Page:John Nolen--New ideals in the planning of cities.djvu/111

CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES for the public health, are by no means new, but it is only in comparatively recent times that the importance of light and air in great abundance has been fully realized. Therefore, not only to prevent fire, but to furnish sufficient light and air and sunshine in the interest of public health, building regulations limiting the size of structures with relation to the lots they occupy are essential in the planning of the modern city.

There has also come the recognition recently that it is practically impossible to enact fair and adequate building regulations which shall be the same for the entire city. In all cities there are districts where there is great concentration. To pass regulations securing for land that is vacant in such districts anything like adequate light and air would be to discriminate sharply between occupied and unoccupied lots in these districts. On the other hand, any regulation that would be fair to these congested districts would be practically inoperative in sections of the city where values neither demand nor warrant such intensity. The only regulations at the same time reasonable and generally effective are those varying with the varying land values and conditions of the different parts of the city. Thus districting is the only practical method of preventing the spread of congestion.

There is no phase of city planning legislation more important than that relating to the obtaining of the necessary money by methods that are just, and will not create hardships. Of all the methods, the one that is most just, that may be applied with the least hardship, is that of local or benefit assessment. This method prevails in most cities, and has been applied with regard to the construction of streets, sewers, etc., also public parks and civic centers. There is no reason why its application should be limited to the fields which it now occupies. The broad principle