man of the Association's Executive
Committee for many years. The
American Municipal Association, with
Spelman Fund assistance, provided
the financial means for an initial field
program, the University of Washing-
ton supplied office space and impor-
tant research assistance, and a full-
fledged league of cities was on its
way.

Finance Problems First

While the services such leagues
normally offer were gradually devel-
oped over a period of years, particular
emphasis was early placed on the
solution of the financial problem and
the development of a well rounded
tax structure. Consistent as well as
"persistent" educational efforts were
made to bring to state legislators and
other officers a picture of the inade-
quacy of municipal resources together
with other city needs and problems.
The term municipal cooperation was
translated into action as cities, big
and little, worked together in a com-
mon task.

This educational campaign did not
bring results overnight, but little by
little gains were made. The old con-
cept of road-user taxes for state and
county highways only was broken
down and "those roads called streets"
were finally recognized to be of state-
wide importance; as local law-en-
forcement problems were better un-
derstood, cities were given shares of
state liquor profits; when the prop-
erty tax on automobiles was aban-



doned the legislature was made to
see the justice of giving cities a defi-
nite percentage of the new motor
vehicle excise tax ; when it was under-
stood that small towns had neither
the equipment nor the funds to main-
tain primary state highways through
their limits, the necessary authoriza-
tion for the maintenance of such pri-
mary streets by the State Highway
Department was obtained; when the
legislature saw the need for broaden-
ing the local tax base in addition to
granting local shares of state funds,
the state completely vacated one field
of taxation, the admission tax, and
made it available to cities; when
problems of the war emergency were
presented, a special appropriation
was made to help meet civilian de-
fense and increased operational costs,
as well as to help offset declining
liquor and gas tax revenues ; by indi-
cating the special problems faced by
cities with war industries where pop-
ulations had zoomed upwards, special
assistance was given on the basis of
population increases since 1940.

Summarizing these achievements
more specifically, cities now receive
the revenues listed below as a direct
result of active municipal cooperation.

With the benefits of this financial
program, many cities are now in a
better position than they were prior
to the depression of the thirties. Even
before the 40-mill tax limitation was
initiated, many cities were limited to
15 mills (SO per cent valuation) by
statute. This meant that many with
low assessed valuations had been
having a tough time to do a proper
job. While no municipality is now
"rolling in wealth" the tables are
definitely turned. Practically all are



1944]



CITIES GET 'OUT OF RED' TOGETHER



131



All Cities .

15% of State Gasoline Tax
52% of State Liquor Profits
50% of New 10% War Liquor Tax
15% of Motor Vehicle Excise Tax
War Emergency Appropriation
Admission Taxes up to $1.00

Total

Cities Below 1500

Value of state-maintenance of primary
highways

Total

Cities tifith War Industries
Probable allocation based on population
increase only since 1940



Official Estimates

for 1944 per capita

$1.89

2.84

1.23

.30

.47

1.00



$7.73



.58'
$8.31



$1.85*



*125 miles of highway in towns with total population of 93,479 estimated main-
tenance cost by State Highway Department $55,000.

b $500,000 allocated per year for present biennium, distributed to cities in direct
proportion individual increase bears to total increase on per capita basis. Check is
made by Census Board every six months to allow for shifts in population and estimates
of Board are final.



at last on a cash basis and many are
setting up reserve funds for postwar
improvements.

Such achievements were not hap-
penstance, nor were they easy; they
required intelligent direction, plan-
ning, and educational activity. At
the same time, old-style high-pressure
methods were not used and legislators
have come to think of Association
representatives as "the cleanest bunch
of lobbyists at Olympia." Each meas-
ure has had to stand or fall on its
own merits.

