But In
America, And Especially In Western America, There Has Been No Such
Necessity And There Is No Such Result.
The founders of cities have
had the experience of the world before them.
They have known of
sanitary laws as they began. That sewerage, and water, and gas,
and good air would be needed for a thriving community has been to
them as much a matter of fact as are the well-understood
combinations between timber and nails, and bricks and mortar. They
have known that water carriage is almost a necessity for commercial
success, and have chosen their sites accordingly. Broad streets
cost as little, while land by the foot is not as yet of value to be
regarded, as those which are narrow; and therefore the sites of
towns have been prepared with noble avenues and imposing streets.
A city at its commencement is laid out with an intention that it
shall be populous. The houses are not all built at once, but there
are the places allocated for them. The streets are not made, but
there are the spaces. Many an abortive attempt at municipal
greatness has so been made and then all but abandoned. There are
wretched villages, with huge, straggling parallel ways, which will
never grow into towns. They are the failures - failures in which
the pioneers of civilization, frontier men as they call themselves,
have lost their tens of thousands of dollars. But when the success
comes, when the happy hit has been made, and the ways of commerce
have been truly foreseen with a cunning eye, then a great and
prosperous city springs up, ready made as it were, from the earth.
Such a town is Milwaukee, now containing 45,000 inhabitants, but
with room apparently for double that number; with room for four
times that number, were men packed as closely there as they are
with us.
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