SLUM CLEARANCE AND TOWN PLANNING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Would you allow me to point out to you that unless slum clearance is considered as a part of radical town planning. we shall be again guilty of the piecemeal botching of urban problems ? You say in your noble and spirited article (whose ardour I should be loth to damp) that, unless special leave is given, the whole of the slum areas that are cleared shall be reused for housing purposes. But the slum is generally as much misplaced as it is misbuilt ! In Sheffield, with whose general town planning proposals I have been recently con- nected, it was found that nearly every slum area is wanted for industry : perhaps an extreme case, but one bearing out Professor Scott's suggestion that, instead of temporarily re- housing the slum dwellers in the Parks before rebuilding your old houses on the old sites, you should move them clean on to
open land. But you cannot do this either unless, as in Sheffield, you have a town plan by which you can be sure they will be properly placed.
Where towns have not yet prepared a radical plan of de- velopment comprising a remodelling scheme as well as suburban lay-outs, I think your temporary housing is the right idea ; but before committing ourselves to rebuilding on the same site, be sure that housing is put into its correct relationship with industry and transportation by means of civic survey and town planning. Town planning need not delay slum clearance a moment, but it must precede reconstruction.—I
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