The North Billerica Garden Suburb: Affordable Housing for Workers in 1914

This thesis project is an historical analysis of the Billerica Garden Suburb planned in 1914 with the benefit of the Massachusetts Homestead Commission's advice. The Billerica Garden Suburb is a unique example of providing affordable housing through working partnerships with many stakeholders including: industry (Boston & Maine Railroad), government (Massachusetts Homestead Commission), city planners (Arthur C. Corney), landscape architects (Warren H. Manning), the community and the workers. Chapter One, Forces Behind the Development of the Billerica Garden Suburb, examines the political, economic and social forces involved in the development of affordable housing for workers as people became concentrated in urban centers in response to immigration and the industrial revolution prior to World War I. Chapter Two, Planning the Billerica Garden Suburb, looks closely at the significance of the Billerica Garden Suburb and the planning issues facing rural towns along powerful rivers. Pressure to create healthy housing for workers is also explored as labor strengthens and brings attention to the hazards of their living conditions. Chapter Three, Billerica Garden Suburb discusses the planning elements· and the physical design elements of both the site plan and the cottage design.


Acknowledgements
My journey through this Community Planning program begins and ends focused on the same geographic location -Billerica, Massachusetts, my hometown. In my application essay, I wrote about Billerica's dramatic transformation from a rural town with historic character to an endless stream of subdivisions, gas stations, strip malls, fast food restaurants, office parks and unbounded parking lots. I have since learned about the planning profession's progress in remedying these past mistakes. It was validating to learn that the New England charm that was obliterated from my hometown is now the model for New Urbanism complete with town centers, main streets, commons, mixed use zoning and alternative modes of transportation. It was consoling to learn about efforts being made to preserve history, protect the environment, conserve opens space and control sprawl.
Unfortunately, affordable housing for the area continues to be a perplexing and complicated problem. During the course of my studies, I was astounded to discover. that in 1914, Billerica had embraced progressive planning ideas including affordable housing. The Billerica ' Garden Suburb was referred to as a "workers' paradise". Nmety years later this same neighborhood is relatively unaffordable to those in the area with low to moderate income. I enjoyed researching the Billerica Garden Suburb and depth of understanding it has brought to me regarding the "complex social, economic and political forces" involved in this problem.
I would like to thank Drs. Farhad Atash and Howard Foster for their advice and support.
It was during Dr. Foster's CPLA 501, Introduction to Community Planning, that I learned about the significance of the Billerica Garden Suburb. His encouragement and meticulous attention to detail are deeply appreciated especially given his "retired" status. Chapter Three  Reviewing the MHC's annual reports highlights not only their accomplishments but also the obstacles and roadblocks that they faced from the same legislature that instructed the MHC to present a bill or bills embodying a plan and the method of carrying it out whereby, with the assistance of the commonwealth, homesteads or I small houses and plots of ground may be acquired by mechanics, factory employees, laborers and others in the suburbs of cities and towns. [Massachusetts Housing Commission Annual Report (MHC), 1915,8] It took six years for the MHC to receive appropriations from the Massachusetts Legislature and then it only received half of what it estimated was needed to conduct an experiment to demonstrate what could be supplied to the workingman as a viable alternative to the tenement. Given the historical setting -the industrial revolution in full swing, World War I wreaking havoc on the economy and labor, and a Legislature reluctant to provide financial assistance for worker housing, conducting this experiment necessitated a herculean effort from the MHC.
This was a dynamic period in the history of this country. Populations were migrating as the United States shifted from an agrarian society to that of a market economy driven by the industrial revolution. Cities suffered from the degradation of overcrowding and exploitative industries. Housing consisted of deplorable tenements, poorly lit with no ventilation and inadequate plumbing. Labor suffered from lack of power and homeownership was out of their reach. Nascent professions were emerging and eager to influence the course of events in a variety of fields including planning, public health, social work, engineering, law and landscape architecture.
This evaluation of the Billerica Garden Suburb provides a unique opportunity to appreciate the complexity and tension between all these elements in the context of desperately needed affordable housing. In the words of Mel Scott: Even the least successful attempts at planning reveal the play of highly complex social, economic and political forces and invariably 2 foreshadow movements and struggles of national significance. [Scott, xviii, 1995].

Massachusetts Homestead Commission
The Massachusetts Homestead Commission played an important, and perhaps undervalued role in the development of homesteads for workers at the tum of the century. At a time when it was unconstitutional for the Legislature to provide financial support for housing, the MHC established. the rudiments of planning across the state in addition to providing technical and moral support to those seeking to improve housing for workers. It was a time when newly evolving industrial towns, such as Billerica, hoped that prudent planning would help them avoid the deplorable conditions seen in nearby industrial cities.
The following look at the accomplishments of the Massachusetts Homestead Commission is instructive in understanding the complex forces involved in providing wholesome homesteads for industrial workers.

The Issue
In the midst of the industrial revolution, between 1850 and 1910, the countryto-city population shift in Massachusetts was alarming if not overwhelming. Where nearly one-half the population once lived in towns ofless than 5,000, by 1910 only one-eighth of the population lived in small towns. During that same time period Boston's population had increased from 13.8 percent of the state's population to 20 percent. [MHC, 1914, 30] Between 1890 and 1910 seven ofMassachusetts' largest cities were also the most crowded cities in the country with no less than eight persons per dwelling unit.
With a conservative government reluctant to interfere with the private market to solve the housing shortage, the Massachusetts Homestead Commission was appointed once in 1909 and then again in 1911 largely due to the "agitation begun in 1908 for State aid to workers in obtaining wholesome homes." [MHC 1917, 1] Although the Massachusetts Homestead Commission of 1909 voted against providing financial assistance for worker housing, "five bills seeking to obtain State aid for homes for workers were filed in the General Court in 1911 ." [MHC, 1917,

The Commission Mission
The Massachusetts Homestead Commission's stated instructions as promulgated by the state legislature in the Acts of 1911, Chapter 607, was "to assist mechanics, laborers and others to acquire homesteads or small houses and plots of ground in suburbs of cities and towns." [MHC, 1914,1] Cognizant that "nowhere in the world has the problem of providing homes for workingmen been solved by the private initiative oflandowners and builders alone," [MHC, 1914, 20] the MHC went to great lengths to identify principles for improved housing and the mechanisms for organizing housing companies. In addition, the MHC provided leadership in the formation of city and town planning boards and the writing of comprehensive plans as planning tools. They organized planning conferences, and distributed educational materials and information.
Although the MHC has received recognition for its accomplishments in municipal planning, it's contributions to the provision of worker housing is often only remembered as the twelve homes that it financed in Lowell before its demise in 1919. [Scott, 1995, 132/Szylvian, 1999 Considering the political and legislative barriers the MHC faced, review of their annual reports demonstrates that they made many contributions towards sound planning for affordable housing and these contributions remain valuable and relevant today.

Accomplishments of the Massachusetts Homestead Commission
The MHC's accomplishments are focused in three areas-the investigations justifying their mission, the legislation promoting their goals, and the educational and technical support provided to the emerging planning boards across the State.
Additionally, the MHC took particular interest in two homestead projects: The  2339,1912).
Without the necessary financial resources to actually build homesteads, the Legislature instructed MHC not to build homes directly and thereby changed MHC's instructions to continue its investigation of the need of providing homesteads for the people of the Commonwealth, and its study of plans already in operation or contemplated elsewhere for housing wage earners . . . and recommend such legislation as in its judgment will tend to increase the supply of wholesome homes for the people. [MHC ,1914, 7] 6 The MHC undertook these revised instructions and investigated the need for homesteads by looking at infant and child mortality, tuberculosis deaths and population shifts in industrial cities; it studied homestead operations elsewhere; and it made several legislative recommendations that resulted in structuring municipal governments that are still in affect today.
The following is a summary of these important investigations, findings and recommendations from the Massachusetts Homestead Commission.

