The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-05-07
Federation
Will Heb
City Planner

Through the community service
program offered by the president
of the General Federation of Wom-
ems Clubs, Mrs. John F. Sippel,
when she was elected less than a
year ago, a gigantic, nationwide
campaign for community planning
is announced by the chairman Of
community service, Mrs. w. E.
Miner, Oakland, Neb.
although every town and city Is
adjusted somewhat to the natural
features of its scenery and the con-
venience and needs of the citizens,
yet too many towns and cities, be-
cause no group Of citizens have rec
ognized the need Of planning ahead.
present the spectacle of uncontrolled
and haphazard growth" says Mrs.
Miner.
THE preventive for this would
have been and the remedy is COM
munity planning. Community plan
ming is operative over period of
years, devised by community to
provide for itself as the need arises
those facilities which it deems
essential for health, safety, recrea-
ton, education, convenience, pros
perity and serene and joyous living.
Steps Are Outlined
"Steps toward community plan
ming are: First, an unofficial, unsal-
aried citizens community planning
committee of women and men, self
appointed or appointed by the may
or, to consist of five to eleven in
fuential citizens, which though it
has advisory powers only and these
unofficial, may be very influential by
reason of it's great interest in the
City's future and its intelligent plans
for making the community a good
place in which to live, work and
play.
cor, instead of the unofficial COM
n1ittee, a community planning COM
mission with official advisory pow
ers, made up of the mayor, a rep
resentative of the city council, an
architect perhaps, the city engineer
and prominent citizens who always
should be in the majority, the COM
MISSIONS chairman-to-be, a paid
and trained planner- advisor. Some
universities are providing in their
curriculum courses in community
planning.
THE work OF this committee is
two-fold, and this constitutes steps
two and three in community plan
ning-to make a social and econ
omic survey of the town and then
prepare comprehensive plan which
will show its present development
and anticipate coming needs, a plan
that will have for its goal a good
place for children to grow up in
and convenient and lovely place
in which adults may live.
Public Education Needed
1.-THE fourth step in this program
is public education to secure sup
port Of the plan by the entire citi-
zenry.
THE fifth and last step in COM
munity planning is continuous ap-
plication, of the plan to all public
and private work over a long period
of years necessarily and this in
wolves maintenance and admins
tration of the plan after its APP
prevail by the city officials.
president Hoover says: City
planning is going on about us every
day in our cities and towns. 1t is
done bit by bit by private land
owners and city officials. few of
whom know or can know what
others are doing or have in mind.
"'Or it may be done by the citi-
zens and their local government
working together through a perma-
nent public planning body with a
devised master plan which they
all use as a picture of how the whole
city is developing. Community
planning fast is earning a place in
American life"