The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-10-25

city may choose to pay the direct and
indirect cost of typhoid fever and
other epidemics rather than increase
the outlay for water and sewers and
other forms OF sanitation. They may
prefer to pay the bills resulting from
a poor and inadequate street system
for traffic and transportation rather
than make the loans and appropria-
tons required by the adoption of a
more thoughtful and up-to-date method
of locating and improving streets.
But does 1t pay? A business man
has estimated that there is an aver
age loss In Boston of from two to
three hours day on all vehicles due
to inadequate street facilities, equal,
he says, to 100000 a year in hauling.
Short-sighted people may prefer to lay
out the money that they must lay out
for Ignorant, inefficient, diseased and
deformed children, for hospitals,
.asylums. reformatories, prisons, rath-
er than pay the smaller cost of schools
and Fairgrounds. 1t costs only eight
hundred dollars to educate a normal
boy in the Boston schools for twelve
years. On the other hand it costs fous
hundred dollars to take care of bad
BOY In Boston for one year. Which is
cheaper, to say nothing of better?
The second appeal appears to be al
y11N hn ~ hn ,x,
the appeal to idealism, to humanity, to
sentiment, to love of ones own city
or town. Kipling is right when he
says:
Surely in toll or fray under an alien
sky,
Comfort it is to say of no mean city
am L."
City planning is one of the best
opportunities to do good, not to-do-
good-quick, perhaps, but to do good
permanently. The common welfare
rests absolutely upon right city plan.
ming Without it's adequate provision
for health, for pleasure, for whole.
some recreation, for good homes is i'm
possible.
Progress Under Public Authority.
Another appeal Is the appeal to
the imagination. This rests upon the
actual preparation of plans, upon
visualizing the proposals of architects
and landscape architects, so that an
average man or woman may under
stand and appreciate what is already
vivid to the creative mind of the city
planner. The plans for the improve
ment of Chicago, Denver, Boston, and
other large cities, of Harrisburg, Mad
ison, Springfield, and other smaller
cities, illustrate how the imagination
of the citizen may be fired and his af
lection awakened by plan which at
once shows vision combined with a
sound hold upon reality. The main
work OF town and city planning must
be done under public authority but
this preliminary general plan may
very properly be undertaken by vol
untary improvement association Of
club. In fact, it is more natural fol
such an association Or club to under
take 1t and it is one Of the most ope1
opportunities for an important public
service.
The final appeal Is that of an object
/ lesson. Above all there Is need tt
show by an example, by a concrete
work of city planning just what it is
and what 1t can do. Many people
have no sound sense of public econ
omy, and no civic sentiment, many
/ lack imagination, others scott at pa
Fer plans. Only things actually done
convince them. Things done cannot
/ be contested A park or parkway, g
playground, an improved strip of wat
er front, garden suburb, even new
and better type of street or house OF
Of street tree planting, such changes
and improvements as these can be
carried out 80 as to convince the
most skeptical, and they may be exc
cuted in such way as to lead to more
comprehensive planning.