Investigation of the Need For Worker Housing
The MHC looked at infant and child mortality, tuberculosis deaths, and population shifts to gauge the character and environment of the industrial cities. This data provided the means for determining the extent of need for worker housing.
Infant and Child Mortality. The MHC conducted several significant statistical investigations demonstrating the need for improved planning in cities and towns.
Using infant morality as an index of the social environment and sanitary and economic conditions, the commission compared rates between cities within Massachusetts between 1908 and 1912. Children under five years of age constitute about one-tenth of the population ... It might be expected that such children would contribute more than their proportional share to the total number of deaths, but we are in no wise prepared to find this one-tenth of the population furnishing one-fourth or one-third, or in some instances one-half, the entire number of deaths in the community. [MHC, 1914, 54] Tuberculosis Deaths. Tuberculosis rates were also an indication of problems associated with congestion. In cities with populations under 30,000, there were less than 100 tuberculosis deaths per 100,000. However, in cities with populations greater than 100,000, there is a marked increase to 144 deaths per 100,000.
The marked increase in the number of deaths in cities above 100,000 emphasizes the need for better homes with more air and sunlight for the many families crowded in the unhealthy quarters of our large cities. [MHC, 1914, 57) The MHC 1915 annual report quotes Dr. Robert Koch providing further evidence for the need of healthy housing.
Tuberculosis is less frequent, even among the poor, when the population is not densely packed together, and may attain very great dimensions among a well-to-do population when the domestic 8 conditions, especially as regards the bedrooms are bad. So it is the overcrowded dwellings of the poor that we have to regard as the real breeding-place of tuberculosis. [MHC, 1915, 56] Population and Occupational Shifts. The MHC investigated the dramatic population shifts from rural areas to the already congested industrial cities. Between were in Massachusetts (17 were in New York, and 16 were in Pennsylvania). [MHC, 1914, 30] Occupational changes also helped to explain the shift towards the city.
According to the 1910 United States Census, in Massachusetts 47 percent of the workforce were engaged in manufacturing and mechanical work, 23 . 5 percent in trade and transportation, 19 percent in domestic service and 5 percent in professions.
The investigation of need for worker housing conducted by the MHC indicated that what Massachusetts was experiencing was no different from the experience of other industrial cities abroad. However, their investigations also demonstrated that elsewhere the government participated extensively and directly to solve the housing problems.
Left to its own devices, the response of private capital to the enormous growth of urban population in all civilized countries has been the erection of cheap tenements and workingmen' s barracks with their accompanying evils, squalor and vitiating influences. [MHC, 1914, 49] Instructed to also study plans elsewhere, the MHC proceeded with its search for the most viable solutions and models that could readily be applied in Massachusetts.

Study of Plans Elsewhere
With many cities experiencing the same dire problems, the English Garden City, as a private enterprise aided by government loans, had become increasingly popular as it promised to solve all problems in all places. It reduced mortality, decreased overcrowding, provided ownership for the workers and there was room for a garden.
A study in 1911 demonstrated the dramatic decrease in infant mortality in garden cities. The three garden cities, Letchworth, Boumville and Port Sunlight were compared with the average of26 English cities in terms of infant mortality. The English cities' average of 145.0 deaths per 1000 when compared to Letchworth (38.4), Boumville (80.2) and Port Sunlight (65.4), provided the impetus for further investigation. [MHC, 1915, 43] The MHC appointed a special committee to conduct in-depth investigations of the English garden city and other housing models where private enterprise is aided by government loans. To provide guidance, the commission identified three basic fundamental recommendations for improved housing finance. First and foremost, speculative profits must be eliminated and money must be available at a fixed rate -a limited dividend. Second, there must be wholesale operations where collective actions will permit savings and community planning will provide for social advantages such as playgrounds, club rooms, shared gardens. Third, there must be resident participation to foster a sense of responsibility for property.
The MHC's special committee provided four alternative financial mechanisms for providing home ownership that met the fundamental recommendations.
1. The Mutual Homebuilding Association "presented few novel features as an application from current co-operative banking methods in Massachusetts for individual operations to a collective scheme." [MHC, 1914, 21] The association would acquire the land, determine the layout, and the conditions for membership, building and maintenance. The purchaser would need a mortgage for the land and a second mortgage for the home.
2. The Limited Dividend Corporation or Improved Housing Company is a stock company but the dividends are limited to a fixed rate (5 percent). There were several companies active in Massachusetts with houses and tenements. In this scenario, the corporation would either sell on installments, offering the same advantages as a homestead company, or would rent the houses as does a copartnership. However, if a resident were not also a stockholder, they would have no say in the affairs of the company. [MHC 1914, 21-23] 3. In a Co-partnership, the property remains in collective ownership permanently and the district is planned along advanced garden suburb principles.
Residents would buy a minimum amount of shares and pay rent.
4. The Homestead Company proposes to sell homes on installments. Buyers were required to initially pay ten percent, and then monthly payments of one percent were required to be applied against the interest, taxes and principal. After 40 percent is paid, a 60 percent first mortgage could be renewed. If a buyer moved, the company would buy back his property at 95 percent. [MHC, 1914, 21] The Garden Suburb Model and The Homestead Experiment The Massachusetts Homestead Commission was eager to present a demonstration so they could show the legislature viable homestead scenarios for workers. The MHC was particularly interested in bringing to the United States, a true garden suburb with a co-operative method of collective ownership. Originating in England, the garden suburb was embraced in Germany and was quickly being adopted throughout the world. This marked the first conclusive stage in bringing into existence in this country improved co-operative methods of housing for workingmen that have proved successful in England, for nowhere else in the United States, so far as is known, have the houses per acre, wholesale operations, limited dividend and participation by the residents -been combined in an undertaking designed to meet the needs of the workman earning $12 to $20 per week. [MHC 1915, 28-29] The Billerica Garden Suburb came to represent and illustrate the limited dividend, co-partnership model the MHC endorsed based on the English garden suburb mode. Although it is important to note that the Billerica Garden Suburb never received financial support from the MHC, the MHC continued to encourage its progress and monitored such until the MHC's abolishment in 1919. In its final annual report, the MHC reported that .the Billerica Garden Suburb had constructed seventy workingmen's homes (see

The Lowell Homestead Experiment
When the constitutional amendment permitting land taking for the purpose of relieving congestion and providing homes for citizens was ratified on November 12, The objective of the Lowell Homestead Experiment was not to increase the supply for worker housing directly. The objectives were: (1) to determine what could be supplied within the workman's income; (2) to reduce the burden by giving a longer time for payment than is the practice of the bank or individual; (3) to effect the economies of group building. [MHC, 1917, 8] It was hoped that this experiment would demonstrate that small garden homes were a viable alternative to tenements when given appropriate financial mechanisms designed for the workers. With increased ventilation and gardens, the health benefit would be reflected in improved work attendance and productivity.
V ie w o f lo t 0 11 Pa.rk er S t r eet, L o w ell , fo r whi c h d evc lo ptne nt plans were made . The Legislature delayed a year, but did appropriate $50,000 in 1917. Though the appropriation was half of that requested and given that this was at a time of escalating costs due to World War I, the MHC did manage to build 12 houses before the War ended. The 1919 annual report states that the houses, when completed, were attractive. The houses were in demand and all taken. As far as the building cost, there were non-union houses that were being sold cheaper but this was also due to labor being very cheap at the end of the war. Unfortunately, no further appropriations were made to the MHC and the development was not complete.

Legislative Recommendations
The MHC actively pursued every legal avenue towards increasing worker housing. Although its investigations unquestionably justified the need for decent homes for workers, these same investigations pointed out that, if there is to be created a sufficient supply of wholesome homes within the means of the ordinary wage earner, cities and towns must be built according to well-considered plans which eliminate the unhealthful homes now productive of excessive infant mortality. [MHC, 1914, 8] Accordingly, the MHC recommended the enactments by the General Court of 1913, Chapters 494 and 595 . Both Acts were an effort to establish planning boards and to enlarge the supportive role of the Commission.
Chapter 494, an act to provide for the establishment of local planning boards by cities and towns (for every city and every town with a population greater than 10, 000), was approved by the General Court on April 16, 1913 . It required local planning boards to produce comprehensive plans to, promote health, convenience and beaut}' in the city, thereby conserving human life and energy ... cities and towns of over 10,000 population are required to create local planning boards to study resources, possibilities and needs of their respective municipalities, and to make plans for their development, with special reference to proper housing. [MHC, 1914, 16] The MHC believed that haphazard growth, economic losses, overcrowding and degradation could be avoided and that the comprehensive plan was a viable tool in accomplishing that goal. Chapter 283, an amendment to Chapter 494, was passed in 1914 authorizing the establishment of planning boards in towns with populations less than 10,000.
Chapter 595, an act to enlarge and define the duties of the Homestead Commission (enlarged by 2 new members), was approved by the General Court on May 2, 1913. This Act expanded the MHC's role to oversee, provide guidance, and assure compliance to Chapter 494. The MHC notified and encouraged cities and towns to comply with the law to form planning boards and produce comprehensive plans. In its final annual report written in 1919, the MHC reported: In compliance with chapter 494 of the Act of 1913, 29 cities and 16 towns with a population of more than 10,000, and 5 towns with a population of less than 10,000 have established local planning boards. [MHC, 1919, 94]

