Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-07
Washington's Park Area.

/
alton heretofore given the Park and
Planning Commission has kept that
! body pretty busy in park purchase and
! development Authorization of the
! $4,000 600 for expenditure in the Dis
! trict of Columbia alone, under pro-
| visions of the Cramton bill recently
I signed by the President, stores up
! enough work in advance to engage the
! commission for many years to come.
| Col Grant has estimated that it would
| be twenty-five years before the program
made possible by the Cramton bills
passage is realized. and this applies
only to the city, without reference to
! the great work planned in Maryland
and Virginia.
The Park and Planning Commission,
1t is understood, has been busy for
some time in drawing up a number of
tentative programs for expenditure of
the money. The first steps will probably
be the purchase of suitable land and
this alone may consume as much as five
years. Col. Grant has already asked for
two millions, of the sixteen million
total, to become available this year, and
it is to be hoped that Congress will
appropriate that amount. After watt
ing for so many years to secure the
authorizing legislation it will BE- I'M
fortunate if there is further delay in
I granting the use of money already
authorized.
One of the first things to be done in
connection with the local expenditures
is to obtain statistics on park purchases
in other cities. For this purpose Col.
Grant is dispatching Conrad L. wirth,
landscape architect of the commission,
on tour that may last throughout the
Summer. He is expected to obtain ex-
act figures on the proportionate
amounts in city budgets set aside for
park and recreational area develop
ment In addition he probably will find
suggestions from the work of other
cities that will be made applicable to
Washington.
A year ago the Bureau of Efficiency
COAAHAAC0 o1AOWA1IB LllC
areas in Washington devoted to parks
as compared to those in other cities. 1t
developed that Washington already has
a great excess of park area, when COM
pared with similar areas in other cities
OF the fourteen cities examined, Wash
ington's park area was exceeded by
only one-Minneapolis. Washington's
park area was shown to be 1888 acres,
in comparison with Cleveland's 2,975,
st. Louis 2,945, Baltimore's 3,440; Bos-
tons 2,647, Pittsburgh's 1887; Buff
falo's 1865, Milwaukee's 1857, New
ark's 795, Minneapolis Att, New Or
leans 1885, Cincinnati's 2,807, In
dianapolis' 2,723, Rochesters LIT and
Jersey Citys 289. An even more strik-
ing picture of what this park excess,
means is shown by computing the park
area in relation to the population. In
this tabulation Washington is shown
with 778 more acres of park than Cleve-
land, for instance, with one acre of
park to every 140 persons, whereas
Cleveland has only one acre to every
$40 persons. If Washington's ratio of
park area to population were applied
to other cities, st. Louis would have
2.26l acres of park more than Wash
ington, instead of 803 acres less, and
Baltimore would have 2,176 acres more
than Washington, instead of 313 acres
less.
If Col. Grants proposed survey of
cities was being undertaken with the
purpose of holding Washington's park
development down to the scale applying
in other cites, the development would
have to be curtailed, not expanded, as
in prospect under the Cramton bill.
For Washington is already supplied
with parks in excess Of the park area in
the largest and richest commercial
cities of the Nation. The explanation
is, OF course, that as the National Capt.
tai Washington has been planned on q
grand scale that sets it distinctly apart
from what other cities attempt or can
afford to attempt. The Cranton park
expansion program is national, not
local, in scope. 1t was formulated and
will be administered by a nationally
representative body of men. Their hori-
ION is not limited by what the city can
afford, in relation to its other necessi-
ties, but by what the Nation chooses to
spend on its Capital City.
Residents of the District will pay the
major portion of the expense Of this
grand park development. They will
take pride ip the future Capital, as
ether Americans will. But there Is
rank injustice in foisting upon local
taxpayers the excessive burden of carry
ing out these vast semi-national prof.
ects of National Capital development
while at the same time they are called
upon to meet the ordinary expenses Of
a growing municipality, the taxable re-
sources Of which are limited at the out
set and further limited with the pur-
| chase of every acre Of park. and there
! fore non-taXable land.
-S-3SR-S---
1t remains for Gandhi to demonstrate
/ whether he is a political leader or only