MUNICIPAL PROBLEMS OF TODAY
_The purpose of this chapter is to point out some of the difficult
things which our cities have to do and to discuss the various ways
of doing them._
[Sidenote: The city’s annual report.]
=Government or Business: Which is it?=—At the close of each year the
city authorities issue a printed volume, its pages well packed with
figures of all sorts and interspersed with a good deal of very dry
reading matter. This is called the annual report; it contains a
statement of revenues and expenditures compiled by the auditor, a
summary of what each department has done during the year, and a great
many other facts about the work of the city officials. Very few people
ever read these annual reports, and not many would understand them if
they did. But any thoughtful man or woman who takes the trouble to look
through one of these publications from cover to cover would be tempted
to ask the question: Why do they call such things _government_? They are
not government in any sense, nothing but _business_. Here is an account
of how streets have been paved, water purified and distributed to the
people, school buildings constructed, supplies purchased, contracts
awarded, labor employed, money collected and money paid out—why do they
call these things government when they are simply business operations
and nothing else? The problems that arise in connection with them are
business problems; the methods needed are business methods; the
organization best fitted to do the work is a business organization.
[Sidenote: Most of the city’s work is _business_.]
Now there is a good deal to be said for this point of view. A large part
of the work which the city officials perform is of a business rather
than a governmental nature. Making laws and enforcing them is a
relatively small portion of their task. The great majority of city
officials and employees are engaged in rendering social and economic
services—such as teaching in schools, caring for the public health,
building streets, inspecting markets, attending to the water supply,
putting out fires, and making out tax bills; all of which tasks are
quite different in nature from the work which legislatures or governors
or courts perform. It is work which, in order to be effective, must be
done in accordance with the methods of everyday business with emphasis
on intelligence, punctuality, and honesty.
[Sidenote: But not all of it can be managed according to business
principles.]
Nevertheless we should be careful not to press this point too far. The
aim of all organized business is to secure a profit, but the purpose of
city administration is to promote the well-being of the citizens. It
must be conducted in compliance with the desires of the voters, whatever
these desires may be, and must give them what they want. Business can
sometimes be managed without any heed to public opinion, but municipal
administration cannot. The science of municipal government is, to a
considerable extent, that of keeping the people satisfied. The voters
must have what they want and they do not always want what some expert
may deem to be the best or the cheapest. Government by the best people
is not necessarily the best government. There is no denying that
business methods can be advantageously applied to city administration at
many points (particularly in the awarding of contracts and the buying of
supplies), but it does not follow that such departments as poor-relief,
correction, and public health should be managed according to exactly the
same principles as a railroad or a cotton factory. Success or failure in
these departments cannot always be measured in terms of dollars and
cents. The administration must be sympathetic and humane; it avails
little to save a little money if the saving entails a great deal of
human misery. The strict rules of business may easily be pressed too
far.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS
The accompanying diagram indicates the way in
which the administrative work of a large American
city such as Boston is distributed among various
officials and departments. It will be noted that
there were, in 1920, some forty departments under
the control of the mayor. Some consolidation has
since been made, but the number of departments is
still larger in Boston than in any other city.
This chart should be referred to in connection with
_Group Problem No. 1_ (page 223).
[Illustration:
COMMONWEALTH
OF
MASSACHUSETTS
]
APPOINTMENTS BY GOVERNOR
Judiciary
Finance Commission
Civil Service Commission
Met. District Commission
P.W Dept. Division of Highways
Medical Examiner
Licensing Board
Police Commissioner
Pilot Commission
Division of Waterways
Dept. of Pub. Utilities
State Fire Marshal
ELECTORATE
CITY COUNCIL (9)
City Messenger
Clerk of Committees
City Clerk
MAYOR (4 Years)
Park & Recreation Department
Consumptive Hospital Department
Hospital Department
Examiner for Bldg. Licenses
Public Buildings Department
Institutions Registration Dept.
Weights & Measures Department
Vessels & Ballast Department
Penal Institutions Department
Overseers of the Poor
Children’s Institutions Dept.
Soldiers Relief Department
Infirmary Department
Sinking Fund Department
Auditing Department
Treasury Department
Public Works Department
Bridges & Ferries
Collecting Department
Registry Department
Water Division
City Planning Board
Highway Division
Cemetery Department
Assessing Department
Library Department
Election Department
Sewer, Street Cleaning Div.
