136 The City's Challenge in Resource Use 



bility for action or too narrow a base of operations. It is equally dan- 

 gerous to permit action agencies to operate over these areas without 

 professional planning divisions. However, planning as a function- 

 alized activity need not all be at one level, as planning too can be 

 split into its over-all aspects, its regional aspects, and its local as- 

 pects, provided we learn how to interrelate the broader and the nar- 

 rower processes so as to keep the broad plans realistic, and the local 

 plans consistent. 



This is not the occasion for fuller elaboration of these political 

 and administrative questions. I have sought here only to indicate 

 that the problems can be solved within the framework of our cul- 

 tural, economic, and political systems. 



It may even be found that a combination of such institutions — 

 governmental, economic, and cultural — will lead ultimately to an 

 adjustment of population size to fit consumption and space-use levels 

 in conformity with the fiow-of-nature policy, thus protecting man- 

 kind indefinitely against the dire predictions of Malthus or of Dar- 

 win or, most recently, of Paul B. Sears. ^^ Under such an approach, 

 mankind would achieve a dynamic stability at a level consistent with 

 the good life, rather than at a level of increasing degradation. 



We may take great comfort also from another thought. It is this: 

 beginning with the year 2000 a.d. or thereabouts, in the United 

 States, the improvement of living standards for the great masses of 

 the population will not involve more physical consumption per capita, 

 but will involve the unending advancement of cultural, social, and 

 spiritual standards. From that point on, we will measure "progress" 

 not by the increase of milk, meat, steel, electricity, gasoline, and 

 cement consumed, but by the growing development of technical serv- 

 ices, the increased enjoyment of leisure, sports, and the creative arts, 

 and the indices of educational, intellectual, and spiritual life. And 

 these activities, we need not emphasize, take very little more pulp, 

 power, and produce than now goes into lesser levels of occupation, 

 entertainment, and the various tranquiUzers. 



As we think and argue about water, land, air, energy, open spaces, 

 and other resources separately, and I hope wisely, we can never 



22 Paul B. Sears, "The Inexorable Problem of Space," Science, Vol. 127, 

 No. 3288 (January 1958). 



