Second, there are many public buildings which must be located in different parts of the city rather than at a single center. These include the fire engine houses, police stations, elementary schools, and branch libraries. They must necessarily be scattered, but this does not mean that planning is superfluous. Very often in the past these buildings have been located at inconvenient points because political influence rather than the public interest has determined the choice of a location. When a prominent politician has land to sell at a fancy price the city is usually a good customer. There is no good reason why police and fire stations should not, as a rule, be housed under the same roof. There is no good reason why the school, the playground, and the branch library should not be placed upon the same plot of ground, yet rarely are these three places of instruction and recreation within sight of one another. Haphazard location and slipshod construction have resulted in large amounts of needless expense in the case of public buildings. [Sidenote: 3. Those which need special locations.] Third, there are certain public buildings which have to be placed in special locations. Public baths, for example, go to the water’s edge, wherever it is. The hospital should be situated outside the zone of heavy traffic and continuous noise. The city prison, the poorhouse, the garbage disposal plant, and the other waifs among public buildings—nobody wants their company. They are not welcome in any neighborhood, yet they must be placed somewhere. Timely planning would help to solve this problem by securing convenient and spacious tracts of land before the city grows so large that all the available sites are occupied, but most of our cities give no thought to such questions until the problem becomes very urgent. [Sidenote: The private citizen and the “City Beautiful”.] =Regulating Private Property.=—No matter what the city authorities may do in the way of planning streets properly, and expending great care upon public buildings, the outward attractiveness of a community depends to a large extent upon the good taste and civic pride of its individual inhabitants. Within reasonable bounds a man can erect anything he pleases upon his own land. He may build something which is a notable adornment or, on the other hand, something which is an architectural eyesore to the whole neighborhood. He may keep his grounds and dwelling in perfect order, everything spick and span. Or he may let them go into ramshackle, the house unpainted, the lawn grown up in weeds, and signs of neglect apparent everywhere. Each section of the city is as its people make it. It is absurd for men and women to clamor for fine parks, monumental public buildings, and brilliantly-lighted streets if they do not obey the precept that civic pride, like charity, ought to begin at home. [Sidenote: The billboard nuisance.]