202 COMMISSION ON BUILDING DISTRK rS 



the classification of the areas immediately surrounding these recreation 

 parks. To a certain degree, business and industrial interests have crept in 

 to the very edges of these parks. This assumption that business and indus- 

 trial values are in these districts higher than residential, has led to the 

 classification of many of these areas adjacent to the parks as either lousiness 

 or industrial. This assumption may well be questioned and it is our belief 

 that if the areas around these parks were intensively developed to the 

 maximum along residential and social lines, that values would be produced 

 which would greatly exceed the values which would come through the use 

 of such property for business or industrial purposes. The park is a material 

 asset from the social standpoint which affects the value of property used 

 for that purpose. The parks do not materially add to the value of property 

 around parks when the same is used merely for business or industrial 

 purposes. 



Value of parks harmed by business and industry 



Increasing the number of factories and industrial buildings within these 

 neighborhoods decreases the value of these parks through augmenting 

 vehicular traffic in the parks and rendering the parks of very little value. 

 The introduction of these buildings decreases the number of families that 

 can live within a useful radius of the playground. The present state of the 

 tentative plan which classifies the majority of these areas adjacent to the 

 parks and playgrounds as "industrial" directs the development of these 

 areas along unnatural lines and tends to retard, if not prohibit, the full 

 development of these areas for appropriate use and therefore defeats the 

 end sought, namely, of providing for the development of property to a 

 maximum of value. 



Parks as social centers 



We recognize the limitations under which the Commission is working, 

 that they must not decrease or destroy values. The emphasis seems to have 

 been placed upon an assumed business or industrial value which might 

 eventually accrue in these various districts. It seems to us that the 

 tendency is in quite the opposite direction. Parks have been created for a 

 specific purpose and therefore the emphasis in the plan as a whole should be 

 placed upon conserving this value by conserving that element in the plan 

 for which the parks were created. The actual conditions regarding business 

 and industrial buildings surrounding these playgrounds in most cases i- 

 such as to suggest In the Committee that too great a value has been placed 

 upon them and that these areas do not show any appreciable tendency toward 

 a business or industrial development. There is. however, a distinct tendency 

 toward the development around these parks of improved tenements, togethe* 

 with social, religious and educational buildings. 



It is this tendency which the Commission should recognize Upon the 

 plans and in so doing provide foundations for the development of community 

 centers. 



i >i!vi by Frank B. Williams, Chairman, Committee on City 

 Planning, City Club, March 28, 1916 

 Districting in Germany 



In 1913, as official representative of the City of New York, it was my 

 privilege to make an investigation in Germany and Austria of the methods 

 and results of the zone or district system of building regulation in those 



