510 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



I would like to put in a small suggestion of my own, and that is : 

 wherever government funds are available, as, for example, in the 

 housing programs, we might ask government to consider its own 

 responsibility in model building. Suppose 1 percent of the money 

 in the housing programs could be set aside for a more beautiful en- 

 vironment, which would then provide a model, we might make big 

 progress in this field. 



We would also like to see a task force come together to discuss what 

 could be done in the field of communications. It is so wide that there 

 is no point in my trying to be specific, though I would like to throw in 

 one suggestion of my own. Some of the most beautiful civic designs 

 in Britain were put up in the high, old competitive days of the Middle 

 Ages, when everybody tried to outbuild his neighbor in the matter of 

 the local church. I think a highly competitive search for intercity 

 beauty, sponsored by newspapers, taken up by the television, would 

 arouse all those things that are best in free enterprise and harness 

 them to beauty, and I would like to see Presidential awards for the 

 best model. I think that we would all feel that this is one way in 

 which the communications industry could be drawn into this field. 



Next, we would like a task force to consider the services needed for 

 the maintenance of beauty, because it is not good enough to put down 

 a great big blob of beauty, and then have it, as Mr. Celebrezze 

 pointed out, vandalized away within six months flat. This is a 

 problem in any kind of new urban experiment. In Leeds in Britain, 

 they had to replant the gardens in the newly housed areas five times 

 over before little Johnny and little Johnny's mother had decided the 

 trees were a good thing. Well, it took a bit of doing. This is part 

 of the maintenance side. 



We would like to see this task force consider the possible role of the 

 Job Corps, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts any of these younger 

 people who could be brought up with a sense of care of their 

 environment. 



If I may then put in a little comment of my own, I also feel that 

 in an age of automation, the idea of creating "guardians of beauty" 

 as a professional class or group is one we should consider seriously. 

 Gardeners are notoriously good citizens and patient men, from 

 Adam onwards. I would like to see the great profession of garden- 

 ing extended to include civic and urban gardening. It would be 

 one of the ways in which the problems of employment raised by auto- 

 mation could be creatively solved. It is very hard to automate an 



