2 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



tion, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty 

 and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the 

 classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative 

 conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is not with 

 nature alone, but with the total relation between man and the world 

 around him. Its object is not just man's welfare, but the dignity of 

 man's spirit. 



In this conservation the protection and enhancement of man's 

 opportunity to be in contact with beauty must play a major role. 



This means that beauty must not be just a holiday treat, but a part 

 of our daily life. It means not just easy physical access, but equal 

 social access for rich and poor, Negro and white, city dweller and 

 farmer. 



Beauty is not an easy thing to measure. It does not show up in 

 the gross national product, in a weekly paycheck, or in profit and 

 loss statements. But these things are not ends in themselves. They 

 are a road to satisfaction and pleasure and the good life. Beauty 

 makes its own direct contribution to these final ends. Therefore it 

 is one of the most important components of our true national income, 

 not to be left out simply because statisticians cannot calculate its 

 worth. 



And some things we do know. Association with beauty can en- 

 large man's imagination and revive his spirit. Ugliness can demean 

 the people who live among it. What a citizen sees every day is his 

 America. If it is attractive it adds to the quality of his life. If it is 

 ugly it can degrade his existence. 



Beauty has other immediate values. It adds to safety whether 

 removing direct dangers to health or making highways less monot- 

 onous and dangerous. We also know that those who live in blighted 

 and squalid conditions are more susceptible to anxieties and mental 

 disease. 



Ugliness is costly. It can be expensive to clean a soot-smeared 

 building, or to build new areas of recreation when the old landscape 

 could have been preserved far more cheaply. 



Certainly no one would hazard a national definition of beauty. 

 But we do know that nature is nearly always beautiful. We do, for 

 the most part, know what is ugly. And we can introduce, into all our 

 planning, our programs, our building, and our growth, a conscious 

 and active concern for the values of beauty. If we do this then 

 we can be successful in preserving a beautiful America. 



