The disaster may thus be said not only to have hastened the resolution of the existing committee, but to have produced two planning-boards instead of one. Each must keep in mind the true ideal. For it is not the "City Beautiful" idea, but that of utility that is fundamental to city-planning. It is a principle to reduce to the minimum the social problems of community life, to accomplish Aristotle's ideal--"the welfare and happiness of everyone." In so doing civic beauty will not be neglected. "Scientific, sensible and sane city-planning" says an authority "with utility and public convenience as its primary consideration produces beauty--the beauty that is the result of adapting successfully a thing to its purpose." It is in accordance with this principle of civic art that the terminal area is being developed--a work designed by the same architect who planned the Chateau Laurier and the Ottawa Plaza with such aesthetic taste. To "deep cuttings, spanned by fine bridges, and bordered with trees and pleasant driveways, after the manner of Paris," and to a "waterfront as stately as Genoa's, a terminal station with a noble facade, overlooking a square and space of flowers,"[167] the future will also bring to Halifax more street-paving, sidewalks, parks, fountains, hedges, driveways, cluster-lighting, statuary, buildings of majesty, spaciousness and beauty. Wires will be buried, unsightly poles will disappear.... With time will come all these things which stamp a city as modern, as caring for the comfort of its people, their pleasure and rest, and health and safety. All these things come with time, effort, development of city pride, and the concentrated desire of a people for them.[168] [167] MacMechan, Archibald, "Changing Halifax," _Canadian Magazine_, vol. xli, no. 4, pp. 328, 329. [168] Crowell, H. C., _The Busy East_, vol. x, no. 7, p. 12. The question of housing is recognized as an old Halifax problem. It was already an acute one when the blow of the catastrophe fell and multiplied the difficulty a thousand-fold. The Relief Commission has grappled with its end of the problem, namely, the housing of the many refugees who were first accommodated in lodgings and in temporary shelters.[169] The old sombre frame-constructed buildings of the pre-disaster days are being replaced with attractive hydrostone. A hard-working wage-earning community is stepping out of indifferent structures into homes both comfortable and well-ordained. [169] A model housing development of 346 houses in the new north end has followed the disaster. "It is reasonable to assume," writes an observer, "that the standard of living will ascend. Already the influence of these new houses is showing itself in the homes that are springing up all over the city."