Page:John Nolen--New ideals in the planning of cities.djvu/109

CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES and kept up to date. Authority to employ experts or technical assistants would be involved in a city plan office.

6. The question of annual appropriation for city -planning depends greatly, of course, upon the city planning program which confronts the city under consideration. It is safe to say that an efficient city plan office for a city of 100,000 population would require, for routine work, an annual appropriation of $10,000 or more, and that relatively large cities ought to have $50,000.

7. The procedure necessary to make the city plan effective is difficult to outline briefly, as it involves the whole question of the organization of government. In general, final authority should rest with the city government. It would probably be well to require that a veto of a project by the city plan commission could be overridden by the city government only by a two-thirds vote, or, at any rate, by a repassage of the measure. The only exception in the matter of control by the city government might properly be the approval of new plans for the extension of the city.

8. A complete city planning organization requires, it would seem, a state planning board or department of municipal affairs. Like many other state boards, such a planning board or department dealing with city government might be largely advisory. An exception, perhaps, should be in dealing with those matters which concern two or more political jurisdictions. Such a state board would be a great help in the solution of city planning problems beyond the city limits, and in dealing with the towns and smaller cities.

In order that city construction may be intelligently carried on, it is necessary that there should be a plan of the city as a whole, by which the planning of any part or detail of it at any time may be guided. The making of the plan, however, does not of itself in any way control city