Supply Department
Lamps
Market Department
Paving
Printing Department
Statistics Department
Art Department
School House Department
Transit Department
Budget Department
Health Department
Board of Appeals
Building Department
Law Department
City Record
Fire Department
Statistics Department
Boston & Cambridge Bridge Comm.
Street Laying Out Department
Regulation of Traffic
---
GENERAL DRAFTING CO. INC., N.Y.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Sidenote: One reason for waste in city administration.]
=The Need for Better Co-operation among City Departments.=—The greatest
obstacle to satisfactory work on the part of city officials is the
absence of close co-operation among the various city departments. Some
heads of departments are elected; some are appointed. Even when they are
all chosen in the same way they often fail to work in complete harmony.
Each department is jealous of its own functions and anxious to follow
its own policy.[78]
[Sidenote: Some examples.]
Each desires all the credit when things go right and wants none of the
blame when things go wrong. The various departments, when unpleasant or
unpopular tasks have to be performed, often try to put the
responsibility on someone else. They have become very proficient in what
is colloquially known as “passing the buck”. The result is that team
play is usually lacking, and friction is not at all uncommon. How
frequently we see examples of this failure to save the city’s money by
co-operation! The street department puts down a new pavement; but the
surface is scarcely dry before the water department proceeds to tear it
up in order to lay new mains, or the sewer department sends its men
along to dig a new manhole, or the gas and electric light employees come
with picks and shovels to make excavations in it. Why not do all this
before the new pavement goes down? In the city of Boston nearly ten
thousand excavations are made in the streets during a single year. Some
of these are unavoidable, no doubt, but many of them are simply the
result of poor planning or no planning at all.
Or, take another illustration. Many city departments require materials
and supplies of the same sort. Coal, for example, is needed in police
stations, fire stations, the schools, the city hall, and all other
public buildings. Why not get together, buy it all in one large order at
wholesale prices, pay spot cash, and secure a discount, instead of
having each department purchase its own supplies in relatively small
quantities from local dealers? The answer is that each department,
jealous of its own independence, usually goes ahead in all its
activities without informing the others or consulting them. The
situation is not nearly so bad nowadays as it was twenty or more years
ago but there is still plenty of room for more effective
co-operation.[79]
CITY PLANNING AND PUBLIC WORKS
[Sidenote: The lack of planning.]
=City Planning.=—A second defect in American city administration has
been the lack of careful planning. The mayor and other city officials
serve in office for short terms and their main concern is to do whatever
happens to be urgent at the time, leaving the more difficult problems
for their successors. Much of their work thus becomes makeshift in
character,—a street is widened, a temporary schoolhouse is erected, a
fire engine is bought, and a few new sewers put in—but no comprehensive
plan for street improvement or schoolhouse construction or the
motorization of fire apparatus or sewage disposal is usually made and
followed. Public buildings are often badly placed because political
influences rather than public convenience determines their location. The
congestion of traffic on the down-town streets, the lack of parks and
open spaces in certain sections of the city, the unsightliness due to
the myriad of poles, wires, signs, and billboards in many of the city’s
thoroughfares—these things are all due in large measure to the absence
of planning.
[Sidenote: European cities are better planned.]
Many cities take little or no thought for the morrow. They expect to
grow bigger and busier, but they give small thought to the impending
problems which growth is bound to bring. European cities have been far
ahead in this respect. If Paris is outwardly the most attractive city in
the world, it is because the authorities, more than seventy years ago,
set out to make it so. The best-built city in the United States is
Washington, the streets and parks of which were all planned before a
single building was erected.[80]
[Sidenote: The broad scope of city planning.]
=What City Planning Includes.=—City planning is the science of designing
cities, or parts of cities, so that they may be better places for people
to live in. It includes the arranging of streets, the locating of public
buildings, the providing of parks and playgrounds, the devising of a
proper transportation system, and the regulating of private property in
such way as to promote the best interests of the whole community. It is,
therefore, or ought to be, the center or focus of all the city’s
activities, each one of which should be carried on in harmony with the
general plan. It is only in this way that a great waste of the city’s
money and serious inconvenience to all classes of citizens can be
prevented.
Although city planning is not a new art it is only within recent years
that American cities have given much attention to it. For many decades
the cities and their suburbs were allowed to grow haphazard. What was
once a country highway became a village road, then the main street of a
town, and finally the chief business thoroughfare of a large city. To
have widened it in early days would have been cheap and easy; but when a
city has grown up on both sides of it the project becomes too expensive.
