444 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



Mr. CONNOR. Our panel members are mostly considering large- 

 scale effects of the population explosion and ways to attack resulting 

 problems. I should like to talk about the people who will live In the 

 new suburbia and their houses. In his message, the President called 

 attention to the architecture of building as an important part of the 

 quest for beauty. How do we meet his challenge? 



Our society today is an affluent one and our technical competence 

 is so great that no longer will we be satisfied with "shelter" housing 

 per se. 



For a long time there was a desperate need for housing, and in 

 large part the housing built to meet the need did not measure up to 

 anyone's satisfaction witness the popularity of the hit tune "Little 

 Boxes." Surely, we want protection from the elements., but we also 

 want beauty within as well as without. Beauty derives from good 

 planning, and planning a home calls for the most expert of many 

 skills. We're all groping for something better than we have but no 

 single discipline can solve the problem. We need a concerted effort 

 by many in many fields. 



Awareness of the magnitude of this task has impressed not only 

 college professors and many others who talk about it, but the very 

 people, the builders, who have, perhaps more than others, been re- 

 sponsible for urban sprawl. For example, convinced that part of the 

 problem is that we know too little about the people in the houses, 

 last November the committee on environmental design of the Na- 

 tional Association of Home Builders gathered together a group of 

 distinguished thought leaders to consider the many factors that go to 

 make up environment. 



Leaders in the fields of sociology, economics, psychology, philos- 

 ophy, architecture, psychiatry, political science, history, planning, 

 home building, finance, religion, and the law for two days discussed 

 ways to move forward in a massive effort to improve man's living 

 environment. Not one of the participants felt that he was an ex- 

 pert in, or was even, despite his learning and experience, aware of 

 the totality of the problems. The committee is now engaged in 

 activity on the local level through the 330 NAHB local associations, 

 and plans a wide variety of other activities, such as studies of planned 

 communities and liaison with planners and architects engaged in 

 specific environmental problems of housing. 



On the money front, companies like Connecticut General think it 

 good business to put their funds in a well-planned development like 

 Mr. Rouse's "Columbia," and the same goes for Gulf Oil's interest 



