DIVISION VI MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT EXPANSION OF CITIES BY ROBERT T. CRANE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN City growth is a subject which can- | from Canada would indicate that the not be handled in precise terms for restriction on other countries has a given year. Annual statistics in made itself strongly felt in 1925; yet this field are largely lacking, are for in view of the large proportion of the most part merely estimates, often growth normally accruing through do not coincide with the calendar birth within the cities and through year, and are usually available only migration from rural districts, which long after its close. Owing to this rests upon fundamental causes inlack of statistical data, any generali-volved in the modern industrial syszation on municipal expansion in tem and exerting a very constant 1925 will probably apply as well to force of attraction, decreased immiother years near that date. gration from abroad seems likely to Estimates of Population.-Popula- lower only the rate of acceleration tion figures issued by the Bureau of from one census period to another the Census as of July 1 each year and not to lower the absolute rate for individual cities are avowedly es-established during the decade in which timates. They are calculated me-occurred the World War. The mechanically by adding each year one- chanical method of adding each year tenth of the increase during the one-tenth of the gain during the prepreceding census decade except for ad-ceding decade gives results for 1925 ditions allowed to cities that have that are probably even annexed territory. From 1910 to 1920, the rate of increase of the total city population of the United States was on the average 2.5 per cent. yearly. When the Bureau sees reason to believe that the figures resulting from application to a particular city of its last decennial rate are materially inaccurate, they are omitted. When the results of a local census are available, these are substituted by the Bureau. As a rule, the estimates are conservative, since growth has shown constant if slight acceleration. Effect of Immigration Laws.-How far the restriction of immigration into the United States is affecting the growth of cities must remain problematical until the actual count of population in 1930. The present wave of immigration from Mexico and mark than usual. nearer the Total Urban Population.—It is sig. nificant, therefore, that the government rule, if applied to the aggregate urban population of the United States, would give an estimated increase during 1925 of some 6,700,000 souls, raising the total from 54,304,603 in 1920 to approximately 61,000,000 in 1925. It is to be noted, further, that these figures include only the inhabitants of incorporated places and omit that part of the urbanized population which overflows the legal boundaries. Nowhere is there, or has there ever been, so huge an urban population in one country. Rank of Cities. A special census in Detroit gives that city a population of 1,242,044, and makes it the fourth in the United States to pass officially the million mark. Cleve- During the last census decade, the land has almost reached a million. areas incorporated in cities increased There have been seven additions to at the rate of 2 per cent. per annum. the so-called great cities-i.e., those This is a little slower than the popuwith a population of 100,000. These lation movement. The arbitrary facare Flint, Michigan; Tulsa, Okla- tor in annexation frees this rate to homa; Canton, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; some extent from the steadying inTacoma, Washington; Lynn, Massa- fluence imposed on the population chusetts, and Utica, New York. They rate by the operation of such continuraise the total of this class from ous causes as the demands of the modsixty-eight in 1920 to seventy-five. ern industrial system. It is therefore This is three times the whole number a less reliable basis for estimates. If of great cities in all the western or applied, it would indicate an extenEuropean world when the American sion in 1925 of 65,000 acres, or a Union was founded. Nine other cities total area at this time of 3,700,000 are close to this class; four of these acres, or 5,800 square miles. Some are so doubtful that the Bureau of sixty million people live on these six the Census has published no esti- thousand square miles, 54 per cent. mates of their population. of our population on one-fifth of 1 per cent. of our territory, the most stupendous pyramiding of population the world has ever seen. The urban character of the United States is undoubtedly more marked in 1925 than in any previous year. Each successive census has shown in the Metropolitan Districts.-These stacities a larger proportion of the total tistics of incorporated places do not population of the country. From 3 even yet give a complete picture of per cent. in 1790, city dwellers had the extent to which the population of increased at the time of the last the country has become agglomerated census to 51.4 per cent., so that by in centers. There are many clusters 1920 the United States had acquired of incorporated places, for which the a predominantly urban civilization. figures appear separately, but which The rate of this increase has varied yet constitute continuous urban areas. only within one or two per cent. from There are in the United States census to census, and there is no twenty-nine of these metropolitan disreason to believe that it has fallen tricts with an aggregate population measurably below the slightly more of as many millions; or, disregardthan one-half of 1 per cent. shown ing legal boundaries and looking only during the last decade. It may at the fact of urbanization, twentytherefore be conservatively estimated nine cities averaging a million inthat in 1925 54 per cent. of the habitants. population of the country is resi- Effects on Government.