isited by help of the other.

But these two volumes--"The City: Past and Present,"--are not enough. Is
not a third volume imaginable and possible, that of the opening Civic
Future? Having taken full note of places as they were and are, of things
as they have come about, and of people as they are--of their
occupations, families, and institutions, their ideas and ideals--may we
not to some extent discern, then patiently plan out, at length boldly
suggest, something of [Page: 117] their actual or potential development?
And may not, must not, such discernment, such planning, while primarily,
of course, for the immediate future, also take account of the remoter
and higher issues which a city's indefinitely long life and
correspondingly needed foresight and statesmanship involve? Such a
volume would thus differ widely from the traditional and contemporary
"literature of Utopias" in being regional instead of non-regional,
indeed ir-regional and so realisable, instead of being unrealisable and
unattainable altogether. The theme of such a volume would thus be to
indicate the practicable alternatives, and to select and to define from
these the lines of development of the legitimate _Eu-topia_ possible in
the given city, and characteristic of it; obviously, therefore, a very
different thing from a vague _Ou-topia_, concretely realisable nowhere.
Such abstract counsels of perfection as the descriptions of the ideal
city, from Augustine through More or Campanella and Bacon to Morris,
have been consolatory to many, to others inspiring. Still, a Utopia is
one thing, a plan for our city improvement is another.

Some concrete, if still fragmentary, materials towards such a volume
are, of course, to be found in all municipal offices, though scattered
between the offices of the city engineer and health officer, the
architect and park superintendent; while the private architect and
landscape gardener, the artist, sometimes even the municipal voters and
their representatives, may all have ideas of their own. But though our
cities are still as a whole planless, their growth as yet little better
than a mere casual accretion and agglomeration, if not a spreading
blight, American and German cities are now increasingly affording
examples of comprehensive design of extension and of internal
improvement. As a specific example of such an attempt towards the
improvement of a British city, one not indeed comprehending all aspects
of its life, but de