completed parkway is more or less depend- 
ent upon conditions not under the control 
of the Park Commission. There may be 
a reservation in the parkway all graded 
and ready for an electric railway, yet the 
latter may not be built for years. The 
land owners may have favored the com- 
pletion of the parkway and not have got 
together to put in the rails and to provide 
the schools, churches, clubs and stores 
needed to attract the well-to-do people who 
can afford to buy the lots and build houses 
of a kind suitable for parkway lots. The 
increase in value of the private land ad- 
joining the parkway, in most cases, no 
doubt will have been more than the amount 
of an immediate assessment of the whole 
cost of the parkway, yet most of the land 
owners may find it difficult to pay the sin- 
gle assessment, or even the five-installment 
assessment, until money comes in from the 
sale of lots. Many owners are “land 
poor.” Some others, perhaps few in num- 
ber but disproportionately influential, may 
have command of money enough to pay a 
single assessment without inconvenience, 
but have so many opportunities for placing 
their funds profitably that they would pre- 
fer to pay on the installment plan, espe- 
cially as the money would be used mostly 
for interest and installments in connection 
with county bonds bearing only four per 
cent, interest, while these particular owners 
may feel that they can easily earn twice as 
much with the money. 
An incidental advantage of the long pe- 
riod installment plan of collecting better- 
ments is that it will lead to far less litiga- 
tion, at a notable saving of time, trouble, 
nervous energy and expense to all con- 
cerned. Suppose the balance of betterment 
over damage should amount on a certain 
lot to $300. Suppose the market value to 
have been raised from $500 to $1,500. Sup- 
pose the regular tax to have been increased 
from $10 to $30 in consequence of the lay- 
ing out of the parkway. For many an 
owner a sudden call for the $300 assess- 
ment in cash in one payment would not 
only be irksome, but would tend to arouse 
combativeness, even though he might be 
conscious that the lot has been increased in 
value by the parkway by an amount far 
more than $300. Supposing the assessment 
is to be paid in twenty installments, be- 
ginning five years after the completion of 
the parkway, the interest at 4 per cent, to 
be added. The amount would be larger, 
but how different his attitude toward the 
matter would be! During the five years 
he might have sold the lot. In that case 
he would have had the choice to pay off 
the balance of assessments in a lump sum 
out of the purchase money, or to let the 
buyer assume the obligation. In either case 
he would feel all right toward the Park 
Commission, or he may have held the lot 
vacant during the five years. If so he 
would have had time to get used to the 
changed conditions. More houses would 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
have been built. These would generally be 
occupied by prosperous people — by people 
above the average in that respect. There 
could hardly fail to be a prevailing feel- 
ing of satisfaction with the parkway, and 
there would therefore be a spirit of opti- 
mism in the locality exceedingly favorable 
to land values. The lot owner in question 
would not then have a feeling of oppression 
in beginning to pay the comparatively small 
installments. Or he may have built a resi- 
dence on the lot. In that case he would 
have needed to borrow $300 less at 6 per 
cent. A saving of 2 per cent, a year on 
$300 for five years might not appeal to 
him as of very great moment, but the 
avoidance of a cash payment of $300 be- 
fore he started to build, at the very time 
he was straining to save up money for 
building, would make a vast difference in 
his attitude toward the Park Commission 
and the parkway scheme. It may be ob- 
jected that to postpone for five years the 
collection of a parkway assessment is un- 
sound financing. On the other hand it may 
be good policy, if not carried to excess, to 
help many people to build homes much 
above the average along the parkways by 
thus lending the credit of the county, with 
entire safety, at 4 per cent, to individuals, 
who would undoubtedly have to pay 6 per 
cent, for it if they had to borrow it. There 
would, it is true, be some clerical and other 
expense to the county in thus extending 
the time for payment of assessments, but 
this may be offset against the general bene- 
fit of the method, or it may be added to 
maintenance expenses, or the interest rate 
may be increased to cover it. At any rate, 
the method would almost certainly greatly 
reduce litigation, and the saving to the 
county in that way would probably far 
more than offset the clerical and other ex- 
penses of the installment system. 
The district form of assessment is well 
developed in some States, but is sometimes 
applied rather carelessly and unscientifical- 
ly. The law should be such as to provide 
that the assessing commission shall act on- 
ly as the result of considering one or 
more reports of one or more experts act- 
ing jointly or independently, as may be 
suitable in each case. These experts should 
be unbiased and yet should spend time 
enough in examination of land and records 
and should ascertain the opinions of land 
owners on all pertinent questions and 
should weigh them and finally report their 
own opinions on pertinent questions to the 
assessment commission. The main ques- 
tions in this matter of districts would be to 
establish just and proper boundaries for 
each rate of percentage or square foot 
assessment. The usual simple and brain 
saving method of defining zones bounded 
uniformly so many feet from the side line 
of a parkway is a crude and often very un- 
just method. In some cases the laying out 
and building of a parkway may add very 
markedly to the value of all the land on 
301 
one side of a parkway within a mile or 
even much more, while in the other direc- 
tion the readily ascertainable betterment 
may be limited to one or perhaps two or 
three tiers of lots only, and in some cases 
a parkway might not only increase the 
value of neighboring land but might actual- 
ly decrease it, as for instance, if the land 
were valuable for large manufacturing 
plants and would be cut in two by the 
parkway and yet, being low, it might re- 
main very unattractive for a good class 
of residences. The usual zone system of 
assessment not only is not scientifically 
adapted to such cases, but tends to prevent 
proper atttention to the actual availability 
of each tract or lot for some use for which 
the parkway would be a direct or indirect, 
ascertainable benefit. In general, a park- 
way would be of most benefit to vacant 
land otherwise suitable for residences and 
for such other demand as arises in a resi- 
dence neighborhood and probably of little 
value to a well developed factory or canal 
property, unless, in the case of a factory, 
the parkway should provide a needed elec- 
tric railway or a needed sewer location, or 
by its width tend to lessen the fire risk or 
for some other utilitarian reason. It is 
clear, too, that lots occupied by fairly dur- 
able tenement houses or in that kind of 
neighborhood would not be benefited as 
much by a parkway as vacant lots in a 
neighborhood having only a good class of 
single family houses. In the former case 
it would generally be difficult to raise rents, 
even though the neighborhood had been 
rendered more attractive, unless the trans- 
portation facilities were markedly im- 
proved by the parkway and the destiny of 
population suddenly increased. In the lat- 
ter case the benefit would be realizable, but 
would be held down by the previously ex- 
isting character of the neighborhood. It 
would only be in exceptionable cases that 
enough owners would tear down cheap ten- 
ements and replace them by better ones or 
by single family houses of a good type, to 
fully realize on the parkway benefits. 
The general tendency is for a densely 
built up neighborhood to deteriorate, be- 
cause many individual owners, either 
through poverty or ignorance or a short- 
sighted, mistaken policy, do not spend 
enough for paint and repairs. The natural 
result is that many tenants are continually 
moving out into new buildings. In many 
cases owners should follow the policy of 
accumulating a sinking fund to cover the 
cost of tearing down and replacing anti- 
quated buildings by modern ones. Their 
failure to do this lowers the character of 
some neighborhoods. Some owners do not 
resist the temptation to accept ever poorer 
and poorer tenants rather than lose rent 
by vacancy, or do not pay for a good 
agent’s services. Hence in determining the 
boundaries of parkway assessment districts 
mere distance from the parkway is some- 
times a minor consideration. Availability 