-City exdent in cities as against 46 per cent. pansion is the core of the great probin rural districts. It is to be noted, lem of the modern city. The massing also, that the urban character of of huge populations on small areas the United States is heightened by with the attendant congestion, the the hundreds of thousands of people loosening of family and neighborly who, though technically resident in interest, intimacy and control, the the country areas, do little more than lack of habituation of a large part sleep there, and spend a large pro- of the people to urban life, the abportion of their time, often daily, in sence of opportunity for the induloccupations and interests within the gence in customary occupations of cities. leisure, the great divergencies of wealth which separate city dwellers, the added menaces to health, to life, and to property, the extraordinary demands of traffic and of transportation,-create unprecedented physical and social problems. Thus there fall upon the governments of the cities tasks of unparalleled and ever-grow The ing complexity and magnitude, which | sale of coal and of gasoline in order call for the frequent assumption of to hold prices at reasonable levels. new burdens and for the elaboration The expansion of old functions goes of organization. Expansion not only incessantly on together with the addiof population and of area, then, but tion of new ones adopted from other also of government both in its activi- communities or entirely novel. ties and in its organization, char- cumulative effect of these changes is acterizes the American city of to-day. enormous. Metropolitan Functions. As a City Finance.-All of this growth, consequence of this steady pressure of population, area, and governmental of demand for increased services, city activity, is most faithfully reflected government has attained a degree of by the financial operations of cities. development in 1925 never before A century ago New York City had reached. Particular cities that have just passed the 100,000 population not before exercised such functions mark. At that time it expended a are now undertaking, one the collec-dollar per capita; in 1925 this figure tion of garbage or of other wastes had grown to $67. A century ago or the incineration or other reduc- its annual budget was $100,000; in tion of refuse or sewerage, another 1925 it was $400,000,000. The value the supply of gas or electricity, an- of money has changed, indeed, but other the care of the sick through the differences in these figures is espublic nurses or the medical examina-sentially due to growth; and what is tion of school children, and yet an- true of New York City is true in other the systematic planning of city progressively declining measure of the development or zoning. Many cities smaller cities. have recently established camping It has been well said that the grounds to accommodate automobile growth of the cities is the most retourists. A number are contemplat-markable social phenomenon, and coning public aviation fields. One, at stitutes the greatest social problem, least, has undertaken permanently the of the modern age. ZONING AND CITY PLANNING BY ROBERT T. CRANE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CITY PLANNING City planning maintained in 1925 the steady progress of recent years. The name, indeed, is hardly longer appropriate; for on the one hand planning is being undertaken by communities too small to be termed urban; and on the other has extended far beyond the limits of even the largest cities. The National Conference on City Planning reported some 300 commissions in existence at the beginning of the year, most of which were active, although it must be recognized that many others have only a formal existence. Numerous planning reports have been published during the year. Mandatory provisions for the establishment of a city plan have been written into virtually every new charter. Popular support has steadily grown. Significant backing has come from various organized national groups, especially the real estate dealers and chambers of commerce. The Department of Commerce at Washington through the establishment of the Division of Housing and Building, and of the City Planning Committee of the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety called by Secretary Hoover in December, 1924, has done much to promote city planning during the year. Basis. A city plan is a program of studied and permanent development of the physical conditions of community life in the interest of efficiency, of health, of convenience, and of beauty. It may cover the whole physical development of the community whether development is by private or by governmental action, whether development is of private or year, is that of Cincinnati, Ohio. of public property. For the regula- This is noteworthy as the first plan tion of the action of individual prop-to be officially adopted in a large erty owners, there is a recognized city. State law and city charter alike special name-zoning. Two principal give to the planning commission the divisions, therefore, of city planning power to fix the location, size, and must be distinguished: city planning character of all public buildings and in a narrow sense which relates to areas, the lay-out of all utilities the activities of public and semi-pub- and public services, and the developlic agencies, and zoning, which relates ment of all streets and other means to the activities of individuals. City of circulation. This power the complanning in this narrower sense, is mission has exercised, and the plan of course often very far from com- thereby acquires exceptional legal auplete. Its most common features are thority. No deviation by other auprovisions for streets, including the thorities of the city is permitted by location on, above, or below them, law unless approved by the planning of the various utilities and agencies commission; or unless, upon its disof transportation, and the routing of approval by the commission, it is traffic; for terminals, including ports, authorized by two-thirds of the full and railroad rights-of-way and their membership of the city council after connections; for parks and boulevards a public hearing, as provided by the and other areas of recreation; and charter, and, as stipulated by the for the grouping and style of public state law, has in addition the apbuildings. The city plan, even proval of the department head conthough adopted by an official planning cerned. This last provision adds commission, is usually without legally materially to the authority of the coercive authority. It is advisory commission, for it has