Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1893-02-16
To Rebuild Old Cities.

The worst, w1ckedest, most unhealth-
full part of a city is its older streets and
buildings. Most of our large cities have
been increased by taking on adjacent
villages. Sometimes the village streets
ran the same way as those of the big
city, oftener not. In every old city of the
Union and in many new ones there are
miles Of narrow, crooked streets and rot
ten old rookeries in which rat ought TO
be ashamed to nest. In perhaps a ma
lority Of cases these foul old tenements
belong to millionaire owners. In such
dens last fall cholera found a breeding
place in New York. In such dens typhus
fever is at this moment raging in the
same city.
Now, these old tenements are dis
grace to civilization, particularly Amer
lean civilization. So are large proper
ton Of the business houses, shops and
factories in which 100000 men and
women work day by day, running their
health, imperiling their lives and gradual
AODlbk al bCA5C Of CtCd1lluCSb anu
inement. 1t would be blessing not at
all disguised if a square mile or two of
nearly every city in the Union should be
swept by fire and have every building it
contained cleared off the face of the
earth. Then we could begin over new
and put up the tall. light, splendid fire
proof palaces which are the sort of Of
fees and factories in which civilized peo-
pie should work.
In many cases the property owner is
the man who stands in the way of the
erection of the new style business house.
With all the money he himself wants, he
will neither erect a new house nor let
anybody do it, He is the dog in the man
ger, Often this fossilized old hunks
leaves lot altogether unimproved in the
very heart of a city, crowding people off
it and merely waiting till he gets fabu-
lous price for it. A city business man
has suggested the following way to deal
with such a monopolist 1t is to be con-
sidered that he has no right to stand in
the way Of necessary improvements
The municipal government should have
the right to step in and say: This city
needs your ground for the use of its citi-
zens. We are going to buy it of you
whether you want to sell it or not. We
will give you a good price for it, fully
what it is worth, but sell you must. Or,
if you prefer to erect upon your property
a freproof house with all modern i'm
provements, do so, but one or the other
you shall do in the interests of the people
of this city"
If the old hunks preferred to sell his
property to the city, then the city could
lease it for sufficient ground rent to
man who would erect upon it either one
Of the palace apartment houses in which
poor people have a right to live or
palace factory or business house in which
poor people have right to work. Thus
block after block Of real estate now COW
cred by disreputable old rookeries would
pass into the hands of the city itself,
to be leased by individuals who would
transform it according to modern re-
quirements, The revenues from these
ground rents would gradually defray no
small part of the city expenses, thus
taking the place of taxes. In time the
rents would be sufficient to more than
pay the city back the purchase price.
Stun cities would be transformed by
degrees into cities Of palaces.
1t is now admitted on all sides that
the great Chicago fire was the best thing
that ever happened to the Lake CITY
alike from the commercial, sanitary and
architectural points of view.
The plan proposed would be the means
of righting q great wrong from which
the inhabitants of every large city suf-
fer. The state has the right to condemn
land for public improvements already.
What public Improvements is greater
than that which betters the health and
morals of a whole city2
Thus our cities could be reconstructed
according to goth century needs. Some
thing Of the kind has already been done
In England.
The French Canadians are, many of