Lack of planning is responsible for much of the traffic congestion with
which the cities are wrestling nowadays.
[Sidenote: The great importance of streets.]
=The Streets.=—The streets are very important factors in the daily life
of every community, far more so than we commonly realize. They are the
city’s arteries. On their surface they carry vehicles of every sort.
Their surface also affords locations for lamp posts, telephone poles,
hydrants, and many other instrumentalities of public service. Underneath
the street surface are sewers, water mains, gas pipes, and conduits;
overhead are wires and signs and balconies. The streets give access to
the shops and houses; they are likewise the principal channels for light
and air, both of which are essential to life in the buildings alongside.
Nearly every form of public service depends upon the streets; without
them private property would have little or no value. About one-third of
all the land in the city is occupied by the streets, so that proper
street planning becomes a matter of great importance to the
community.[81]
[Sidenote: The layout of streets.]
In most American cities the streets are laid out in rectangular form,
with long, broad avenues running one way and narrower cross-streets the
other. This means that each intersects the other at right angles and the
city blocks become squares like those of a checker-board. This plan has
been widely used in America because it takes less land for streets than
any other plan would require and it makes all building lots of
convenient rectangular shape.[82] The chief objection to this gridiron
plan is that it makes traffic more congested at the junction of
important thoroughfares. It also gives a sameness to the appearance of
all the streets and hampers the development of architectural variety.
European visitors often comment on this. Street after street in the
shopping or residential districts all look alike to the stranger; all
have been laid out with a pencil and ruler, the same widths (or nearly
the same); every lot of land is of the same size; and the long rows of
houses seem to be all of the same type. In the cities of Europe, on the
other hand, the streets are more often curved or winding; some are very
broad and some very narrow, so that each street has its own
individuality. To some extent American cities are now laying out
diagonal and winding streets in their newer suburbs on the principle
that picturesqueness ought to be combined with utility.
[Sidenote: The old and the newer methods of determining widths.]
=How Wide Ought a Street to be?=—Until very recent years in all American
cities, and even yet in some of them, the practice has been to lay out
streets in widths of forty, sixty, or eighty feet,—always using
multiples of ten. This is a mere rule-of-thumb method and bears no
direct relation to the needs of traffic. The downtown streets of the
older cities are, for the most part, too narrow; in the newer suburbs
they are often a good deal wider than they need be. “But what harm is
done by having more street space than is necessary?” it may be asked.
Well, every square foot of street space costs money; it has to be paved,
kept in repair, cleaned, and lighted. The proper policy in laying out
streets is to adapt their width to the probable needs of future traffic.
This cannot always be done with mathematical accuracy, because the
density of traffic changes from decade to decade; but with careful study
a fairly dependable estimate can usually be made.
[Sidenote: The traffic “zones”.]
The best practice nowadays is to fix the width of new streets in terms
of _traffic zones_, not merely in multiples of ten feet. A stream of
traffic—motor cars, trucks, and other vehicles following one
another—requires a certain sluiceway or zone to move in. This zone is
ordinarily reckoned as ten feet in width. A zone of parked vehicles
alongside the curb uses about eight feet. In order to allow full parking
privileges and still have space for two streams of traffic to flow along
easily (one in each direction) a street should be thirty-six feet in
width from curb to curb. Anything less than this usually means that
parking must be restricted or the thoroughfare must be made a one-way
street. Anything more than this is useless unless a full zone of ten
feet is added, and it is of relatively little value unless two
additional zones are put on.[83]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
For 4 lines of traffic
All moving
|—13’—|———40’———|—13’—|
|————--———66’—————————|
For 6 lines of traffic
4 moving & 2 standing
|—15’—|—————56’—-———|—15’—|
|———————————86’————-——————|
For 8 lines of traffic
6 moving & 2 standing
|—22’—|———————76’———————|—22’—|
|————————————120’—————————————|
]
The normal roadway width is based on an allowance of 10 feet for each
line of moving vehicles and 8 feet for each line of standing vehicles.
Where space is absolutely limited this unit allowance may be reduced to
9 feet for moving and 7 feet for standing vehicles.
The sidewalk width above suggested may be increased or reduced to meet
special requirements as to pedestrian traffic or special demands for a
tree and lawn strip.
