Page:John Nolen--New ideals in the planning of cities.djvu/51

CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES smaller cities with a population ranging from 2,500 to 125,000, and only 20% in the larger cities with a population of from 125,000 to 1,000,000 or more. Moreover, the relative increase of population is greater in the smaller cities, especially those with from 50,000 to 250,000, being 41% against 32% for cities of 1,000,000 or more. The number of places, of course, grows steadily with the decrease in population. For example, of cities of 1,000,000 there are only three; of from 500,000 to 1,000,000, five; of 250,000 to 500,000, eleven; of 100,000 to 250,000, thirty-one; of 50,000 to 100,000, fifty-nine; of 25,000 to 50,000, one hundred and twenty; and of 2,500 to 25,000, twenty-one hundred and seventy-six. Cities with a population of 100,000 or over number only fifty.

The planning problems of the smaller cities are much like those of the larger cities, except that the smaller cities have a better opportunity to head oi¥ many of the evils resulting from the early lack of proper planning on the part of cities that have now grown large.

The planning of the most sparsely settled units is now ) attracting attention, and has recently been well discussed in a bulletin of the American Civic Association by Professor ) F. A. Waugh. He points out that country planning must follow. The country has just as great a need and just as good a right to be planned as the city. Something over half the people of the United States still live in the country. Moreover there are sound reasons for thinking that, just at the present time, the general weal of society is more concerned in the salvation of the country than in the next improvements in the city. A study of rural condition? and problems in Canada has recently been prepared by Thomas Adams for the Commission of Conservation under the title of Rural Planning and Development.