The Harlem News

Many Communities Setting
Example for Rural Villages

BY CALEB JOHNSON

A 36-square mile rural township should have within its borders 1,000 families if it is going to have larger community life which rural conditions at their best provide.

Common sense and a little foresight applied to community planning in rural areas can make them many times as profitable and attractive to live in as they are now.

These are the twin gospels of sociologists who have devoted years to a study of the circumstances of rural life. And they can cite you example after example of what community action can do when it is in earnest about making an attractive town.

The merit of community betterment, however, is not the 36-mile square township of the average state. Rather, it is the village which can function effectively for social purposes.

General propositions with regard to this work are easily stated. Villages ought to be easily reached and their approaches direct, durable and enjoyable.

Housing conditions should be sanitary, convenient and economical.

Public buildings should be built with a view to their relationships to each other and the needs of the community both from the viewpoint of doing business and of attractiveness. Points of historic interest should be preserved and restored. Dump heaps and congested places should give way to open spaces, and recreation spots in abundance should be easily accessible.

Above all, a community plan should be adopted, a plan which the majority wants and will help to make effective, and one sufficiently flexible to allow for growth and change.

One instance of community improvement is Wamego, Kans., a "farmers town" where big summer picnics and Chautauqua courses attract hundreds of people from a large territory. Although Wamego has a splendid modern hospital financed by local contributors, its pride is the city park.

Since 1901 this little city of 1,700 persons has spent $2,500 for a 4½ acre lake, 4½ foot deep; $225 for a children's wading pool; $1,900 for an electric fountain with three basins of stone gathered from nearby hills; $1,400 for a women's rest house and about the same for one for men; $950 for a circular band stand; $400 for playground equipment; $125 for three drinking fountains; $150 for three stone dining tables; $100 for two stone ranges; $125 for mounting a granite glacial stone hauled in from nearby; and varying amounts for a dancing platform, athletic fields, camping grounds, benches and walks. The average annual maintenance cost is only $1,500 a year.

Over a period of 25 or 30 years such expenditures impose no great strain on such a community and in many indirect ways the resulting park returns direct financial benefit which will perhaps equal the expenditures.

Even more striking in some ways is Fairy Dell Highway Park in Sauk county, Wis., where only $200 of actual money was spent in opening the park and a negligible maintenance sum is contributed every year by the county.

A persistent highway patrolman who organized working bees and aroused the interest of the neighborhood resulted in creation of a beautiful natural park there. The work involved clearing of underbrush, construction of a dam, bridge pavilion, terraces, paths, and piping of a spring. It has drawn visitors from all over the United States and from foreign countries.

The Armada, Mich., community fair furnishes another instance. The plant at Armada is valued at $16,000 and draws about 10,000 persons when the fair is on, although Armada contains only 700 souls. The Armada Agricultural Society bought the grounds in 1878 and has conducted more than 50 annual fairs. Membership fees in the society are but $1.50 a year.

Few states have profited more by village planning as distinct from strictly county or rural planning than Massachusetts. Among the Bay State towns which in recent years have rearranged civic centers, town halls, libraries, parks and other community adjuncts into new patterns are Weston, Hadley, Cohasset and Stockbridge.

Stockbridge has probably had a greater influence for good on the beauty and cleanliness of other towns than any village in the country.

This town of about 1,800 population is approached through an attractive stone railroad gateway, station and park. The visitor finds a broad, leafy main avenue more than a mile long. A 13-acre fenced field contains baseball fields and tennis courts. A 10-acre wooded knoll near the center of the town has been converted into a park and playground with a natural amphitheatre where festivals are held annually. There are triangular parks at street corners and intersections.

All of these features and hundreds of others are due to the Laurel Hill Association of the town, organized in 1853 and said to have been the first town improvement society in this country. Before this committee was organized, Stockbridge was a commonplace, rather dirty and unattractive small town.

Its example can be followed by almost any rural community that wants the same things and sets out energetically to get them.