Page:Old Towns and New Needs.djvu/81

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54
THE TOWN EXTENSION PLAN

in Scheme No. 2, only 11¾d. need be paid for the large plot, which may either be given entirely to individual gardens, or part of which as shown in the diagram may be devoted to the purpose of providing common playgrounds for the children, tennis courts and bowling greens for the elders, drying grounds, and allotments, or to any other purpose for which land may be used. Now I ask you, if there were two shops and one of them offered 83 marbles for 8d. and the other offered 261 marbles for ll¾d., would not the youngest player know which is the best offer? But this is not all. In scheme No. 2, we are paying for the land the same price as in scheme No. 1; but, for every year the town continues to grow, we shall want more than double the area of land if we work on scheme No. 2. Let us see how this will affect the increment. I find that in Manchester during the last 10 years on an average 17,000 people have been added to the population in each year. If we allow 5 people to the house, it follows that 3,400 houses have to be built every year; and if we take 34 houses to the acre, the number in Scheme No. 1, we find that every year to satisfy the requirements for new houses only, 100 acres of land must be developed and built upon. This I think you will agree, means practically that 100 acres of land must be transferred from agricultural value to building value. If we take £50 an acre for the sake of argument as the agricultural value of the land outside the town, and £500 as the value for building purposes within the building zone, as in the figures I have given you above, you will see that the owners of land around Manchester may, under present circumstances, expect a total increment of value from the building of houses equivalent to:—