vards and parkways; a boulevard with wider, better streets, 
lined with residential properties. The parkways were planned 
to occupy the rugged valleys leading in the directions necessary 
to unite the several properties and the residential districts of the 
city, and by means of these wider spaces in most of these valleys 
producing locally, and all along the lines, local playgrounds and 
restful parks, but principally intended to serve as a highway for 
the local pedestrian travel and the through pleasure travel for 
the whole city. Basing the expectation of good results from all 
these improvements upon experiences had in many other Amer- 
ican cities, it is known that the most direct particular returns 
v/ould accrue to the city through the great increases in private 
property values by reason of the establishment of these boule- 
vards and parkways, creating through these a very considerable 
appreciation of land values, and, in turn, a material increase in 
the tax duplicate, which would necessarily aid very greatly 
toward the paying for the other sections of this whole system 
through these general improvements as a whole, creating values 
that will practically pay the entire cost of this character of im- 
provements in the whole of Cincinnati. 
A single, yet particularly valuable improvement, planned 
for at the time, was a boulevard to become the principal artery 
for the entire city, and reaching into the heart of the business 
district, and along the line of the canal, reaching out from this 
right-of-way, as a boulevard, every district in the city, and tying 
the entire system to the heart of the business center. 
Since the development of the original plan in 1907, by the 
Special Board of Park Commissioners, the successor to that 
board — your present Board of Park Commissioners — has under 
this general plan accomplished a very considerable improvement, 
and has, unquestionably, proven not only a very great need of 
this improvement but demonstrated, particularly, how very far 
behind the needs of the city this improvement has lagged. 
The partial accomplishment of the general plan, even in 
this comparatively short time, has clearly demonstrated the 
need of an active body distinct from the general departments 
of the municipality, until these improvements have been brought 
up comparatively to the needs of the city, and has shown the 
necessity for a continuance of such an organization until its 
work is accomplished. During these few years, the city has 
acquired — and to some extent improved and made useful to the 
community — a greater area for out-door recreation than had been 
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