TRAFFIC ZONES
The congestion of traffic in the downtown streets of
our large cities is due to four causes: (a) the
increased number of vehicles, (b) the different
rates of speed at which different types of vehicles
desire to move (horse-drawn vehicles, street cars,
motor trucks, trucks, motor cars, motorcycles,
etc.), (c) the inadequate width and faulty
arrangement of streets due to the lack of planning,
and (d) the improper driving and parking of
vehicles.
The older streets cannot now be widened except at
very great expense because the private property
which fronts on them is so valuable. But new streets
can be planned to take care of future traffic
growth. No city street should be laid out with less
than fifty-six feet between curb and curb. The
sidewalk space varies with the width of the street,
as the accompanying diagram shows.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Sidenote: Types of pavement.]
=Street Pavements.=—Apart from good planning and adequate width, the
usefulness of a street depends to a considerable extent on its paving.
The qualities of an ideal pavement are easy enough to specify, but not
so easy to secure. To reach perfection a street pavement should be cheap
to construct, durable, easy to repair, easy to keep clean, smooth, safe
for traffic, noiseless, and attractive in appearance. Unfortunately
there is no type of pavement possessing all these qualities. A pavement
of granite blocks will last for many years under heavy traffic, but it
is expensive to build, noisy, and hard to keep clean. The asphalt
pavement is cheaper, cleaner, and easier to drive upon; but it is
slippery in wet weather and breaks down very quickly when heavy traffic
is allowed on it. Wood blocks have come into favor in many cities during
recent years because they are believed to make a pavement which is
sufficiently strong to stand the burden now placed on the streets by
truck traffic and yet afford a surface which is easy to drive over, not
difficult to keep clean, and relatively noiseless. There is no one best
form of pavement for all sections of the city.[84] It would be absurd to
lay asphalt in the dock and shipping districts where the streets are
filled with five-ton trucks, and just as absurd to put a granite-block
surface on the streets of fine residential districts. The nature of the
pavement should be adapted to neighborhood conditions.
[Sidenote: The contract and direct labor systems.]
When the pavement has been selected it can be laid in either of two
ways—by contract or by city labor. Most pavements have been built by
contract. The city officials prepare the plans, and call for bids;
paving contractors submit their figures, and the contract is supposed to
go to the one whose bid is the lowest. That, however, is not what always
happens. Contracts for street paving have often been awarded, on one
pretext or another, to contractors who were able to exert political
influence.[85] In some cities the work is done by regular employees of
the street department, the city buying its own materials. This plan is
usually more expensive and it is not very practicable when a city wants
a great deal of work done in a hurry; on the other hand it results, as a
rule, in getting pavement of a better quality. Contract work, too often,
is done hastily and proves defective. Direct construction by the city’s
own labor force is slower, and more expensive, but usually more durable.
=Parks and Recreation Grounds.=—Public parks are of two types, first the
large open spaces which cover many acres and can be used by the whole
city, and second, the small areas which are provided for use by a single
neighborhood only. Every large city has parks of both types. The
old-style park which served more for ornament than for use, is now out
of favor. Cities are placing more stress on grounds which can be used
for athletic games or for other forms of recreation. In all communities
which have the advantage of being located on the ocean, on a lake, or on
a river, the water-front is a highly desirable addition to the available
recreation spaces. Suitable bathing beaches in particular ought to be
acquired by the cities for free use by the people. The development of
street railway and motor transportation has lessened the pressure upon
the downtown parks by making it more easy for the people to get out into
the country.
[Sidenote: The various classes of public buildings:]
=Public Buildings.=—From the standpoint of suitable location the public
buildings of a city may be divided into three classes. [Sidenote: 1.
Those which need central locations.] First, there are those public
buildings which ought to be centrally located so that they may be easily
reached from every part of the community. This class includes the
post-office, the city hall, the court house, and the public library. In
a few cities these buildings, or most of them, have been brought
together in a civic center; but as a rule they are scattered here and
there all over the community, wherever they may chance to have been
placed in obedience to the influences or whims of the moment. The
desirability of bringing them together, both as a matter of good
planning and for the public convenience, is easy to realize.
[Sidenote: 2. Those which must be scattered.]
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.]
