A War Memorial for Belfast. 13 



Speaking for myself, I have found that these two small plans give 

 the key to the whole programme of Town Plaiming. It is clearly 

 a damnable and inhuman thing to allow streets like (a) to be 

 built, when, by the exercise of a little care and forethought, they 

 may as easily be built in accordance with (b). Fig. 9 points 

 the same moral : but illustrates it a little differently by showing 

 the actual change in operation. The lower part of Fig. 9 is 

 the Old Style with which we are so unhappily familiar in Belfast : 

 the upper part is the New, which Mall, I trust, soon become our 

 normal method of expansion. We should do an important piece 

 of preliminary work if we were only to select a typical " growing 

 edge " of Belfast, say, the top of the Old Park Road, and prepare 

 a full set of plans and perspective drawings, showing (l) what it 

 is, (2) what it will be if we do not insist on a change of method, 

 and (3) what Ave could make it by the application of Town 

 Planning principles. 



Reconstructing Old Areas. It is much more difficult to 

 suggest what to do Avith the Avilderness of abominable planless 

 little streets, where there are no " amenities " to preserve, or 

 even, apparently, to restore. If we have, as Ave have, built miles 

 of mean streets in the likeness of FiG. 8 (a), we cannot 

 really juggle them into the likeness of Fici. 8 (b). AVc can, 

 sloAvly, and l)it by bit, reconstruct them towards a more civilised 

 set of ideas. But we cannot take them first. We tnust begin 

 ivith the new houses : when we have got the first fcAv thousands 

 of them built, the existing over-pressure upon the mean streets 

 Avould begin to be reduced. We could then afford to take one 

 area after another, and rearrange it as might seem best in each 

 individual case, ahvays bearing in mind that 1 dwelling-houses, 

 or about 50 human beings, is sufficient for an acre of land.* 

 Sometimes we would clear away a block of houses and make 

 the site into a school yard or playground : sometimes Ave 



*lf some of the land is occupied by factories or churches,- then there 

 must be a still further reduction in the density ratio. 



