Page:Garden Cities of To-morrow (1902).djvu/49

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THE REVENUE OF GARDEN CITY.
39

money as "sinking-fund," or applied as "rates" to the construction and maintenance of roads, schools, waterworks, and to other municipal purposes. It will be interesting, therefore, to see what sort of a burden "landlord's rent" will represent per head, and what the community would secure by such contribution. Now, if the sum of £1,600, being the annual interest or "landlord's rent," be divided by 30,000 (the supposed population of the town), it will be found to equal an annual contribution by each man, woman, and child of rather less than 1s. 1d. per head. This is all the "landlord's rent" which will ever be levied, any additional sum collected as "rate-rent" being applied to sinking-fund or to local purposes.

And now let us notice what this fortunately-placed community obtains for this insignificant sum. It obtains for 1s. 1d. per head per annum, first, ample sites for homes, these averaging, as we have seen, 20 feet by 130 feet, and accommodating, on an average, 5½ persons to each lot. It obtains ample space for roads, some of which are of truly magnificent proportions, so wide and spacious that sunlight and air may freely circulate, and in which trees, shrubs, and grass give to the town a semi-rural appearance. It also obtains ample sites for town-hall, public library, museum and picture-gallery, theatre, concert-hall, hospital, schools, churches, swimming baths, public markets, etc. It also secures a central park of 145 acres, and a magnificent avenue 420 feet wide, extending in a circle of over three miles, unbroken save by spacious boulevards and by schools and churches, which, one may be sure, will not be the less beautiful because so little money has been expended on their sites.