CHAPTER X CIVIC IMPROVEMENT The humanitarian and wise planning of beautiful cities and towns is the climax of municipal endeavor, because it represents the coördination of all civic movements looking toward the health, comfort, recreation, education and happiness of urban people. City planning like all other interests has grown in purpose and scope. From desire for ornamental lampposts has grown a desire for effective light, and not too expensive either. Well-lighted streets become recognized as foes to crime, and out of interest in the lamppost comes an interest in the causes of crime; proper housing, wholesome amusement, and employment may thus be intimately connected with an artistic street lamp. City planners have not all begun with a lamppost. Some of them began with billboards and thought of billboards exclusively for a long time; then they moved on to municipal art, education, censorship of movies, recreation, housing and labor. Some began with parks and advanced to health and transportation. There is no one thing in city planning that stands out conspicuously today as the crowning achievement of its purpose. City planning is thus not a finished ideal, but one capable of, and exhibiting, indefinite expansion. In fact, city planning is in its infancy in this country, but its promoters are enthusiasts with a developing sense of values and they are meeting an increasing response among the people for whose interest they are working. Every movement for civic art has been an attempt to make the contrast “less disgraceful between the fields where the beasts live and the streets where men live,” in the words of William Morris. The movement for municipal beauty has been the strongest phase of city planning up to the present time and the element that has appealed to women’s civic leagues in their early days very strongly. It is a most legitimate object of civic endeavor and it is comparatively easy of accomplishment where it touches no vital economic interests. “The City Beautiful” only a short time ago was a city with a few wide boulevards, a civic center, handsome parkways with “Keep Off the Grass” signs in abundance, statues in public squares, public fountains, and public buildings with mural decorations. Alleys and indecent river-front tenements, filthy and narrow side streets, were ignored in the more ostentatious display of mere ornamentation and no provision was made for playgrounds and well-located schools and social centers. CITY PLANNING