146 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
the tendency of most well intentioned efforts for municipal improvement is to expropriate the river districts for the benefit of the lake region. One of these forms of expropriation is the unique park and boulevard system of Chicago, admirable in con- ception, but imperfect in realization. A complete chain of parks and boulevards encircling the city, it was thought originally, would satisfy every need of the growing population. This sup- position was based on the following assumptions : the streets connecting with the boulevards will be available for private vehicles ; the street railway systems will be adequate ; every man, woman, and child possesses ten cents. None of these assumptions being true, the park system is in so far imperfect. The inevitable misfortune was that no city large enough to need and support such a system of encircling boulevards and parks could afford to dispense with a central boulevard system and numerous small parks. Even if the streets were all good and the transportation arrangements adequate, a city of a million and a half of inhabitants, under present conditions, always contains a large mass of overworked, underpaid, and densely crowded peo- ple. This class can rarely, if ever, visit the distant parks. Another very large class can go but seldom, and needs, for hygienic reasons, space for recreation within easy access of their homes. These classes in Chicago are found chiefly in the river districts. If one traces the two branches of the river on the map, from the northwest and southwest to the point at which the river enters the lake, it will be seen that they pass through a parkless region.
Between six and seven hundred thousand people live more than a mile from any large park. The most serious aspect of this is that those wards which are so deficient in park space are also those in which the houses are most crowded. The way in which one part of the city is favored at the expense of another may be best indicated by observing that the eleven wards which contain the bulk of the park and boulevard system include 1,814 acres of park space, the population being about 425,000; this means 234 people to each acre of park space. The remain- ing twenty-three wards of the city, with a population of over a
