470 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



might say with illusion. A few key elements in the scene color our 

 perception of the whole out of all proportion. 



It is the perception of this that our planning apparatus misses. 

 It is not part of the standard operating procedure. 



One reason is that the planning movement in the United States 

 has been largely urban, and largely concerned with development. 

 It has also been concerned with open space and amenity, but not so 

 much for its own sake as for the way it sets off or structures 

 development. 



Similarly, landscaping is thought of as a bit tangential, something 

 added on after the fact. 



I think we should say out loud here something that has been 

 bothering a lot of people in this conference. They are embarrassed 

 by the term natural beauty. They feel it is not basic enough or, 

 if you want to use a really dirty word, that it is cosmetic. 



Well, cosmetics can be helpful, and we needn't scorn them to 

 realize that something more fundamental is at issue. What delights 

 our eye most is integral to the landscape. Our eyes and our instinct 

 are not bad guides. They sense a unity; what looks beautiful the 

 meadows, for example, along the flood plain of a stream and what 

 is important to the resource base of the community tend to be pretty 

 much one and the same. 



To a great extent landscape action is rediscovery. Take our 

 crowded eastern seaboard. It is a countryside of hidden assets 

 such as the brook by the side of the road that you don't see because 

 of the second growth. There are countless such opportunities, and 

 they don't require any technological breakthrough the spade and 

 the saw have already been invented. What they require is someone 

 to look for them not just part time but as a part of our day-to-day 

 planning machinery. 



So we come back to the question: How do we see that this is 

 done? What carrots do we hold out? We have grants for open 

 space acquisition and grants for development, but all of the many 

 things that could be done to the landscape tend to fall between 

 programs. Nobody is responsible. 



A big step has already been taken for the city. In his housing 

 message President Johnson called for a program of townscape grants, 

 and in the housing bill there is a provision for Federal grants for 

 planning and landscaping if it is geared to the comprehensive 

 planning effort. This can stimulate communities to take the im- 

 portant step of making a real inventory of their visual resources. 



