Page:John Nolen--New ideals in the planning of cities.djvu/71

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CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES


encroachments upon the waterway by short-sighted commercial interests.

WATERFRONT FACILITIES

The development upon the upland determines to a large extent the type of the adjacent waterfront structures. Three types are of greatest importance: (1) the commercial, providing for large manufacturing and shipping interests; (2) the residential type for the location of beautiful estates; and (3) the recreational use of water frontage for park and boulevard purposes.

Communication between the hinterland and the waterfront is a factor of great importance from a city planning point of view. Without a proper street system connecting the business and industrial parts of a city with the waterfront, the latter cannot fully serve its purposes. The number of streets connecting with the waterfront . which are needed, in any case, depends largely upon the street traffic which must be provided for. If a port is used primarily for the transshipment of goods between large and small vessels, or between the waterfront and factory buildings located thereon, there is less necessity for an elaborate street system than if the larger part of the commerce is moved over the streets from the waterfront to the hinterland.

Facilities should be supplied not only for freight but for the transportation of people by street railway. The railroads should also be connected with waterfront structures in a more or less intimate way. On the shores of the ocean and the Great Lakes, where a considerable interchange normally takes place between water and rail carriers, the ideal scheme is one in which each railroad line reaches each element for the handling of merchandise at the waterfront. Of equal importance to the street connections with the waterfront is the shape and size of plots of land adjacent

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