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Figure 26.—Typical diagrams illustrating the manner of growth of the occupied ares of cities. The main highways that appear in the series of diagrams for each city have been unchanged in location throughout the whole period covered. In all periods the influence of the highways upon the growth of occupied area is clearly depicted by the greater outward extension of the city in areas adjacent to these roads.

Between the outstretching fingers of development along the main highways, pronounced wedges of relatively undeveloped land appear in the maps for each of the recent periods. Attention will be called to these wedges of undeveloped land again later in this report.

The immediate inference from theese maps is that the creation of such ample and efficacious traffic facilities as the improvement of the interregional routes would supply, will exert a powerful force tending to shape the future development of the city.

It is highly important that this force be so applied as to promote a desirable urban development. If designed to do this, the new facilities will speed such a development and grow in usefulness with the passage of time. Unwise location of the interregional routes might not be sufficiently powerful to prevent a logical future city development, but would be powerful enough to retard or unreasonably distort such development. The interregional highways must be designed for long life. An unwise location would diminish their usefulness as time passes.