few lockers, toilets and 

 showers where running water is available, and an office and a rest room for 

 women. All these features may be combined in the consolidated school, 

 although as a general rule it is better to have a separate structure for a 

 community house. 



Every small community should have a swimming center. Often this 

 may be obtained through the utilization of some natural resources such as 

 many villages have in streams, rivers and lakes. Some very good swimming 

 places have been created by damming a small stream. The construction of 

 a concrete pool is not beyond the financial resources of many villages. 



With reference to a planning and administrative unit for rural parks 

 and recreation, the county is the desirable unit, inasmuch as few of the 

 village communities have the financial resources to maintain a year-round 

 program of recreation. While the villages may be able to provide some 

 of the necessary individual properties, the general planning and adminis- 

 trative machinery should be organized on a territorial basis of much larger 



revenue producing resources. The county is the logical unit for this purpose. 







Group II. All Incorporated Communities of from 2,500 to 5,000 Inhabitants. 



In 1920, according to the Federal Census, this group numbered 1,320 

 communities comprising 4,593,953 inhabitants, or 4.3 per cent of the total 

 population of the nation. In 1910 the population of this group was 4.2 

 per cent of the total population. 



While this group of communities is classed as urban by the Federal 

 Census, in reality, so far as general environmental conditions are con- 

 cerned, the majority of them are characteristically rural. The general 

 environmental conditions are not greatly different from the conditions sur- 

 rounding the lives of the people living in the first group. Similarly the 