Another factor of special impor-
tance has been the sympathetic under-
standing of local government prob-
lems by Washington's able and ener-
getic Governor, Arthur B. Langlie. Up
from the ranks of local government
as mayor of Seattle, the state's largest
city, Governor Langlie's vision and
belief in the need for strengthening
local units of government toward a
better ordered state government were
factors in achieving the present posi-



tion. It was the Governor's view, as
well as that of legislative members,
that cities should not only break even
during the present war emergency,
but should have sufficient funds to
build up some reserves and take their
proper place in carrying out a post-
war public works program.

Such a record of achievement
would, of course, have been impossi-
ble had the state's fiscal position not
remained sound. If cities are to retain
their present advantages, much will
depend upon the continuance of such
a sound fiscal position. For this rea-
son city officials may consider it an
obligation to "stick their necks out"
from time to time in upholding the
state's tax base. This is never an
easy thing to do politically, but the
question may be raised as to how far
a municipal "lobby" should seek to
secure or maintain favorable shares of
state-collected revenues unless it is
willing at the same time to raise its
voice for the maintenance of a tax



132



NATIONAL MUNICIPAL REVIEW



[March



structure on the part of the state
which will permit such sharing.

Secondly, it is commonly assumed
that so-called dependence upon the
state results in a loss of municipal
independence. A keen observer of
both British and American govern-
mental policies recently said: "Make
no mistake about it, however, if ex-
perience almost universal is any guide
to you, a subsidy from a superior to
a subordinate political unit does carry
with it a voice in the use of the
money." 1

We do not subscribe to this theory
in Washington. Instead of local shar-
ing of state-collected revenues in-
creasing state control, there has been
a gradual tendency toward decentral-
ization and the reduction of state
control. While it is true that most of
the state-aid funds are earmarked for
particular municipal purposes, such
as city streets, police and fire protec-
tion, public health, and the like, these
provisions were specifically written
in the statutes at the cities' request
to avoid possible constitutional ques-
tion being raised. Since no city finds
it difficult to spend the moneys for
the purposes earmarked, no burden
is involved.



HALF CENTURY HALF
MEASURE

(Continued from Page 122)
municipalities, is the right place to



^'Some Observations on American City
Government," by Arthur Collins. Public
Management, September 1943, p. 260.



start. It means a wrench with the
past and calls for more thought and
driving force than has been displayed
thus far. Slow as such a program
is likely to be, it is apt to come more
quickly than some visionary metro-
politan arrangement. And under
certain circumstances it could come
very quickly indeed. Another period
of severe strain for municipal finance
might bring the change.

Yet any program of tax relief,
however necessary or beneficial, will
never settle the matter. There are
other things which count orderly
growth, efficient administration, in-
dustrial and commercial advance-
ment. As long as metropolitan Bos-
ton is rent by political division there
will always be an uneasy feeling that
these essentials are not being met and
that the full energy of the area is
being held back. In just such un-
easiness lies the real promise of
effective regional government.

Meanwhile the attitude of suburb-
an sections toward what is taking
place in the area from which they
draw their livelihood brings to mind
a caricature by Low, where he pic-
tured the democracies adrift in vio-
lent seas of the Munich era. At one
end of the craft, the weaker nations
were trying to bail out the boat and
plug the leaks. Huddled at the other
end were the strong powers. "How
fortunate," they agreed among them-
selves, "the leaks are not at our end
of the boat."



Buy United States War Bonds and Stamps



London Plans City of the Future

Governmental authorities, professional and welfare groups
cooperate to study traffic congestion and develop better
housing, open spaces, ideal location of homes and industry.



By H. V. LANCHESTER
Town Planning Institute, England



story of the need for improve-
ment of Britain's great cities from
the social point of view starts rather
more than a hundred years ago. Pre-
viously the aspect studied was mainly
that of architectural embellishment,
the instinct for which, it is curious
to note, tended to lapse as the socio-
logical demands took a more prom-
inent place in the picture.

It is not an overstatement to affirm
that the larger towns showed them-
selves as less orderly and dignified at
the end of the nineteenth century
than at its beginning; whilst all
through the latter half efforts were
being made, somewhat tentatively it
is true, to improve living conditions
within them.

