Page:Old Towns and New Needs.djvu/75

 your energetic Town Planning Committee, aided by their tactful surveyor have already established a good understanding with many of the chief owners of property, and that these owners realise that it is in the common interest of all that the land should be developed on right lines. It is for you as citizens loyally to support the action of your representatives, and to give them hearty and enlightened encouragement to carry forward town-planning schemes for the area around Manchester, to a degree which will secure for you the utmost benefits which it is possible to obtain under the present Town Planning Act; and when we have exhausted these we will go to Mr. Burns and ask for more! It is, alas, true that a vast area in Manchester has been ruined by the want of any proper co-operation in development, by the selfish and short-sighted overcrowding of dwellings upon some areas of land and the waste of others. But we must not think that it is too late now to move; that is not so: Manchester is still growing rapidly. There is around it much country which would lend itself to more successful development. It is evident from what has already been accomplished that your surveyor will be able to secure many roads leading out of Manchester in different directions. The next point of vital interest is that we shall secure proper homes for the people. Until town planning has done this, until the people of a city have homes fit to inhabit, in surroundings which will provide health, comfort and beauty, it is too soon to consider ambitious schemes for remodelling the central area of the town. Let us once secure a well-housed city, and well-housed citizens will