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Show PLAYGROUNDS FOR CHILDREN. The playgrounds for children question is attracting attention of state and city officials throughout the rapidly growing west. There is hardly a city of any importance but what is giving the matter mat-ter earnest attention. The movement looking to the securing of a park and playground in Ogden has met with unanimous endorsement of the citizens and it will probably be successfully carried through. A bill has been introduced in the legislature of the state of Washington entitled house bill No. 81, providing for the inclusion of small parks and playgrounds in all future land sub-divisions within or adjoining the limits of cities of the first, second and third classes. "According to the best available information," says William E. Harmon, the well known real estate authority in The Survey, "thia is the first attempt based on sound economics, arbitrarily to combine com-bine parks and playgrounds with street plans in private real estate development. It is based on the theory that as streets of liberal width give correspondingly greater value to abutting land, so do parks and similar open spaces give increased value to contiguous property. That there must be some municipal restriction put upon land sub-divisions destined to become a permanent part of the city in which they are located is an already accepted principle in many sections of the country, but it remained for this progressive' western state to carry along its logical lines of development. "It is highly important, from the point of view of true econo- mics, that no undue burden be placed upon practical work in the field of realty development, or home building on a large scale, for in the end this burden must be borne by the buyer. Under the provisions of this bill, land can be laid out and permanent open spaces established estab-lished without taking a penny out of the pockets of the operatoi", or adding a penny cost to the ultimate consumer of the land." |