Ce LL —CCC CITIES IN } EVOLUTION AN INTRODUCTION ‘TO THE TOWN PLANNING MOVEMENT STUDY OF CIVics | sew vor | Howard Fertig | 1968 |CITIES IN EVOLUTION CHAPTER 1 ‘TH EVOLUTION oF cine Sie atte a ee yom estima ppsine ean eg medina’ The tl se Re aekol arp ve” Ae w Aan Sim Doce ely eee progres fo eet Pcs to cone cee Chik ef the loons aed at Eman kewego f Dain ad Bula, ce "The Peel Sa See at no Si sn Auike in Europe and in Ameriea the problems ‘of the city have come to the front, and ate in- creasingly calling for interpretation and for treat ment. Politicians of all parties have to confess their traditional party methods inadequate to cope with them, ‘Their teachers hitheelo—the national and general historians, the economists of this school fr that—have long been working on very different lines; and though new students of eivies are appeat- ing in many cities, no distinet. consensus has yet been reached among them, even as to methods of2 ‘INS IN. EVOLATTION rye still Tess as to. results, Yet that in our ing cities—here, there, pethaps everywhere—s new stizing of setion, @ new arousal of thought, have begun, none will deny; nor that these ace alike ‘and ambitions, fresh out= Tooks and influences; with whieh the politician and the thinker have anew to reckon, Anew social science is forming, a new social art developing —that rich is surely becoming plain to every observer of ‘contemportiy social evolution; and what press and parliaments are beginning to see to-day, even the most backward of town councils, the most submissive of Uheie voters, the most indifferent of their tax- payers, will be shuply awakened to to-morrow. Rerlin and Boston, London and New York, Man- chester and Chicago, Dublin, smaller eities as well— all tll fately, and still no doubt mainly, concentrated ‘upon empire or national polities, pon finance, commerce, or manufactures-—is not exch awakening towards a new and mote intimate self-conscious- ness! ‘This civic self is still too inarticulate: we cannot give it cleur expression: it is as yet mostly jn the stage of @ strife of feelings, in which pal and pleasure, pride and shame, misgivings and hhopes sxe variously mingling, and from which efinite ideas and ideals are only beginning here fand there to emerge. Of this general fermentation fof thought the present volume is produet— doubt only too fully retaining its incompleteness. "The materials toxturds this nascent science are thus THE EVOLUTION oF rts * ot merely being collected by librarians, published in all forms from leaned monographs to passionate appealings, and from statistical tables to popular picture-books: they are germinating in our minds, and this even as we walk the streets, as we read our newspapers. Shall we make our approach, then, to the study of cities, the inquiry into their evolution, beginning with them, as American city students commonly prefer to do, upon their moter lines, taking them 4s we find then? Or shall we follow the historie and developmental method, to which so many European cities naturally invite us? Or if some- in what proportion, what order? And, beyond past and present, must we wot seek into our cities’ future ¢ ‘The study of human evolution is not merely @ retrospect of origins in the past. ‘That is but a paleontology of man—his Archeology and History, This not even the anelysis of actual social processes in the present—that physiology of sociel man is, ‘or should be, Keonomies. Beyond the first question of Whence?—Whence have things come? and th second, of How #—How do they live and work !— ‘the evolutionist must ask a thinl, Not, as of old at best, What next #—as if anything might come: bot rather Whither?—Whither away? For it is surely of the essence of the evolution concept—hard ‘though it be to realise it, more difieut still to apply t—that it should not only inquire how this of to-day‘ CITIES IN RYOLITION may have come out of that of yesterday, but be foresecing and preparing for what the morrow is even now in its tum bringing towards birth. ‘This of course is dificult—so dificult as ever to be throwing us back to inquire into present conditions, and beyond these into earlier ones; yet with the result that in these inquities, necessary as they are, fascinating as they become, a whole generation of specialists, since the doctrine of evolution eame clearly into view, have Tost sight or courage to return to its main problem —that of the discernment of present tendency, amid the apparent phantasmagoria of change. Tn short, then, to decipher the origins of cities in the past, and to unravel their life-processes inthe present, are not only legitimste and attractive in- quires, but indispensable ones for every student of whether he would visit and interpret world- cities, or sit quietly by his window at home. But as the agricultusist, besides his interest in the past peiligrees and present condition of his stock and erops, must not, on pain of ruin, lose sight of his active preporition for next season, but value these studies tus he ean apply them towards this, so it is with the citizen, For him swely, ofall mea, evolution is most plainly, swiftly in progress, most manilest, yet most mysterious. Not o uilding of his city but is sound. ing as with innumerable looms, each with its m: warp of circumstance, its changeful wert of life, patterns here seem simple, there intricate, often mary beyond our unravelling, and all well-nigh are ehang- ‘THE EVOLUTION oF evtmrs. 