The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-07-20
From the Boston Globe.

G INCB the year 1899 a movement
~ has been on foot in England to
~ better the living conditions of
English workingmen by establishing for
them ideal homes in the country and near
their work The Garden City associa-
ton, limited, with nominal capital of
100000, of which about f110,Oo0 was paid
in by 1910 shareholders, bought tract
of 1918 acres near Hitchin, Hertford-
shire, "a miles north of London, at a
price of about $40 an acre, including
land, timber and some picturesque cot
| tages, attractive ruins and fine old
| churches on which. according to a plan
| prepared by Parker Unwin. the build
| ings of model town known as Letch-
worth has been carried on.
| The town itself, when completed, is
to occupy only 12O0 acres with many open
! spaces, 15o acres being reserved for fac
| tory sites. Provision is made for
| population of $1,000 with population
varying from 9 to % per acre. distributed
| throughout the town according to the pos
! sbilities of density of population.
Practically the single tax principle has
| been applied in the new community. one
of the fundamental ideas of the projec-
| tors being that the unearned increment
due to the growth of Letchworth shall
! belong to the town as a whole rather than
to individual spectators. Rental Of land
varies from R10 to ELS a year per acre,
with an annual ground rent of a cot
tage in the town area of from It's cd to
a2. The company grants leases of not
h. oil IL
ing to the company.
Recently the garden city experiment
at Letchworth was Investigated by J.
Jenkins, an official of the New York
Charity Organisation society. He is said
to have concluded that it was needless
to visit European cities for the purpose
of reporting on a model Garden City
establishment, and was shown the Letch-
worth establishment by c. S. Bremner,
who since has outlined for one Of the
London dailies the situation at Letch-
worth as it exists today
Letchworth is laid out with an agricul-
tural belt around 1t, which always must
be maintained. Mr.. Bremner writes that
the new city is to be built with a huge
belt of $500 acres Of agricultural land
den-like character which has already at
tracted so many residents.
1t is for this reason that relatively
+, large piece of land, costing f152000, has
| had to be acquired. 1t never would do
II another city were to spring up on the
very borders of the new one. An agri-
! cultural holdings scheme will prevent
| greedy spectators injuring the new city
| In this way. Already considerable num-
Der of small holdings of five or ten
/: acres have been leased out. Garden City
thus is also identified with the Back
| to the Land" cry. Much of the land that
may yet be used in this way still is
| rented to the farmers who were on the
| soil when the estate was purchased.
| Naturally, writes Mr.. Bremner, the new
| city does not present a finished appear
ance. The idea is to approach the center
| the inhabitants will allow them to erect
more substantial and imposing buildings
than they could afford at present. But
| the Legs, Station road, Norton way and
| the Quadrant give the visitor a good idea
| of how the future city will look. Quaint
I houses with pleasant gables. porches,
verandas. low latticed windows. sweet
briar. geraniums. lilies. dahlias, balsams.
sweet peas. calceolarias, all beautiful in
their varying seasons, and some of them
| delightfully."- fragrant, convince one that
the new city may be thing of beauty
JOY forever.
| Some inhabitants have marked their
sense of citizenship by not erecting walls,
ratings and barbados against their
neighbors. Ethically this is admirable, but
| dogs and even some members of the hui
man species, do not yet thoroughly I'M
derstand the significance of the omission.
and therefore there has been little set
back in some quarters. But the growth
! of rose hedges is all that still divides a
good number Of houses from the street.
From the aesthetic point of view the pew
city IL not yet very beautiful; it suffers