39 
SOME ASPECTS OF TOWN PLANNING. 
By W. A. Saw, Vice-President of the Town Planning Association 
of Western Australia. 
(Read 19 th November , 1918.) 
A publication of the Homestead Commission, Massachusetts, 
United States, America, states that Town Planning means:— 
•‘Conservation of human energy and preservation of life, 
particularly child life; not merely superficial beautification. 
Economy, necessity, scientific reality; not extravagance, 
dreams, fads. 
Conformity to a definite plan of an orderly development 
into which improvement will fit as it is needed; not immediate 
execution of the whole plan. 
Saving in cost of public improvements by business methods 
for city business; not the surrender of the city to artists with 
vague schemes for city adornment. 
Correlation of the city’s activities; not wholesale alterations 
at great expense with no assured financial returns. 
Encouragement of commerce and facilitation of business; 
not the interruption of business and commerce. 
Preservation of historic buildings with their traditions; not 
the destruction of the old landmarks and city individuality 
The rule of common foresight and prudence; not the rule 
of chance with ruinous expense and debt. 
Happiness, convenience, and health to all citizens; not 
merely expensive boulevards and parks available only to the 
rich.” 
Who can say of the vast army of the unemployed how large 
a portion of the industrially inefficient are so because of lowered 
physical vitality caused by disadvantageous living conditions? To 
what extent is the forbidding atmosphere of so many homes an ele- 
ment in the problem of inebriety? Of the burdens which the State 
is called upon to bear in the support of almhouses for the dependent, 
hospitals for the sick, asylums for the insane, prisons and reforma- 
tories for the criminal, what portion can fairly be attributed to early 
adverse environment ? 
What other Countries are doing. 
In 1874 Sweden passed an Act in which it was made compulsory 
that “For every town there shall be prepared a plan for its general 
arrangements and of the building within it, including the streets, the 
