width and area adjoining by setting Ms building back and adding his property to the street.
Mr. Hood believes that the plan would bring about hundreds of fifty-storey buildings and corresponding open street spaces throughout the city. There would be plenty of air, light and sunshine for all, including workers on the streets and those in the buildings. To use Mr. Hood’s own words: “The city would throw off its outworn street plan. There would be no cumbersome overhead or underground streets, darkened alleys, foul air or congested traffic lanes. Eventually, there would be no streets. The city would be a park dotted with buildings, in which traffic could go straight in any direction. There would be no buildings jammed one alongside the other. The loss of ground space, to the owner, caused by this increase in street area would be made up in the increased volume and height of his building. By adding ten or so storeys to his building, a man has the same amount of floor space which he had before he cut down on the base of. the structure. And he has provided for more room, air and sunshine for everybody.
“The essence of the problem lies in the proportion of floor space in the city to the public circulation space — i. e., the streets — or as the floor space in a building is a function of its volume in establishing a proper relation between the volume of the buildings and the area of the streets. A relation can be found such that the streets will accommodate whatever traffic the abutting buildings create. My plan is this: Limit the volume of a building in proportion to its frontage on a street; for each foot that the property owner sets his building back from the street, thus increasing the street area, he can increase its volume correspondingly, making the building as tall as he wishes. It will provide for an increased income resulting from additional floor space.
‘‘Suppose, for example, that a municipal regulation were made establishing the volume and consequently floor area at 500 square feet to each foot of frontage, a basis such that if all buildings in the city were developed accordingly the existing streets would be sufficient to handle resulting traffic. Such a law would be no more of an abridgment of property rights than the present zoning laws, height regulations or rear yard and court requirements. In this new plan, provided he sets his building far enough back from the street, the property owner could build almost double the volume and produce double the rental returns. We have now made it to the interest of the property owner to widen the street at no cost to the city. It is to his advantage to give the city part of his own land to prevent the congestion of which his own building is the chief cause.
‘‘Evidently such a law could not be made to apply
to a site with a small property frontage, as the setting back of the building on a fifty or one-hundred-foot front would merely develop a valueless pocket off the street. The law could be framed, however, so that it would apply to a minimum frontage of three hundred feet in the middle of a block or to two hundred feet at the end of a block. It would favour real estate operations on a large scale; and this has been the trend of all municipal buildings and zoning laws. Study the accompanying drawings. Whole blocks would soon develop of their own accord, where two or three towers would provide more floor space than there is in the average block of to-day, and there would be ten times as much street area round about to take care of the traffic.
‘‘The point I wish to make clear is that this change would be worked progressively. Every operation as it occurred would immediately improve the abutting street conditions, and as the operations linked up with one another the traffic problem would gradually
arrive at a complete solution. Critics will say that no law is possible that contemplates taking private land from its owners on such a scale. They must remember, however, that every such operation would be voluntary and that property owners would be compensated for their land by the privilege of developing larger buildings and getting more rent returns. And none of it does violence to the accepted principles of to-day. As the laws stand, zoning and tenement, they have effectively prevented the whole occupation of a man’s private property. From 50 to 70 per cent., mostly on the rear of the plot, is required to be left free for light, air and general health. What I pro
pose is a legislation similar to the backyard legislation, but on the street side of the plot.
“There remains but one point to consider — the relative value of a city composed of skyscrapers as compared with one of low buildings. A room thirty or forty storeys above the ground is a far better room in which to live, work and have your being than a room down on the third or fourth storey, low in the dust, noise, insect life, dampness, reflection of heat, coal gases, stagnant air and everything unpleasant that hovers like a pall over the city.
‘‘In such a ‘Tower City’ traffic lines might be on
the diagonal and almost straight. Traffic would be correspondingly quickened and shortened in distance.
“Such a development would progress not by the condemnation and purchase of private property by the city nor by the expensive and legally cumbersome tricks of building overhead sidewalks, cross street bridges and underground traffic-ways, but by making it to the interest of property owners to help in the development themselves. All other schemes I have heard of require an immense outlay by the city and must be put in operation over a large section of the city before they become of value and reduce by one iota the existing congestion.
“This scheme would prove its worth with the first
operation, and the natural interests of property owners would lead to an astounding change in the layout of the entire city in a very few years. It would produce, in part if not in whole, a city where the old street plan had disappeared and the modern city with sunlight, air and free circulation would take its place, and the new plan would have in it the elements for its own development in the future. ’’
There can be no two minds as regards the stimulating interest of Mr. Hood’s proposals, and there seems more than a likelihood of something along the lines which he suggests arising as a solution to our cityplanning problems. The difficulties met with in controlling wheeled traffic are bad enough, but the aeroplane as a public and private conveyance is only in the offing. Mr. Hood’s Tower City will permit of avenues of approach for landings, of great free areas for parking; it will allow for autodromes, speedways and pedestrian ways, and for large recreational spaces for city workers. And there will be space for lower buildings of municipal or recreational character, museums, libraries, baths.
The proposals made at present for relief of our traffic problems, such as double-decker streets, ramps and sunken crossings, tiers of sidewalks, etc., have an unconvincing air. They are not architecturally fine solutions, and it is a fact that all really good solutions of planning or organisation have an architectonic basis; they are lay-outs which will bear a close scrutiny and withstand a thoroughly architectural criticism. Mr. Hood’s city would stand that test, a fact which places his suggestions a step ahead of most proposals hitherto made for a solution of the townplanning tangle which so many have set out to unravel.