Education/Bureau of Information
The MHC also considered education as an important part of their role. They provided technical assistance and guidance in writing comprehensive plans and generally acted as a bureau of information on all matters pertaining to planning. The MHC conducted annual conferences to educate the newly appointed planning boards and provide opportunity for exchange between more established planning boards. Gettemy was replaced by George A. Bacon (also from the Bureau of Statistics), but not as chairman of the MRC.
In the 1919 final annual report, August L. Thorndike, the Massachusetts Bank Commissioner, is listed as chairman. This is a significant change because of Mr.
Thorndike's noteworthy addendums in two of the annual reports stating his opposition to the report's content. On the cover page to the 1914 annual report Mr.
Thorndike states the following :

21
The MHC also published their annual reports as well as informative bulletins geared towards educating newly formed planning boards always promoting homesteads for workingmen. Their bulletins were quickly exhausted because of the demand for the information. In fact, the MHC's first annual report, Public Document No. 103, 1913, required reprinting because of the high demand and in 1919 requests were still being received though it was no longer in print. Of particular interest was information regarding the work of foreign governments in providing housing for it's workers. The overall consensus of this report was the idea that: private initiative and enterprise will furnish a sufficient supply of wholesome homes for the people has been abandoned in all leading progressive countries. Everywhere governments are doing something to stimulate or supplement the production of working people's homes. For some years this activity took the form of encouraging the construction of model tenements; but in later years the loans, credits, land favors, and special favors by taxation or exemption from taxation, which were intended to encourage the building of homes, have been allowed almost exclusively to enterprises which seek to promote the construction of 'small houses and plots of ground in the suburbs of cities and towns. [MHC, 1915, 8] Finally, the MHC promoted education in agriculture, both through the Massachusetts Board of Education as well as its own educational bulletins. The MHC saw the lack of agricultural knowledge as an obstacle hindering a city dweller that was otherwise unemployed, from participating in this sort of venture. They reasoned, that if provided the education in agriculture, and provided a temporary plot of ground, both the worker and the Commonwealth would gain from this "elevated standard of citizenship and intelligence." [MHC, 1915, 34] It would offset the population shift into the cities; the worker would live and work in a healthier environment; and, food would be produced from local soils.
I am unable to concur with the conclusions and recommendations in regard to further regulation and extension of planning boards and the establishment of residence districts as embodied in House bills 121 and 122. I also dissent from any inference that might be drawn from the report, advising the passage of a constitutional amendment empowering the Commonwealth to use its credit to provide homes for a particular class of individuals. It certainly seems to me to be a new function in government to provide homes for able-bodied people. However beneficent the plan, it appears to be too paternalistic, and carrying out this scheme would tend to interfere with the right of personal freedom and initiative, and would appear in many ways opposed to the natural law of supply and demand and of trade. [MHC, 1914, cover addendum] Mr. Thorndike also takes exception to the recommendations for legislation contained within MHC's fifth annual report published in 1917, namely legislation giving powers to local planning boards, giving permission for planning conferences, and providing agricultural education. Mr. Thorndike, again includes a lengthy objection that ends with: It seems to me that the initiative for new legislation should come properly from the Legislature, or from people outside the Commission. I, for myself, would favor that the Commission recommend no new legislation of the character suggested, particularly as the Legislature has omitted to direct us to do so. [MHC, 1915,41] This opposition in 1915 portends the future for the MHC as its demise is quick It would be a mistake to suggest that the MHC was abolished because it was a failure. In fact, it could be argued that because of its success and knowledgeable members, the United States government drew from this talent upon its entrance into World War I. Ironically, although World War I became the ultimate housing experiment for reformers, the postwar climate was inhospitable to a noncommercial housing market for workers. On the national level, after the armistice, Congress almost immediately ceased production of worker housing and in many cases auctioned-off the housing developments thereby missing the opportunity to provide a "noncommercial housing sector for workers trapped between the 'devil of the speculative builder' and the 'deep sea of the predatory landlord'." [Szylivan, 1999, · 648] Despite this missed opportunity to lessen the continuous demand for worker housing, review ofMHC's accomplishments is instructive as the demand for affordable housing continues unabated nearly a century later.

CHAPTER2
PLANNING THE BILLERICA GARDEN SUBURB The Billerica Garden Suburb presents a significant contribution to planning not just because it models the Massachusetts Homestead Commission's recommendations for worker housing but, because it represents a concerted effort by the Board of Trade to guide future action which is the essence of sound planning.
[Forester, 1948, 3] Still a rural town, Billerica did not suffer from overcrowding or degradation; it was not trying to remedy these problems; it was trying to use planning as a tool to prevent these mistakes from occurring in the face of a two-fold increase in its population.
Perhaps the Board of Trade was heeding the advice of John Nolen who saw in rural towns both vulnerability and opportunity. In his address titled, Comprehensive Planning/or Small Towns and Villages, delivered at an American Civic Association's annual meeting, Nolen argues that it is far easier to avoid the problems facing industrialized cities than to correct them.
My plea is for the smaller places, the towns and villages with a population ranging from 2,500 to 25,000, or even up to 50,000 .. .. In big cities the conditions are fixed, inelastic, unyielding. Comprehensive planning, especially with our limited city charters and the hampering laws of our States, can have as yet but little play in larger places. At most it must content itself with relieving only the worst conditions, ameliorating merely the most acute forms of congestion, correcting only the gravest mistakes of the past. [Nolen,191 lc,1,] (see appendix for complete essay) With 1,700 towns with populations between 2,500 and 25,000 in 1910, Nolen's plea demonstrated his foresight and concern for rural towns and his trust in the comprehensive plan as a tool to guide and control development. Nolen considered 25 small towns as embryonic cities, vulnerable to unplanned development "For there is scarcely anything in them (small towns) that cannot be changed, and most of the territory that is to be built upon is still untouched." [Nolen, 1911 c, 2] With the belief that it would be easier to plan in advance rather than to correct and re-plan after the fact, he recommended three guidelines: 1. the exercise of more forethought; 2. the use of skill; and 3. the adoption of an appropriate goal or ideal.
The Billerica Board of Trade was certainly following these three guidelines in their effort to implement their garden suburb. They exercised a concerted effort to avoid speculators and tenement housing through the use of the MHC' s expertise and although their primary goal was to attract industry and boost the town's economy, they made every effort not to exploit labor or degrade the area's resources and natural beauty.
Looking at the Billerica Garden Suburb through this historic lens further reveals the complex forces involved in planning. The following is an examination of relevant newspaper and journal articles, conference papers and discussions, not to mention the contributions of its champions, particularly the efforts of Reverend T iii:. ux )MOTi\"!: ' t tt; r. 'Tott EllOl ' " · ~I> On1c1:. I' ll lllr<·,l .111· tlw , r<·r.tllllll' 111 dw II. tun 111.I ~l .11t11· C .11 ~h· 'I'' · \dll'h" 1·ni.irn1·-\H"ll" 1'111h .111 I rqi.1111-..I Ill :-.: .. uh B1ll1·111.1 n)I,  Optimism about Billerica's economic future was counterbalanced by realistic Increased business, population, road, and other public facilities that such new conditions must create, made the preparation of a plan as a guide to the town's future growth quite essential. Such a plan, to best meet the needs and have the general approval of the community, must be Wlderstood by at least a majority of the voters and land owners; and, as this understanding will best come from a direct participation in the work, all citizens were urged to give information and assistance in the preparation of articles and maps. Aware that they were embarking on untested territory, good press coverage espousing the virtues of the garden suburb as a way to provide affordable housing for workers would serve them well in educating the stakeholders, the general public and assuaging political opposition. In addition to the Boston Evening Transcript, the worker-housing story was also carried by the Lowell Citizen-Courier on July 7, 1914. These articles reflect only a fraction of the personal effort extended to spread the word about the Billerica Garden Suburb and 'housing the wage worker' campaign.

