CHAPTER XIII 

 GARDEN CITIES 



We can build small, new cities that are practically perfect, without 

 philanthropic aid, simply by cooperation, and these cities may 

 revolutionize the old ones 



THE most perfect city I have ever seen or heard of is the 

 famous "garden city" of Bournville, a suburb of Bir- 

 mingham, England. I was simply transported by the 

 healthfulness, happiness, and beauty of the place, and I believe 

 it gives the people more for their money than any other city on 

 earth. Any one who has cherished some noble vision of a glorified 

 humanity would be intensely interested to see Bournville, for part 

 of Bellamy's "Looking Backward" is here realized. 



Can you imagine yourself living four miles from a city the 

 size of Pittsburg in a suburban town of about three thousand in- 

 habitants, where there are no saloons and never can be any slums, 

 noise, dirt, crowding, factory smells, bill boards, or streets torn up 

 for gas-lighting, or sewers ? Wouldn't you like a chance to play golf, 

 tennis, cricket, bowls, or hockey under ideal circumstances at a 

 cost of a few cents a day? Wouldn't you be satisfied with the 

 social life of a community that has splendid schools, churches, 

 baths, gymnasium, meeting-house, and one tenth of its whole area 

 given up to parks and playgrounds? Wouldn't you feel safer in 

 a city where the national birth-rate has been doubled and the 

 death-rate cut in two? And what would you say to a handsome 

 brick house of seven rooms and a bath, with an eighth of an acre 



