110 
able to get to the coast at all because the beach is closed due to pollu- 
tion or filled-to-capacity parking facilities, will attest to the immediacy 
of this critical shortage of available, accessible shoreline recreation: 
areas. 
All indications are that, unless immediate action is taken, these 
problems will get much, much worse. The demand for outdoor recrea- 
tion, especially at the shore, has increased significantly in the last 
10 years. The trends toward more leisure time, more real income, 
and greater mobility enable larger proportions of our growing popu- 
lation to seek and enjoy recreation activity of all types each year. 
The effects of these trends on outdoor recreation are evidenced in 
part by the rapid growth of companies making equipment for use 
in outdoor activities, and in the large increases in service facilities 
(such as campgrounds) that support the recreationalist in his varied 
pursuits. This gives us an indication of what to expect in the future: 
“more people taking more vacations, learning more about vacations 
and recreation, developing a wider range of skills and making more 
demands on every kind of recreation area, and rearing a generation 
of outdoor-minded children who will have even more skills and make 
even more demands.”’ ° 
The critical nature of this situation is aptly described by Bayard 
Webster, of the New York Times: 7 
The shoreline of the United States has been so built up, industrialized and 
polluted during the last decade that there are relatively few beaches left for the 
family in search of a free, solitary hour by the sea. 
From Maine to Florida and on around to Texas, from southern California up to 
Washington State, the Nation’s seashores have become cluttered with hotels, 
motels, sprawling developments, military complexes, and industries of every kind. 
Miles of tranquil beaches where hundreds of seaside retreats were once open to 
everyone for swimming or fishing have been fouled by oil spills, industrial effluents, 
farm pesticides, and city sewage. 
What remains—shoreland that is not dirty, crowded, or closed to the public— 
amounts to a tiny fraction of the country’s total coastal zone, about 1,200 miles or 
© percent of the shore areas considered suitable for recreation or human habitation. 
The prospect of continuing encroachment, together with the intensified natural 
erosion often caused by heedless development (even in normal weather, winds, and 
waves can eat away or shift up to 20 feet of beach a year), has alarmed many 
marine biologists and conservationists. 
Although . . . conservationsists have been encouraged by indications that 
some States and bureaus of the Federal Government are becoming interested in. 
protecting the Nation’s coastline as a separate national resource, they fear that it 
may already be too late to reverse the trend. 
Close to the heart of the problem are two factors largely beyond the control of 
Governmental authorities. One is the sharp increase in recent years in the Nation’s 
population. The other is the rush to the large coastal cities by millions of people 
from inland rural areas. 
The result is that popular demand for open recreational space near the water is 
rising just as private and industrial developers are fencing off the best of it—if not 
the last of it in any given area—and land prices are spiraling far beyond the means 
of most urban dwellers. 
In this article, Mr. Webster has struck at the heart of the issue 
from all its crucial aspects. First, the dwindling supply of shoreline 
recreational areas has been caused in part by the acquisition of coastal 
acreage for use by large industrial and commercial complexes. Our 
§ Margaret Mead et al., ‘Trends in American Living and Outdoor Recreation,” ORRRC Study Report 
No. 22, p. 22 (1962). 
1 Bayard Webster, ‘“Few Seaside Beaches Left Open to Public in Developers’ Rush,’? New York Times, 
p. 54, Mar. 29, 1970. 