Educating the Public and Influencing Politicians
The National Housing Association's annual conferences offered the opportunity for reformers from a range of disciplines to discuss and exchange information about the pressing housing problems. It provided a forum in which both The tone of his paper was clearly that of pride in the progress made thus far and an · urging for others to take this radical step to solve their housing problems. [HP A, 1916, 102-110] Direct in his style, Mr. Sterling answers the question his paper poses, "How To Get Garden Suburbs in America" with a blunt response, "cut out the graft as much as possible." Mr. Sterling explained how Germany had encouraged her cities and towns to buy and hold land for housing. The German government then loaned social insurance money to municipalities, building associations, employers and individuals who intended to produce homes. In addition to Germany, England, Ireland, and New

37
The Billerica Garden Suburb markedthe first conclusive stage in bringing into existence in this country improved co-operative methods of housing for workingmen that have proved successful in England, for nowhere in the United States, so far as is known, have the five essential elements -site planning, limited number of houses per acre, wholesale operations, limited dividend, and participation by residents -been combined in an undertaking designed to meet the needs of the workman earning $12 to $20 per week. [MHC, 1915[MHC, , 29/prospectus, 1914 Providing a variety of housing options suitable for a range of workers, conventional rental and homeownership opportunities were also integrated in the site plan, as were gardens, playgrounds and linkages to other nearby amenities. . However, it was the elimination of speculative profits combined with the five elements of advance garden suburbs: resident participation, limited dividend, site planning, limited number of houses per acre (density), and wholesale operations, that distinguished the Billerica Garden Suburb as the first garden suburb specifically developed for workers.

Resident Participation
Of the five elements cited in the quote above that were employed in the design of the Billerica Garden Suburb, it was the 'resident participation' or copartnership that

38
The intent of the Billerica Garden Suburb's co-partnership scheme was to allow the worker to become his own landlord through the purchase of shares in the corporation thereby truly emulating the intent of Howard's garden suburb. At that time, homeownership for workers was thought of as a burden and that such debt would be ruinous financially and confining economically. In a market economy, labor needed to be mobile in order to meet the demands of industry while at the same time pursuing the best wage for his labor. Mobility was considered the workingman's greatest asset. During the first decade of the 20th century, there were many limited dividend corporations though it is hard to distinguish which ones were organized primarily for profit versus those organized primarily to improve housing conditions. [MHC, 1915, 30] 39 The Massachusetts Homestead Commission .monitored limited dividend corporations that met its recommendations of being primarily organized to improve housing conditions.
Their 1915 annual report indicates the popularity of this trend in housing across the country: Fifteen million was invested in this type of property and nearly 6,500 families are housed, nearly 1,200 of these being in one-family homes. [MHC, 1915, 30] The Site Plan and Density, The Billerica Garden Suburb purchased 56 acres of inexpensive land along the Concord River just 200 feet from the North Billerica train station, from which a free workmen's train to their repair shops would be provided. Although modeled after the English garden suburbs which ha~ at least nine dwellings per acre, the Billerica Garden Suburb was modified to allow for five or six single family dwelling units per acre.
Semi-detached houses (two-families) were not considered.
The principle objection to it is that it is a step away from the ideal singlefamily home ... Where sufficient land is available the social advantages of houses entirely separate probably outweigh the economies effected by semi-detached construction. [MHC, 1916, 11] However, concern about overcrowding was somewhat countered with the need to minimize costs. Lots ranged from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet and varied in width from 50 to 100 feet and are from 80 to 110 feet in depth with a 10 foot setback.
Because the site had excellent drainage and traffic was expected to be light, the major roadway, Letchworth Ave was 32 feet in width and half this width was surfaced with cinder as was its 4-foot walkway. The secondary roadways, 24 feet in width, were also cinder-surfaced with no sidewalks as the traffic was expected to be minimal and the roadway would be fit for walking.
Located near a kindergarten, a public schoo~ a public library, social halls, churches, a post office and the Bay State Street Railway, the site was ideally located. In addition, it already had six buildings providing 16 tenements with two to four apartments in each which provide rental income of approximately sixteen hundred dollars annually (see appendix for Billerica Garden Suburb Financial Statement, 1915). • Co-partnership Zone C was intended for rental housing that workmen would take shares in and collectively act as their own landlords. Property remains in collective ownership, with residents renting from the company of which he is a member. To become a tenant in a copartnership settlement, each applicant must be approved by an admission committee, and must take $100 in tenant shares, paying at least $10 as the first installment. The tenant becomes a renter from the Billerica Garden Suburb which he holds stock and has a vote in the election of the Board of Directors. [Boston Evening Transcript, 1914] • Renting Zone D was intended as a conventional rental housing. The rooms are of ample size and conveniently arranged. Special provision is made for storage room and closet space, with place for refrigerator and for hanging outdoor clothing in back entry. The cellarway has a number of shelves to save steps in doing the necessary work. The cellar walls are of concrete, with four window openings giving ample light in all parts. The building is of frame construction, triple studding at the corners and double studding at all openings; sides are covered with matched boards, a layer of good building paper and cypress clapboards; roof closely boarded and covered with asphalt shingles and slate chip surface laid 4.5 inches to the weather. The inside is finished in North Carolina pine with hard pine flooring of good grade, cypress five-panel doors, front door of the craftsman type of quartered oak; outside painted with three coats of lead and oil and inside finished with two coats of shellac and one of spar varnish; kitchen and bathroom have three coats of good wall paint. Three fixtures of modern type are in the bathroom, and the kitchen has set tubs, sink and necessary cabinetwork. The house is lighted throughout with electricity, triple "showers" in living room and dining room and two fixtures in the kitchen. It has a furnace of adequate capacity to furnish necessary heat without forcing. It is of attractive design, homelike in appearance and of comparatively low cost, as it was built for little over $1,800. [MHC, 1916, 15) At the time of incorporation, sixteen families were already housed on the site and water was already piped in. By October 1, 1914, thirty acres had been graded and the first three houses were under construction. In December, nineteen families were living on the estate. In 1915, four miles of streets had been staked-out and cleared. A mile of streets has been surfaced, electric light poles and wires had been installed and a general store had been built. In 1916 there were 35 families located in the Billerica Garden Suburb. [MHC, 1916, 109] According to the last annual report of the Massachusetts Homestead Today the North Billerica Garden Suburb is still recognizable for its garden suburb design elements. [Campbell, Boston Globe, May 21, 1995) (See Figures 10-14).
Beyond street names reminiscent of England's first garden cities such as Letchworth, Port Sunlight and Hampstead, very little has been altered. With lot sizes that are relatively small by today's standards and cottage-style houses with shallow setback, the neighborhood remains compact and socially interactive. The semi-grid, curvilinear street pattern reflects Frederick Law Olmstead Sr. 's influence on the Corney/Manning site plan providing alternative routes around the neighborhood highlighting the vistas of the Concord River. Not designed specifically for the automobile, these streets are narrower than today's standards with widths tapered further by cars parked along their edges.
However, these streets are conducive to keeping neighborhood traffic slow allowing children to walk and bike ride in relative safety. Unfortunately, the automobile has also impacted the small lots as many now possess a garage and a paved driveway.     Housing has been a problem in the United States since the nineteenth century as urban populations increased dramatically with shifting populations due to immigration 48 and industrialization. Relying on waterpower, manufacturing was distributed along powerful rivers and their tributaries. Consequently, this pattern was also reflected in worker housing. Therefore, squalor was not confined to congested urban areas; it was also prevalent in smaller cities and villages along important rivers and transportation routes. It was only a matter of time before rural towns would be experiencing the housing problems. Billerica, Massachusetts was a case in point with inexpensive land and transportation, its location along the Concord River, a Merrimack River tributary, was ideal for industry.
The combined work of Manning, Williams and Corney provided a unique model community. Unlike other efforts to relocate workers to planned communities in nonurban areas, the Billerica Garden Suburb was neither a paternalistic private initiative nor a government funded action. The Billerica Garden Suburb was the first known attempt to combine limited dividend corporation with co-partnership in the United States.
Modeled after Ebenezer Howard's garden city, the Billerica Garden Suburb was an effort to combine the best of urban and rural living -the Town-Country magnet. It would be wholesome, social and near employment. Labor, content with both employment and good homes, would become dedicated citizens of the community. From a planning perspective, it was an object lesson demonstrating that the ills aftlicting the city can be countered through comprehensive planning incorporating advance garden suburb principals and financial mechanisms.
This review of the Massachusetts Homestead Commission' s annual reports; the National Housing Association's annual proceedings as well as relevant articles from Landscape Architecture, American City and Engineering News, supports the Billerica Garden Suburb's significance and deepens our understand of the struggle to supply affordable housing in suburban settings. In addition to the goals congruent with advance garden suburb principles, the intent of the Billerica Garden Suburb was to provide a model for solving the worker housing problem. The Billerica Garden Suburb was described as "a strictly business organization to earn business profits, it will readily be appreciated that in its operations it will not only very materially improve living conditions in Billerica, but will act as an object lesson, and thereby benefit the Commonwealth ofMassachusetts as a whole." [Prospectus, 1914] Although it is unlikely that Zone C, the co-partnership portion of the site plan, ever came to fiuition, the Billerica Garden Suburb was the first successful application of the garden suburb principles implemented to meet the housing requirements and financial constraints of workers. The Billerica Garden Suburb was neither government funded, nor company funded . Championed by town leaders, it was morally supported by labor, industry and progressive initiatives. Despite the inherent tensions between government, private enterprise and labor, the Billerica Garden Suburb demonstrated that wholesome affordable housing could bec?me a reality.
Are there lessons that could be applied to the current housing debate in Rhode Island? First, one of the major problems identified by the Massachusetts Homestead Commission was the problem of speculative profits. When the Rhode Island legislature opened affordable housing to for-profit developers, it was taking a step back in history and condoning speculative profits. Second, it is ironic that the impetus for the passage of Chapter 494 of the Acts of 1913, the creation of town planning boards and the development of comprehensive plans, was to have well considered plans so that a sufficient supply of wholesome homes within the means of the ordinary wage earner could be created. Third, New Urbanism and Grow Smart both advocate higher density, as did the garden suburb, yet zoning still exists that excludes rather than encourages affordable housing.
Rather than a financial failure, the Massachusetts Homestead Commission and the Billerica Garden Suburb should be recognized as extraordinarily successful given the constraints and opposition they faced. The Massachusetts Homestead Commission initiated the groundwork for municipal planning, comprehensive plans and the exchange of valuable information through annual planning conferences, not to mention the affordable housing demonstrations both in Billerica and Lowell.
As the recent photographs of the Billerica Garden Suburb indicate, this was a successful affordable housing endeavor. The last Massachusetts Homestead Commission report indicated that there were 70 homes constructed. It is a known quantity~ it worked.
Rather than repeat bad plans, as Frederick Law Olmstead Sr. warned, why not repeat good, successful plans. Further, why not support the more progressive aspects that have proven successful not only in England and Germany but locally in Billerica, Massachusetts. Perhaps now is the right time to require each town to have affordable housing plans, as comprehensive plans were originally intended, as well as designated land banks and proven financial mechanisms providing wholesome homes and dignity to the low-wage families upon which this state depends. or payment in full may be made at the date of any instalment. Dividends on instalments will be credited at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum.
NOTE.-Shareholders are entitled to a cumulative dividend of 5 per cent. per ~nnum, and any surplus profits after the payment of such dividend will be used for the benefit and further development of the Company's property. This Company has been formed for the purpose of engaging in the business of buying and developing land and providing desirable; attractive, and sanitary . ~houses aLa 111oder.ate .. :cost or rental for pcrs.u..n~ desiring .t.u .. purchase .or lease the same.

