126 The City's Challenge in Resource Use 



and democracy, once land is occupied and developed and is operat- 

 ing satisfactorily, economically and socially, it becomes virtually im- 

 possible, even on payment of heavy damages to disturb the status 

 quo, because of the sheer weight of poHtical force. The only politi- 

 cally safe, economically wise, and humanely just way to proceed, 

 therefore, is to reserve the land in advance.^- If in the process, we 

 take more than we need, this is an error that can be easily corrected. 

 If we take too little, we may be tied to our blunder forever. 



And we shall need totally new concepts of recreation, guided by 

 our new psychological knowledge, matched to urban life and the 

 changing age pattern of our people. We need active programs for 

 some, contemplative opportunities for many, and glimpses of beauty 

 for all — even in the confines of the urban design itself. 



Thus here again, as to recreation, we have requirements which 

 become suddenly significant not so much because of the total size of 

 our national population as because of the urbanized pattern of set- 

 tlement and civilization and the concentration of these densities in 

 specific geographic regions. 



Land. Directly related to these observations on recreational re- 

 sources, is the question of land and of the impact of urban develop- 

 ment on our national land resource. 



Each decade we are now extending our urban settlement over an 

 added 15,000 square miles of land in and around our metropolitan 

 complexes. ^^ In the next decade, at current rates, the added urban- 

 ized acreage will be as large as the total land area of Rhode Island, 

 Connecticut, New Jersey, and Delaware put together. In addition, 

 major new factories, initially outside these urban settlements, fre- 

 quently take hundreds of acres at a clip. 



There is a very considerable acreage required for our new thru- 

 ways, with their desirable protective margins, and for airports and 



^- Reservation can be made by purchase, acquisition of development rights, 

 soUcitation of bequests, and in some rare cases by zoning. The most effective 

 is outright purchase. See "The Cities' Threat to Open Land," Architectural 

 Forum, January 1958. 



13 Wilfred Owen, "What Do We Want the Highway System To Do?," in 

 Financing Highways (Princeton: Tax Institute, 1957); Robinson Newcomb, 

 "What Can We Get Under the New Highway System?," ibid. 



