ABSTRACT
“In the modern development of towns a relatively large ownership of land is of fundamental importance for a commune,” wrote the late chief mayor of Mannheim, whose land policy was marked by unique enterprise. The case of Mannheim is of special interest, inasmuch as its modern land policy is merely the development of a tradition as old as the history of the town. Architects and town planners were called in, and the town built on its own land many blocks of working-class dwellings, artistic in design and healthy and convenient in arrangement. In spite of the rapid increase of its population, the housing problem was never allowed to become acute, and a new and progressive movement was given to the development of the town. Sometimes a town will make a great coup, and occasionally single land-purchase transactions running into a million pounds are carried out.
