In the realm of city-planning[166] and civic improvement, Halifax is awaking to the importance of taking advantage of an opportunity which comes to a city but seldom save through the avenue of disaster. The present Town-planning Board was formed as a result of the Town-planning Act of 1915. A board of four members, including the city engineer constitute the committee. The limits of the area to be brought under the scheme were still undecided when the explosion came. The disaster "hastened the resolution" of the Board. "When the disaster came it seemed that things would have to come to a head." Mr. Thomas Adams, the Dominion Housing and Town-planning Advisor, was brought to Halifax to help determine what should be done. "The disaster simply had the effect of bringing to a point certain things which were pending at the time. If that event had not occurred we would by this time be into a scheme, though possibly not so far as we are." Today the limits of the area have been defined and the scheme is nearly ready for presentation to the Council for adoption. The Dominion Town-planning Advisor's assistant reports that real progress has been made in the Halifax plan dealing with the proposed zoning of the city into factory, shopping and residential districts, the provision for future streets, street-widening and building lines, and suggestions for park and aerodrome sites. In the devastated area he has remarked progress in street-opening, in grading of the slope and in architectural treatment of the houses. Five hundred trees and three hundred shrubs have been ordered to be planted in this area. The whole area is under the control of the Relief Commission, for the Act appointing the Commission gave it the powers of a Town-planning Board. [166] The earliest city-planning was mediaeval. Halifax was laid out by military engineers with narrow streets--the "ideal was a fortified enclosure designed to accommodate the maximum number of inhabitants with the minimum of space." In 1813 a town-planning scheme was set on foot for the purpose of straightening streets, the removal of projections and banks of earth and stones which at that time existed in the center of streets. Considerable betterment resulted but unfortunately many fine trees were cut down.