Central City

“ The tall office buildings in the lower end of town look down upon river sights and shipping with a broad expanse of blue water and green shores which a man would cross the ocean to see on the other side. The Hudson beautifies the West Side. Central Park is in my eyes the most beautiful park I ever saw. With its rocks and rolling greens, its trees and wild flowers, it forms a spot of loveliness that makes in the midst of the hot, rushing, busy city a dream of soothing repose. ”

“ You are trying to sleep in the heart of Central New York, in the midst of all the thunder and the rush and the roar of her million-crowded streets, along which surges as a restless tide the turbid and foaming flood of city life. ”

“ Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction! But in Brooklyn the ways are narrow, and they lead to the Heavenly City of content. Central Park: there you are—the centre of things, hemmed in by walls of pride. ”

“ Eastward and northward was the city of manual toil, with the rumbling and the smoke of its factories. Southward, beyond the river, was the city of study, of intellectual labour, so calm, so perfectly serene. And on all sides the passion of trade ascended from the central districts, where the crowds rolled and scrambled amidst an everlasting uproar of wheels; while westward, the city of the happy and powerful ones, those who fought for sovereignty and wealth, spread out its piles of palaces amidst the slowly reddening flare of the declining planet. ”

“ It is impossible to stand amid the whirl and uproar of New York to-day, and imagine men ploughing, and sowing grain, and carting hay into barns, where the City Hall now stands. The conception of nearly all the city lying below the Park, above it farms to Canal Street, beyond that clearings where men are burning brush and logs to clear away the fallow, and still farther on, towards Central Park, an unbroken wilderness, is so dim and shadowy, that we can hardly fix its outlines. ”

“ And this principle of growth—this principle of always preserving a belt of country round our cities would be ever kept in mind till, in course of time, we should have a cluster of cities, not of course arranged in the precise geometrical form of my diagram, but so grouped around a Central City that each inhabitant of the whole group, though in one sense living in a town of small size, would be in reality living in, and would enjoy all the advantages of, a great and most beautiful city ”

“ To me the lesson of Central Park is that where it is used in the spirit of fraternity and equality, the pleasure in it is pure and fine, and that its frequenters have for the moment a hint of the beauty which might be [Pg 244] perpetually in their lives; but where it is invaded by the motives of the strife that raves all round it in the city outside, its joys are fouled with contempt and envy, the worst passions that tear the human heart. ”

“ As the city increases, the stores keep moving northward, taking possession of the houses, and driving the residents farther back. The land is not yet built over up to Central Park, said to be called so because it will be the future centre of the city that is to be. ”

“ It needs some reflection to appreciate the great fact called New York; some previous acquaintance to recognise the prodigious increase, within the last ten or fifteen years, in all that makes a great city. The Fifth Avenue has extended its well-ordered rows of stately mansions and handsome houses almost to the gates of the favourite recreation ground of fast trotters and well-appointed carriages. The Central Park is now a beautiful resort, of which any metropolis might be proud. ”

“ So the beautiful mystery of Central Park was not sent to a medical college nor to the Potter’s Field. The next morning Penelope accompanied Richard in his coupé, and Mrs. Louise Van Brunt, her aunt, who had in her carriage two charitable old lady friends, followed the sombre hearse in its slow journey across the bridge to Brooklyn. In a quiet graveyard on the outskirts of the city the dead girl was lowered into the earth. ”

“ The suburbs, in every direction, abound with pleasing walks, some leading to the hills of Carmen and Calvary, where chapels, called hermitages, are erected; and others, to the different Indian villages by which the city is surrounded. The adjoining country, for two or three leagues, affords numerous beautiful rides, and probably a greater variety of magnificent scenery may be found here, within the circumference of a few miles, than in the neighbourhood of any other city in either hemisphere. ”

“ As the city grew, these people followed the avenue north until at the present time the finest homes in the city are located in the neighborhood of Central Park in the upper reaches of the street. Between Fourteenth Street and Washington Square there are now a number of business houses, two fine old churches, and a portion of the city that still retains the residential quality of dignity and worth. ”

“ My residence therein in the winter season has fully confirmed my impressions in its favor. The house is replete with all that can constitute a pleasant home, and the location is so near to Central Park that we spend hours of every fine day in that great pleasure-ground. While I am in town, it is scarcely more than once or twice a week that I take pains to ascertain by personal observation that I am living on the edge of a toiling, excited city of a million inhabitants. ”

“ The GROWTH OF THE CITY
52Besides extension and succession, the general process of expansion in urban growth involves the antagonistic and yet complementary processes of concentration and decentralization. In all cities there is the natural tendency for local and outside transportation to converge in the central business district. In the downtown section of every large city we expect to find the department stores, the skyscraper office buildings, the railroad stations, the great hotels, the theaters, the art museum, and the city hall. ”

“ Growth in cities consists of movement away from the point of origin in all directions, except as topographically hindered, this movement being due both to aggregation at the edges and pressure from the centre. Central growth takes place both from the heart of the city and from each subcentre of attraction, and axial growth pushes into the outlying territory by means of rail-roads, turnpikes and street railroads. ”

“ The old residential section of the city clustered closely about the central business section, which has grown little in size in the last 50 years. But, since 1900, the more well-to-do families that formerly lived in this older section have moved in large numbers to outlying suburban areas, some of which have been included within revised limits of the growing city. ”

