The herald., 1896-03-29

the earlier stages of human progress his
manner of life was fitted to the forest
and the plain. He lived on river brink
or lifted hill, in mountain nook or ma
tive meadow, but always in the country.
Now, after several ages of trial effort,
he tires of his background OF nature and
makes rush for tho foreground of CT
Witty. I hope he will profit by the
change, but have my doubts.
The thinkers have reached consensus
that the draft of mankind cityward is
natural and inevitable. If so, there is
NO need of revolt against the move
ment. A thing that is dccreed by nature
and instigated by desire will come,
whose may kick Or cavil. Nature and
desire, cooperating, will have their way
against all philosophy and demonstra-
ton alike of thought and force. Nature
and desire will prevail, sooner or later,
interdict of law. over seven armies with
banners. The natural tendency of things
has never yet once i'll the history of
mankind been overcome OF even serious
~ impeded with any argument or con-
trivance of man.
Some Of our recent writers, DR.. AL
bert Shaw in particular, have accepted
the situation. They say that the city is
the natural reservoir of the human race.
They say that all future civilization
rhymes with city, and that we have
only to adjust ourselves to the inevita-
BILE transformation of society already
begun in all the better parts of the
world. In broad America, as we'll as in
narrow Europe-so runs the argument
the tendency of the civilized life is to
fix itself in the great municipalities
and to draw thereto the preponderant
forces, the vital energies, the beauty
and the distinction of the whole world.
Let us then get ready. The future city
Is to overtop the land side, to dominate
the country regions stretching around it
as far as river and mountain. To the
city the population is to go by gravita-
tion and preference. The chief activities
of the people are to be exhibited in city
building, in city feeding and in city
multiplication. The twentieth GEN.
tury, in word, is to become the Age Of
Cities, and tho whole energy and mass
Of civilizing things arc to be aggregated
about the mighty municipalities where
in man is to flourish, art abound, socie-
ty expand and commerce whiten from
harbor to harbor and from shore to shore.
1t may DO that this picture is to be
fulfilled, and, if SO, get ready. But, if SO,
get ready with tho understanding that
the future city is to be thing in form
and substance most different from the
city of today. Indeed, the future city
must, if it come at all, come by revo-
luton of the present city-if not total,
at least complete. The new city must
build itself out of the remains of the
present city, using its materials and
hopes and converting it's vices, follies
and crimes into concrete for its pave
ments. eaa, 70, r.e
Such future city is not impossible.
There are signs of its coming, and some
Of the signs are SO conspicuous and Ger
tain as not to be mistaken in their Sig
nificance. We find already transform
ing force at work IN the supreme mu-
inequalities of the world. We find at the
same time an outside energy developing
under the hands of science which, if we
mistake not, is destined to become the
principal factor in that revolution which
is going on in the high places Of the
civilized life.
1t seems to me that the future city
must be a transformation. It must
come i'll form and substance essential
~ different from anything now known.
The future city is to be a Mart. That is
its fundamental distinction and the bot
tom possibility Of its existence. The
present city is a hive of residents, q
badly regulated and confused hive, a
hive in which industry is mixed with
home, courts with amusements, banks
with tenements, parks with shopkeep-
ing and boarding houses with cathe-
drals.
There Is no conceivable tumble Of
facts and forces more chaotic and i'll
suited to rational happiness than the
great city Of today. The city as it now OK
lists is the result of chance. 1t is a mael-
strom Of haphazard enterprises, of mis-
placed ambitions and struggling ener-
gies, more like pandemonium in the
general result than like an orderly civic
aggregation of great race Of rational
beings.
:. The city in it's present form has reach
ed the limits of its possibilities. The
fundamental vice in the situation is the
combination Of residence with business
the heaping up of masses of people per-
manently in the thick places of trade.
The digging out Of the earth below and
the laying of loft on loft above for the
purpose and with the result Of aggregat-
ing an immovable mass of people in a
given spot where population, as such,
ought not to exist at all is folly and a
crime-a folly as it respects business
aud crime as it respects society. The
problem, therefore, is to retain, enlarge
aud perfect the Mart and to expel and
scatter the population-thati s, the prob
lem comprises the retention Of all of the
commercial and most of the social fea-
lures of the present city, with the expul-
sion Of residents from the municipal
limits.
! To my mind, it is the residence fea-
ture of the present city that makes its
further beneficial development impossi-
bic. The Capitalization of the inhabit-
ants can go no further. The limits of
physical possibility have been actually
reached in New York. The heaping up