The appointment of planning commissions is the most recent step in the development of the unit idea in city planning. In theory, the function of this new agency is to correlate the official plans prepared in the various municipal departments, to pass upon unofficial plans or suggestions for improvement, and to make plans of its own in all cases where no existing agency has jurisdiction. Hartford, Connecticut, was the first to establish such a commission under a resolution of the Connecticut Legislature of 1907.[161] The Chicago plan commission dates from 1909; the Baltimore and Detroit commissions from the following year.

In 1911 Pennsylvania and New Jersey passed general acts enabling cities of the second class (Pittsburgh and Scranton) in Pennsylvania and cities of the first class in New Jersey, to create an additional executive department to be known as the department of city planning. In 1913, by general law, New York state authorized the appointment of planning commissions in all cities and incorporated villages; Pennsylvania extended the act of 1911 with important amendments to cities of the third class, and Massachusetts made planning commissions mandatory in all cities and towns of over 10,000. In the same year by special act of the Connecticut Assembly plan commissions were authorized for the cities of New Haven and West Hartford, following the precedent of Hartford; in Ohio, Cleveland[162] and Dayton included city planning commissions in their new city charters.

The following list of active plan commissions does not include temporary commissions appointed merely to make a report or prepare a city plan.

TABLE 8.—YEARS IN WHICH PLANNING COMMISSIONS WERE AUTHORIZED, AND SOURCE OF AUTHORIZATION, FOR THE 54 CITIES OR TOWNS HAVING PLANNING COMMISSIONS IN APRIL, 1914

CityYearAuthorized by
Hartford, Conn.1907Act
Chicago, Ill.1909Ordinance
Baltimore, Md.1910Act
Detroit, Mich.1910Ordinance
Jersey City, N. J.1911Act
Newark, N. J.1911Act
St. Louis, Mo.1911Ordinance
Pittsburgh, Pa.1911Act
Philadelphia, Pa.1911Ordinance
Salem, Mass.1911Ordinance
Lincoln, Neb.1911Ordinance
Trenton, N. J.1912Ordinance
Cincinnati, Ohio1913Ordinance
Scranton, Pa.1913Act
Schenectady, N. Y.1913Ordinance
Pittsfield, Mass.1913Act
Fitchburg, Mass.1913Act
Waltham, Mass.1913Act
Lawrence, Mass.1913Act
Lowell, Mass.1913Act
Springfield, Mass.1913Act
Northampton, Mass.1913Act
Holyoke, Mass.1913Act
Malden, Mass.1913Act
Louisville, Ky.1913Ordinance
New Haven, Ct.1913Act
New London, Ct.1913Ordinance
Bridgeport, Ct.1913Ordinance
Erie, Pa.1913Act
Providence, R. I.1913Ordinance
Adams, Mass. (town)1913Act
Chelsea, Mass.1913Act
Chicopee, Mass.1913Act
Cambridge, Mass.1913Act
Chester, Pa.1913Act
Easton, Pa.1913Act
Syracuse, N. Y.1914Act
Meadeville, Pa.1914Act
Reading, Pa.1914Act
Scranton, Pa.1914Act
Harrisburg, Pa.1914Act
Oil City, Pa.1914Act
Boston, Mass.1914Act
Gloucester, Mass.1914Act
Haverhill, Mass.1914Act
Melrose, Mass.1914Act
Medford, Mass.1914Act
Newton, Mass.1914Act
Newburyport, Mass.1914Act
Somerville, Mass.1914Act
Taunton, Mass.1914Act
Watertown, Mass. (town)1914Act
Framingham, Mass. (town)1914Act
Binghamton, N. Y.1914Act

A suburban metropolitan plan commission was also created in 1913 for Pennsylvania cities of the first class (Philadelphia), to have jurisdiction over a district comprising the cities within 25 miles of Philadelphia. This commission is to be composed of fifteen members appointed by the governor of the state. Its aim is to secure “coordinating comprehensive plans of highways and roads, parks and parkways, and all other means of intercommunication; water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal, collection and disposal of garbage, housing, sanitation and health, playgrounds, civic centers, and other public improvements that will affect the character of the district as a whole or more than one political unit within the district.”[163] The aims of the commission can be realized only by recommendation to the several governmental units contained in the district. This legislation is particularly interesting since it is the first successful attempt to create a metropolitan planning commission.

The commission of inquiry appointed by the governor of Massachusetts in 1911 presented to the legislature of 1912 a draft for just such a planning commission, which contained a novel feature for getting its plans carried out. Massachusetts is well supplied with executive commissions with some planning functions. It has a highway board, a grade crossing commission, a transit commission, a gas and electric light commission, a railroad commission, a metropolitan park commission, and a metropolitan water and sewer board, all with jurisdiction in the metropolitan district. The commission of inquiry wisely recommended the necessity of keeping these existing commissions in office. Their tasks were large enough.

The new commission was to be distinctly a planning and not an executing body. Its province was to be suggestion, advice, supervision, and correlation. The cities and towns of the metropolitan district were to be offered, for the consummation of improvements classed as metropolitan by the planning commission, the credit of the state and a direct contribution toward the cost of improvements by the state and by the metropolitan district at large, if the local unit accepted in its development the plan of the commission. The device thus incorporated in the bill recognized two strongly rooted attributes in municipal character—jealousy of local self-government and openness to persuasion when the persuasion is golden. It distinctly kept hands off of metropolitan commissions, county commissions, and local governments, by the provision that all improvements should be executed by the body that would have executed them before the passage of the bill. It offered merely to provide a plan for the whole district and help on the financial burden. All improvements in the metropolitan district submitted to the proposed planning commission were to be classified as local improvements, as ordinary metropolitan improvements, or as extraordinary improvements. In the case of purely local improvements the locality stood the entire financial burden; in the case of ordinary metropolitan improvements the localities in which the improvement was located paid 65 per cent of the entire cost, the metropolitan district 20 per cent and the state 10 per cent; in the case of an extraordinary metropolitan improvement the distribution of the expense was to be determined by a commission appointed by the supreme court of the state.

A feature of very real financial assistance was offered by the provision that towns or cities of the district might borrow money to meet the expense of metropolitan improvements, and this loan would not be considered in reckoning the debt limit. The weakness of the device is in the provision that 20 per cent of the cost of metropolitan improvements should be paid by the entire district. It is very questionable whether there is unity enough in any metropolitan district to allow a fixed assessment over the whole district for an improvement where the most direct benefit is to only two or three towns. But this interesting experiment did not survive the legislative hearing. It was defeated not so much because of opposition to the principle of the bill as out of real or imaginary fear in the minds of the political leaders in the towns and cities about Boston, who see in any plan for a more unified development of the metropolitan district the domination of Boston.

Another legislative experiment in city planning which did not come to maturity should also be mentioned. In 1910 the city of Seattle adopted an amendment to the city charter by the addition of a new article which created a municipal plans commission. Seattle was just then finishing some costly reconstruction, washing away grades and widening important thoroughfares, and the wisdom of avoiding such an experience again appealed to the city with peculiar emphasis. The amendment put on the commission the duty of procuring plans for the arrangement of the city with a view to such expansion as would meet probable future demands. Of the twenty-one members of the commission seven represented the city or county government, and fourteen were appointed by the mayor from nominations of fourteen groups representing architects, engineers, business, real estate, the water front owners, and the public service corporations. The commission served without compensation but was authorized to employ experts, not exceeding three, to prepare a comprehensive plan.