Large as our population is, it is really remarkable to note how little area would be required to rehouse the people of the towns. Taking the number of families in the United Kingdom at 9,000,000, only 1,800,000 acres, or less than one-fortieth part of the area of the country, would be required to house five families to the acre. This simple calculation helps us to realize the point referred to in a former page—how tiny an area now contains nearly the whole of our 44,500,000 people.
Having wisely purchased land upon its borders, the municipality must take thought as to the distribution of the population upon its new territory. Plans must be made of the new roads, streets, open spaces, and transit facilities long before they are actually required, so that each step in development may be taken deliberately and that no new difficulties may be built up to be the despair of the future. The well-governed city should study its present and future area as the artist regards his prepared sheet of canvas. Within its borders what varying effects may be produced! With the loving care that the old Italians bestowed upon the preparation of their panels, the municipality should plan the ground upon which the life of the city is to move. It is a picture the arrangement of which means life or death to the citizens; it may easily be made to glow with health and beauty.
Mr Burns's important Housing Act of 1909 has made it possible for local authorities to plan out the future extensions of towns; it will be interesting to see whether there is sufficient imagination in our local rulers to make the provision fructify.
In one of the most valuable contributions to this subject which have been published in recent years,[48] Mr T. C. Horsfall describes the thought and trouble which is given to the planning of the extension of municipalities by German Town Councils. Thus Stuttgart, in 1901, when preparing for a large extension of the town borders (its present population is about 182,000), obtained the advice of skilled architects, engineers, medical authorities, and artists. The politico-economic aspect of the matter was also carefully considered. The opinions, plans, and suggestions were then published in a volume to enable all the people of Stuttgart to study the proposals for extension.
Mannheim, again, which is chiefly a manufacturing town, prepared in 1901 building plans which provide for the requirements of industry and housing, while always remembering the claims of Beauty. I quote the following from Mr Horsfall: "The description of the building plan for Mannheim, prepared by Professor Baumeister, which is published in Numbers 69, 70, and 71 of the 'Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung,' shows that the new part of the town will be provided with a remarkably complete system of narrow railways for passenger traffic, and with an equally complete system of railway lines of the ordinary width leading from goods-stations in all directions, for goods traffic, which will enable every manufactory to load goods on to trucks on its own premises. Carriage, therefore, will be exceptionally cheap in the town. Yet the Town Council, who are thinking so much of economical working, recognize that even their poorest fellow-citizens are men and women, whose bodies and minds need wholesome recreation and an abundant supply of fresh air, of light, and of the influence of flowers and trees. The building plan, therefore, provides for the creation of avenue streets of widths varying from 24 to 43 yards; and Professor Baumeister adds: 'Of course care has been taken to provide open spaces, decorative shrubberies, parks and sites for public buildings.' The width of ordinary streets varies from 8⅓ to 21⅓ yards."
The German building plans provide in what districts factories may be erected and determine (1) how much of building sites may be covered by houses, and (2) the height of all buildings. Thus, even in cases where the municipality does not own its own sites, it can in some measure control the greed of the houselord. It cannot too strongly be insisted upon, however, that absolute sovereignty of the manner of distribution of the people upon area can only be obtained by acquisition of the land.
The practicability of going out and beyond the township and emptying into the open country the crowded and enfeebled inhabitants of the cities has been amply demonstrated in the United Kingdom. An object-lesson of the most practical character is afforded by the beautiful garden city of Bournville, which the beneficence and wisdom of Mr George Cadbury have raised four miles from the gloomy city of Birmingham.
Most people have heard of Bournville, but few are aware that it is not merely a village erected for the accommodation of Mr Cadbury's employees, but a working model of what may be done to solve the housing problem of great cities. The village of Bournville now no longer belongs to Mr Cadbury, for he has bestowed it upon the nation, the gift being worth not less than £200,000. In December 1900, the estate was handed over to the Bournville Village Trust, which is under the final control of the Charity Commissioners. In the Deed by which the property was made over to the Trustees the founder has thus set forth its objects: "The founder is desirous of alleviating the evils which arise from the insanitary and insufficient accommodation supplied to large numbers of the working classes and of securing to workers in factories some of the advantages of outdoor village life, with opportunities for the natural and healthful occupation of cultivating the soil.... The object is declared to be the amelioration of the condition of the working-class and labouring population in and around Birmingham, and elsewhere in Great Britain, by the provision of improved dwellings, with gardens and open spaces to be enjoyed therewith."
The objects thus outlined have been carried out by the provision of beautiful homes set in gardens which are at once a source of revenue and of healthful recreation to their possessors.
Less than one-half of the breadwinners of Bournville are employed by Mr Cadbury himself. The village is not a private preserve, as is so often imagined, in which patronized cottagers live a bounty-fed existence, but a free independent and public-spirited community which rules itself in matters of detail through a Tenants' Committee or Council. A census of the inhabitants made in December 1901 gave the following results:—