The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1910-01-20
BEAUTIFyIHG A CITY,
Marked Improvement In Civic
Conditions Throughout Country.
WHAT CLEVELAND HAS DONE.

The Ohio City Spent $20,o00.o00 to $780,
100000 to Tear Down SoIidy Built
Blocks of Structures to Create Open
Mall For Public BuiIdiqs, Etc.
The most important evidence of the
new spirit of progress abroad in the
land is manifest in what is called CITY
planning. The impetus to civic beauty
inaugurated by Daniel Burnham in the
white wonder of the Columbian eXposl-
ton awakened the world as never be-
fore to the possibilities in the new art
of applying expert, comprehensive
plans for handling congestion of pop
ulation. manifold business require
ments. tremendous traffic. hygienic and
sanitary problems, With the highest
possibilities of architectural and lanG
scape beauty.
AS a result one city after another
has first investigated. then studied and
later applied some systematic planning
in a comprehensive way to recaSt or
recreate the ugliness of the average
American city into sonnet hing at once
more beautiful and heaIthlul as home
center and of easier access CONNER
cially and inGusrrially.
While q decade ago only four Amer.
lean cities claimed to have been built
after any definite plan. today more
than seventy American cities are fol
lowing elaborate plans usually worked
out by national experts aud over LOO
cities are following plans more or less
comprehensive for the bettermeut OF
surrounding conditions. AS a nation
the tendency is for population to
crowd INTO urban centers rather than
TO build mp increased number of small
villages and towns. Population 10y im-
migration alone is nearly 100000 an
nualIy, which with increase from Ia
tional sources will give US l0U.OOOUUO
more people in the United States ID the
next Fifty years.
These people will largely live in
cities. Many of them will drift to the
middle west. the great food producing
belt of the nation: hence the cities OF
the present cannot serve the require
ments of such a future. The narrow
streets and solidly built up areas can.
not meet the demands of the increased
traffic nor hcaithfuly care for human
interests confined in such congpsted
districts. Recognizing all this. wise
leaders are taking time by the fore
lock- and providing for what is surely
to come.
Cleveland, o.. has turned ont mauy
blocks of solidly built up business
structures to make an open civic cen
ter magnificent mall. about which
are grouped the public buildings and
the great railway terminals. at an ex-
pense OF $20OoO,OOO to S3O0U0.0OO
Conservative Old Boston is cutting
streets and boulevards through her
business centers as ruthlessly and as
wisely as ever Hausmann did when
his magnificent avenues replaced the
squald bvways of the Sums of Paris
Boston is not only building splendid
public structures. but building islands
in old Charles river Oh which to place
them.
The Harrisburg successes have made
Pennsylvania capital famous. Den
yer and ST. Paul are each following
expert plans calling for the opening OF
a civic center many blocks in extent
leading up to their respective capitolS
Kansas City has Developed a boule.
ward system second to none. while Los
Angeles has begun wonderful reor-
ganizauon OF her resources from plans
prepared by Charles Milford Robinson
that mastery civic art expert whose
published works on civic improvement
are the text books of the profession
New York city and Chicago have be.
gun gigantic schemes whose magnitude
both financially and for results to be
accomplished stagger the conservative
minds of students just beginning to
see the trend OF all this movement.