House&Garden 
V o 1 . Ill JUNE, 1903 No. 6 
NEW YORK CITY OF THE FUTURE 
By FREDERICK STYMETZ LAMB 
T HE recent growth of great cities has 
brought us face to face with a problem 
never before considered. While it may be 
claimed, with a certain amount of justice, 
that many of the early cities were carefully 
planned, the planning at that time involved 
such limited areas and small populations that 
theproblem presented few difficulties. During 
the last century, however, conditions have 
materially changed—so much so, that a very 
serious proposition is presented, the rapidly 
increasing population inducing a novel con¬ 
dition claimed by some to be almost impos¬ 
sible of solution ; the problem being a proper 
estimate not only of the proportional in¬ 
crease of population, but of the eventual 
limit of growth to which cities may attain. 
In the City of New York the increase is 
two hundred thousand a year, at which rate, 
in 1920, there will be a population of ap¬ 
proximately ten millions. It is also com¬ 
puted by experts that the possible limit for 
the City of New York is in the neighbor¬ 
hood of sixteen millions of people and that 
this will be reached at not a far distant date. 
These facts, taken in connection with the 
experience of the great cities of Europe, 
show that a difficult task confronts those who 
undertake to project a suitable plan for the 
great Metropolis. 
New York by its very location is destined 
to be a great commercial city, but it is diffi¬ 
cult at this time to foretell how it will de¬ 
velop; for in studying the efforts that have 
been made to replan the cities of the Old 
World, we find that much that had been 
projected was found in a very short time to 
be inadequate ; and that much of the work 
not only projected, but executed, had to be 
changed. Thus we find in Paris, although 
in the time of Haussmann, an elaborate rear¬ 
rangement was made, believed to be suf¬ 
ficient for many years thereafter; yet within 
the last year Paris has been forced to con¬ 
sider the demolition of its walls and the ex¬ 
tension of its area. In spite of the fact that 
within a few years the City of London has 
expended in the neighborhood of fifty-six 
millions for changes and improvements, it 
still has not materially affected the original 
plan. In Vienna, where possibly the most 
successful solution of the replanning of one 
of the old fortified cities has been accom¬ 
plished, the difficulty of formulating a proper 
scheme for the outlying districts must now 
be considered. In Holland, where each 
increase of a city’s area, wrested from the 
sea, has been considered more than adequate 
for future needs, yet but a few years pass be¬ 
fore new inroads on the ocean must be con¬ 
templated. 
The question is further complicated by 
the difficulty, especially in this country, of 
financing these improvements. In Europe, 
where there exists a more centralized form of 
government, the obstacles are not so great, 
but even there, resort to ingenious subter¬ 
fuges has been necessary to accomplish the 
result so much desired. In some cities 
these improvements have been made self- 
supporting, as in the case of the Shaftsbury 
Avenue extension, in London, where more 
property was taken at the initial stage 
than was necessary, and by subsequent sale 
of the surplus the city was more than reim¬ 
bursed for the investment. In Paris, the 
