Text 13. The Practice of Town Planning

Before attempting to describe the processes of modern Planning in practice it is necessary to inquire with some precision what are its main objects and in what direction it is leading.

The main objects of modern Planning are: Beauty, Health and Convenience. There can be little doubt that beauty should stand first as it is the quality which must run through the whole in order to lift sanitation and engineering to the level of civic design and the dignity of city life. It is of course quite understandable that for strategic reasons the word beauty was hidden under the forbidding chill of «amenity» and placed second in order. If town planning is to be complete and to avoid lopsidedness a just equipoise must be attained between these three.

Nor will beauty without health do. In many of the old towns and villages which we most heartily admire picturesque beauty is to be found, but at the expense of health. There is a gloomy grandeur about the grime of Manchester or the pall of smoke over lower Sheffield, which is comparable to the eruption of a volcano or the burst of a thunderclap, and is thoroughly typical of the strength of these cities. But though smoke may produce wonderful sunsets, we can safely say that beauty which is the cause of a higher death-rate is wrong and must be blown away by the planner at the cost of artistic obloquy or commercial grumbling.

Some of the nineteenth-century Continental Town planning was too much concerned with boulevards and public places and too little with the living conditions behind the fine facades. Conditions as to air space and light were below the English level; and yet the dreariness of our externals has produced more drab urban conditions, and even tended to affect the interior of the houses. One of the chief advantages of the lower density in modern suburban planning has been the possibility of introducing beauty, which here stands for the preservation of trees and greenery, an improved type of domestic architecture, the avoiding of monotony and the planning of the whole site to group houses together, so that besides being indi­vidually pleasing they may make attractive compositions. This aspect of beauty is so modest and so comparatively easy to be got that it should not terrify the most hardened philistine.

Beauty and health stand condemned if they prevent commercial Convenience; and it will be realized that convenience is the most clearly demonstrable of town planning advantages.

Town planning, in a word, intends to make the city in every way a more convenient place to work in, aiming at designing and remodelling its business quarters, manu­facturing districts, railway facilities and water front.

Supplement II ситуативні матеріали із академічного та професійного середовища студентів

1. My Native Town

1. Study the following words and phrases:

to be located	розташовуватись
a tributary	притока
to mention	згадувати
manuscript	рукопис
anniversary	річниця
to destroy	руйнувати
amber	бурштин
building and facing stone	будівельний та лицювальний камінь
chalk	крейда
peat	торф
fieldspar	польовий шпат
tuf	туф
ancient	стародавній
former	колишній
to house	розміщувати
to be associated with	пов'язаний з
unfading pages	невмирущі сторінки
victim	жертва
to tower	височіти
to be immortalized	бути увічненим
to bear	носити
headquarter	загін
to wage	вести
regiment	полк
to unveil	урочисто відкривати
suburbs	передмістя
rebellion army	повстанська армія
plaque	меморіальна дощечка
bonded fabric	неткані матеріали
factory for high voltage equipment	завод високовольтного обладнання
mineral fertilizers works	завод з виробництва міндобрив
spare parts for tractors works	завод тракторних запчастин
high precision instruments	інструменти високої точності
furniture	меблі
foodstuff	продукти харчування
consumer goods	товари широкого вжитку
varied	різноманітний
puppet-show	ляльковий театр
movie-theatre	кінотеатр
fine arts school	художня школа
wide network of children's day care centres	широка мережа дошкільних установ
health facilities	лікувальні заклади
drug store	аптека
swimming pool	плавальний басейн
steadily	постійно
rapidly	швидко
expand	розширяти
to welcome	радо приймати