One of the worst offenders against civic beauty and good taste is the
flaming billboard which stares from every vacant lot into the faces of
the passers-by. For the most part billboards serve no very useful
purpose. The advertising which they carry ought to be given to the
newspapers, which reach a far wider circle of people and are actively
engaged in promoting the best interests of the community. These
billboards often mar what would otherwise be an attractive avenue or
landscape.[86] The cities of Continental Europe virtually prohibit them
altogether. It is not possible to do that in the United States because
of constitutional restrictions which protect private property; but
billboards can be restricted by law and some American cities have
adopted the policy of so restricting them.[87] It is also possible to
levy taxes upon them and thus to make billboard advertising less
profitable.
=The Municipal Utilities.=—In addition to streets, parks, and public
buildings every city maintains various other physical utilities. These
include, in some cases, bridges, docks, markets, ferries, and so on.
More important, however, are the so-called _utilities_, the water supply
and the sewerage system. Both of these are intimately connected with the
public health and can better be dealt with when we come to that general
topic. Some cities own and operate their lighting plants, and in a few
cases their street railways. But lighting and transportation are still,
for the most part, in private hands and they present problems of such
importance that they need a chapter to themselves (see pp. 474-481).
[Sidenote: Beginning of the police system.]
=Police Protection.=—The practice of maintaining in cities a body of
professional, uniformed policemen who give their full time to the work
of preserving law and order is less than a hundred years old. Until well
into the nineteenth century the work of protecting life and property was
performed by untrained constables and watchmen (in England and America),
or by squads of soldiers (in most of the larger cities of Continental
Europe).[88] London, in 1829, was the first city to install a regular
police force, and this action met with great popular opposition. It was
regarded as a step in the direction of tyranny.[89] But regular
policemen proved to be so much better, as guardians of law and order,
than the untrained constable in citizen’s clothes, that other cities
followed the example of London and eventually the system was established
in the United States, the first city to adopt the new plan being New
York. Although New York was at that time a city of over 300,000
population the work of policing was largely performed by elective
constables and by citizen watchmen until 1844.
[Sidenote: Police organization today.]
During the past three-quarters of a century the system of municipal
police has been steadily improved. The police are organized on what is
practically a military model, with a commissioner or chief in command.
Under him are deputies at headquarters, captains and lieutenants in
charge of stations, sergeants and patrolmen, who do the work of
investigating, making arrests, handling traffic, and patrolling the
streets. The patrolmen in most American cities are now selected by civil
service tests; they have regular hours on and off duty, and are subject
to strict discipline. The large cities have established training schools
in which newly-appointed policemen receive instruction for a month or
more before they are sent to do regular duty. The number of policemen in
all large cities has had to be greatly increased during recent years
because of the growing need for traffic officers. A considerable
proportion of the whole force is now assigned to this duty at certain
hours of the day. Policewomen are now being appointed in most of the
larger cities because there are various forms of duty which it is
believed they can perform more effectively than men.
[Sidenote: State constabularies.]
Police protection, until recent years, has been largely confined to the
cities and towns; the rural districts have had to depend upon civilian
constables and the sheriff’s deputies. Some states, however, have now
established bodies known as state constabularies, the members of which
patrol the country roads and perform the usual functions of police in
cities. Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and other states have
undertaken to give the rural districts adequate protection in this way.
The men are equipped with motorcycles and are thus enabled to cover
large areas of territory in the course of a day. The constabulary is
under the control of the governor and may be used in any portion of the
state. The establishment of these state police forces has been opposed
by the labor organizations which fear that they may be used to coerce
strikers during labor controversies.
[Sidenote: Our enormous annual losses by fire.]
=Fire Prevention.=—The annual loss by fire in the United States is
larger than that of all European countries put together. Chicago and
Paris are cities of about the same size; but the yearly fire-losses in
the former are four or five times that of the latter. Whether New York
has a larger population than London is still a disputed question but
there is no dispute about which has the larger number of fires. New York
City holds the world’s record in fire-losses, seven or eight million
dollars per annum.
In every part of the United States the losses are enormous year after
year. It has been estimated that they amount to half a million dollars
per day, taking the country as a whole. If all the buildings burned in
the United States during a single year were placed side by side they
would form an unbroken street from Chicago to New York. The loss of life
in these fires is also appalling; it amounts to about three thousand per
year. What are the reasons for this situation; why is it so much worse
than in other countries?
[Sidenote: Reasons for this heavy loss.]
