TOWN PLANNING

Another arrangement that has been adopted in a good many towns is the town planning board.  This is a committee which, after careful study of existing conditions and tendencies of community growth, formulates a definite plan for the promotion of the community’s interests during a period of years.  It considers such matters as the laying out of new roads and streets and the improvement of old ones, the location of parks, playgrounds, and public buildings, the construction of sewers, water works, and lighting systems, the style of architecture for public buildings, the enactment of housing laws.  While town planning boards usually deal primarily with matters pertaining to the physical development of the town, they may also plan with reference to the improvement of the educational system, the promotion of public health, and of social needs generally.

The town planning board is usually composed of trained men, such as engineers, architects, and physicians, and it may call in expert advisers from other communities or from the state government.  The advantage of having such a board is that it provides the town with a program of action carefully worked out from the point of view both of continuous community needs and of economy.  It affords expert leadership.

NEED FOR CITIZEN COOPERATION

As has been said many times in these pages, government is the community’s official organization to secure cooperation; but it is effective only to the extent that the people cooperate.  It is a machine that is valuable as the people use it.  The weakening of town, government, or of any other government, is due largely to a lack of interest and of actual participation by the people.  Many people think they have done their share toward good government when they have helped elect their officers and have paid their taxes.  But when they take this view they are likely to lose both interest in their government and control over it.

VOLUNTARY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION

In many New England towns the decline in popular control of town government has been largely counterbalanced by community organization for voluntary cooperation.  Much community service is, and probably always will be, performed by private enterprise and initiative rather than by government; and the efficiency of government depends to a considerable extent upon the efficiency of voluntary enterprise.  Government must have the cooperation of the latter, and to some extent work through it.  In practically every community there are groups of people organized to cooperate for one purpose or another; but they are often self-centered and act independently of one another, if not actually at cross purposes.  The situation that exists in many communities is illustrated by the chart on page 402. [Footnote:  This chart and the one on page 403 are taken from Extension Bulletin No. 23, Massachusetts Agricultural College, by E.L.  Morgan.]