®ffi.cers
It proposes t o assist in permanently solving the increasingly diffi cult housing problem on the areas under its control: 1. By elimination of speculative profits, all earnings over 5 per cent. being used for the benefit and development of the property .
~. By distributing the payments for the home over a period of years, thereby bringing it within the reach of all who desire to improv~ their home conditions.
3. By oarticipation by the residents, each resident acquiring 10 per cent. of the value o± his property in stock.
4. By· wholesale operations and effi cient management, thereby effecting economies in construction.

5.
By constructing houses of durable materials, thereby savmg the serious depreciation of cheap frame dwellin gs.
6. By limiting the number of houses per acre, thereby avoiding the disastrous overcrowding of homes. 7. By scientific planning along advanced garden suburb lines, determining the character and arrangement of roads and houses, thereby securing the maximum practical and :i:.sthetic .values. 8. By providing for community buildings and playgrounds, thereby promoting the social atmosphere of the neighborhood, and by engaging in other beneficial undertakings as may from time to time prove feasible. 9. By laying out allotment gardens, where the wage-earner may successfully carry on intensive gardening, which under competent instruction will go towards paying the cost of the home.
10. By promoting the formation of a Co=partnership Society along the lines recommended by the :Massachusetts Homestead Commission, which will take over successive portions of the' estate and develop them by the co-partnership method. This is sharply distinguished by collective ownership of the property, each resident renting from the society of which he is a member. This will constitute a radical advance over current methods of tenure. , At Billerica, twenty-one miles from Boston, the establishment of the $3,000,000 Boston & :Maine repair shops, early in 1914, with l;ctoo operatives at present and ultimately 2,000 to 3,000, has created a great demand for workingmen's houses in a formerly rural community. Furthermore, other manufacturers will locate there in order to utilize the new supply of labor. This means a steady influx of 10,000 people and more.
Land is as yet cheap, though much of it has been exploited and is held at values no longer attractive to the operatives. The establishment of a model comrnunity near the factory has the unqualified approval and backing of the officials of the shops, who desire, as much as the workmen, to secure good living conditions. The Company has secured a tract of 56 acres, favorably located, adjoining the North Billerica Station and the present village centre, where schools and other public buildings make immediate development possible. This lies less than a mile from the shops, and, fu"rthermore, a free workingIDen's train carries the men directly from the North Billerica Station into the works. The cost of this property is far below lhat demanded by real estate operators farther from · the works and with much less attractive surroundings.
Accompanying this prospectus is a sketch plan and a perspective view of the tract, showing the proposed type of development along advanced garden suburb lines, providing fiv e to six families per acre. Plans for a typical dwelling are also shown.
Special note should be made of the river front, which is to be a part of a proposed series of attractively wooded public reservations along the Concord River, for the benefit of all the people. A large grove of pines in the southwest section is an additional resthetic attraction. The underlying gravel and sand furnish abundant material for concrete construction, and greatly simplify the grading of roads and sanitary problems. vVater is already piped upon the estate, supplying sixteen families now housed in the southeast corner. The dwellings yield an income sufficient to pay all carrying charges not chargeable to development.
vVe have here a <.:ombi11atio11 of advantages,-demand for many homes, cheap land, and low construction· cost . The moral support of the Boston & :LYiaine officials is added assurance of its success from the start. In fact, many operatives have already signified their intentions of living on this tract \vhen developed. THE BILLERICA TOWN PLAN B ILLERICA, twenty-two miles from Boston and four miles. from Lowell, is a farming and manufacturing town. It contains in round numbers three thousand people on sixteen thousand acres, with sixty miles of highways.
Two rivers, ten brook-valleys and seven hills give the town great beauty of topography. This, with a varie. d soil, two-thirds in wild vegetation, gives notably attractive landscapes and much interest in plant, bird, and animal life. In fifty years, Billerica's wild land has increased a third, as it has in most of New England's old towns; but now the tide is turning toward the farm again. At North Billerica, woollen mills have been established for years. The Boston & Maine Railroad shops being erected there will soon increase population by several thousand.
About the Center, a most attractive part of the town, are some well-appointed summer estates that are sure to increase. In the south and in the north of the town, as in parts of many similar towns adjacent to our cities, large areas have been subdivided into small lots upon which camps and small cottages are being erected, for either summer or all-the-year occupancy, by families of moderate means from the city.
Increased business, population, road, and other public facilities that such new conditions must create, made the preparation of a plan as a guide to the town's future growth quite essential. Such a plan, to best meet the needs and have the general approval of the community, must be understood by at least a majority of the voters and land owners; and, as this understanding will best come from a direct participation in the work, all citizens were urged to give information and assistance in the preparation of articles and maps .
It was found here, as it will be everywhere, that, while few citizens