There are two reasons for it; one of them we cannot control, the other
we can. We cannot easily alter the fact that most of the buildings,
whether in the cities or the rural districts of the United States, have
been built of inflammable materials. Lumber has been cheap and it has
been used lavishly. In Europe most buildings are of brick or stone.[90]
With the depletion of the timber supply in America and the increased
price of lumber fewer frame buildings will be constructed in the United
States as time goes on. The other reason for our large fire-losses is
one which can be controlled. It is summed up in a single
word—carelessness. To some extent this carelessness is the fault of the
public authorities; to a larger extent it is the fault of private
individuals.
[Sidenote: Public prevention measures.]
The public authorities have not been sufficiently active in framing and
enforcing measures for the prevention of fires. They have allowed
certain neighborhoods to become veritable fire-traps, liable to be wiped
out by a conflagration at any moment. During the past few years the
state and city officials have been coming to realize the importance of
prevention, however, and the laws relating to fire hazards have been
growing more strict. Special rules are now applied to theaters,
factories, garages, tenements, and other buildings in which fires are
liable to result in the loss of life. Special fire prevention officials
have been appointed in some of the larger communities; their duty is to
inspect all buildings in which fires are likely to occur and to enforce
the fire prevention rules. An endeavor has also been made to educate the
people to the need of exercising greater care. This is done by
distributing circulars and by instruction in the schools.
[Sidenote: The chief causes of fires.]
The great majority of fires are the result of some individual’s
carelessness. Rubbish is left lying about near the cellar furnace;
matches are placed where children can reach them; kerosene or gasoline
is used to light the kitchen fire; chimneys are allowed to go unrepaired
and uncleaned; ends of cigarettes are thrown on the floor or into the
waste basket—individual carelessness may take many forms. But every fire
is the same size when it starts and a trivial accident may cause the
destruction of a whole city. Fire departments are necessary and they
should be kept up to the highest efficiency, with well-trained men and
motorized apparatus; but dollar for dollar the money spent in prevention
brings far more return than expenditures for putting out fires after
they occur.
The work of fighting fires is spectacular and makes an impression on the
people; there is nothing spectacular about _fire prevention_, hence it
obtains far less attention from the average individual. Newspapers
devote great headlines to the bravery of the fireman who carries
somebody down the sheer wall of a high building in the midst of roaring
flames and blinding smoke, but the man who quietly builds his tenement
so that no such rescue will ever be necessary—he gets no headlines at
all. For this the newspapers are of course not to blame; they merely
follow the trend of popular interest.
=The City’s Share in Health and Welfare Work.=—Many functions which
formerly devolved wholly upon the city government have now been taken
over to some extent by the state authorities. The state makes the
general regulations and prescribes how things shall be done, but the
city officials still remain largely responsible for putting the
regulations into effect. [Sidenote: The broadening field of municipal
activity.] This is true of public health protection, public utilities,
poor-relief, correction, sanitation, and education, all of which are
dealt with in later chapters of this book. No clear separation between
state and local activities can be made nowadays, the two overlap and are
intermixed. The city still retains, however, almost complete
responsibility for the care of its streets, for street lighting, for the
maintenance of parks, and for the provision of recreation. But whether
it acts merely as the agent of the state or entirely on its own behalf
the city’s functions are being broadened year by year. It is expected to
do more and more for the social welfare of its people.
[Sidenote: A typical example.]
Compare the American city of today with its prototype of seventy-five
years ago. In 1845, for example, Boston was a city of more than 40,000
people. It had no paved streets, not one. There was no public water
supply; the people brought enough for their daily needs from
neighborhood wells. A few sewers had been built, wooden drains they
were, and only in the more thickly-settled portions of the city.
Provision for the care of the public health was altogether lacking;
there was no regular police force and only a volunteer bucket-brigade to
put out fires. Public playgrounds were unknown; so were public baths,
neighborhood centers, band concerts, branch libraries, electric street
lights, trolley cars, subways, and the long list of things which come
within the range of municipal enterprise today. Those were days of
intense individualism when welfare work was left almost wholly to
private auspices. Now the city has become a leader in almost every form
of social and economic activity. This socializing of urban life has gone
on, and still goes on, without attracting much attention, but it is one
of the most far-reaching developments of the past century.
[Sidenote: The problem of making both ends meet.]
=Where will the Cities Get the Money?=—This expansion in municipal
activities has brought with it an incessant need for more money—more
money for streets, parks, playgrounds, schools, poor-relief, recreation,
pensions, and for a dozen other things. Cities have many hard problems,
but the hardest of all is that of making both ends meet. New enterprises
mean new expenditures, and even the older activities keep steadily
costing more.
