THE THEORY OF CITY DESIGN. 99 



activity, and not set apart where the work-a-day world would gain 

 least from their civilizing influences. 



In the adoption of curved streets or indirect routes to avoid 

 heavy grades there must be some mean condition, a compromise, 

 as it were, between the direct route of the steep gradient, and the 

 devious route of the easier grade. The author's proposal that the 

 maximum grade under these circumstances should be 10% is con- 

 sidered quite excessive; a maximum of 7J% under the most 

 unfavourable topographical conditions would entail no special 

 difficulties, and certainly should not be exceeded. The economy 

 of low gradients extends far beyond the immediate section of road 

 considered, and may sometimes determine the load at a distance. 

 Any plan having been duly decided upon, I consider it would 

 be highly dangerous to the satisfactory final completion of that 

 design, if any allegedly temporary amendment be permitted, 

 especially where the building line is concerned. It would be quite 

 in the economy of a design that streets be wide and yet not wholly 

 in use. A central strip for instance, not paved and treated as a 

 shrubbery, would entail no great cost, and even if subject to 

 neglect would be better than some other excuse for permanently 

 crippling the design. 



Of the broad question of aesthetics there is much to be said, and 

 the general principles should never be lost sight of, as they are 

 independent of all accidental features which form only the frame- 

 work for their application. Starting, de novo, it would be possible 

 to introduce principles impossible and unknown to the cities of the 

 past, which have, as Mr. Knibbs graphically puts it — like Topsy — 

 growed. Of these, to my mind, one of the greatest possible 

 sesthetic importance is the question of the weather protection of 

 footpaths. There is nothing associated with the habitations of 

 man so fatal to beauty in design, so hideously excrescent and 

 foreign to every canon of architectural proportion, as the street 

 awning. It is necessary to every climate and is disowned by 

 every style of architecture. The architect excludes it from his 

 drawings, knowing the while, that parasite-like it will attach itself 



