CITY MANAGER 



1395 



CIVET 



The Government of American Cities; also the 

 articles In these volumes on CITY MANAGER; 

 CITY PLANNING. E.D.F. 



CITY MANAGER, an official employed by 

 the governing body of a city to manage its 

 business affairs. This is a recent modification 

 of the commission plan of government (which 

 see). Under the city-manager plan, there is a 

 small elective commission, but this body does 

 not itself exercise legislative or administrative 

 powers. Instead, the commission appoints, and 

 discharges at its pleasure, a city manager. This 

 officer is held responsible for the management 

 of the city's business, which he is expected to 

 conduct as he would a private enterprise, aim- 

 ing to secure the best results with the least 

 expenditure of public funds and the highest 

 degree of efficiency. In most cases he has 

 authority to employ and discharge helpers and 

 minor officials. The city-manager plan of 

 administration is found to be of great value 

 in villages and small cities, since it removes 

 public service from politics, and frees the 

 municipality from the evils attending the sys- 

 tem of filling offices to pay political debts. Up 

 to 1916 about fifty American cities had adopted 

 the city-manager plan, the largest of which was 

 Dayton, O. Several American universities are 

 considering the advisability of introducing 

 courses for training men to become city man- 

 agers. See CIVIL SERVICE, subhead State and 

 City Civil Service. 



Consult Clay's City Building. 



CITY PLANNING. The purpose of city 

 planning is to provide for the business inter- 

 ests, the residences, the, places of recreation and 

 the means of transportation of a city, and to 

 do this in such a manner as will make the city 

 convenient, sanitary and beautiful. Most 

 cities have grown from small villages by suc- 

 cessive additions and have not followed any 

 plan of development which takes all interests 

 into consideration. While it is not practicable 

 to remedy much that has been done, many 

 large cities now have city-planning commissions 

 which have oversight of new works and can 

 prevent a repetition of mistakes of the past. 

 In France, Germany and England city planning 

 has received attention for many years. 



A complete plan for the city of Washington 

 was made by the French architect L'Enfant, 

 but it has not been strictly followed until re- 

 cently. The national commission appointed to 

 take charge of the beautifying of that city was 

 headed by Daniel Hudson Burnham (which 

 see), who collaborated with McKim, Olmsted 



and Saint Gaudens. Canberra, the new capital 

 of the commonwealth of Australia, is being 

 built after a complete plan furnished by Walter 

 B. Griffin. 



Consult Senate Document 442, National Con- 

 ference on City Planning, which may be obtained 

 from the Government Printing Office, Washing- 

 ton, D. C. ; also, Bruere's The New City Gov- 

 ernment. 



CITY STATES, those states in which the 

 political, intellectual and religious life of the 

 people is centered in a single city, which has 

 all the powers of a self-governing nation, and 

 exercises political authority over such terri- 

 tories as it may control. The city state had its 

 fullest development in ancient times, the most 

 conspicuous examples being Athens and Rome. 

 The Athenian state consisted of Athens proper, 

 and also the various outlying villages of the 

 Attic territory; the free inhabitants of this 

 territory owed allegiance not to Attica but 

 to the city of Athens, and were, properly speak- 

 ing, Athenian citizens. The ancient city state 

 was, in territory, identical with a modern city; 

 in political rights, it was identical with a mod- 

 ern nation. 



In the Middle Ages the Italian cities of 

 Milan, Florence, Genoa, Venice and Naples 

 rose to power as independent states; the free 

 cities of Germany, Hamburg, Bremen and Lii- 

 beck, and some of the cantons of Switzerland 

 are present-day examples of the city state in 

 a modified form. 



CIVET, siv'et, a beautiful and valuable ani- 

 mal of the warmest regions of the Old World, 

 chiefly Africa and the Malayan Islands. About 

 two or three feet long and ten inches high, it 

 is more slender than a raccoon, and has a long 



THE CIVET 



tail. The fur, gray above and white below, is 

 tinged with yellow and marked by dusky spots 

 in rows. Civets live in holes, like foxes, and 

 eat birds and other small animals. They are 

 also fond of crocodile eggs, and are considered 

 valuable along the Nile because they prevent 



