PART I.—PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN NEW COMMUNITY 
DEVELOPMENT 
This part includes excerpts from two papers concerning the appro- 
priate role of State government in assisting in and regulating the 
development of new communities. Clearly, many of the most. fre- 
quently noted and most urgent of land use problems are those in- 
volving the metropolitan areas and the influences of uncontrolled 
urban sprawl. The predictable population increases of the foreseeable 
future can be readily translated into requirements for homes and 
services in an urban setting. Many of today’s most serious planning 
problems center around the projections of this unavoidable urban 
erowth. 
We have included in this section only parts of the papers written by 
our authors. As the overview statement indicates, the original papers 
contain significant additional discussion and data of interest to students 
of the new community concept. 
OVERVIEW 
The need for effective State involvement in the urbanization process 
has never been more critical. Constitutionally, the States are the 
ultimate holders of the police power. Politically, State governments 
are at least one step removed from the interjurisdictional conflicts 
which so often impede areawide planning for metropolitan growth. 
For these and numerous other reasons, any rational policy allocating 
responsibility for the development of urbanizing land and lagging 
regions would more than likely assign a wide range of powers to the 
State governments. 
State governments need to decide what strategy they will adopt to 
insure balanced regional development and what types of incentive- 
control systems they will employ to foster efficient, equitable, and 
ecologically sound land usage. Should the States charter nonprofit 
corporations empowered to acquire land and plan and develop new 
towns or new communities? Should they authorize groups of cities 
and towns to acquire, purchase, or take by eminent domain non- 
contiguous tracts of land for open space, transportation corridors, 
utility purposes or for private community and environmental de- 
velopment? Should the exercise of such powers be subject to the 
approval of regional planning and development agencies? Should the 
States designate land areas in which the public has a special interest? 
Could State planning agencies prepare and administer direct land 
use and development controls which would insure that future de- 
velopment would meet State objectives? These kinds of questions are 
fundamental to the formulation of a State urban growth policy. Each 
State will have to wrestle with these questions if we are to establish 
a coordinated, overall national urban growth strategy. 
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