Page:John Nolen--New ideals in the planning of cities.djvu/47

CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES United States and in new colonies generally. It would not be difficult to show that from the point of view of traffic facilities, as well as city attractiveness, the radial system has proved the better one in use. An interesting criticism of the limitations of the rectangular plan adopted for New York City by the Commission of 1807 has been given by F. L. Olmsted, Sr., in which he says, "Some two thousand blocks were provided, each theoretically two hundred feet wide, no more, no less; and ever since, if a building site is wanted, whether with a view to a church or a blast furnace, an open house or a toy shop, there is, of intention, no better place in one of these blocks than another. ... If a proposed cathedral, military depot, great manufacturing enterprise, house of religious seclusion or seat of learning needs a space of ground more than sixty-six yards in extent from north to south, the system forbids that it shall be built in New York. . . . There is no place in New York where a stately building can be looked up to from base to turret, none where it can even be seen full in the face and all at once taken in by the eye; none where it can be viewed in advantageous perspective. . . . Such distinctive advantage of position as Rome gives St. Peter's, London St. Paul's, New York under her system gives to nothing."

A combination of the radial and rectangular systems has many advantages, and is particularly adaptable to the addition of new areas to old cities. The plan of the city of Washington is an interesting study of the combination of the chess-board and the radial systems.

It Is not likely, however, that we shall find in any "system" the correct method of dealing with the traffic requirements of cities in the future. If they are to be fulfilled, no purely rectangular or radiating system is likely to be of great use. "Success in town planning," writes Dr. J. Stiibbe