ZONES

What with traffic zones, neutral zones, submarine and war zones--to say nothing of the five geographic zones, or the multifarious divisions of the globe which biologists have wished upon us--it might seem that we have zones enough for the time being. But now the City Fathers of Cambridge have girded up their loins and prepared to go "zoning" in our own fair town. All Cantabrigia is to be divided into three parts. Certain districts throughout the city will be reserved for business establishments; other districts will be for residences; and still others will have no restrictions whatever. Present buildings not in accordance with the plan will be allowed to remain; but new ones must obey the ruling.

This tentative plan, for it has not yet become a law, has much to recommend it. We can all think of a residence district which some ten years ago was considered exclusive--some would have called it "high-brow". And then--the relentless march of fruit stores and tailor shops and lunch rooms, not to mention the red-front grocery. The "people of quality" fied. There followed a rapid decline in property value and a loss of much money. In the end, the locality was not good for much of anything.

The whole trouble lies in this mixing up residences with small business. As soon as they overlap, real estate prices invariably slump; keep them separate, and prices remain more nearly stable, This latter is exactly what the zone system aims to do. It will try not to put the small shopkeepers out of reach of reach of their patrons, a thing to be guarded against, but it will prevent them from spreading promiscuousy through the better districts. Certain groups of shops will be allowed even within some residential localities--mostly where small stores have congregated already--but these shops must stay en bloc. After all, the plan is not much different from the limitations at present placed on "restricted" districts, only it is now applied to the whole city. If it has already worked on a small scale, it may be expected to work equally well on a larger one.