Page:Garden Cities.djvu/27

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18
GARDEN CITIES

upon labour imported by himself, but having a working population to draw upon. The limitation of the size of the town and the application of the increment for the benefit of the inhabitants forms, too, a security against high rates and excessive rents. The process of distribution once started increased population will be provided for by groups of towns not by increasing the density of population.

The first Garden City, Limited, has, as most of my hearers will know, been established with the object of putting these ideas into concrete shape. For this purpose we have acquired an estate of nearly 4,000 acres in extent situate between Hitchen and Baldock on the Great Northern Railway, a site admirably adapted for the purpose of a Garden City. It is about 35 miles from London and close to the Great North Road. Here we are busily engaged in developing the land. The site of the town itself will not exceed 1,000 acres, which should ultimately accommodate in comfort a population of 30,000 people. The remainder, some 3,000 acres surrounding the town, will be permanently retained as agricultural land. Applications for sites have been most satisfactory and our difficulty has been to make development keep pace with the demand, for as may be imagined the undertaking is large and difficult.

We offer the land under leases in two different forms. The first, a lease perpetually renewable, but with a rent subject to periodical revision upon a valuation of the site at its value for the time being, without taking into account the buildings upon it. The other a ninety-nine years lease in the usual form. Both forms of lease, of course, contain covenants restricting the use of the land in conformity with the objects in view. It is obvious that under the ordinary form of lease the increment obtained for the benefit of the inhabitants is confined to that which has