LUTHER GULICK 135 



committed to the conservation goals of urban society. It is this un- 

 derstanding and moral commitment which equips them to discharge 

 their political responsibilities. 



Finally, in our federal system of government, with distinct levels 

 which are national, state, and local, the new work we are talking 

 about must be appropriately divided among these three levels. 



In doing this we must note that these jobs need not be handed to 

 levels of government in solid functional blocks, assigning all water 

 problems to one level, all land controls to another, all open space 

 problems to another, and so forth. Each of these functions needs to 

 be divided into its national, its regional, its local aspects so that these 

 aspects may be appropriately assigned so as to fit into other political 

 and administrative assignments. Obviously the broadest allocation of 

 resources and the control of pollution on interstate rivers and har- 

 bors is a national or regional problem; but the distribution of water 

 to the individual consumers can best be a local operation. Similarly, 

 the broader land-use allocations must be regional, not local, while 

 the control of the filling-in developments can best be local, not 

 regional. 



As an example, take the big problems of traffic around the great 

 cities. The planning department is within the city. But the greatest 

 need for planning is in the periphery, where there either is no politi- 

 cal structure that can plan, or else local parochial planning so tied to 

 a narrow interest of small communities that there is no base for 

 sound results. 



We need to create in the United States some broader bases of 

 comprehensive thinking. While it is a wonderful thing to break bot- 

 tlenecks by having one group build water systems, another group 

 build highway systems, another one build bridges, and so on, it is 

 also desirable to have these activities interrelated. And that condi- 

 tion can be achieved only by using governmental units that cover a 

 bigger regional area. 



It is also possible to separate the planning functions from the con- 

 trol or construction operations. We do this already when we sepa- 

 rate policy, or legislative, aspects from enforcement, or executive 

 and judicial operations. But I would caution against thinking that 

 planning can be done in a vacuum by those who have no responsi- 



