620 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



its related problems are directly related to their pocketbook. We 

 must demonstrate factually the dollar value of the issues we are 

 talking about, we must relate it to real estate values and the tax 

 rate, we must relate it to the mental and criminal decay of people 

 raised in blighted environments. 



We will not get public recognition and adequate budgets until the 

 taxpayers think it is important. Until this is done, conservation will 

 be considered just another frill, a gesture to the emotional dreamers 

 to keep them quiet. 



There are examples all over the country that can be used to docu- 

 ment this financial impact urban renewal in Boston, for example, 

 where a report to the Massachusetts legislature made in the 1870's 

 pleaded for adequate parks, zoning and recreational opportunity, 

 and predicted that the tenements then being built would become 

 blighted and have to be renewed at huge public expense. But what 

 is needed are the hardheaded financial economists and business men 

 to document this and put their prestige behind it. 



PHILIP L. REZOS. As director of property for the city and county 

 of San Francisco, responsible for the acquisition of lands and rights 

 of way for all municipal purposes, including public utilities, water 

 and power, and for school purposes, and for the sale and leasing of 

 surplus city and county properties not needed by the city, it is my 

 intention to promote the recommendations of the conference in 

 every way possible. 



Much has been done by the American Right-of-Way Association, 

 a national organization of 8,000 members in the field of right-of-way 

 and land acquisition for public and quasi-public purposes, in a 

 number of related fields to natural beauty that could easily be ex- 

 panded to include the goals of the conference and of the President, 

 on natural beauty. The Association has standing committees on 

 education, liaison, highways, land economic studies, right-of-way 

 valuation, pipeline, utilities, and public relations. All of these have 

 a bearing on our conference subject, and many are very closely re- 

 lated, such as liaison, highways, and utilities. The liaison program 

 of the Association includes a 30-minute motion picture film now 

 actually in production at a cost of $50,000, promoting coordination 

 and advance planning of various agencies. 



The highways committee, among other things, has given considera- 

 tion to the development of streets, highways, and freeways, as part 

 of a single coordinated design, such as the Gobo Hall, Garage and 