Mr. Hood believes that the plan would bring about hundreds of fifty-storey buildings and corresponding open street spaces throughout the city. There would be plenty of air, light and sunshine for all, including workers on the streets and those in the buildings. To use Mr. Hood’s own words: “The city would throw off its outworn street plan. There would be no cumbersome overhead or underground streets, darkened alleys, foul air or congested traffic lanes. Eventually, there would be no streets. The city would be a park dotted with buildings, in which traffic could go straight in any direction. There would be no buildings jammed one alongside the other. The loss of ground space, to the owner, caused by this increase in street area would be made up in the increased volume and height of his building. By adding ten or so storeys to his building, a man has the same amount of floor space which he had before he cut down on the base of. the structure. And he has provided for more room, air and sunshine for everybody.
“The essence of the problem lies in the proportion of floor space in the city to the public circulation space — i. e., the streets — or as the floor space in a building is a function of its volume in establishing a proper relation between the volume of the buildings and the area of the streets. A relation can be found such that the streets will accommodate whatever traffic the abutting buildings create. My plan is this: Limit the volume of a building in proportion to its frontage on a street; for each foot that the property owner sets his building back from the street, thus increasing the street area, he can increase its volume correspondingly, making the building as tall as he wishes. It will provide for an increased income resulting from additional floor space.
‘‘Suppose, for example, that a municipal regulation were made establishing the volume and consequently floor area at 500 square feet to each foot of frontage, a basis such that if all buildings in the city were developed accordingly the existing streets would be sufficient to handle resulting traffic. Such a law would be no more of an abridgment of property rights than the present zoning laws, height regulations or rear yard and court requirements. In this new plan, provided he sets his building far enough back from the street, the property owner could build almost double the volume and produce double the rental returns. We have now made it to the interest of the property owner to widen the street at no cost to the city. It is to his advantage to give the city part of his own land to prevent the congestion of which his own building is the chief cause.
‘‘Evidently such a law could not be made to apply
to a site with a small property frontage, as the setting back of the building on a fifty or one-hundred-foot front would merely develop a valueless pocket off the street. The law could be framed, however, so that it would apply to a minimum frontage of three hundred feet in the middle of a block or to two hundred feet at the end of a block. It would favour real estate operations on a large scale; and this has been the trend of all municipal buildings and zoning laws. Study the accompanying drawings. Whole blocks would soon develop of their own accord, where two or three towers would provide more floor space than there is in the average block of to-day, and there would be ten times as much street area round about to take care of the traffic.
‘‘The point I wish to make clear is that this change would be worked progressively. Every operation as it occurred would immediately improve the abutting street conditions, and as the operations linked up with one another the traffic problem would gradually
arrive at a complete solution. Critics will say that no law is possible that contemplates taking private land from its owners on such a scale. They must remember, however, that every such operation would be voluntary and that property owners would be compensated for their land by the privilege of developing larger buildings and getting more rent returns. And none of it does violence to the accepted principles of to-day. As the laws stand, zoning and tenement, they have effectively prevented the whole occupation of a man’s private property. From 50 to 70 per cent., mostly on the rear of the plot, is required to be left free for light, air and general health. What I pro
pose is a legislation similar to the backyard legislation, but on the street side of the plot.
“There remains but one point to consider — the relative value of a city composed of skyscrapers as compared with one of low buildings. A room thirty or forty storeys above the ground is a far better room in which to live, work and have your being than a room down on the third or fourth storey, low in the dust, noise, insect life, dampness, reflection of heat, coal gases, stagnant air and everything unpleasant that hovers like a pall over the city.
‘‘In such a ‘Tower City’ traffic lines might be on
the diagonal and almost straight. Traffic would be correspondingly quickened and shortened in distance.
“Such a development would progress not by the condemnation and purchase of private property by the city nor by the expensive and legally cumbersome tricks of building overhead sidewalks, cross street bridges and underground traffic-ways, but by making it to the interest of property owners to help in the development themselves. All other schemes I have heard of require an immense outlay by the city and must be put in operation over a large section of the city before they become of value and reduce by one iota the existing congestion.
“This scheme would prove its worth with the first
operation, and the natural interests of property owners would lead to an astounding change in the layout of the entire city in a very few years. It would produce, in part if not in whole, a city where the old street plan had disappeared and the modern city with sunlight, air and free circulation would take its place, and the new plan would have in it the elements for its own development in the future. ’’
There can be no two minds as regards the stimulating interest of Mr. Hood’s proposals, and there seems more than a likelihood of something along the lines which he suggests arising as a solution to our cityplanning problems. The difficulties met with in controlling wheeled traffic are bad enough, but the aeroplane as a public and private conveyance is only in the offing. Mr. Hood’s Tower City will permit of avenues of approach for landings, of great free areas for parking; it will allow for autodromes, speedways and pedestrian ways, and for large recreational spaces for city workers. And there will be space for lower buildings of municipal or recreational character, museums, libraries, baths.
The proposals made at present for relief of our traffic problems, such as double-decker streets, ramps and sunken crossings, tiers of sidewalks, etc., have an unconvincing air. They are not architecturally fine solutions, and it is a fact that all really good solutions of planning or organisation have an architectonic basis; they are lay-outs which will bear a close scrutiny and withstand a thoroughly architectural criticism. Mr. Hood’s city would stand that test, a fact which places his suggestions a step ahead of most proposals hitherto made for a solution of the townplanning tangle which so many have set out to unravel.