Page:Old Towns and New Needs.djvu/70

 each of these suburbs there might well be reserved some belt of open space, park land, wood land, agricultural, or meadow land, which would at once define one suburb from another, and keep the whole of the inhabitants in intimate touch with ample open space.

This form of city organization, Mr, Howard's Garden City idea applied to town development, would simplify all the problems of town planning, and the provision of the many services, water, telephone, light, etc., associated with modern town life. Everything would be taken direct to each centre and thence distributed to the individuals grouped round that centre. Reservation of the necessary sites for schools, playgrounds, and other public requirements would become easy; and the very fact that these were located beforehand in the places best adapted for them, and at the focus of the various roads forming part of the scheme, would lead to the natural development of the suburb around this centre. Moreover, the low-lying meadows and valleys following the rivers and watercourses, just the part of the land which is least healthy for building purposes, and the most expensive to provide with sewers, would be most suitable to preserve as open spaces, playgrounds, and pleasure walks which often need not be wide in extent; and so naturally the dwelling suburbs would be located on the high and healthy grounds. The tops of the higher hills to which water cannot often without special expense be supplied could again be reserved as open tracts of country for common enjoyment. It would be natural to group the factories and railways in conjunction with the