An Isolated Experience

As a practical experiment in public housing which kept rents lower than comparable dwellings in the surrounding area and as a project reflecting town planning concepts, aspects of the north end reconstruction effort, intriguing though they are, provide only brief occasions for applause.(48)

An achievement by government, when it stands so much in isolation, must raise questions about its singular nature. After more than a decade of discussions on a national housing crisis, it required an urban disaster unprecedented in Canadian history to force steps that were anything but novel in Germany and England.

Municipal governments across the Dominion had granted inducements for industry - providing serviced land, tax concessions and cash bonuses-but they seemed unwilling to make exceptions to the doctrine of laissez-faire with respect to housing and residential land policy.(49) Provincial governments had granted fortunes in bonuses and resources to railroads and entrepreneurs, but hesitated to commit themselves to planning and housing beyond the passing of legislation allowing incorporation of benevolent housing corporations or the drafting of official plans by municipalities.

Thomas Adams soon recognized how dedicated the federal government was to planning. In 1921, legislation abolished the Conservation Commission, the agency under whose auspices he had worked.

While civic leadership in urban Canada placed priority on measures to attract industry and serve private real estate development, a few observers proposed that expenditures on planning and model housing actually could enhance an attractive investment climate. In Halifax, cautious views led to a trimming of Adams' plans and the limiting of the housing project to one site.

Nonetheless, a more expansive vision - one committed to extensive clearing and reconstruction for the sake of molding Halifax into a bustling center - did surface. The most obvious expression came in statements to the effect that the explosion had provided the opportunity for redesigning the port, rail facilities, and streets.(50)

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This document was last modified on March 8, 2000.