After 1880 these efforts began to
take shape in the founding of such
communal groups for workers as Port
Sunlight and Bournville, followed in
London by the extensive housing pro-
gram of the London County Council
and by the initiation of garden cities
such as Letchworth and Welwyn to
draw people away from the too dense-
ly occupied central areas.

With the revival of a broader view
of improvement, under the title of
town planning, the subject began to
take the form of a scientific synthesis
of all the component factors, extend-
ing the rather concentrated attention
that had been given to housing con-
ditions towards the other components
needed for a satisfactory plan, such



as the demands of administration,
education and recreation, communica-
tion, and even amenity and beauty.

Still, progress was not rapid; the
war of 1914-18 intervened and after
this housing was once more the major
activity.

The Barlow Commission was ap-
pointed in 1937 with a view to clear-
ing the ground for an effective scheme
of replanning, and by its report
opened up the question of distribution
of industry and population, and the
relative values of centralization and
decentralization, but before any ac-
tion could be taken on its recommen-
dations the war was upon us, and
though this gives us, in a way, breath-
ing time, it has also added new prob-
lems to the old ones.

Actually it is the present war, par-
ticularly the feature of destruction
from the air the "blitz" as it is
popularly termed which evoked an
almost universal consciousness that
drastic reconstructions were possible
and desirable.

In conjunction with the need for
expanded agricultural production this
moved the Government to form the
Uthwatt and Scott committees in the
hope that these would help them to
define a program for the future.

The reports of these two commit-
tees, together with the subsequent one
by Sir William Beveridge, although
the latter did not affect actual physi-
cal replanning, certainly give plenty



133



134



NATIONAL MUNICIPAL REVIEW



[March



of material on which to base a policy,
but so many views and interests are
affected by the proposals that it is
hardly to be expected that these will
all be implemented in the near future.
In the meantime the extensive de-
struction in the very heart of London
and in other large cities made such a
vivid impression on all sections of the
community that the possibilities of
reconstruction on better lines became
a dominant feature in the activities
of municipal authorities, professional
bodies, and numerous welfare soci-
eties. Many municipalities are pre-
paring provisional plans, while the
societies are studying the principles
which should be observed in order
that these may afford the maximum
benefit to all classes.

Professional Groups Draft Plans

Professional groups have been espe-
cially active in this direction, having
made their own representations to the
government committees and in some
cases prepared comprehensive plans.
London naturally received their first
attention. The Royal Academy pro-
duced a plan for the central area,
directed mainly towards its artistic
embellishment, though the economic
and social demands also received con-
sideration.

The Royal Institute of British
Architects formed a Reconstruction
Committee which coordinated the
work of about a dozen subcommittees
dealing with various sections. It held
an exhibition to illustrate the general
scope of town planning, and another,
in conjunction with the Architectural
Association, which displayed a very
closely studied program for the re-
development of the whole of the Lon-



don region, aiming at the coordination
of all the remedial measures desirable
for this aggregation of eight and a
half million people.

The Institution of Civil Engineers
has held a series of conferences on
the problems of reconstruction; the
surveyors and other bodies have also
given close attention to these.

The City, which has had a larger
percentage of damage than any other
part of London, probably presents
for its limited area one of the most
difficult problems resulting from the
"blitz." Land values are high, tradi-
tions of utilization are strongly held,
and the links between administration,
ownerships, and finance very close;
at the same time there has been a
tendency in some branches of business
to move out of the City area and,
taking all these factors into considera-
tion, the Corporation has not felt it
desirable to publish any improvement
scheme up to the present.

Surrounding the City lies London
County stretching from Hammer-
smith on the west to Woolwich on
the east, Stoke Newington on the
north to Dulwich in the south, and
containing a population of four mil-
lions.

The London County Council au-
thorized the preparation of a plan for
the remodelling of this area and en-
trusted the work to Professor Patrick
Abercrombie and its architect, Mr. H.
J. Forshaw, who had the support of
a very competent staff.

