for city planning in the United States soon became apparent. In fact it did not seem an exaggeration to say that the most important profession in connection with city planning was the law, and that the lawyer, at least for the time being, was the one most fundamentally concerned with its progress. While it is evident that city planning cannot be a one-man's concern, and that for the best accomplishment it must be the result of the united efforts of the lawyer, the engineer, the landscape designer, the architect, the economist and others, it is still true today that in most cases without the efforts of the lawyer the others would be helpless. And it will continue to be true until such time as that sound legal basis has become an accomplished fact. City planning as a science and as an art has been taught for some time at more than one American University, but generally until quite recently the legal side of the question has not been given the prominence that is essential. It was this consideration that in 1915 suggested a course of lectures on city planning law in connection with the instruction in city planning at the University of Michigan, where one of the aims was to spread a knowledge of the elements of the subject more widely rather than confine it to the students of any one depart ment. With this end in view Mr. Frank B. Williams of the New York Bar was invited to deliver a series of lectures at this institution. Mr. Williams was particularly well qualified to act as leader in this pioneering movement. As a student of city planning law his experience had been wide. He had founded and was Chairman of the City Planning Committee of the City Club of New York, he was director of the Municipal Art Society of New York, Member of the General Committee of the National Conference on City Planning, had been sent abroad by the City of New York in 1913, and again in 1914, to investigate and report on building regulation and zoning, and had drafted the New York City Planning Law of 1913. Mr. Williams accepted the invitation and was appointed non-resident Lecturer in City Planning Law in the Department of Landscape Design; the lectures were delivered in the spring of 1916. These lectures were the first attempt to present the subject of City Planning Law as an entity. Their immediate result was a much clearer understanding among the different colleges and departments of the University of the close interrelation of all the professions concerned in the development of urban and rural planning. The fact that Mr. Williams was invited to repeat his course of lectures at a number of other Universities was proof that the interest in the subject was by no means confined to this institution. In introducing his subject Mr. Williams said: "A free country is of necessity a country regulated by law. Rules, to do justice, must be not only inherently equitable but also certain, the same for all, known in advance to all who desire knowledge of them. A government conducted under known mandates is a government of law; any other administration may be benevolent but it cannot be just or free. Nor can the great nations of today be either intelligent or progressive in the conduct of their affairs unless directed in accordance with laws founded upon experience. An essential of justice and wisdom, however, is adaptation to things as they are,—a fact which introduces into the law an element of change without which progress is impossible. "In free countries like ours one of the most important facts in any public undertaking is the existing law with relation to it. No public enterprise in the United States can be accomplished or even actually begun, except by methods sanctioned by the law as it exists at the time in the jurisdiction where that enterprise is proposed. A failure to know and appreciate this fact, especially in new fields of endeavor like City Planning, is one of the commonest causes of failure of our officials and public-spirited citizens to obtain practical results. Scarcely less of an obstacle to ultimate success is the failure to appreciate the possibility of changing the existing law for the better. All too often the so-called practical man in a given city or state seems to regard the law as it is in that jurisdiction at the time as a fixed fact, and its inadequacy as an insurmountable barrier to the enterprise he wishes to undertake for the common good. To dispel this illusion, a knowledge of the law and practice with relation to similar undertakings elsewhere in sufficient accuracy of detail to ensure constructive change based upon approved modern practice, is necessary. "It is as an aid to the citizen and the administrator who sees that to planned achievement in public enterprises a comprehensive, accurate knowledge of planning law is essential, that these lectures have been prepared." The lectures form the nucleus of the present book, in which the progress of the past six years has been recorded and the subject has been brought up to date.1 Wherever City Planning is practised or studied this work should be an indispensable reference and guide both for the professional and for the layman, and as such it should be a powerful influence in the necessary widespread education in all matters pertaining to civic improvement. City Planning is a vital question; there is no human endeavor that is not intimately affected by it. Its success in the United States, more than upon any other factor, depends upon the intelligent development of public opinion. It is evidently more and more necessary to educate not only those who are directly concerned with the work, but the legislative bodies who can do so much to forward or retard its progress, and above all the American citizen who is in the end the controller of his own destinies. University of Michigan. 12th January, 1922. AUBREY TEALDI 1As evidence of this progress may be mentioned Mr. Williams's Report on Legal Methods of Carrying Out the Changes Proposed in the City Plan for Bridgeport, which accompanies Mr. John Nolen's Report of 1916, and Akron and Its Planning Law also by Mr. Williams in connection with Mr. Nolen's Report of 1919 for that city. EDITORIAL PREFACE BY RICHARD T. ELY The purpose of this editorial preface is not to praise the present work by Mr. Frank B. Williams. If, as I believe, it is pace-setting and path-breaking, it needs no words of mine to assign it its proper place. "Good wine needs no bush." My purpose is rather to explain the position that this book occupies with respect to related books also published, or to be published, under the auspices of the Institute for Research in Land Economics. As the idea of Land Economics is a new one, the very phrase itself having come into use only within a few years, I venture to give definitions of Land Economics and Land Policies, with a few words of explanation: Land Economics is that division of economics, theoretical and applied, which is concerned with land as an economic concept and with the economic relations which grow out of land as property. As science, land economics seeks the truth for its own sake. It aims to understand present facts pertaining to land ownership in all their human relationships, to explain their development in the past, and to discover present tendencies of growth. As an art, it aims to frame constructive land policies for particular places and times. A land policy takes as a starting point the existing situation with respect to the land, land as here used being equivalent to all the natural resources of the country. It examines the processes of evolution by which the existing situation has been reached and proceeds to develop a conscious program of social control with respect to the acquisition, ownership, conservation and uses of the land of the country and also with respect to the human relations arising out of use and ownership. Books have been published on many of the topics which fall within the scope of Land Economics, but they have appeared to lack close relationship with one another. This concept of Land Economics places these works in their proper relations to each other and gives them a unity which, it is believed, will be helpful scientifically and practically. It will give a still clearer idea of the field if I mention the books already published by The Macmillan Company and also others for which plans have been made, which belong to this general field. The list of those already published is as follows: Agricultural Economics-H. C. Taylor Marketing of Farm Products-Theodore Macklin The Marketing of Whole Milk-H. E. Erdman The Law of City Planning and Zoning-Frank B. Williams The list of those planned is as follows, the names of authors being omitted where definite arrangements have not as yet been completed: Economics of Forest Land-Henry S. Graves Economics of Marketing Economics of Mineral Land Irrigation Institutions-Elwood Mead Rural Sociology-G. J. Galpin Land Utilization Range and Ranch Land History of Federal Land Policies-B. H. Hibbard Land Valuation Urban Land Policies-Richard T. Ely and M. G. Glaeser Introduction to Agricultural Economics-L. C. Gray Economics of Water Resources The Ownership and Tenancy of Agricultural Land-B. H. Hibbard and G. S. Wehrwein The Marketing of Manufactured Products The Single Tax-F. B. Garver The Real Estate Business as a Profession-R. T. Ely and asso ciates Land and Credit Farm Organization. Agricultural Coöperation Farm Bookkeeping Special Assessments Land Problems of Planning Frontier Finance in the United States Land Values in the Cotton States Land Values in the Grain States |