5 ing, even day by day, as we watch. Ney, these very. webs are themselves anew esught up to serve threads again, within new and vaster combinations, Yet within this labyrinthine civieomplex there are no ‘mere spectators. Blind or seeing, inventive or us thinking, joyous or unwilling—each has stil to weave Sarina taechincatey tag = in, il or well, and for worse if not for better, the whole thread of his life, Our task is rendered difficult by the immensity of its materials, What is to be ssid of cities in general, where your guide-book to Rome, or Pats, or London, {se crowded and small-typed volume? when book: sellers’ windows are bright with beautifully illustrated volumes, each for a single city’ and when each of ‘these is but an introduction Uo « mass of literature for every city, vast beyond anticipation? ‘Thus,6 cries 1s OLUTION taking for example one of the smallest of historic cities—one now known to faw in Britain, fewer still in America, savein associstion with the world-fimous generosities of one of its children, steeped early in its traditions of patriotism and of literature—Mr Brskine Beveridye’s valusble Bibliography of” Dunfermline fils a bulky crown octavo of closely printed two- columied payest Again, exch specialist, each general reader also, is ‘apt to have his interest limited to the field of his own experience. If we are to interest the antiquary ot the tourist, it must be first of all from their own point of view; but we reach thisiffwe ean show ther, for instance, exactly how one of their favourite ‘cathedral. cities—notably Salisbury, for choice—was planned. At the exodus of its Bishop ftom Old Sarum ip 1220, he brought its citizens after him into ‘what he had Isid out a6 a veritable gerden city: 50 ‘that Salisbury at its beginnings six eentaries ago was ‘THE EVOL "TION OF CrTtES curiously lke Letchworth or Hampstend Suburb today, 90 fer as its homes were concerned. Indeed, their architects will be the first to recogmise that Salisbury had advantages of greater garden space, of streauns carried through the streets; not to speak of the great cathedral arising in its spacious close beyond, ‘Thus interested, the antiquary is now the very man to lead us in tracing out how the present cromded courts and gardenless slums of Salisbury have ui mistakubly (and comparatively lately) arisen from the deterioration of one old garden-home after another, He rediscovers for hitnself in detail how curiously. and closely medieval town planning and housing, thus recovered, anticipates that of our Garden Cities; and whether he care to renew such things of not, he fan next help us with mote difficult eases, even with what is probably the most difficult of all—Old Fi burgh, so long the most overcrowded and deteriorated. of all the world’s citios—yet with its past neverfj ‘ CITIES IN EVOLUTION wholly submerged, and thus one of the most richly instructive, most suggestive to the fresh-eyed observer, to the historic student. Hence here the impulse of Scott's reopening of the world-romance of history, fand next of Carlyle’ tragi-comic rendering of significance; here is the canvas of Robert Loui Stevenson's subtly embroidered poge; and now in turn, in more scientific days, the natural centre for the earliest of British endeavours towards the initistion of a school of sociology with its theori ‘and a school of civies with its surveys and i ‘expretations. ‘The painter may be at first harder to deal with, for the has as yet too seldom begun to dream how many new subjects for his art the futore is here preparing, when our Garden-Suburb avenues have grown and their cottage roofs have mellowed. Yet we shall reach him too—even next spring, for then our young orchard will have its frst blossoms, and the children will be at play in it, ‘The builder, again, eager to proceed with more cottages, is impatient of our eivie dreams, and will not look at our old-world plans of temples or cathedrals, As yet he is somesthat apt to ‘miss, in church, and still more in the business week, what 2 certain old-world aphorism concerning the frequency of failures among those who build without an ideal may mean if restated in modern terms, Again, the utilitarian housewife, busy in her compact and convenient, but generally rather small and sun- Jess scullery, may well be incredulous when we tell “THE EVOLATTION OF CHTLES 2 hher that in what have now become the slums of Old Edinburgh, for instance, this seallery was situated i ‘the porch, oron a covered but open first-floor baleony, until she ean be shown the historie evidence, and