The position in regard to this plan,
as defined by Lord Latham, is that
the London County Council, while
determined to carry out the replan-
ning of London to the fullest extent
practicable and on the best principles,



1944]



LONDON PLANS CITY OF THE FUTURE



135



is not at this stage asked to adopt the
plan in its entirety. It will be neces-
sary to enlist the cooperation not
only of the central government de-
partments but also of the City Cor-
poration, the Metropolitan Water
Board, and many professional and
other bodies.

The importance of the statement
by Lord Latham in his speech at the
opening of the exhibition of the Lon-
don County Council plan justifies the
following quotation:

With the best will in the world no
satisfactory planning, whether on the
lines of this plan or otherwise, can ever
be achieved unless there are far-reach-
ing extensions of town planning powers
and unless fair and reasonable financial
arrangements are made between local
authorities and the Exchequer.

This planning must be nation-wide;
and just as a new ministry has been set
up to harmonize all the local and re-
gional planning efforts, the cost must
be fairly spread between the rates and
the taxes. Do not think, however, that
we have a choice between cheap recon-
struction without planning and recon-
struction to which planning has been
added as an expensive luxury.

Planned reconstruction looks expen-
sive when you set down in a column
the cost of projects up to a big sum.
But haphazard reconstruction where
you never add up the sum, and where
you never think about the effect of
fulfilling one need on the ability to fulfill
another may well cost far more on the
long view in wasted effort, abortive ex-
penditure and thought, and intangible
but real leakages of time, money, and
energy that spring from inconvenient
housing, badly arranged industry, inade-
quate roads and obsolete communica-
tions. We rightly plan labor-saving
houses ; well, let us also plan a labor-
saving city.

There is a remarkable similarity
between the general lines of the Lon-
don County Council plan and those
of the plan by the Royal Institute of
British Architects' Committee for the
more extended area. As might be ex-



pected the LCC, with its large staff
and resources to information and
statistics, has dealt with many fea-
tures more intimately and in greater
detail ; it is also as might be expected
more cautious as regards proposals
involving acquisition or other ex-
penditure; but the subdivisions into
townships and their separation by
parkways indicate that the same view
is taken as to how this great agglom-
eration should be treated.

Plans Compared

The differences are more a matter
of degree than of principle and, while
the RIBA plan may be thought to
go rather beyond what is possible
even in 50 years, that of the LCC
may yet require further measures of
improvement in some aspects. For
example, the provision of four acres
of open space per 1,000 persons, as
much as it is thought practicable in
many areas, might as in the RIBA
scheme be increased to seven acres
or, alternatively, be supplemented by
acquisitions further out, provided
these were easily accessible.

This and other questions, such as
the future plans for rail and road
communications, are clearly matters
for further investigation as they in-
volve many related problems, both
practical and economic, which cannot
be claimed to have reached solution
at the present time.

As Lord Latham has said, only
Government can take such action as
will bring the various interests and
authorities into one cooperative group
qualified to decide how the problems
of industry, traffic, etc., can be organ-
ized to give the maximum efficiency
and economy.

Though the three plans which have



136



NATIONAL MUNICIPAL REVIEW



[March



been shown to the public all possess
features which it may be hoped will
take a place in the London of the
future, that exhibited by the LCC
is the only one entitled to be called
"official" and that merely to the ex-
tent of its prepatation under civic
auspices, as the extent of its imple-
mentation is still an open question.
All three, therefore, are open to re-
view by the public in general, and the
opportunity for criticism should be
taken advantage of by all who have
qualified themselves to contribute to
the conception of the best possible
form for the future of our capital city.

Remedies for Defects

The defects arising from past ne-
glect and the destruction due to the
"blitz" provide but two among the
many reasons why an all-embracing
scheme of reconstruction should be
visualized, and what has been done
so far must be regarded, and is in
fact regarded by all who have borne
a share in their inception, as studies
for such a scheme in forms as stim-
ulating as possible to the imagination,
not necessarily covering all the details
of every problem that has arisen.

