Edmund Anscombe - Town Planning

Town Planning

The 1925 and 1940 exhibitions also provided Anscombe with opportunities to suggest urban redevelopment schemes which would impact on each host city long after the period of the exhibition. In an article from June 1924, Anscombe outlined a proposal for a highway reserve, a park system, city zoning and housing, influenced by "the park and parkway system of Kansas City" and in keeping with Anscombe's "municipal housekeeping on scientific lines" outlined in his 1915 paper: "The Economic Value of Scientific Town Planning." The proposal was not implemented exactly as Anscombe suggested yet much of his intention has persisted, including the tree-lined Anzac Avenue and Logan Park, in Dunedin. This desire to ensure that temporary projects also served longer-term strategies is also seen in the anticipation that, like the San Francisco Treasure Island Fair, the 1940 New Zealand Centennial Exhibition buildings should be reconverted for use as airport buildings and that exhibition art galleries should be permanent. He also proposed an urban scheme for Wellington with a similar interest in long-term "betterments." Here he argued for an exhibition site close to central Wellington, in preference to Rongotai, maintaining that the central location was important and provided an opportunity "to carry out a much-needed improvement work" in the Adelaide road area. This central location was to take advantage of such already existing facilities as Government House, the Public Hospital, Wellington Boys' College, and the Museum and Art Gallery.