Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/29

 can afford to live anywhere else. Either they move right out into the country, seeking a spot on some main line where the greater distance and less-frequent train service is made up for by speedy and uninterrupted journeys; or they come into London and occupy houses or flats within easy reach of their working headquarters. The suburbs are given over to those who cannot afford either of these expedients, or who, having been brought up there, are retained by a sort of inertia. Ultimately, as the demand for town space becomes intensified, two things will happen. First of all, the restrictions which many cities, ignoring the freedom of New York and Chicago, impose upon the erection of excessively high buildings, will go by the board. The shutting out of sunlight and fresh air will be the subject of compensations to be presently explained, and thirty, forty, fifty or a hundred-storey houses, and houses which perhaps burrow to some distance underground, will, by virtue of the same compensations, house a vast, concentrated population impatient of daily travel. As the demand for homes increases, and even the high buildings cannot cope with it, the cities will push their way outwards, repopulating the rebuilt suburbs. This kind of thing will have a tendency to correct itself. Rents will be high in proportion to position near the centre. But a limit of toleration will be reached, and as