[Sidenote: The effect of high taxes.]
Now it might be surmised that this problem of ways and means would be an
easy one to solve. “Just raise the tax rate and get more money” someone
may suggest. That betrays the existence of a very common impression,
namely, that city tax rates have the sky as their limit. But the fact is
quite otherwise. In most cases, to be sure, there is no legal limitation
upon the amount of taxes which the city officials can exact from the
people; the limit is a purely practical one. Most of the city’s revenue
comes from taxes upon real property—on lands and buildings (see pp.
445-446). By raising the tax rate on such property additional revenue
can be secured up to a certain point. But when the tax rate keeps on
increasing year after year it finally reaches a level where it becomes
an obstacle to the erection of new buildings; it deters new industries
from coming to the city; it causes rents to rise and acts as a brake
upon the expansion of business. Under such conditions the value of
property stops rising and may even decline, so that further increases in
the tax rate do not yield a proportionate revenue. The people, moreover,
grow restive under the soaring tax rate on their homes; they manifest
their displeasure by turning the elective city officials out of office
and installing others who pledge themselves to cut the expenses down.
Such pledges, as a matter of fact, can rarely be kept. Considerable
economies are undoubtedly practicable in the government of all American
cities without exception; but the big outlays are bound to go on
increasing so long as the people keep making demands for more and better
services.
[Sidenote: Newer sources of revenue.]
If more revenue must be had, how can it be best obtained? Taxes on
property have now reached a point in many cities where they can hardly
go much higher. Taxes on incomes are already levied by the nation and by
some of the states; the cities can hardly look forward to laying a heavy
tax on top of these. Some cities, notably Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and
St. Louis are imposing business taxes—so much per year on every lawyer,
doctor, merchant, dealer, broker, and so on, the rate varying in each
case. Chicago obtains a considerable income from a wheel tax imposed on
all automobiles which use the city streets. Everywhere the quest for new
sources of revenue is being carried on earnestly but not with any great
measure of success. One serious difficulty lies in the fact that some of
the more lucrative sources have already been tapped by the national and
state governments. Congress and the state legislatures are keenly on the
scent for new revenues; wherever the opportunity appears, they seize it.
In this way the range from which the cities may draw their income is
gradually being narrowed. It can fairly be said, therefore, that the
problem of paying its way is the most difficult of all the problems
which confront the American city at the present time.
General References
C. A. BEARD, _American Government and Politics_, pp. 603-637; _Ibid._,
_Readings_, pp. 535-555;
W. B. MUNRO, _Principles and Methods of Municipal Administration_, pp.
30-73 (City Planning); 74-121 (Streets); 260-313 (Police
Administration);
H. G. JAMES, _Municipal Functions_, pp. 1-24;
F. J. GOODNOW and F. C. BATES, _Municipal Government_, pp. 316-396;
F. C. HOWE, _The Modern City and its Problems_, pp. 34-75;
EVERETT KIMBALL, _State and Municipal Government_, pp. 454-550.
Group Problems
=1. Make a plan of administrative organization which will include the
undermentioned municipal functions.= Provide as few departments as
possible without putting unrelated functions into the same department.
Each department should include all functions which are actually related
and none which are not related to its main work. Consider, for example,
such questions as these: Should playgrounds be included in the school
department or combined with parks in some other department? Where does
poor-relief belong, in a department by itself or along with health or
with prisons and correction? Where should we place the public library?
If you desire to include all these functions within seven or eight
departments, the public library cannot have a department all to itself.
Where should it go? Think over carefully the proper placing of such
things as the inspection of weights and measures, auditing, pensions,
printing, assessments and collection of taxes, billboards, care of
hydrants, censorship of amusements, charities and poor-relief, child
welfare, collection and disposal of ashes, excess condemnation, food and
milk inspection, free employment bureaus, free legal aid, grade-crossing
elimination, hospital administration, housing laws and their
enforcement, licensing, limitation of building heights, management of
bridges and ferries, municipal accounts, municipal budget making,
municipal concerts, municipal courts, municipal purchasing, parks and
playgrounds, paving, playground administration, prevention of
incendiarism, prisons, protection of life and property, public lighting,
public recreation, public water supply, registration of voters, garbage
collection and disposal, regulation of explosives, regulation of the
location of buildings, sewerage and sewage disposal, sinking funds,
smoke prevention, snow removal, street construction, street widening,
supervision of lodging houses, tree planting, vocational and industrial
education, zoning.
