The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-13
SATELLITE CITIES
By GRAHAM Ro MEyN TAYLOR

the utmost ingenuity was shown in schem- ing out shortcuts, the street planning of the town was on the old checker board system. A number of the middle western
 officials of the Steel corporation as mem-
 bers of the Commercial club 0. ..cago,
 contributed toward the S100.000 fund raised to scheme out irls map the present mag nificent c.ty plan for Chicago. let as | company officials they did not think to secure the services of an expert city | planner to lay out a brand new town. The Chicago city plan calls for cutting diagonal streets through old territory; the | Gary town plan will create In a decade | conditions which can only be remedied
 by similar Caesarean operation.
 | Some industrial leaders contend that
 they are in the business not of building
 cities but of establishing mills and, fac-
 tories. Yet the early stage of choosing
 the location and of laying the frame
 work of plant and town is crucial. 1 Through serious miscarriage of judg-
 ment by the company which built Lack awanna in the outskirts of Buffalo, many
 of the workers are today housed on stilts in a swampy bottomland. The ef- forts of the present administration to overcome the situation, illustrates the
 slow recognition (by corporation which | has learned through experience) that eff | ciency hangs on health and human we'll | being.
 1 From an economic standpoint the plant
 and the home are differently affected by
 the suburban movement. Removal from the city center to the outskirts often 1 means to the manufacturer other gains ] besides space in which to secure the most efficient plant arrangement. Indeed, the | higher return which may be gotten from
 the land in the city center IS often ex- pected to pay a large part of the cost ot
 ox-xa tfv,sx tlx. l facturing establishment moves out into 8
 specially prepared suburb, the cheap land | soon begins to rise in value. The ques- l ton now arises whether this increase of
 land accrues to the. company, to the householders, or-as in the English
 Letchworth-to the community.
 | In Gary the land company subsidiary
 of the Steel corporation, explains that in
 the subdivision which 1t developed, the purpose has been to sell land and houses | to employees at prices scarcely more than the original cost of the land plus im- provements and interest charges. In the ] five years of Gary's existence, the land company has only once advanced it's prices. This presents pleasing contrast 1 to the booming operations of some real estate speculators who are to be found | in other subdivisions of Gary and in the general run of satellite cities. Home ownership. which the Gary policy
 promotes, may often be very doubtful | advantage to the workingman. The land
 value created by the community is de- lpenedent upon the permanency of the com
 nunity. and this is dependent upon the
 existence, stability and growth of the in- | dustrial plant. Tn the satellite city, as
 in mining town, the home owner is often at the mercy of the vicissitudes of single industry
 One of the most serious issues created hx- fhe .ta11s IS bound up in the natural desire of the plant control to have at hand work force large enough to completely man the | plant when running at it's greatest ca | racity. There can be no doubt that the 1 employers appreciate that home owner
 ship tends to anchor the workman in the 1 community. Rare Is the plant that is all ways working at its greatest capacity. If
 the variation is slight, 1t may be handled
 by temporarily drawing upon the surplus | or labor which Is usually to be found in I the city nearby. If. however. the ex-
 tent to which the plant is worked varies | from 50 per cent capacity up to the maxi | mum. grave problem confronts the | population of the industrial suburb. Ac- | cordng to the general secretary of the
 Associated Charities of Omaha the aver ] age family handled by the branch office ! al South omaha is less hopeful and
 harder to put on it's feet than the aver age lainlly handled in Omaha proper. An 1 inquiry at the South Omaha branch office
 revealed the fact that intermittent work | has much to do with this.
 1 It is important to know whether in these
 towns of their own operation the indus l trial interests seek to dominate the local government VIII people assert them selves as citizens when their interest runs counter to those to whom they look for
 a livelihood? On the other hand. in these towns the industrial power can be more l clearly singled out than in the complex metropolitan center. and Professor Ely. in making study of Pullman in 1Ss5- but four years after the towns beginning
 found that already feeling had arisen
 that it was praiseworthy thing to beat the company Friction and antagonism 1 between townspeople and the industrial
 control are indeed to be found in many of our present satellite cities.
 l The industrial exodus. tn which Pullman early played the role now taken by Gary. 1 is. in it's individual parts, consciously d.
 rected movement It therefore prese . 5
 repeated opportunities for shaping the civic and social conditions under which