even the survivals of this, Even then, 90 strong is Ihait, she will probably prefer her fa any rate until she realises how, for lack of this medieval and retuming open-air treatment, she or her little maid may be on the verge of consumption.ITIRS IN EVOL oN Her husband, the skilled artisan in steady employ- rent, with biguer wages and shorter hours than his Continental rival, nay well stare to be told how much, more there is that makes fife best worth living in many a Gerinan working-town ay eompered with fours; oF how, were he a mechanie ig Marseilles or Nimes, or many another French city, he would be ‘wock-ending all suinmer with his family t thei ttle countey property-—now looking after his vineyard, or resting under his own fig-iree. Above all, et us end this preliminsey unsettling of popalar beliefs as we began. Rich man and poor, Conservative and Liberal, Radical and Socialist have all alike to be upset—in 1most of what they have been al their lives accustomed ‘to hearand to repeat of the poverty and the misery and the degradation of the towns of the Middle Ages, THE EVOLUEION OF CITIES io. Gost Ec8 CITIES IN EVOLITTION E ‘THE EYOLUTION OF crTtEs 8 ‘nd from whieh they have heen so often told we have Industral period, and much within our own times. in every way progressed so far—by having put before Ta concrete instance of this be wanted, the world them a few of their old plans and pictures, say from has none to offer mote dramatic and complete than ‘the Cities and ‘Town Planning Ksxbibition. For there that of the Historie Mile of Old Edinburgh, and or indeed in aay public Hbrary—it is easy vo sear especially its old High Street, in which this is being written. For, as we have above indicated, this mass of medieval and renaissance survivals has been, and too nearly is still, the most squalid conglomeration, ‘the most over-erowded area in the old world: even in the new, at most the emigrant quarter of New York of Chicego has rivalled its evil pre-eminence. Yet our “Civie Survey of Edinburgh” shows these evils as mainly modern, and that the town planning of the thirteenth century as conceived relatively, but positively —on lines in theit way ‘more spacious than those which have made our “New Town” and its modern boulevard of Princes Street famous. Aristotle—the founder of civic studies, as of so many others—wisely josisted upon the inaportance, Me ol nf Rae Mui ag Nae not only of compacing tions (ashe aid, See eat 4 hundred and sixty-three of them), but of seeing out the old documents asin well nigh every town the cour city with our own eyes. Hle urged that our actual survivals, whieh prove how grand and spacious view be truly synoptic, « word which had not then ‘were the market and public places, how ample the ‘become abstract, but was vividly concrete, as its gardens, even how brosd and magnificent might be makeup shows: a seeing of the city, and this as the thoroughfares, of many medieval town, What 1 whole; like Athens from its Acropolis, like city isto blame in them—and nowadays rightly enough— and Acropolis together—the real "Athens from has mainly been introduced in the centuries since the Lyesbettos and from Pizaus, fom hilltop and from Middle Ages died—the very worst of it within the sea, Large views in the abstract, Aristotle knewEVOLUTION OF ct and thus compressedly suid, depend upon large views fn the concrete. Forgetting thus to base them is the weakness which has so constantly ruined the philosopher, wud has lett him, despite his marvellous abstroct powers, in one age a sophist in spite of Aristotle, in another a schoohnan in spite of Albertus Magnus, or again a pedant in spite of Bacon, So also in ater times and with deadly results to eivies, sad thence to cities. Hence the constitution-anakers ofthe Freneh Revolution ; or of most modem polities, Still so abstract in spite of Diderow's Eneyehedia, of Montesquicu’s Spirit of Laws, exch abounding in wide observation. Hence, too, the long lapse of political economy into a distal science, although 4% arose coneretely enough, fest by generalising the substantial agricultural experience of De Questay in France, and then qualifying this by the synoptic urban impressions of Adam Sinith, For, as the field-excursions of our Fdinburgh School of Sociology fare wont to verify, his min life and appar abstract work were primarily but the «mpl and sound digestion of his ow observations—not only in. maturity at Glasgow, but in. boyhood and youth in his earlier homes. Nowhere more clearly an one realise that superiority to sgiieutture as means of wealth, of the manufactures, the shipping and the foreign trade, on which Smith insisted s0 strongly, than ina ramble through the old-world rmerchant towns—Kirkealdy, Dysstt, and the rest which line the coest of Fife. For in th’s day,6 errres IN EVOLUTION though not in ours, Fife was & “beggar’s mantle with a ftinge of gold,” as King James the Sixth and Fint so shrewdly and picturesquely described it five or six generations earlier; and