The University of Akron IdeaExchange@UAkron Akron Law Review Akron Law Journals August 2015 Legal Problems Confronting the Effective Creation and Administration of New Towns in the United States Richard W. Hemingway Please take a moment to share how this work helps you through this survey. Your feedback will be important as we plan further development of our repository. Follow this and additional works at: http://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/akronlawreview Part of the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Recommended Citation Hemingway, Richard W. (1977) "Legal Problems Confronting the Effective Creation and Administration of New Towns in the United States," Akron Law Review: Vol. 10 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: http://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/akronlawreview/vol10/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Akron Law Journals at IdeaExchange@UAkron, the institutional repository of The nivU ersity of Akron in Akron, Ohio, USA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Akron Law Review by an authorized administrator of IdeaExchange@UAkron. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Hemingway: Legal Problems of New Towns LEGAL PROBLEMS CONFRONTING THE EFFECTIVE CREATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF NEW TOWNS IN THE UNITED STATES* RICHARD W. HEMINGWAYt INTRODUCTION TT MAY SEEM a startling statistic to some that the population in the United States is increasing at the rate of some three hundred thousand people per month.' Stated more dramatically, this increase is equal in size to the addition, during a year, of twelve cities the size of Toledo, Ohio, or, in a decade, of ten cities the size of Detroit, Michigan. On a world basis the growth is even more startling. In the United States even the casual traveler is concerned with the seemingly endless increase in meaningless urban sprawl. Some writers envision that the entire east coast of the United States, from Washington northward, will soon constitute a gigantic megalopolis. The increase in urban population, as a percentage of total population from 1870 through 1960 was as follows:2 1870 1960 New England 44.4% 76.4% Middle Atlantic 44.1 80.9 Great Lakes 21.6 73.0 Southeast 9.5 52.1 Plains 18.9 58.8 Southwest 6.9 72.4 Mountain 13.9 65.0 Far West 31.2 81.5 United States 25.2% 69.9% *The following article is based upon a thesis submitted to the University of Michigan School of Law in 1968 in partial fullfiliment of requirements for a Master of Laws degree. tHorn Professor of Law, Texas Tech University School of Law; J.D., Southern Methodist University; LL.M., University of Michigan. 1 REPORT OF THE ADVISORY COMM'N ON INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS-URBAN AND RuRAL AMERICA: PoLICIES FOR FuTuRE GROWTH Appendix 1-B (1968) [hereinafter cited as ADVISORY COMM'N REPORT]. 2 Id. at Appendix 1-C. In the ten years between 1960 and 1970, nationwide urban population has increased 19.2 percent. STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UmTED STATES 19 (96th ed. 1975). Published by IdeaExchange@UAkron, 1977 1 Akron Law Review, Vol. 10 [1977], Iss. 1, Art. 5 AKRON LAW REVIEW [Vol. 10:1 It is a serious question, even with revitalization of the present American cities, whether they will be able to accommodate this future growth and, if able, to furnish a proper environment. As long ago as 1898, an Englishman, Ebenezer Howard, greatly concerned with the plight of the City of London, became the forerunner of the garden city concept with the publication of his book, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, reissued under its present title, Garden Cities of To-morrow. Howard's thesis was that excess population could be drained from large population centers like London, and be redistributed and rehoused in garden cities of limited population, located in the country. In time, many of his propositions were incorporated in English legislation: The New Towns Act of 1946,' and the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947.' Pursuant to this and later legislation, twenty one new towns have been, or are in the process of being, established in Great Britain. Of these, seventeen are located in England and four in Scotland. The enthusi- asm of the English for the new town concept after the passage of early legislation is well summed up by Lloyd Rodwin: The new towns policy, it was felt, could attack in one stroke a whole group of problems, including reconstruction, housing, and dispersal. London's growth and congestion would be halted; housing, a major postwar need, would be rapidly provided in new balanced communi- ties; population and economic activity would be redistributed for the benefit of other areas. For a while many planners were emboldened to believe that national planning in Britain might well be coupled with the three-dimensional vision of a New Jersualem which inspired some of the members of the new government.6 In addition to Great Britain, new towns have been established or planned in over fifty countries.' 