Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-07-26
WHAT zoNrNe DOES
By HERBERT s. SWAN.
Secretary coming committee, New
York consultant, coming COM


ment house In Brooklyn today II
is a sfx-story structure situated be-
tween two public garages. When
the garages came the tenants
moved out and the building has
been empty ever since.
The owner of a plot Immediately
adjoining one of the largest hospi-
tails in an eastern city contempIates
the erection of a high class garage.
The hospital makes a speciality of
nervous diseases. Within the hos
pital the nurses, to obviate the
slightest sound, walk on rubber
other above a whisper. Upon the
completion OF the garage, for the
erection of the garage in the alb
sence OF any coming restriction
cannot be stopped, the noise out
side the hospital will render the
precautions taken within the hos
pital for the peace and quiet of the
neurasthenic cases useless. Should
the hospital be Obliged to move, or
should the garage be erected in
locality where it can do no harm?
That is question which every zOn-
ing scheme answers.
Nearly all the private houses
erected ain New York since the
adoption of its coming law have
been built in the districts set aside
by the law for detached houses. !
Nobody cares to run the risk of
having a garage or a warehouse (,
next to his home when he can
avoid it.
1t took a drop forge with 80 trip
hammers, located in a high class !
district, to awaken a we'll known |
city to the need of coming. Al !
though the city will now be zoned. !
the incessant din of the forge viii |
always serve as a reminder TO the /
residents of the peace and quiet |
they might have enjoyed but for |
their own neglect of civic duty.
Incendiarism is a crime punish |
able by Imprisonment. Yet in
most cities it is perfectly legal for !
a man to destroy the value of his |
neighbor's home by erecting a |
blacksmith shop or a chemical |
works on the adjoining lot zoning |
does not prevent the erection of |
blacksmith shops or chemical |
works but it does keep them out of |
residence districts.
A man bought a vacant lot in an
exclusive villa district. When his
asked what he proposed |
to do with the lot, he expressed his
intention to erect Chinese laun-
dry. The only way the residents !
could dissuade him from carrying
out his purpose was to buy the let
at an extortionate price. Had this
been a poor neighborhood the man
could not have been bought off.
Zoning does away with this species
Of blackmail.
The sterilization of employment
conditions and the reduction on
labor turnover are dependent to a
large extent upon what improve
ment can be effected in industrial
housing. So long as no protection
is thrown about the environment
OF the workman's home, so long as I
it is allowed to be hemmed in with
m a uf &C t-Ur ing establishments
pouring out CRIME, dirt and smoke
we can expect slums filled with
hordes of unskilled nomads who
wander from plant to plant and
from town to town not only taking
no interest in our civic life but
bearing our Institutions the keen
est resentment. If the housing of
munition and shipyard workers has
taught us nothing else it has taught
as that a most intimate relation
exists between social unrest and
bad housing.
Zoning offers at one stroke, with
put any appreciable expense or any
increase of rents, a method of pro-
tecting such housing standards as
we may have achieved against
steady deterioration. 1t does more
han that-in defining the direction
and character of city growth, it
lays the basis for an ever increas-
ing improvement in the social and
conditions affecting the
whole community.
Private restrictions are usually
short lived and always infiexible.
The protection of a coming law is
permanent, yet capable of change
where conditions change, cities
with experience in coming have
found that as the home owners in
.hese districts are free from all
ear of invasion by stores, factor
les or garages, they make more
permanent improvements and in
erecting new homes build homes of
| higher type and better finish q,
han the old ones. Viewed in every
way. a coming law proves of ines
Unable value to the home sections
If a city.
The object of coming law is to
protect all classes of buildings
residential buildings, business
buildings, factory buildings-so
hat each class will enjoy the max
mum freedom and opportunity for
development within it's own sphere.
rhe obligations imposed upon each
lass, when it encroaches upon the
erritory outside its sphere, are
,nly such as are essential to as
Iure other classes of a like free
Iom and development within their ]
spheres. Preferential l
lights give rise to reciprocal re- {
possibilities, but the sole purpose s
If RESPONSIBILITIES impOsed uuop