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
will volunteer information, nearly everyone is ready to give the best he has if he is interviewed and not required to write. In this town, as in most towns, the hills, valleys, and the larger soil divisions that are the same for all time, control the main features.
II. Map Indicating Topography of the plan. Some existing roads will surely stay, because they are direct thoroughfares on lines of least resistance to outlying trade centers, or in Billerica to the seashore and mountain resorts eastward and northward. Other thoroughfares and local roads will be II I abandoned, as were the Middlesex Canal, parts of the Middlesex Turnpike, and many minor roads.
Some of these abandoned roads had 20 per cent grades,-that is, 1-foot climb in every ~ feet long. Engineers now strive for 1-foot climb in 20 feet long, viz., 5 per cent. A town should not accept now over 6 per cent on any part of a road; for it is the steepest grade that determines the possible load, not the average J~rade.
The new Billerica subdivision plats show forty-four miles of narrow new roads. If these roads were properly constructed on suitable grades, their maintenance would increase the yearly road tax from about $5,865 to $8,811. This cost might be returned to the town in taxes on increased valuation, if houses should be established on half the lots that are reported as sold 'by the real-estate agents. I~ is seldom, however, that all reported sales are completed, or that houses occupy enough lots on a new subdivision to justify the town in building roads for years.
There is authority enough established by law to lay down, acquire, and hold the land for a future road and reservation system.
The town has accepted the 1907 Board of Survey Act, requiring owners to submit plans of roads before beginning constructions to the Board of Survey, who are to advertise a public hearing and exhibit plans, and who can require modifications as to width, direction, and grade of street before acceptance. Unless thus accepted, new roads can have no public utilities placed therein or public work done thereon. When accepted, no damages can be collected by persons for buildings or improvements made on such roadway after acceptance.
A recently elected Park Commission have the authority to lay down a system of reservations for public recreation, acquire and hold land therefor, and improve roads.
The County Commissioners have the power to lay out or alter the location of or discontinue highways, and will act upon a petition of a town or any five inhabitants thereof in such matters. The State Highway Commission locates, constructs, maintains and controls state highways. It directs the expenditure for a town's road construction of any amount that the town may appropriate over the average road cost of five preceding years . Such excess appropriations are doubled by the state, which may also maintain such roads and charge a cost of not exceeding $50 a mile to the town. An examination of the soil map, in conjunction with the topography, will show that only the wet, black-soil sections have boun-_ daries that are easily recognized, and such areas are indicated on the soil map. Other sections having a distinct soil character can be indicated only in a general way on a map of this scale, for a detailed study shows a considerable, and often a wide, variation in the soil of almost any one-hundred-acre plot in the town . The light, porous soils that are nearlx free of stones, and lie so level that large fields can be worked at low cost, are in the northerly and easterly parts of the town .. For this reason the town plan should recognize big fields by placing roads along such natural boundaries as the shores of streams, the base of steep slopes, instead of through the center of big fields, to cut them in small patches.
In the southern part is a heavier soil that is more retentive of moisture, with more boulders, a rolling and varied surface. This is a market-garden section of diversified crops.
West of the Concord River, hills are higher, more crowded together, with steeper slopes, and with more ledges and boulders than in other parts of the town. Much of this land is best suited to fruit-growing. In these irregular sections, the roads of the town plan should generally follow the valley and avoid hill- Of Billerica's 16,ooo acres, 9,804 are covered with forest or sprout~growth, as against the 5 ,035 . acres of such growth indicated . on the town map of 1853 . A decrease of nearly one-half in the acreage of cultivated and pasture land is thus indicated in less than sixty years. This increase of woodland represents a decrease, not an increase, of forest values. It is clear that forests are not so profitable as farm crops. Furthermore, the State Forestry Department does not recommend the growing of forests as a crop on Billerica land, because nearly all of it is suited for field crops or fruit, and is near the Boston market.
On the last map of this article, church, school, town, commons, and the Gilson HilL reservation lands, are indicated in black. The heavy dot~ed lines are suggestions for future roads and reservations. This was submitted to a joint meeting of the Board of Survey and Park Commission of the town. It was agreed that the Concord River shores sho':Jld be acquired for ultimate roads and trails, to form part of a system of drives Jrom the sea up the Merrimac to the Concord, and up the Concord to its source, and to the great metropolitan water-supply reservations on the Nashua River branch. Similar shore reservations are being acquired on the Charles and Neponset Rivers leading out of Boston.
It was the opinion of the Park Commission and the Board of Survey that land should be secured by gift from owners, not purchased by the town, for such purposes; and that the town should not be asked to make appropriations for improvements on such lands until public necessities demanded roads.
The other reservations under consideration are along the Shawsheen River and the town brooks, along the steam railroad, to take advantage of its direct line and right-of-way opening, and also to have house fronts, not backs, in view from trains. These questions The preparation of the plan was initiated by the Billerica Improvement Association, and is continued with the cooperation of the more recently organized Board of Trade, of which the pastor of a Baptist Church is president, and of other local societies. The problem of presenting the information thus gained to the people was partly solved when the pastor of the Unitarian Church expressed · a desire to see a local magazine established, and a willingness to edit it. This magazine, "Billerica," has now been published seven months, and in each issue have appeared such maps of the town as accompany this article, together with an explanation, and other articles that have a direct bearing upon the problem. The first map gave the roads and localities before the period of expansion represented by the ~mall-lot subdivisions. The second, a topographical map, showed also existing roads by numbers, and abandoned roads by numbers in circles. To the next map the various small-lot subdivisions were added. They will be recognized in the patches of crowded streets on the fifth of the accompanying maps. The next two were the soil and the forest maps. A map showing existing public reservations in solid black, and suggesting future reservations and road extensions in dotted lines and shading, was followed by one that was subdivided into forty-one squares for convenience in plotting the detailed information on a scale 200 feet to the inch. This information will include artificial and natural features, the topography and the property lines. You must understand that, to do this in a town as small as Billerica, it is best to secure many volunteers, and to direct their work toward the definite end in view. Whatever costs there are for surveys and drafting should, in fact usually must, at first, be borne by individual contributions of time and money. I believe, too, that such a plan can be realized ·

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
in a conservative old town only by gradually leading the citizens to understand it, and to realize that, to be successfully accomplished, it will require the gift of the land for roads and reservations . Such gifts represent a small part of each estate, usually not over a tenth, and usually the land of least value and greatest natural beauty, and roads and reservations thus provided for will increase the value of the remaining property. The data for such plans must be secu_ red by special methods that will give all that is essential, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, at low cost, by the one-man survey methods, and the collection and compilatio· n of existing data, rather than PY the expensive engineer with a force of rodmen and chainmen.
The reader should understand that much of this article is made up of abstracts from the articles that have appeared in the magazine ""Billerica," for it has seemed to me desirable that your readers :Should thus gain an idea of the manner of presentation to the town.

Comprehensive Planning for Small Towns and Villages*
My plea is for the smaller places, the towns and villages with a population ranging from ~,500 to ~5,000, or even up to 50,000. There are many misconceptions about city planning, · but none is farther from the fact than the notion that comprehensive planning is only for large cities. As a matter of fact, the reverse is nearer the truth. In big cities the conditions · are fixed, inelastic, unyielding. Comprehensive planning, especially with our limited city charters arid the hampering laws of our States, can have as yet but little play in larger places. At most it must content itself with relieving only the worst conditions, ameliorating merely the most acute forms of congestion, correcting only the gravest mistakes . of the past. Wide, many-sided, imaginative planning for large American cities must be confined for the pres.ent at least mainly to the extension of those cities, to the improvement of suburban areas, to the betterment of what are often really separate towns on the outskirts.
But with smaller. towns and . villages the case is

Comprehensive
Planning for different. To them comprehensive planning can render a big and lasting service. For there is scarcely anything in them that cannot be changed, and most of the territory that is to be built upon is still untouched. The present town is only the nucleus of the future city. In them railroad approaches can be set right, grade crossings eliminated; water fronts redeemed for commerce or recreation or both; open spaces secured in the very heart of things ; a reasonable street plan can be made and adequate highways established; public buildings can be grouped in some proper way, and a park system, a true system, with all sorts of welldistributed, well-balanced public grounds can be . outlined for gradual and orderly development . And all these elements, indispensable sooner or later to a progressive community, can be had with relative ease and at slight cost. As we have given heretofore too much attention to caring for the mere wreckage of society, and too little toward establishing a better social order that would reduce that wreckage, so we have expended too much of our energy in merely thinking of the ills that afHict our great cities instead of providing against an unnecessary repetition of those self same ills in smaller places, many of them to be the important cities of to-morrow. To cure is the way of the past, to prevent the dhrine voice of the future.

