Greenbelt

Of all the agencies established by the New Deal since 1933, Resettlement Administration, headed by Rexford Guy Tugwell, was possibly the most spectacular. Of all R. A.'s grandiose ventures, most spectacular was Greenbelt, irreverently known as "Tugwelltown," a model suburban town seven miles outside of Washington at Berwyn, Md.

In Washington one day last week, Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace made two announcements. One was that R. A., moribund since Dr. Tugwell resigned last winter, was at last officially dead. The other was that Greenbelt was at last ready for occupancy and that, when its first tenants move in about Oct. 1, all Greenbelt's commercial enterprises will be run by a branch of Boston Merchant Edward A. Filene's Consumer Distribution Corp.

Resettlement Administration started in 1935, spent $450,000,000 in two years. Its chief function was to move chunks of the U. S. population from unproductive terrain to land where they could make a living. Most remarkable of a series of what even the President called costly failures was an effort to settle 200 U. S. farmers in Alaska's Matanuska Valley, where many of those settlers, still remaining after two years of tribulation, are spending this summer trying to raise a crop of winter wheat because the Government supplied them with the wrong seed. In June 1936, R. A. had a 19,700 payroll. Last July, it had been cut almost in half. When R. A. officially died last week, its major functions were transferred to a new agency called Farm Security Administration, whose main job will be finishing R. A. projects already started, making tenant and rehabilitation loans with $10,000,000 appropriated by Congress, and to the Bureau of Agricultural Economics which will have another $10,000,000 for submarginal land retirement. Said diplomatic Secretary Wallace: "Major activities in the future cannot accurately be described by the word 'resettlement.' "

Greenbelt, as a monument to R. A., is in a sense the most appropriate that could have been devised. Its cost $14,227,000. Its rent will bring in $60,000 a year. Last week the Greenbelt Tenant Selection Staff was busy picking from 9,000 families who wanted to live there, the 885 who will eventually do so.

Last week's deal with Consumer Distribution Corp. was a feather in the cap of philanthropic Merchant Filene, who since 1909 has been preaching the gospel of co-operative retail merchandising, financing co-ops through the uncooperative profits from Filene's Department Store. Consumer Distribution Corp. is the first enterprise of a new $1,000,000, Filene-financed corporation formed a year and a half ago to establish a nation-wide league of U. S. cooperatives. It will run Greenbelt's general store, food and meat market, drugstore, cinemansion, barber shop, garage and milk route. Prices will not be much lower than elsewhere but, after the Government gets a small percentage of the gross receipts, profits will go back to Greenbeltians. Landlord of Greenbelt will still be the U. S. Federal Government. When the town is fully populated, its residents can decide whether or not they want its retail outlets run by C. D. C.

That Greenbelt will bring in from .4% to .7% on the U. S. Government's investment is not because it could not have been made to bring in more. Started as a relief project in 1935, its actual cost can be reduced to $8,500,000 by charging off the inefficiency of relief labor. If Greenbelt homes were rented for all they would bring in, the Government's return would be some $380,000. Main difficulty of the Department of Agriculture in starting Greenbelt and two other similar R. A. projects near Cincinnati and Milwaukee is to keep out families who, well able to afford living elsewhere, consider such suburbs a kind of Utopia. First requirement for living in Greenbelt is an income of from $1,000 to $1,200 a year.

Greenbelt houses' average cost is $5,423. Average rent will be $31.23, including heat. One-room, apartments cost $18, seven-room houses $39. Greenbelt's houses are all in modern style, with a maximum of electrical appliances. A commercial firm is ready to supply suitable modern furnishings for tenants who feel up to them. In addition to cheap, luxurious housing, Greenbeltians will enjoy advantages that even de luxe suburban realtors would dare promise only in their wildest dreams. On a 200-acre knoll of carefully-landscaped, reclaimed farm land, Greenbelt is laid out in a wide crescent with the commercial section concentrated in the middle. Main trunk highways, with cheap bus service to Washington, skirt the town. Greenbelt's 18 miles of paved highway ($528,000), 18 miles of walks ($146,000) are so arranged that only pedestrians who intend to commit suicide ever need be run over. Greenbeltians who own cars can store them in garages for $1 a month or leave them in free convenient parking lots.

When they start moving in about Oct. 1, Greenbeltians will have a library, community auditorium, recreation centre ($112,000) and 25-acre lake ($178,000). Small Greenbeltians can choose between two schools ($494,000) without being compelled to mingle with outsiders until they are adolescents. Around Greenbelt to protect it from the outside world is an 8,000-acre tract in which the town can expand. Bought for $98 an acre, it has appreciated so fast that an acre adjoining it is now worth $4,000.

Greenbeltians will naturally pay no taxes: the Government will take a fraction of their rent instead. Chartered as Maryland's first city-manager town, Greenbelt will hold its first election on Nov. 23. with all tenants who have lived there for ten days previous eligible to vote.

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