The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1916-07-13
Wanted-A City Survey.

udyS. one las UOOH tanning vi uCcH
remarkably fast in the past few months
and it looks like she is going to con-
tinue to grow bigger and lot Of the
old clothes made for a city of twenty
thousand and even thirty thousand peo-
pie, are being hung away in the muni-
cipal closet to be charged off later to
the account Of profit and loss. The ac-
count is already pretty big one in
Kenosha and if it is not going to be
made a lot bigger right now is the
time to provide for cutting it.
Kenosha needs a lot. Of things, but
more than anything else it needs a
settled city plan. A plan that will be
followed for a lot of years in the
future and one which will make ex-
penditures made it fit into the plan for
expenditures in the future. When you
put bricks in pavement and sewer
pipe into the ground it begins to lose
the intrinsic value which it had when
it was delivered on the job. Ten years
from now small sewer is not going to
be of any value in any Of the streets
of Kenosha If Kenosha is going to
have its seventy-fve or a hundred
thousand people right now is the time
to begin to look ahead toward taking
care of just that sort of city. When
big corporation goes into city it
does not do things haphazard. 1t gets
the best engineer it can find and it
sends him right on the ground with
instructions to study the possibilities
of the town 1t tells that engineer to
look ahead thirty and maybe forty years
and to draw a "life lineo showing
just what that particular town is going
to need thirty years from now. This
fellow estimates population. He
studies housing conditions, studies the
industries of the town, it's natural ad
vantages and everything that is going
to be contributing factor to its fut-
ure growth and when he gets through
he has some idea of what he is doing.
Of course, these engineers make mis-
takes some time, but most of the time
they get pretty close to just what is
going to happen. We recall the fact
that some years ago the Wisconsin
Telephone Company drew life line of
Kenosha showing that in 1925 this city
would have fifty thousand people. A
lot Of people thought that the company
was having dream. Now it seems
that the dream was not rosy enough.
It might cost ten thousand dollars to
get real survey of Kenosha and its
future made now, but it would save
good many times that amount ten and
twenty years from now. Men who
have charge of making public improve
ments in Kenosha today have mighty
ticklish Job on their hands. There is
going to come time when old Main
street is going to be a mighty rocky
look street for the main business thor
oughfare of city of seventy-fve
thousand people. OF course what will
happen will be that business will find
some other place for the 0main
street." The suggestion that the city
council make plans right now for wild
ening Main street and making it a
suitable business street for real city
would probably cause the aldermen to
laugh themselves into fits, but the time
will come when lot Of them will wish
that they had widened Main street
now. The same is true of lot of
things that must be done for Kenosha.
The sewers are going to be too small on
a lot Of streets and the city will have
to rebuild them. There will be a lot
Of other things that are too small. A
full grown woman trying to wear a.
dress made for ten year old girl
would be strange sight parading
about the streets, but if some organized
effort is not soon forthcoming a
seventy-fve thousand Kenosha will be
trotting in the parade of cities with a
dress which wound fit two year
old child
What Kenosha wants from now on
is systematic Improvement with a.
definite end in view. With such a
systematic plan money can be saved for
the future and better and more stable
improvements can be had for the pres
ent. just now we are building garages
where four story buildings for business
houses should 60 up. Out in places
which are certain to be exclusive resi-
dent districts we are building up build
ings for business purposes. There
seems to be no idea of supervision over
these things and no one who cares to
peer into the future far enough to see
what should be done. With city sur
vey made by competent man, the al
dermen and other officials would be in
a lot better position to know what to
expect of Kenosha and how to meet
these expectations now and for the
future. The time is past for hit or
miss guesses on what is big enough
and what is good enough for the town.
Base improvements on reasonable
view of the future and in this way