Small Towns and Villages
Then smaller towns are important because of their great number. In 1900, there were over 1,700 places in the United States with a. population from 2,500 to 25,000, and the aggregate of these towns exceeded ten million. The figures of the 1910 census will no doubt show a vast increase, and these figures will probably exceed the total of all cities with a population of 300,000 or over. The six great cities with 500,000 or more had by the same census (1900) only a population of 8,000,000, 2,000,000 less than these smaller towns. How extensive, therefore, are the interests of these widely distributed smaller cities, with more than ten million souls to-day and the number and proportion steadily and rapidly increasing! The two important methods of town and city planning are : ( 1) cities planned in advance of the settlement of population. , and ( ~) established cities replanned or remodeled to meet new conditions. The former method has obviously great advantages, and many cities intended primarily for governmental, industrial, or residential purposes have been so planned. It is a method which needs wider use. Washington is the most notable illustration. But after all, it is seldom possible to foresee the future of a town or city from the very start, and the complex influences which determine the selection of the site and location of the first streets and buildings [ 3 ] • ·~ i:r?
... Planning for must usually be left to work out their natural results. When, however, a small population has been attracted to a town by natural causes and there are unmistakable indications that because of situation, climate, the trend of trade and commerce or .other forces, an important city is to be established, then it is entirely practicable intelligently to replan the town so as properly to provide for its future.
There are scores of cities in this country with a population to-day of 25,000 people that will have 50,000 in a generation or less, and the same rate of. increase may be predicted with equal confidence of cities of larger population. The · greatest neglect is right here, the failure to plan and replan, to adjust and readjust, consistently to use art and skill and foresight to remodel existing conditions and to mould and fit for use the new territory about to be occupied. The emphasis, it would seem, needs to be placed less on the original plan and more on replanning and remodeling, provided action is taken in time. The beautiful cities of Europe, those that are constantly taken as illustrations of what modern cities should .be, are Without exception the result of a picturesque, almost accidental growth, regulated, it is · true, by considerable common sense and respect for art, but improved and again improved by replanning and remodeling to fit changed conditions [ 4] . . . ~···: ~ . ....

Small
Towns and Villages and rising standards. It is here that we fall short. Throughout the United States there are cities with relatively easy opportunities before them to improve their water fronts, to group their public buildings, to widen their streets, to provide in twentieth century fashion for transportation and to set aside areas now considered indispensable for public recreation, and yet most of these cities have until recently stood listless, without the business sense, skill, and courage to begin the work that must sooner or later be done.
In the development of city plans for these smaller communities, I wish to advocate three points : ( 1) the exercise of more forethought ; ( 2) the use of skill ; ( 3) the adoption of an appropriate goal or ideal.
First, then, more forethought. One clear lesson of the census is the growth of cities. They move noiselessly from one class to another with little notice and less preparation. With growth their requirements change radically, but little or nothing is done to meet these changing requirements. Especially is this true of the construction of wide thoroughfares and the acquisition of land for public purposes. Instead of being always in advance of the requirements, as the city should be in these matters, it is almost invariably behind. The foresight of the German cities, the best-handled munici- Planning for palities in the world, is instructive. Their plans are nearly always a score of years in advance of the requirements, and there is a definite and liberal policy for the purchase of land · against future needs, some cities owning as much as half their building areas and having permanent land funds of millions of dollars set apart for further acquisitions. Secondly, a greater use of skill and experience should be employed in the planning and building of small cities. Failure to employ such skill is the reason for much of our trouble tO-day. Somehow, we are not yet very generally convinced of the value of the man who knows. "Democracy's attitude toward the exp~rt," declares a contemporary writer, "is a mean and foolish attitude. No greater service can be rendered to the democratic cause than that which shall cleanse it of this fault. Generous, whole-hearted, enthusiastic recognition of superior ability and training, a reverent appreciation of high character and high attainment, and a capacity to trust and value these as they deserve: these are virtues which democracy cannot set itself too resolutely to attain, nor can it value too highly any lesson that will assist it in their cultivation." Long ago, John Stuart Mill gave brief expression to the same idea when he said: "The people should be masters employing servants more skilful than themselves."

Sm all Towns and Villages
A third requirement is the adoption of an appropriate goal or ideal. Changes are inevitable. We know that. And if these changes are unguided they are almost certain not to be good. The future . should not be taken at hap-hazard. We should determine, at least in a general way, what we wish it to be, and then strive to bring it to pass. Above all, con. sistency is a requirement, and some appropriate and controlling ideal of development. The individual topography and situation of cities, the differences in social conditions, in the varying economic functions of different communities-these factors and others should all find opportunity for natural expression in the city plans of smaller places, which can often be carried out easily, especially if the co-operation of private individuals can be secured.
These three suggestions for smaller places are perfectly practicable, and have already been adopted and acted upon by some American communities. As a concrete illustration, I should like to present an outline at least of the policy and achievements of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, a Borough, about twelve miles from New York City, with a population slightly less than twenty-five hundred. To the natural loveliness of its situation, Glen Ridge has added much by an enlightened public policy and a united civic spirit, that are seldom found [ 7 ] • " .,..

Comprehensive
Planning for in such a highly developed form in so small a place. Foresight, generous public expenditure, and wisdom have combined to give to the present generation and insure to the future certain public advantages of very great value. In the first place, the most characteristic and most beautiful natural feature of the Borough-the Glen-has been secured for a public park. This is a valuable asset, one that could not be duplicated by human means. Yet its . character and situation are such that in private hands it probably would have become a nuisance and an eyesore. The people of Glen Ridge cannot be too highly commended for making this acquisition in time. Then the Borough, acting, I presume, with the railroad officials, has given what appears to be~ on the whole, the best locations for the railroads and the stations. There are within the Borough limits only two grade crossings (these soon to be removed), the stations are central and their surroundings attractive. There has been displayed a tenacity and foresight as fine as it is unusual in controlling certain outdoor features which tend in a high-grade residence town to become nuisances. I refer particularly to unsightly poles and wires, ill-placed and inappropriate stores, apartment houses and tenements. Following this wise and progressive policy, as the next logical step, some of the public-spirited citizens of Glen Ridge arranged to have prepared a [ 8 ] ·~· ··:

Small
Towns and Villages comprehensive plan and report as a guide to future action. That report was prepared, and contained the following recommendations: ( l) That the plan for the contemplated improvement of the Station and surroundings of the Lackawanna Railroad include the widening of Ridgewood Avenue at the bridge, adequate space south of the station for carriages and other vehicles, with a new approach from Woodland A venue, the abolishing of the grade crossing at Hillside Avenue, and the widening of Clark Street where it passes under the. railroad.
(~) That efforts be made to obtain from the Erie Railroad the removal of the grade crossing at Wildwood Terrace and the construction of the Sherman Avenue bridge.
( 3) That the Glen Ridge Centre, at the intersection of Ridgewood and Bloomfield A venues, be improved and perfected by the acquisition of the property at the northwest corner, and its use for some public or semi-public purpose.
( 4) That the advantages of building a Borough Hall, a few stores, and perhaps a small hotel or 'inn near the Borough Centre be seriously considered with a view to action.
( 5) That consideration be given in advance of actual need to a convenient trolley route to provide