with exactly the sane ccconomic insight. So bookish has been our past education, so strict four school drill of the * three R's,” and so well-nigh complete our lifelong continuance among them, that nine people out of ten, sometimes even more, under- stand print better then pictures, and pictures better than reality. ‘Thus, even for the few surviving beautiful cities of the British Isles, their few mar- vellous streets—for choice the High Street of Oxford and the High Street of Bdinbungh—e few well chosen picture posteards will produce more eect ‘upen most people's minds than does the actual vision ‘of their monumental beauty—there colleges and ‘churetes, here palace, castle, and city's crown. Since for the beauty of such streets, and to their best clements of life and heritage, we have become half- blind, so also for their detcriorsted ones: especially ‘when, asin such old culeurecities, these may largely be the foslsaton of learning oF of religion, and not metely the phenomens of active decay. Yet even these we realise more readily from the newspaper's brief chronidle, than from the weltering misery too often before our eyes Happily the more regional outlook of science is ‘oginniag to counteract this artificial blindness. ‘The field-naturalist hes of course always been working1s ertips IW EVOLUTION this direction, So also the photographer, the painter, the architect; their public also are following, and may soon lead. Even open-air games have been for the most part too confined and subjective:—it is but yesterday that the campers-out went afield ; to-day the hoy scouts are abroad ; to-morrow our ing airmen will be reeovering the synoptic vision. Thus education, at ll its levels, begins to tear away those blinkers of many print-layers which so Tong have been strapped over our eyes. Whether one goes back to the greatest or to the ‘mplest towns, there js little to be learnt of civies by asking their inhabitants, Often they scarcely know who are their own town councillor, or, if they do, they commonly sneer at them: albeit these are genenilly better citizens than those who elect therm, ‘They have forgotten most of the history of their own ity; and the very schools till at any rate the other ‘day, were the last places where you could leur any: thing about it. They even wish to forget it seems to them often something small and petty to be interested in its affairs. ‘The shallow politician's sneer has done deadly work from Shetland to Corn: wall: what should have been their est townsfolk have too long felt above meddling with mere Toesl ‘gas and sewage.” Even the few thinking young ‘men and women in each social easte—with exceptions of course, now more and move counting —are not yet citizens, either in thought or deed. If not absorbed by party politics, they move commonly think of be- ‘THE EVOLUTION OF errtEs 19 ‘coming admin more attractive than the city's; the “6! is familiar to all, but civie service seldom-hexrd phrase, 2 still rarer ambition. Do they dabble xs political economists? High abstracts and sublimates, of all these common types of mind are found in all ‘groups and parties, and are to be diagnosed not by their widely differing party opinions, but by their common blankness to civies, One is all for ‘Taff Reform, his fellow argues no less convincingly for Free Truce; one stands for Home Rule, and another for Central Govemment one is all for pene hot for war, and so on. Yet“ practical politicians as they all alike claim to be, to us students of cities ‘hey seem alike unpractical, unreul; since un observant, that is ignorant, of this concrete eo ‘graphical world around them, uninterested init Suppose you venture into the subject of Germany. for instance, snd attempt any conversation about particnlar German cities and their respective activities and interests; you inquire where the interest, say, of Berlin may differ from that of London ; where that, say, of Hamburg may partly differ, partly eoineide, for where that other may be comparatively indifferent ‘You soon find how much these eities are all one to them ; and you tisk seeming “ unpatriotic,” and this to both alike, if you would have them know more Such a Tarif Reformer, and his complemental Free ‘Trader, are in agreement in having no suggestions, and even no use, for a Survey of Liverpool and beside another2 ITES TN EVOLITTION it another of Manchester, thongh these of all cities should suzely help as towards a fuller understanding fof such questions. ‘Their neighbours at the next Deer-counter or tea-table, hotly diseussing Onionisin and Home Hule, and thus necessarily bandying “Belfast” and “ Dublin,” are commonly no less poor in those concrete images of either city, which our civie studies are accumulating; and hence in eny verifiable general idess about tem also. Boston,” it is said, “is not a place; it is a state of mind.” Does not the same apply to the “ Belfast” and the “Dublin” we hear so much of, whether in Parliament. ‘or in Press? After spending # single summer (of ‘course a time most insufficient, but more than most ‘of even the lenders of controversy would eae to give) ‘upon the study of these to great cities, one becomes eeply impressed by this distrust. Neither ety is so simple as itis made out. ‘To get down to the essential facts and processes Of the life of cities, let us take « city where there is no burning political question prominent just now. Say, then, Edinburgh, of which our survey, many years in progress, is least incomplete. Edinburgh? Edinburgh! A Scottish member would be the frst to blush for such provincialison, Is he still a student? Admittedly not We have roused the politician, and he reproves us in vigorous stssin. He is not going back to the Heptarchy, that he should be asked to map out its petty provinces, much lest survey their constituent boroughs: be is THE EVOLUTION OF CITIES a not going to concern himself with the parish pump ‘Wall, though the very importance of London makes it easior to begin with smaller and more intelligible places, let us return thither and do our best. Some years ago three or four members of the Sociologieal Society, including the writer, were honoured by an invitation to take part in a sym. posium, which agreed to dine at one of the great political clubs and then to discuss The Possible Future of London Government.” We listened meekly and long, gradually learning what this ttle ‘meant : not, as we inocently had expected, and even, imagined we had been promised, a foresight of better organisation for the great city, » discussion of what improvements and expansions this better organisation ‘might realise, aud even some vision of Utopia beyond, Not at all. It amounted to nothing, in brief, save ‘the transposition of Ins and Outs, the substitution fof Outs for Ins. Only when in the fulness of time this subject was temporarily exhausted, was it re membered thst a sociological deputation was in attendance, We were then asked to spesk: and now, to do the chuirman justice, quite to the point, ‘a3 we had understood it. So our fist spokesman began—""May 1 have a plan of Londont” “Certainly, suid the chairman but there was none forthcoming “Then an atlas will do™ (remembering that the elub possesses a not inconsideruble library), «Certainly whet aths?” “Conveniently the Reyel Geogsaphical Society's Atlas of England and Wales.” The waiter2 Cries 1N EVOLUTION gain returns with the librarian’s regrets thet they hhave not got it. “Well, any atlas at all! There will surely be some map of London, on which w can make out its constituent and adjacent boroughs’ Final return of waiter—" Tibrariaa very sorry, sir; hhe has no atlas inthe library.” Our spokesman’s opening under these circumstances was brief. «That, sgentlomen, expresses clearly the difference between your political idea of London and our sociological fone, We have understood you perfectly; your point of view was very interesting’ to us but only when you have got an atlas, and used it, will you understand fours.” However, he drew a ruxigh plan ; and we ex: plained our views as best we could-—but with seanty. discussion—and soon farewells, not followed by zeinvitation. Hence we bave to appeal to the reader, their accepted judge, as here ours. Has he an atlas on which cities ena be made out! At any rate he has access to one—the Roysl Geographical Society's Atlas of England and Wales sloresuid (Bartholomew, Edinburgh, 1902)—in the nearest publie libravy. If it be not there, let the librarian have no peace tll he gets it. For he will find that it eantuins the one and only really good map he has ever seen—indeed the only adequate one yet in existence—of the distribu n of the population of England: London and its ighs, and all the towns of England as well; but 10 Tonger as the mere dots seattored oer the map, whieh we learned long ago at school before we were bo% crntes IN EVOLUTION interested in them, and so have largely forgotten, like so much of the same kind, By courtesy of its publishers we here supply @ reproduetion of it; but 1 this is necessarily greatly reduced, and moreover without colouring, referenee should also be made to the large and vivid We shall see some of its uses in the next chapter CHAPTER 11 [THI POPULATIONALAY AND IES MEANING The Pop Map Leo Grr Lente’) at Up A2Crn ancy bong steve el a yo ale cis and caonp Bat te the ste gow. process {pe idem it tg otc, ‘Concepts Lana te ane sont, serine tad ono ang Te Nha Looccon ee ans oer else ip rey, ber owen av "Wet Ring Su King” “Nano” Tonge ngighe the mere ash pop sn esl celne a fourepaiias paca" Slay once of Greer lagoon Beg ato occ 28 (tnceh neces fal ccoered al spect ve, ll as tes Grves, then, our population-map, what has it to show us! Starting from the most generally known before proceeding towards the less familiar, observe frst the mapping of London—here plainly’ shown, as it is properly known, as Greater London with its vast population streaming out in all directions—east, west, north and south—flooding sll the levels, flowing up