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t1. MAL 1955

17
“. 76

fe4“THE NEW TOWNS
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Fi a) The Success of Social Planning
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N 1946, on the recommendation of the Reith Committee, the Labour
J Government passed the New Towns Act—and thereby launched a great
experiment in social planning. In economic terms, the nationalisation of
the coal industry or of the railways was more important; the Health Service,
or food subsidies and social security benefits, have had a more immediate
and widespread impact on living conditions; and the building programmes
of local authorities have provided homes for many times the hundred thousand
people who have so far moved into the fourteen New Towns now under
construction. Even in money terms, the total capital investment so far in
New Towns (£106,972,787 to 31 December, 1954) is a fairly small proportion
 of the total devoted to housing, and that investment will be self-financing
over the years. Yet, among all the reforms that came after the Labour
victory in 1945, the creation of New Towns must take a high place. They
put to the test of practice so many of the theories and the assumptions of
social democracy that they demand not merely enthusiastic support. but
also the most careful study.
The concept of New Towns is not specifically or exclusively Socialist.
On the contrary, much of the pioneer propaganda and more recent support
have been inspired by social or practical motives. The unplanned sprawl
of our great cities—' conurbations’ as ugly as the word—had to be halted,
urban congestion had to be relieved; the revolt against the squalor of the
industrial barracks of the nineteenth century was reinforced by a reaction
against the soulless council estates and middle-class suburbs run up between
the wars. Architects, town planners and sociologists shared the Socialist
hope that in post-war Britain we could begin building for the mass of our
people the kind of urban life that we knew was desirable and possible.
The New Towns have been a practical expression of that hope. But
they are, or should be, something more. At the heart of Socialist doctrine
lies the belief that man is naturally good, and that he is capable of changing
both society and himself for the better. And allied to this belief is another;
that a bad environment corrupts and degrades, while a good one elevates
and improves. We know that bad housing conditions produce ill-health,
social demoralisation, family tensions and even crime; we know that poor

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