Evening star., 1947-02-16
Continued From First Page.)

amazingly small. For instance, only
about 81 per cent of the land woulc
be built up. " f-
There would be II per cent of the
land devoted to major streets arc
protectice strips for example, anc
nine per cent devoted to parks ane
recreation.
Whole Country Studied.
Before starting to plan their 221,.
900 population design for a city
Federal Works technicians secured
the entire country to learn exactly
what is wrong with present cities.
They concentrated particularly or
a large section of Baltimore, which
is slowly decaying from city blight
just as are some areas of Washing
ton today.
Then they turned to Washington
itself.
They took all their findings into
the laboratory and carefully dis
sected them like a research physi-
clan seeking the cause and cure of
a dread malady. Washington's own
particular brand of city cancer was
the disease they were trying to pin
down and the first injection of the
serum they ended up by prescrib-
ing would be the new Federal City.
Washington's Congestion Growing.
Paraphrasing the words of their
own report, here's what they found !:
They found that Washington S
congestion is growing worse and
worse at an alarming rate. They
found also that it is the country's
fastest growing large city. They
looked at the census figures and
found its population has quadrupled
since 1900.
Then they turned back the pages
of history. Paris, they found, was
a city of only 100000 and London
a community of 100000 when Wash
ington was planned century and
a half ago. They found "The original
plan of Washington, once thought
to be too extensive and pretentious,
has proved to be pathetically made
quate," to use their own words.
They also found by applying the
past tothe future that If the city
were to decrease in population now
that the war is over, it would be
contrary to past experience. They
compared the normal ratio of Fed
eral employees to non-Federal en-
ployes in Washington to the ratio
in wartime this comparison showed
that even if the number of Federal
employees falls off considerably, the
population will keep on growing.
The normal ratio is one to six
whereas the wartime rati) was one
to four.
They projected the drop in the
Government payroll after World
War I percentage-wise to the post
World War II period and found that
the payroll can be expected to hit
a rock bottom in 1850 of 10000.
Political Trends Examined.
Then they examined political
trends. These indicated that the
American people have abandoned
their earlier belief that Government
is best which governs least. For
this reason, 1t looked as though the
Federal Government probably would
extend the social and economic gains
of the last 10 years and explore new
fields in response to popular demand
Then they looked at the tortured
efforts of the city to expand the
seams of the pair of pants tailored
for it by the founding fathers. Con-
centration of Office space in the
central area of the District has
brought serious traffic congestion
and great loss in tax revenues.
Esthetic and social values also have
been lost. With congestion and
loss of these values has come rise
in juvenile delinquency, crime, pov-
erty, wife desertion, divorce, aban-
doned infants, vice and other typical
modern city scourges.
To them this spelled only one
Observation-Disclosures of Federal
enjoyment in the metropolitan area
must be undertaken to avoid still
greater losses, to reduce travel time