3 E. HOWARD, GARDEN CrEs OF ToMoRRoW (1902) [hereinafter cited as HOwARD]. 4 New Towns Act of 1946, 9 & 10 Geo. 6, c. 68. The provisions of this Act were repealed and reenacted in the New Towns Act of 1965, note 35 infra. 5 Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, 10 & 11 Geo. 6, c. 51, currently the Town and Country Planning Act of 1962, 10 & 11 Eliz. 2, c. 38, as amended by the Town and Country Planning Act of 1963, 11 & 12 Eliz. 2, c. 17. 6 L. RODWIN, BRITISH NEW TOWNS POLICY 21 (1956) [hereinafter cited as RODWIN]. 7 See F. OSBORN & A. WHITICK, THE NEW TOWNS, THE ANSWER TO MEGALOPOLIS 139-48 (1963), [hereinafter cited as OSBORN & WHITTICK], where the authors list, somewhat liberally perhaps, the following countries which have built new towns: Aden, Australia, Austria, Bechuanaland, Brazil, British Honduras, Borneo, Bulgaria, Canada, Ceylon, Chile, Czecho- slovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, East and West Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Libya, Malaya, Morocco, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Northern and Southern Rodesia, Rumania, Santa Lucia, http://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/akronlawreview/vol10/iss1/5Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Uganda, U.S., U.S.S.R., Venezuela, and 2 Yugoslavia. It is interesting to note that in the U.S.S.R. alone, more than eight hundred new Hemingway: Legal Problems of New Towns Summer, 1976] LEGAL PROBLEMS OF NEW TOWNS Due to the success, or assumed success, of new towns in these countries, much has been written in the United States to the effect that new towns should be built here to help house and redistribute overspill population from crowded cities. We have seen the start of over 100 so-called "new towns" in this country, which are now in varying stages of completion. In fact, as early as 1936 three Greenbelt Towns were created by the Resettlement Administration. In 1969, Reston, Virginia was hailed as the new Camelot; Columbia, Maryland has been planned as much by social scientists as architects and town planners; Irvine, California is hailed as a new intellectual center on the West Coast; Lake Havasu, Arizona proclaims itself as the retirement city beyond compare, complete with the London Bridge. However, on the other side of the coin, Reston has been taken over by its major investor, Gulf Oil Corporation, due to lack of sales; Sunset/Whitney Ranch, Leisure World, and El Dorado Hills, California, have suspended sales, and Joppatown, Maryland went to bankruptcy with 8 flags flying. It is the purpose of this study to determine what has contributed to the success of the British New Towns program; survey what is being done in the United States; and to determine, if possible, whether a similar approach may be taken to the construction of New Towns in the United States. The study is directed towards the legal problems that will be inherent in the creation and administration of New Towns in this country, rather than social and other environmental aspects of town planning. I. NEW TOWNS IN GREAT BRITAIN I see a City being wrought Upon the rock of Living Thought: Upon her rising walls I look, And every stone is like a book 0 many milk-white pages, fair Imprinted, with a loving care; While on each lovely page is set Word of a wisdom lovelier yet. Henry Bryan Binns towns have been created since 1945. For general information on land planning in foreign countries, see G. BURKE, GREENHEART METROPOLIS, PLANNING THE WESTERN NETHERLANDS (1966); D. CRONIN, TOWN PLANNING IN IRELAND (1965); T. FLOYD, TOWN PLAN- NING IN SOUTH AFRICA (1960); M. GOULDMAN, LEGAL ASPECTS OF TOWN PLANNING IN ISRAEL (1966). 8 See Can New Towns Meet a Budget? BusINESS WEEK, Nov. 18, 1967; TIME, Sept. 29, Published1967, byat IdeaExchange@UAkron,87. 1977 3 Akron Law Review, Vol. 10 [1977], Iss. 1, Art. 5 AKRON LAW PEVEEW [Vol. 10:1 Before going on to an examination of the ideas of Howard and the manner in which they came to be represented in English legislation, it may be well to define generally what is meant by the terms "garden city" and "new town". Although Howard, as we will see, would have found some distinction between these terms, for the purpose of this discussion they will be deemed to be synonymous. A new town, then, is defined as a community, more or less economically and socially balanced, which together with its supporting industry is strategically located for the purpose of absorbing population pressures of other urban areas or otherwise redistributing popu- lation and industry. New towns are not new. Although Ebenezer Howard may be the modem precursor of the use of garden cities or new towns, limited in area and population for the purpose of housing excess inhabitants, this form of growth was followed by the Greeks, for the same purposes, from the fourth to the sixth century B.C.