Comprehensive
Planning for service when necessary north and south through the Borough.
(6) That Ridgewood Avenue and its proposed extension be improved as an integral part of the proposed twelve-mile Circuit Drive in Montclair and Glen Ridge.
(7) That the Essex County Park Commission be petitioned to locate at once, and execute ·as soon as possible, a parkway that will connect the main drives of Glen Ridge with the County Park System.
(8) That the whole method of locating public streets and roads be investigated for the purpose of protecting the interests of all the people of Glen Ridge and the further improvement of the Borough as a place of residence.
(9) That building ordinances be considered, with the intention of promoting health, preserving the homogeneity of neighborhoods and protecting the stability of real estate values; also that property owners be asked to co-operate in this provision by writing suitable restrictions in their deeds of sale.
( 10) That the Shade Trees Commission, the formation of which is advocated, be requested to take up in a broad and efficient way, the whole question of planting and maintaining street trees.
(11) That the land already purchased by the [ 10] · ·~·· : ? 1_: --· Small Towns and Villao-es 0 Borough for parks and playgrounds be developed and utilized as rapidly as possible under carefully prepared plans, including a wading pool, skating pond, and outdoor gymnastic apparatus.
(I!!) That some public authority be empowered to study and survey the Borough with a view to establishing an adequate system of school yards, school gardens, playgrounds and _ parks for the present population and to reasohably anticipate the · needs of the immediate future.
These twelve recommendations have not ended on paper. Although they were presented only a year ago, definite and substantial progress has been made on every one of them, and six of the twelve, the most important six, have been carried out completely. Glen Ridge is already unlike any other town ; it has its own character, its own claims to distinction. Wisely has it reflected its topography in its streets and other public places, and developed · its public ideals with a rare regard to essential public needs. Consistently following what is best in the past, the present. plan is intended to promote an even clearer consciousness on the pa.rt of the citizens generally of what the Borough life should be, to avoid the oversights and mistakes of merely drifting, and secure the well-defined results of a carefully considered plan and program for the future, all of which upholds my view of the possibili-

Small
Towns and Villages ties of comprehensive planning for small towns and villages. Compare with these results the inaction or halting action of larger places even when admirable and generally approved of plans have been placed in their hands for execution. Finally, the most astonishing thing about American town and city planning is the constant repeti-. tion of the same mistakes. Over and over again we see the same errors, the same foolish and costly departure from what is recognized as good practice.
Our towns and cities are inert. If they were not, the smaller ones at least could be saved by foresight and skill from many of the mistakes from which the larger cities now suffer. "Remedy for a bad plan once built upon being thus impracticable," wrote Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., decades ago, "now that we understand the matter we are surely bound, wherever it is by any means in our power, to prevent mistakes in the construction of towns. Strange to say, however, here in the New World, where great towns by the hundred are springing into existence, no care at all is taken to avoid bad plans. The most brutal pagans to whom we have sent our missionaries have never shown greater indifference to the sufferings of others than is exhibited in the plans of some of our most promising cities, for which men now living in them are responsible." [ 12] • W ··' · ~. . Options h ave been secure(1 on a trac t of fif t y-seven acres of pi n e Ja n el, r o ugn•y sq u a r e in shape. as show n o n t h e pla n : and lyin g in a ben d of t he Conco r d Rh·e r . Th e Bost on & C<·l aine R ailroad ext end s in a north and sou th lin e a lo ng t he eastern bo r der of the tract, wi th t h e ~nrt h Bi!lerica c,ta t io n at the southeast co r ner.
The ad Yan tag es of this area a r c several and importa nt for the pur ;iose in view. Fir!=-t cf a!l.
bei ng a t rac t o f p ine land w ell abo\'e t he ri v er , with underlying sa n d a n d g r avei whi c h w ill m ak e sanitation easy, and w ill in additio n prov id e on t he site abu nda nt m a t e r ial for co n crete const ruct ion . w h ich appea r s to be at leas t as cheap as good fr a m e cons t r u cti o n. It is less th a n a· mile f r om t he rail r oa d s h ops, wh ic h li e t o t he south . and t o whi ch free t r anspo rtatio n wi ll be f urnished to the w orkmen by th e r ailroad company . Then . j u st a cr oss t he bend of th e river. ba r ely a quart er of a mi le di sta t, are the school, post cffi ce a n d sto r es ~·h ich 111 ake up the Yillage centr~. Th is can be r eached by a footbridge. T h~ tract is the r efore nea r to t he co m m uni : ,in te r ests of the town, a nd yet suffic i en t!~· isola t ed by th e i nterY e n in g r iver to m ake !t a un it.
Las t-and investo r s wou ld perha ps p ut this f eature first-t he pr ice a t w hich th e la.i1d is now h <:ld is l ow .

Th e Pl an' for D ev elopment
The tentative pl a n f or the d evplopme nT of the Bi ll erica tract has been worked out Territory ls for Copartnership Purposes east ... 0n1e r. is :r_tf ndec! f<+r ho u ses t o bl. : o Division D, a sm2.ll section a t t he no rthr ented in t hP. u sual \\'ay.
D h · ision C. w h ic h . as s i:v\' 11. CO\'e r s a Oo i.~ a th ird o! th e whole a r ea. is inten ded fo r co;rn rt ne r s hi p own er s h ip. a n d the e r ectin ;;: of h o u ses a nd th ei r r enting to workm en wh o will tak e s h a r es in t he co pa r tn er s h ip company. and who w ill be collecti vel y th e ir own landlo r ds. Included in di Y;s io ns B a n d C a r e cent ral area s " ·hich may be useu as p la y g r ou n ds. or be allotted t o t en a nts o r ow n er s for ga r aen plo t s. T he i n ten siv t: cu ltivation o f even small ga r dens un de r t he expe r t inst r uction a nd adYice whic h wou ld be made available would enable the c u ltiv a t ors to offset a large por t ion of the ir yea rl y r e nt fr om t hei r prod u ce.
For l a n dscape eff ects and a gen e r a ll ;park:1k e d e v elop m ent t h e B il ler ica tr a~t offer s a good op;xi rt un it)'. In Divisio n B t here are a good n1a n r large · w hite p in es.
In pa rts o f Div ision C t here are man y ot h e r pines, m ost ly h ard pine. The mid d le stre t r. h o f th e w es tern borde r alon g the r iv er ris,;s r a t h er abruptl y in a low blu ff cu t by a shallo"· ravi n e; w hi le at the e x t rem e n or t hwestern pa rt th er e is a l ow, m a r sh y a r ea in which a p onrl could be co ns t r u ct ed . Trees wou ld be u sed to t h e utmost as l a n clscape f eatu r es . a nd the r ows o f !ac ing h ou s es inclu decl between two cros s s treet s. at leas t. wou ld be m ade h omoge n eo us in colo r effec t, wh ;J e v a r ied in their det ail s.

The Co-partner s h i p Pl alJ
Copartne r shi p in housing w a s begu n J n R ven· small scale at Eal im;, a s ubu r b of Lo~d on , i n l GOl, an d h as since ex pa n ded as an investm ent. Th e socia l, t he :::tnit.,ry and tlH m oney benefi t s to t he tenant fr om li \' ing in an a t t r ac t ive! )' p lan n HJ. o p en su l>u r b1 i n gouu ;, .._ ·:~'?~. ~..-ith ~ ~ard e n f or eac h ho u se. pl e nt y o f p la ;· r oom fo r c hild r en, a;id w ith e v e r yon e w or kin 2: togeth er to k eep t h ings bri g ht a nd a tt ractive. h a v e b een proved as r ea l and actually a tta• nable as th ey see m probable in t he m e r e statemen t of th e m .
Flu idity of Mod e rn L abor W hi le giv in g all th es e a dvantages , copa r t n e r ship settl emen ts ha ve t h~ f ur t h"r great 1neri t o! fitti n g modern in dustr ia l co n ditic•nS.
T he ftuidi t y of labor toda,·. bot h t he ski ll ed and t he u ns kill e d. is one of t he !mportan t socia l and econ0mic fc:it ures ot t he t im e . T ha: s k illed labor w il l m ove f r om a p lace of s lack w ork t o a nother place w h e r e work is ab un da nt , seem s nat u r a'. a n d obvi ous. But on e or th e curious r esu lts of th e fac to r y system h:» heen t o m ake t his t ru e also of t he u n ;killeci labor of th e tex t ile mi ll s. f or in sta nt•'-; n the moder n factory unsk il led la !1o r t ends machines. and t hat labor h as learned t hat it can t end equal ly we!! on e k in d o f m achine in on e industry a n d a w h olly different kind of m ac h i n e In another unre la t erl indus t r:.·. U n sk ill ed la bo r o ! thi s t y pe ha~ becomE a specia l ized m ac h ine-tendin;; cl a ss. alJle t o m o ,·e n o t only r rom town to t own bu t f r 0 m in d u s try to ind ust r y . For m ob ile labo r :1o u se o wn e r s h ip is a burd en b eca u s-~ the o~:ner ca n r a r ely or n ever r ent or s ell h is h ou s e w i th o ut fi nan cia l loss. His owners h ip th e r~f o r e w ork s to p r event hi s moving f reely to t a k e ad va nt:u: e of the bes t