608 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



No one, witnessing our exploration of the solar system, our harness- 

 ing of atomic energy, or the development of cybernetic machines, 

 can doubt that we stand at the threshold of the greatest mutation in 

 human affairs during the history of this planet. 



Yet the forms of our old cities and the organization of life within 

 them remain essentially as they were before this fantastic technologi- 

 cal revolution began. A whole variety of factors, physical and 

 metaphysical, conspire to confer on our old cities an immense 

 resistance to change. 



As a result of this violent conflict between the forces of change and 

 those of reaction, the traditional checks and balances of our society 

 have been seriously eroded. The symptoms of community disinte- 

 gration, mental sickness, chronic disease, and urban crime, only 

 recently spelled out by the President are increasing at an alarming 

 rate. 



New patterns of life must, and must urgently, be developed and 

 applied. Yet the persistent physical framework of our obsolescent 

 metropoli binds us inextricably to the problems generated within 

 them. We cannot change the one without changing both. 



Every urbanist who has attempted the task of meaningfully 

 changing our old cities has been obliged to admit that the task is 

 practically impossible. We cannot, humanly, politically and eco- 

 nomically, raze whole districts or whole cities to the ground and 

 reconstruct them and the institutions they house in harmony with the 

 needs of our times. 



We might then conclude that there is no realistic hope of arrest- 

 ing and reversing the disintegration of our urban society. However, 

 at this crucial moment we may remark the timely emergence of a 

 new factor the population explosion. The expected addition to 

 our Nation of 160 million people (on a median projection) over 

 the next 35 years, can lead either to social calamity or to the 

 reestablishment of our civilization on a new and higher plateau. 



If we passively allow this new population to accrete around the 

 fringes of our already overloaded metropoli, a human disaster is 

 inevitable. If on the other hand we use this situation actively as 

 an occasion for the organization and establishment of new large 

 cities, designed to foster the development of sound minds in healthy 

 bodies, then the future will be saved for posterity. 



This is a real and inescapable choice, more important to our 

 future welfare than any other we have to make. Due to its scale, 

 government, Federal, and State have to make it. 



