Housing and Town Planning. Garden Cities 63 



in towns, and about 7,000,000 in rural districts, or to 

 put it in another way there are four times as many 

 people living under urban conditions as under rural 

 conditions of life. This shifting of the people from 

 country life to town life necessitates changes in every 

 direction. The boundaries of towns already large are 

 extended thus we get enormous areas such as London, 

 Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, 

 with teeming populations ranging from 7,000,000 to 

 1,000,000. To meet the increase of people new streets 

 and roads are laid out, and thousands of new houses are 

 built not always of the most desirable type. 



People who live in towns as well as those living 

 in cities should have houses that are sanitary and with 

 sufficient accommodation for all family purposes. In 

 far too many cases the country cottages fulfil neither of 

 these conditions, and the town houses and cottages for 

 the artisan classes are mainly built in long monotonous 

 rows. These dwellings are all of one pattern, and their 

 walls of yellow brick and roofs of dull slate are certainly 

 not artistic, and their inmates too often take little or 

 no pride in such houses. These town houses and 

 cottages have very little garden, in general only a 

 back yard, and thus the dwellers in them lose the pride 

 that one ought to feel in making the surroundings of 

 the home beautiful and attractive. 



Fortunately there are many parts of our country 

 where some of the houses and cottages are well built and 

 good for the eye to rest upon. In the High Streets of 

 some of our older provincial towns, such as Chester, the 

 houses and shops are of varied design, and as they are 

 built of suitable materials, each one seems to reveal the 

 character of the builder. Some of our villages have 