The attempt must here be made to
describe what these plans propose, so
as to convey some idea of the type
of city they visualize. It has been
affirmed that there are at present four
major defects for which fundamental
remedies must be devised: traffic con-
gestion, depressed housing, inade-
quate and maldistributed open spaces,
and the confused location of homes
and industries. To these might be
added the disorganized growth of the
outer fringes of the area which is year
by year adding to the confusion and



disorganization of London as a whole.

The Bressey road plan made a
start with the problem of traffic con-
gestion, but since then we have
learned a great deal as to the necessity
of separating high speed arterials with
specially designed connections to the
service road system at points perhaps
a mile apart.

Then again the Bressey report did
not deal with the various types of
railway serving the London area
which are also in urgent need of
systematic coordination. The view is
taken that so far as practicable both
arterial roads and surface railways
should take a "reticulated" form not
intersecting but enclosing the sub-
sidiary civic groups or "townships"
into which the amorphous mass of
London would thus be divided.

These traffic routes might, it is
thought, be screened in a measure
by parkways. Bearing this general
pattern in mind we find ourselves
resuscitating the traditional village
centers such as Paddington, Islington,
or Clerkenwell with the advantages
of their communal sentiment which
they still retain, combined with the
advantages of membership of a great
capital.

Such centers would be provided
with all the usual features character-
izing provincial towns of from fifty
to a hundred thousand, their own
local administration, clinics and med-
ical services, libraries, schools, nur-
series, etc.

They would be larger than the
"precincts" advocated by Mr. Alker
Tripp and would need division by
"sub-arterial" roads, this dictating
the planning of each section with its
own shopping center, minor clinic,



1944]



137



primary school, and nursery.

Distributed among these townships
where sites and communications are
found suitable, but separated from
them, would be districts allocated to
the larger and noisier industries; the
smaller ones could be grouped within
the townships without inconvenience;
"flatted" small factories are suggested
for such groups, with their own can-
teens and nursery accommodation.

Traffic Plans

In a plan such as this the communi-
cation between the residential sections
which would number nearly a hun-
dred would be by the suburban rail-
ways, fast traffic arterial roads on the
marginal strips, and tubes or under-
ground lines passing through their
centers.

The fine system of fast traffic arte-
rial roads both on ring and radial
lines, without any building frontages
and only open to second grade "sub-
arterial" roads at a limited number
of points, would provide traffic com-
munications hardly less speedy than
the railways. The latter with a little
remodelling would be operating on
somewhat similar lines, and it may
be fairly estimated that transit would
be speeded up by one-third thus
doubling the number who could reach
central districts in a given time.

In addition the underground and
tube lines can be reorganized to give
a better balance between north and
south than at present and this would
enhance their usefulness. The plans
also visualize the separation of long
distance traffic from the local services,
reserving the terminal stations for
main line trains only and reducing
these from fifteen to five or six only.



It is generally agreed that the ex-
isting location of retail trade along
the main traffic routes is obsolete
under present conditions and it is
advocated that the shops should be
gathered into groups near but not on
these routes, with accommodation for
parking cars.

The position of the wholesale and
retail markets has also been consid-
ered and while some of the former are
definitely tied to docks and goods
stations, others, such as Convent
Garden, ought undoubtedly to be
transferred to more suitable positions.

It is held as illogical that goods in
bulk should be brought into the con-
gested center to be dispatched in
small quantities to all parts of the
river banks with continuous open
frontages with embankments on both
sides extending eastwards at least as
far as London Bridge, which would
involve a substantial transfer of river-
side industrial concerns lower down
the Thames.

The improved amenities which this
proposal would afford are indubitable,
and it is to be regretted that its reper-
cussions on industry have not yet
been investigated in order to secure
economic justification.

There are possible qualifications,
such as an embankment at a higher
level allowing for a limited number
of small docks behind the embank-
ments or the extension and enlarge-