374 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



I have already mentioned the Highway Act principle. I think 

 there are many other such powers now in the Federal community 

 facilities program, and others, which could be used. 



To sum up, I am not convinced if we care very much about 

 the scenic defects of utilities, if we care very much about some of the 

 safety effects of utilities, if we care very much about some of the 

 general blighting issues that have been raised, that it is beyond our 

 power to change these. I feel very strongly that we are not victims 

 of existing technology in this regard, and we are not really at the 

 mercy of altogether unfavorable cost estimations. Put differently, 

 not all the costs we now favor are unavoidable costs.* 



Mr. McMuLLiN. As a bridge for the discussion by the audience, 

 I would just like to firm up some of the things said here by various 

 members of the panel. First of all, there certainly is a growing aware- 

 ness on this matter of eliminating electric lines and putting them 

 underground. This awareness is certainly developing among the 

 people, and as a result of the awareness by the people, it is develop- 

 ing with the utilities and the utilities are responding with incentive 

 programs for underground installations. They provide cash allow- 

 ances and advertising and other incentives for the developer, and 

 also cash allowances and participation in financing to put the lines 

 underground. And there are predictions that within five or ten 

 years, all installations, all new installations, will go underground. 



Now, as has been pointed up, the existing overhead lines present 

 another problem. One of the things that is being done by many 

 utilities is improving the overhead installations, making the poles 

 more graceful, less obvious, doing many things to at least please the 

 eye. Although I am associated with a utility, I have to confess that 

 we haven't always had aesthetics in mind in doing some of the things 

 we do. I think of the transformer that hangs outside the picture 

 window at home. But I don't dare ask to have it moved, because 

 I will be in trouble. 



We can improve the design on the overhead installations. Some 

 effort is being made to give this a name called "power styling" or 

 "community styling" as we call it in our organization. 



How can we speed up these programs? Professor Dyckman has 

 mentioned financing. This is certainly one of the ways, a practical 

 way. I think it may take some amending of title II under FHA, 



*Mr. Dyckman has submitted a further statement which appears later in this 

 chapter. 



