The Roadtown is a scheme to organize production, transportation and consumption into one systematic plan. In an age of pipes and wires, and high speed railways such a plan necessitates the building in one dimension instead of three--the line distribution of population instead of the pyramid style of construction. The rail-pipe-and-wire civilization and the increase in the speed of transportation is certain to result in the line distribution of population because of the almost unbelievable economy in construction, in operation and in time. The people will return to Mother Earth because it is in every way desirable for them to do so and not because some merchant prince, railroad king or social worker says they ought to go.
In modern life an office building, store or apartment house is considered especially fortunate if it has a rapid transit station near or better still within the building. All the inhabitants of the Roadtown will live upon the main line and be near the station. They will live there because the utilities of civilization can be provided there more economically than elsewhere. But the line distribution has yet another significance of as great importance as the more safe and economical distribution of people, parcels, fluids and electricity.
The development of cities was originally brought about by the desire of men to get close together for industrial needs and social fellowship. This same want for ready communication and distribution of men and things I have shown can now be most completely fulfilled by the city which will be strung out in a line. In other words, the very laws which built the congested cities will, with the construction of the first section of the first Roadtown, surely mark the beginning of their gradual dissemination. Such a tendency can already be seen at work, but its development has not progressed far because of the isolation of the functions of house construction and horizontal transportation devices.
As soon as horizontal transportation is put in the house, the skyscraper on its side, and is pointed towards the endless country instead of up against the force of gravity, and the wonderful transportation devices now available are installed, you will see the cities spread out in lines amidst the fields and farms, as if by magic. Indeed it will be the magic of economy, the natural force to which all of humanity always promptly responds.