=2. Select three or four cities of approximately the same size as your
own and compare the cost of public safety= (police and fire department
expenditures) on each of the following bases: (_a_) per capita; (_b_)
per square mile of territory; (_c_) per $1000 assessed valuation. (The
data for all cities having over 30,000 population can be found in the
_U. S. Bureau of the Census: Financial Statistics of Cities_ [latest
edition].)
=3. What we get for our city taxes.= Make up from your own community’s
latest annual report a table showing the per capita cost for each form
of public service (streets, parks, schools, poor-relief, etc.). The
figures in the auditor’s report divided by the population will give you
the items. When your table is completed illustrate it by drawing a
circle with sectors to represent the division of expenditure.
Short Studies
1. =City planning: its scope and importance.= W. B. MUNRO, _Principles
and Methods of Municipal Administration_, pp. 30-37.
2. =The city’s streets.= C. A. BEARD, _American City Government_, pp.
212-260.
3. =The organization of a city police force.= RAYMOND FOSDICK, _European
Police Systems_, pp. 99-148; E. D. GRAPEr, _American Police
Administration_, _passim_; RAYMOND FOSDICK, _American Police Systems_,
pp. 188-216.
4. =How the public can help the police.= ARTHUR WOODS, _Policeman and
Public_, pp. 162-178.
5. =What fire prevention means.= E. F. CROKER, _Fire Prevention_, pp.
1-37.
6. =The city’s work for the social welfare.= H. G. JAMES, _Municipal
Functions_, pp. 150-185.
7. =City parks and boulevards.= CHARLES ZUEBLIN, _American Municipal
Progress_, pp. 241-275.
8. =The city’s part in health protection.= HENRY BRUÈRE, _The New City
Government_, pp. 314-334.
9. =Municipal recreation.= C. A. BEARD, _American City Government_, pp.
334-355; JOHN NOLEN, _City Planning_, pp. 139-158.
10. =Raising and spending the city’s money.= W. B. MUNRO, _Principles
and Methods of Municipal Administration_, pp. 403-478.
Questions
1. Make in parallel columns a list of municipal functions which you
would classify as (_a_) political; (_b_) social; (_c_) economic or
business functions.
2. Can you give, from your own observation, any examples of the needless
expense or public inconvenience due to the failure of city departments
to co-operate properly?
3. Take any atlas which contains the street plans of the larger cities
and point out examples of the following: (_a_) gridiron or checkerboard
planning; (_b_) diagonal avenues; (_c_) radial streets; (_d_) informal
layout of streets.
4. Select some portion of your own city which seems to you to be well
planned and some section which seems to be poorly planned. Give reasons
for your selections.
5. Make a sketch plan for a residential suburb about one mile square on
level ground with a small river, two hundred feet wide, running from
east to west through it. Each building lot is to contain, on the
average, about 20,000 square feet with access to both a street and an
alley. Make provision for one double track street railway, conveniently
located. Indicate appropriate locations for a one-acre park, an
elementary school, a playground, a branch of the public library, a
police station, a fire engine station, a bridge, a bath house, and an
athletic field.
6. What is the geographical center of your community? The center of
population? The center of access, that is, the point which, by reason of
traffic facilities can be most quickly and easily reached by the largest
number of people? If a civic center were being established, where ought
it to be placed and why?
7. In the largest cities there are about 20 policemen for every 10,000
people, in smaller cities only 10 or 12. Why is this? Is the number of
arrests made by a policeman an indication of his efficiency? Scandals
are frequent in the police departments of large cities and this is
sometimes explained by saying that the police are exposed to more
temptations than any other city officials. Discuss this explanation.
8. What in your opinion are the most common causes of fires? Many
schools set apart one day in the year as _Fire Prevention Day_. Make
some suggestions concerning a suitable program for this occasion.
9. Can you think of any sources of revenue not now utilized by cities
which might be drawn upon to meet an urgent need without arousing a
great deal of opposition from the people?
10. What civic organizations in your community are helping the public
officials to solve their problems? Give an account of the purposes and
work of each.
Topics for Debate
1. A maximum limit should be imposed by the state law upon the tax rates
of cities.
2. City employees, including policemen and firemen, should (or should
not) have the right to join a labor organization.
3. All public work should be done by contract (or by the city’s own
employees).