“ We may consider the city as pretty solidly built up as far north as Fifty-ninth street, the border of Central Park. The census of next year will probably show the population to number between thirteen and fourteen hundred thousand souls; and the rate of increase is estimated to be between six and seven per cent per annum. Thus the population of the island in 1880 will number far above two millions, and the city be extended as far northward as Ninetieth street. ”

“ Studies of urban growth reveal that the city grows outward from its central business district (1) in a series of expanding zones. [73] There is a “zone of transition” (2) encircling the downtown area. This is the area of deterioration, the so-called “slum”, created in large part by the invasion of business and light manufacture. A third area (3) is inhabited by workers in industry who have escaped from the area of deterioration (2) and who desire to live within easy access of their work. ”

“ In the slow swirl of Columbus Circle, at the southwest corner of Central Park, two seedy, sinister individuals could hold an exceedingly private conversation without drawing attention to themselves. There were others like us on the scene, in that month of June, 1913, cast up from the obscurest depths of New York. ”

“ Part 3 Turning to the main central growth of cities, a successful business at or near the city centre which requires more space can secure it either by acquiring adjoining ground, by building higher in the air, or by moving away from the centre. To build higher in the air solves the problem in a banking and office district, but not in a retail shopping district, where ground floor frontage on traffic streets is required. ”

“ With the accumulation of population and utilities the community takes form, first along one side of the highway and later on both sides. The point of junction or crossing of two main highways, as a rule, serves as the initial center of the community.
As the community grows there is not merely a multiplication of houses and roads but a process of differentiation and segregation takes place as well. Residences and institutions spread out in centrifugal fashion from the central point of the community, while 74business concentrates more and more around the spot of highest land values. ”

“ To summarize the effect of public buildings, if located at or near the old business centre, they tend to maintain central strength in their first location, as in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. This is the normal case. The first exceptions would be where public buildings are located at a moderate distance from the centre where the tendency is to draw business in their direction, and the second where they have been so misplaced as to fail to have any influence. ”

“ The first and simplest form of central growth is that of aggregation or adding of buildings one after another along the streets leading from the centre of the city. The first dwellings in a village are located near the business buildings, so that the merchants can walk to and from their business, and so great is the power of inertia that even in the smallest villages the few stores find it advantageous to be close together. Broad street canal of New York in 1650. Location of early mercantile houses and the first exchange. ”

“ The normal result of axial and central growth is a star-shaped city, growth extending first along the main thoroughfares radiating from the centre, and later filling in the parts lying between. The modifications of the shape of cities come chiefly from topography, the lesser influences being an uneven development of some one factor of growth or individual ownership of land. Portland, Ore. Showing first growth along river bank. ”

“ Only recently have 167historians devoted themselves to describing the new modes of life to which the city gave rise, and the interrelations between city and country. The city has been regarded chiefly as a political unit. The name “city” was given to a settlement because it had achieved a certain degree of political autonomy from the central government, or as an honorary title conferred for service rendered to a superior political entity, or, finally, as a result of incorporation or legal enactment.
Bücher, Karl. ”

“ Complicating this broad outward movement of zones, axes of traffic project shops through residence areas, create business subcen-tres, where they intersect, and change circular cities into star-shaped cities. Central growth, due to proximity, and axial growth, due to accessibility, are summed up in the static power of established sections and the dynamic power of their chief lines of intercommunication. ”

“ Economy Djibouti Economy - overview: The economy is based on service activities connected with the country's strategic location and status as a free trade zone in northeast Africa. Two-thirds of the inhabitants live in the capital city, the remainder being mostly nomadic herders. Scanty rainfall limits crop production to fruits and vegetables, and most food must be imported. Djibouti provides services as both a transit port for the region and an international transshipment and refueling center. It has few natural resources and little industry. ”

“ All these boroughs where you were born, and hope to lay your bones, shall be reinstated in their ancient magnificence,—Hammersmith, Kensington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, Clapham, Balham, and a hundred others. Each shall immediately build a city wall with gates to be closed at sunset. Each shall have a city guard, armed to the teeth. Each shall have a banner, a coat-of-arms, and, if convenient, a gathering cry. ”

“ Day, who gives us a very full and exhaustive account of all the social surroundings of the ‘Empire City,’ with its huge Babel-like hotels, its swarm of restaurants and eating-houses, necessary to a people who live out of their own homes, and its varied modes of locomotion, likens this huge hive to ‘a combination of London, Berlin, and Paris.’ The city is laid out in parallelograms, and the streets are numerically named. The practice—widely prevalent—of hanging out clothes to dry on the house-tops must be sadly detrimental to the appearance of respectable neighbourhoods. ”

“ As seen from the Hoogly when one first lands, it has a strong array of fine public buildings; but a passage of a few rods, diverging from the main thoroughfare, brings the visitor upon the dirty streets, the mean and narrow houses, and general filth of the native population. The city is strongly individualized, and it may be remarked that of all the capitals thus far visited no two are alike, or strongly resemble each other. All differ radically in [Pg 170] manners and customs, modes of conveyance, dress, architecture, and local color. ”

“ In the west, beyond the silhouetted structure of the Elevated and the less distinct profile of buildings on the far side of Central Park, the clouds blazed luridly with their own dread fires—a fitful, sheeted play athwart gigantic curtains, to an accompaniment of dull and intermittent grumbles. ”