136 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



away. The Owens Valley was once a prosperous farming 

 community of 7,000, dependent on water from the Owens 

 River and deep wells for irrigation. 29 After a bitter struggle, 

 the city has taken over all this water and the farmers have had 

 to move on. 



Today the Owens Valley is practically a desert. The direct 

 cause of this desert is the consumption of the water by the city. 

 The million and more inhabitants of Los Angeles need water. 

 On the other hand, productive land is a basic resource of the 

 nation. The question is whether the land is more important 

 than the city. So far, the answer has been "no," but that answer 

 is not necessarily the right one. A great many people have come 

 to believe that the best future development of the United 

 States would be toward decentralisation. Decentralisation 

 would mean a shift of the population from a few large cities 

 to a great many small cities. 



In the arid West particularly, one of the most important 

 factors influencing the growth of cities is the water supply. 

 This water supply is controlled in most cases by the states. As 

 the people of the state develop plans for distributing the water 

 supply, they must also realise that they are deciding whether 

 or not population is to be centered in the cities or whether 

 it is to be scattered in the towns and in farming communities. 

 They have to be able to balance these ideas. And in making 

 that decision, they must realise that they are weighing the 

 value of cities as opposed to the value of the land. 



Boston recently decided that it was faced with a water short" 

 age. It sent its engineers out to draft plans to draw water from 

 the tributaries of the Connecticut River. When Connecticut 

 heard of this, she protested. She claimed that she needed the 

 Connecticut River water. Connecticut asked the United States 

 Supreme Court to stop Boston's water project. The Court de' 

 cided that Boston had a right to a fair share of water since its 



29 Parkins and Whitaker, op. cit., pp. 294, 298. 



