There are two main divisions of City Planning. One looks to the rearrangement and improvement of what has already been unwisely done through lack of proper planning or through force of adverse circumstances of any sort. The other looks to the wise and economical layout of what still remains to be done, especially at the outskirts of the city where the major part of the city's growth is bound to occur, and where the city plan is daily taking shape out of nothing, whether it is intelligently designed or not.

Prevention is cheaper than cure, and a moderate expenditure of effort and money will accomplish far greater results in the long run if applied to the wise control of the growing suburban districts, where new streets are constantly coming into existence, than if applied to costly remodeling of the older parts of the city; but the latter is sometimes of the utmost importance, and is of direct interest to a much larger number of citizens than the prosaic work of controlling scattered suburban development. In accordance with the instructions of the Commission this report deals primarily with certain problems of remodeling in the down town district, and with the improvement of the main thoroughfares between this, the heart of the city, and the more important outlying districts.

To carry out at once all the recommendations of this report would, even if it were possible, impose an altogether unreasonable financial burden upon the City and the contiguous boroughs. Such procedure is unnecessary and indeed impossible. But in many cases there is a crying need for the improvement already, or it is of such a nature that any delay is apt to involve a considerable increase in the cost and the difficulty of carrying it out.

The most urgent general improvement of this sort is the establishment of new building lines on all main thoroughfares which it is proposed to widen; this in order to anticipate, as far as possible, the construction of new and costly buildings on the present street lines.

Of the specific recommendations made in this report it seems advisable to give the earliest attention to the following:

In the following cases the actual improvements are not so urgent, but the new street locations should be established before expensive developments, which are apt to occur at any time, shall interpose serious new difficulties in the way of the proposed improvements:

For other specific thoroughfare improvements recommended in this report there appear to be no very urgent demands at present. Generally speaking they should be carried out only as some special opportunity offers, or in anticipation of some obstructing development which cannot now be foreseen, or as a growing traffic shall demand.

But a thing of greater consequence than any one of these specific improvements, a thing of vital import to every taxpaying citizen of the present and future City, is the making of comprehensive and accurate topographical maps. It is only on the basis of such maps that all municipal engineering, and indeed much other work, directly managed by the City, can be planned and carried out with proper economy and efficiency. It is only on the basis of such maps that improvements in the city—details of city replanning—can be most economically determined. And in the outlying districts, where the future city is being built, such maps are absolutely essential to an intelligent planning or control which will avoid the heavy penalties that follow haphazard city growth, especially in such a hilly region.