five ex officio only and may be ignored by other city members out of seven-including the officers. Containing often an exten- mayor, the director of public servsive and expensive program of de-ice, and the three members of the velopment, the plan is usually de- park board, officials who represent signed to cover a number of years; the departments most likely to be as conditions can be foreseen with affected by the plan. The ex officio less and less accuracy in the future, membership of the commission is obthe plan must have a degree of flexi- viously an important factor. bility corresponding to the period plan is noteworthy also on account which it is designed to cover. of the unusual strength of its Harrisburg. In 1925, the plan financial provisions. It is on this prepared for Harrisburg, Penna., side that city planning has probably offers an excellent illustration of a in general been weakest. The Cinproposed street lay-out based on traf- cinnati plan covers a period of fifty fic studies. It provides for discon-years, and has distributed the work tinuance of the present system of to be done in detail over five-year routing all trolley lines through one periods with a fairly even spreading square in the center of the business of the cost. The methods of financing district; for re-routing these lines have received very careful attention. around the edge of this district; for The plan embraces a three-mile belt abolishing within it the parking of around the city in addition to the automobiles; for the widening and corporate area, a growing practice. extension of several streets to pro- It thus extends into Kentucky, where vide more adequate approaches and it has of course no authority. The thoroughfares; and for the opening situation in the legal belt within of one new street for a short dis- Ohio is not clear. Apparently the tance through blocks on which build-authorities outside the city cannot be ings now stand. Its execution is compelled to execute the plan, nor on spread over a period of ten years. the other hand, under the law can Cincinnati. A plan of a general they act in disregard of it. type issued in 1925, and the outstand- The plan includes zoning already efing feature of city planning in this fective since April, 1924. It covers The total area is 4,000 square miles, with a population of a million and a half. Organization has been completed and surveys are under way. The plan will embrace port developments; highways; air, rail, and water transportation and terminals; rapid transit connections; bay protection from sewerage and refuse; flood control; water supply; and regional zoning. belt lines connecting railways, rout-gion extends fifty miles to the north ing of through freight around the and as many to the south of San city, systematized traffic regulation, Francisco, and thirty miles to the development of the waterfront for east beyond San Francisco Bay. The both recreation and utility, barge canals and basins, reclamation, parks, and playgrounds, schools, and other public properties. The document is a bulky one of some 125,000 words with numerous maps and other illustrations. Lengthy treatment is given all subjects covered by the adopted regulations. The plan, on which the City Planning Commission has worked for three years with the Another type of planning is naraid of the Technical Advisory Cor- rowly limited in scope. This is well poration has been framed with the represented in 1925 by the plan for collaboration and approval of every tying the War Memorial recently city department and every public erected in Baltimore, Md., to the city utility affected by it; and it has very hall and other public buildings by wide public support, its preparation a parked and terraced square flanked having been initiated and financed by the United City Planning Association, which is composed of representatives of thirty important organizations of the city. by façades of uniform height and similar design and material. City planning has received endorsement by legislative action in twentyfour states. In several of them, símilar recognition has been given to county and regional planning. ZONING Regional Planning.-Planning has passed from the city into the region. It now embraces in a single program as many as three score neighboring municipalities. Work is proceeding steadily in the Boston and New York Expansion of the System.-The Regions. In the Chicago area, in ad- zoning of cities has proceeded more dition to the formulation of a new rapidly throughout the United States central plan, an effort is being made in 1925 than ever before. Figures to bring together immediately the compiled by the Division of Buildplans that already exist in many of ing and Housing of the Department the communities included in this re- of Commerce and Labor at Washinggion. The Niagara Falls Region and ton as of July 1, show 366 zoned muthe Connecticut Valley Region have nicipalities with an aggregate popuboth received state legislative recog-lation of 26,000,000. The contrast nition. A committee has been formed with 48 cities and 11,000,000 populato promote planning for the area tion in September, 1921, indicates around Washington, D. C. The most both a seven-fold increase in the numimportant step in this direction taken in 1925, however, centers in San Francisco. After preliminary work had been done by the city planning section of the Commonwealth Club of that city, the Regional Plan Association was organized. This body is composed of cities, counties, civic organizations, and individuals. It is financed entirely by fees and contributions. It intends to develop a comprehensive plan for the major portion of nine counties, and to coördinate the present planning activities of nearly sixty municipalities. The re ber of zoned municipalities within the short period of four years, and an addition of 130 per cent. in population. The relatively small increase of population in comparison with the number of places is due to the extension of the movement to smaller communities with the zoning of virtually all of the great cities. A number of villages have been zoned during the past year. Forty-six places of all classes were zoned during the first six months of 1925,-33 of less than 25,000 population, 10 of 25,000 to 100,000, and 3 of over 100,000 |