Evening star., 1939-04-30

Within the last half century there has
come into the world supernatural
1t is a strange, titanic, tentacled, STAR
shaped creature with a coat of stone,
nerves of steel and copper, fetid breath
of gas flames. According to its moods, 1t
is roaring and ruthlessly devouring, or
the loveliest thing. under the sky. Its
beauty blooms at night when it becomes,
to the wayfarer soaring above it, man.
moth rose garden of red yellow, white
and blue lights surprising an apocalyptic
vision of Heaven. It is creature still in
it's early hildhood-hungry, clumsy,
cruel tender, prankish. 1t devours men.
1t is made of men as men are made OF
single cells. 1t was made. in turn, by
the minds and appetites of men.
This super animal is the modern city.
There have been cities, of course. in the
world ever since the dawn of history.
Some of them have been fairly large,
although hardly comparable with the
present-day New York. Chicago, London
or Berlin. But these old cities were mere
ly the homes of large numbers OF human
beings in fairly close proximity to each
other-country villages multiplied in size
thousands of times. They were at the
sponge stage of super per-evolution-almost
nerveless, brainless, incoordinated. The
new city is at least at the dinosaur stage.
1t is an animal in itself, made possible
by modern engineering, mass production
and the invention of means of instan-
taneous communication. 1t has grown up
largely by the unrestricted working of
the law of the survival of the fittest.
Now it is at the point where it may
become either monster or an angel
Given Federal Study.
Innumerable are the problems that lie
ahead of it. For the first time they have
been considered in comprehensive way,
and in the light of development in the
past, by Federal body-the Urbaniza-
ton Committee of the National Re-
sources Committee, headed by C. A. Dyk-
stra, city manager of Cincinnati, and
world authority on urbaniZation prob
lens. The committee has just filed its
first reports with Secretary Ickes.
Perhaps the feature that impressed it
most was the newness of the phenome-
non-the extreme youth of this super
animal and the lack of precedent for its
problems. 1t has come into the world so
naturally that folks have taken it for
granted, with hardly a thought of the
miracle it represents.
1t is especially phenomenon of Amer
ica where the great city has sprung
almost full-grown out Of the primeval
forest. The miracle is easier to visualize
here than in Europe, where the new city
in large measure has risen out of the old
city The report emphasizes this new
ness
The new city was born with the coming
of steam power. Before the steam era.
the report stresses very few cities irN the
world had populations exceeding 100000.
Even such places as ancient Rome and
Peking never exceeded 100000. If they
had been much larger it probably would
have been impossible to have fed them
with only horse transportation from the
agricultural areas. It also would have
been impossible to distribute widely the
products manufactured in the city. Most
manufacturing was Of necessity local,
and widely scattered.
Steam Becomes Magnet.
Before the age of steam the city had
no need for marked concentration into
a down town." central business dis
trict, which is distinguishing mark OF
the modern city. But since steam is most
cheaply produced in large quantities and
must be used close to where it Is pro-
duced, from which point the power it
generates can be extended only over linn
tied distances by means OF shafting and
belts it forced the concentration of man
ufacturing processes and large units of
production. 1t also tended to concentrate
managerial wholesale distributing activ-
tiles and population near the factory.
Moreover" the committee stresses in
its report, "the great economies in long
distance transportation which steam
made possible further accentuated the
concentration of industry and population
into large urban centers which, because
of their favorable situation from the
standpoint of production and markets,
continued to attract ever more industries,
commerce and population. The large,
densely built up and rapidly growing city
with single center where transportation
lines and hence tra@c converge, derived