THE NEW SUBURBIA 443 



At the heart of the village center we have brought together func- 

 tions that are scattered throughout the sprawling suburbs. The 

 schools, stores, medical building for a population of 10,000 are 

 brought together in the heart of the village. 



The open space plan provides for 3,200 of 14,000 acres to be 

 devoted to parks and open spaces, 26 miles of bridle paths, four lakes, 

 three golf courses. Some of the open space will be left wild and 

 natural; some will be brought to a more informal use for picnics, 

 walking, bird watching, and camping; some of it will be more trim 

 and tailored at the center of the village and neighborhood. 



All of the town roads will be freeways that will be uninterrupted by 

 either houses or stores or driveways so that traffic will flow freely, 

 and all of these town roads will be landscaped without interference 

 by people and their houses who will, in turn, be protected from the 

 automobile with their own neighborhood streets. 



The bus system is the Washington minibus on its own parkway. 



The town center of Columbia is along Route 29 fronting on a lake. 

 The floodplain will be developed into a front lawn for downtown. 



A 50-acre stand of oak trees at the heart of the city will become 

 a town center park, thus bringing the lakes and stream valleys into 

 the heart of downtown itself. 



Approaching from the east, there are two hills which will be 

 developed with highrise apartments as a kind of gateway to down- 

 town. 



Beauty is free if you really plan to respect both the land and man. 

 The best possible community for man will bring beauty naturally 

 because this is the environment in which we want to live. It is easy 

 to do. It is really a matter of our having a national determination 

 that we will not allow our cities to grow in the kind of disorder and 

 squalor that we call sprawl. 



If we can make up our minds to do it; if we insist upon compre- 

 hensive planning and use firm national policy to insist upon it; if we 

 at the local level create community development corporations that 

 can execute a plan ; if we recognize that when sewer and water and 

 highways are extended through land, that land should be acquired by 

 local government, by acquisition or condemnation, and the value 

 increments transferred to acquire the stream valleys and forests and 

 open spaces so that all the people benefit. 



This kind of attitude towards land, this kind of determination 

 that we won't be a nation of sprawl could transform the growth of 

 our country very quickly. 



779-59565 29 



