Physical Planning [antikvár]

When the bombs were falling on the big cities in 1940 and 1941, Lord Reith was entrusted by the Government with the task of reporting on the methods and machinery required for their rebuilding. He discussed the outlook with the London County Council, and he sent his surveyors to Coventry and Southampton, to Birmingham and Bristol. Wlien these authorities produced their first ideas on the rebuilding of their towns after the war, he encouraged them " to plan boldly." He said they might expect pronouncements of policy on such fundamental matters as the future of agriculture, transport, and the location of industry ; and that a central planning authority would probably be set up to control the national interest in these matters. Those were the days when the mere contemplation of plans for the future was a stimulus to the almost back-breaking efforts of the present. Hopes loomed vaguely but largely behind the dust and smoke of war damage and the uncertainty of the struggle itself. In this atmosphere the Uthwatt Committee began its work, and took the evidence that contributed to the eventual publication in September 1942, of its famous report on Compensation and Betterment—a report that was later described in America as "a revolutionary scheme of land expropriation." Four years have passed since this hold planning began; and now the scene has changed in a most significant way. The bold conceptions are being analyzed down into detaU, and every detail is a cause of controversy. The well-known slogan First Things First, that gained such currency in the planning period of the mid-war years, has quietly changed its meaning. It no longer suggests that the most important post-war aims should be firmly placed in the forefront, but that the most immediate ones are all we have time to consider. * * * It is probably to be expected that at this stage public opinion should veer away from planning and concentrate on performance. With the possible exception of military strategy it is, and always has been, vi