amount of income that would be derived therefrom." It is the finding that bill-boards are "nuisances in character" distinguished from all other apparently similar structures by their cheapness and insecurity that distinguishes the Missouri decision from those which have held similar ordinances invalid as an unwarranted exercise of the police power.

The Missouri case finds something more dangerous in bill-boards than the paper on them containing the advertisement. The decision amounts to this: All bill-boards are likely to fall; to construct them safely would involve a cost which would prohibit their erection; all bill-boards are likely to harbor nuisances; all bill-boards increase the fire hazard. One form of regulation would be to require construction specifications, but it is just as reasonable to move them back from the lot line and so limit their height that the danger from them is removed. It is also reasonable to require an open space at the bottom and at the sides of the lot so as to check nuisances that tend to grow up behind the barrier and to decrease the risk of fire.

This St. Louis case has been taken to the supreme court of the United States on a writ of error, but it goes up with the advantage to the city that the highest state court has found it a valid exercise of the police power. The supreme court is slow to overthrow such a finding and the chance is good for establishing a precedent irrespective of the

reasoning of the court. The decision can not be cited as sustaining the exercise of the police power for esthetic purposes, but the charge is well founded that esthetic considerations are poorly concealed behind the pretext of guarding the safety, morals, and health of the people.

As a method of largely suppressing the billboard evil it is believed that the drastic St. Louis ordinance will be effective, since the burden put upon the maintenance of such structures will be likely to take away much of the profit that they bring. But it is very doubtful whether the St. Louis method will be generally followed as a method of suppressing the evil. Certainly in those jurisdictions where a careful consideration has been given to ordinances of like character, it is not to be expected that there will be different findings than heretofore. In cities where the question is new, it is not likely that the courts will follow the Missouri court in saying that billboards can not be safely erected because of their temporary character. Until the public's good taste, its sense of orderliness, harmony, and beauty, are ranked more nearly on the same plane as its health, safety, and morals, or until the doctors have established a positive injury to health through the sense of vision, we may expect no protection against unsightly structures through the exercise of the police power.

OTHER METHODS OF CONTROL

Although the degree of control over intensive and offensive uses of land which is desirable in the development of a city plan can not be attained under the exercise of the police power, the municipality may accomplish some of the same purposes by purchasing or taking under eminent domain an easement in the land which it is desired to control. If the decision in the Copley Square case, as usually interpreted, discussed in Chapter I, is good law and is generally followed, it would support the recent legislation in Missouri, in Indiana and Colorado, which excludes objectionable occupations from land fronting on parks and boulevards by purchasing or condemning the right of the owners to use their land for such purposes.* The constitutionality of the acts of Massachusetts authorizing the establishment of building lines beyond which no building can be constructed has never been questioned; but in all such legislation provision is made for compensating land owners for damages. An ordinance has been introduced in Denver to provide for taking such easements in land adjacent to parks and parkways by condemnation and for assessing the cost of the taking upon the district benefited. This idea is suggestive of large possibilities but has not as yet been tested.

*For text see Appendix, p. 219.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the police power is constantly being held to justify interference with the use of private property. The only limit to such interference is a judicial determination that a specific ordinance is not a reasonable means of protecting the safety, health, and morals of the community. It is for the legislative body to determine in the first instance the reasonableness of the means. It is a sound judicial principle, carried exceptionally far in the Missouri case cited on page 162, that courts will be slow to overthrow the determination of the legislature.

CHAPTER VI

THE WORK OF ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES IN THE EXECUTION OF A CITY

W

PLAN

E have thus far considered how the municipal authorities may execute a plan. by enforcing those rights which the legislature has delegated to them as the representatives of the people. Through the ownership of land and by the exercise of the police power the city may absolutely control the working out of many details of a plan. But a city is seriously handicapped in the use of both of these methods of control. The acquisition of land by any method is expensive, and by the condemnation method is both expensive and slow. To enforce a police ordinance requires an injunction after a court hearing, and the usual administrative agency is slow to ask for an injunction and the usual court is slow to grant it. Some details, at least, of a city plan will be executed, in the future as in the past, by the mere guidance of developments undertaken on private initiative. without resort to legal compulsion.

A plan for a city's growth generally approved by the business interests, by public service cor