RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 65 



prevent most of the bad conditions of development, as by the time 

 the city or town extends its boundaries to include the partially devel- 

 oped areas outside the conditions and planning in these areas are to 

 a large extent fixed. 



The city and the town have therefore a direct interest in the 

 planning of the rural districts, and the rural council has a direct 

 responsibility in planning the urban developments in these districts. 

 This joint interest and responsibility is recognized in the City and 

 Suburbs Act of Ontario, which gives the large cities of over 50,000 

 inhabitants a voice in the planning of the lay-out of streets within a 

 radius extending five miles beyond its boundaries, although it falls 

 far short of what is necessary to control suburban development. 



Ancient Rectangular Plans 



The earliest known plans of cities were mostly rectangular in 

 form, and in these real estate speculation in the American sense 

 must have been unknown. The plan of Kahun in Egypt, founded 

 about 2500 B.C., that of the Greek city of Priene on the Aegean 

 coast, and that of the Roman city of Timgad (A.D. 100) are typical 

 of the chessboard patterns of ancient times. The early city build- 

 ers carefully selected the sites for their cities, and, owing to their 

 small size, were able to level them when necessary to suit the 

 plan. But neither these plans nor the more irregular plans of 

 the medieval period had any particular relation to the plans 

 of the rural districts adjoining them. Military and other reasons, 

 which have no bearing on planning in the New World, were the do- 

 minant influences guiding the design of the rectangular systems in 

 ancient Greece and Rome, on the one hand, and the irregular and 

 crowded city growth which took place within the circular walls and forti- 

 fications in the middle ages on the other hand. (Figures 17 and 18.) 



The Beginnings of Urban Planning 



In modern times the rapid growth of large cities over great 

 stretches of rural territory has introduced a factor unknown in ancient 

 history. In Great Britain, the main roads of the counties and rural 

 districts become the arteries of the cities, as the former are ab- 

 sorbed by the latter. These main roads and the well-made secondary 

 roads have their frontages built up before the city grows cut of them 

 and help to pre-determine the lines of development. The boundaries 

 of agricultural estates and also of fields have their influence on the 

 lay-out for building, while the railways and rivers share in fixing the 

 lines of the streets and building plan to a large extent. As the rectangu- 



