Where the Pavement Ends
THE question of the slums has already been dealt with at some length in these columns. A cognate and equally pressing problem is the preservation of rural England, while adapting it to those Molochs who claim their tribute of green earth and young lives.
Nor need we feel pessimistic as to the future. Our country districts may be preserved, even beautified and enriched, if we take thought and take time to plan wisely and build aright, heeding the counsel of such bodies as the West Kent Town Planning Committees,* who have lately issued a report which might well be a model for every borough and district council in England. The replanning of city areas with the rehousing of slum dwellers is a far more difficult matter than the preservation of the countryside, but their importance is equal, and their purpose identical if we take the long view. On the one side we have schemes involving vast expense and powerful vested interests which must be approached; not with misgiving certainly, but with a heavy heart. The slums can be cleared. What other countries in Europe have done, we can also do, and do better than they, let us hope, for our need is greater. That is our greatest and gravest task since the War. Compared to it the planning of our communications and the safeguarding of our natural advantages are matters for optimism. We can thank God that it is not too late to plan England so that the hideous conditions in some of our cities shall not spread. A stitch in time here will save nine new slums being built, will save untold millions and many lives of men. The problem is largely psychological, and it is encouraging to learn how public opinion is supporting " town planning " beyond the mere limits of the pave- ment, so that England may remain a garden, while parts of it resound to the activity of our mines and factories. A report such as this from the local authorities of West Kent could not have been written twenty years ago. Conditions were different then, but the minds of men have also moved in ratio with the relative speeds of horse and car. Mr. Davidge, the author of the Report, says that "all phases of human activity should be brought into relation with the general idea of steady expansion and develop- ment along well-considered lines." In this new England that is now shaping, we are our brother's keeper to an uncommon degree. If mistakes are made, we shall all suffer for them, for there are too many of us to leave a comfortable margin of error. A full life with leisure and pleasure in it, as well as work, needs planning ahead, both for the individual and the community.
Let us at the outset clear our minds of the cant that " Old England " must be preserved at all costs. It is a new England that is required for our present population (the ridiculous alternative is to abolish some millions of ourselves), and we must plan it with that heart of love that a man gives to the acres of his own heritage. We must keep sacred some places in our garden (the North Downs, for instance), hallowed by those who have dwelt or passed there, while other sites (such as the land by the Thames and Medway) must be prepared and suitably nourished by communications for the industries by which alone we can support ourselves. There must be organiza- tion, control, foresight, some occasional interference with individual building schemes along the lines already adopted at Northwood and in Birmingham, whose Councils have legal power to veto unsuitable (not merely unsafe) Constructions. Residential sites, roads, sewers, railways, * The West Kent Ji-Sat Regional Town-Planning Report, 1927. By W. B. Davidge. (richer and Sons. 10s. 6d.) can never be planned separately. Baldly stated, -the thing is obvious, but it is only when we come to consider a report such as Mr. Davidge's that we come face to face with the size of the problem. Our present roads are inadequate, our housing shortage is serious ; the conversion of this England that is into the England that might be would absorb all our unemployed many times over: Fortunately the problem has been seen and studied in time. This survey of West Kent is a survey of all England in miniature. We can anticipate our needs and plan our growth to serve both beauty and utility.
In the matter of roads, we shall merely be continuing a policy which the Romans began. They improved the old trackways, they drove new paths through the wilder- ness, brought us human foresight to replace our trust in cloudy gods. Then, as now, our country was faced with the need for bold changes. Watling Street was one of the Roman remedies, and a very adequate one : recently that noble lane has had to be widened to a hundred feet, and the gradients smoothed by cutting out 2,000,000 tons of earth. And last year, its tarmac was traversed -by 25,000 tons of motor traffic a week ; while on the Sevenoaks road, 50,000 tons of vehicles a week travelled on their occasions to or from London. In a decade (or less) there will possibly be four times this volume and weight of traffic on the main highways of the metropolis. Our blood pressure is mounting alarmingly, but fortunately the arteries of England can expand, and indeed are already doing so.
But, as we have already said, the transport of passengers and commodities by rail and road and water must be considered in conjunction with the siting of our industries, the disposal of our sewage, the provision of playgrounds and open spaces, the possible building of garden cities, and the control of private building to harmonize (or at any rate not to contrast too vividly) with what has gone before. These are parts of a single scheme, a united and conscious effort to win beauty by deserving her.
That is the modern way, and the way—incidentally-- that our cathedrals were built. The age of faith is not dead : it only finds expression in a new way. Mr. Davidge's Report, then, deserves the attention of all thinking people, not only because of its specific recommendations, but also and chiefly because of the sturdy faith implied in the recommendations.
The vision of courage and comradeship is there. We may direct the pathways of posterity so that not West Kent alone, but the whole country, shall be beautified and enriched.
Many districts of England are shamefully overcrowded (in West Kent, out of a population of half a million, nearly 25,000 persons, or 5 per cent., are living more than two in a room), while in other parts of England there is empty land. Suburbs straggle along the main roads out of London, making the highways hideous and themselves uncomfortable, instead of being grouped together as they should be for comfort, and the speculative builder and the poster pest compete with each other in ruining what is not already urbanized beyond redemption. These things have been, and will continue just so long as public opinion permits them, and no longer. Their day is done, we believe. Our new Jerusalem shall not be jerry-built.
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