PARKS INCREASE LAND VALUES 



miles from the State House it enters Brookline, and is about 

 twelve thousand feet or a little more than two miles long in 

 Brookline, as far as the Brighton line. Beacon Street was 

 originally laid out through Brookline fifty feet in width and in 

 two sections, the western half, west of Washington Street, 

 in 1850, the eastern half, east of Washington Street, in 1851. 

 The original laying out of Beacon Street appears to have been 

 harder to secure than its conversion into a parkway in 1886-87. 

 The promoters of this latter project were promptly supported 

 by the selectmen and citizens. The benefit to accrue to the 

 town was instantly seen; what the promoters might gain was 

 problematical. But the fitness of co-operation between public 

 and private interests here received strong confirmation. One 

 helped the other; each was dependent upon the other; the 

 result was profitable to both. Beacon Street was widened into a 

 parkway from 160 to 180 feet in width, with a reservation 

 for street-car service near the centre, the entire cost being 

 $615,000, of which the town paid $465,000. This was done, 

 regardless of what the city of Boston might do at either end. 

 The town would and did compel the city to follow its lead. In 

 six years the increase in assessed values of land and buildings 

 on each side of the Beacon Parkway throughout its entire 

 length in Brookline, for an approximate distance of only 500 

 feet from the side line on both sides of the street, is $4,330,400, 

 with no allowance for any increase in personal estate incident 

 thereto. At $11.80 on $1,000, the tax rate of 1892, Brookline 

 received last year about $51,000 in the taxes on these two strips 

 of land 500 feet wide only, and the annual revenue is increasing 

 each year. The Beacon Parkway is therefore paying for 

 itself long before the most zealous advocate of that measure 

 supposed it would, and is a striking proof that well-considered 

 plans for large public improvements of this kind are profitable 

 public ventures. 



It is an interesting fact that the average rate of taxation in 

 Brookline during the past ten years, the period of its most 

 extraordinary growth and boldest improvements, is less than 

 for the preceding ten years. The average rate from 188*2 to 

 1892 was $10.87 per $1,000. The average rate from 1872 to 

 1882 was $12.01 per $1,000. The town debt has increased 

 during the past ten years 43 J per cent. ; while the town valua- 

 tion in the same period has increased 113f per cent. Of 

 course, with the town's growth, come added expenses and 

 demands each year. But Brookline has recognized the fact 

 that the town will grow whether it is encouraged so to do or 



[36] 



