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section we develop the rationale for national concern for the problems 
of shoreline recreation while providing a basis for an analysis in section 
TV of how the present situation has come about. 
Ill. THE NEED AND THE DEMAND FOR OUTDOOR RECREATION 
Since the earliest days of planning for outdoor recreation great 
emphasis has been laid on the value of outdoor recreation in helping 
cure the ills of society. Many advocates of outdoor recreation de- 
scribed parks, playgrounds, beaches, and other opportunities for rec- 
reational activity as ‘‘veritable cure-alls which would isolate young 
people from and immunize them against the delinquency, alcoholism, 
prostitution, and crime that abounded in the slums.” *! In later years, 
the emphasis shifted to the value of outdoor recreation in counter-. 
acting the harmful effects of the stress and tensions of life in an urban- 
industrial society. Recreation generally came to be viewed as a major 
solution to the problems of mental ilIness that were attributed to. 
such tensions. 
Herbert Gans, the noted sociologist, has taken issue ” with this 
a a towards a causal lnk between recreation and mental 
ealth: 
. . . [These attitudes were] developed by a culturally narrow reform group: 
which was reacting to a deplorable physical and social environment and rejected. 
the coming of the urban-industrial society. As a result, it glorified the simple 
rural life and hoped to use outdoor recreation as a means of maintaining at least 
some vestige of a traditional society and culture. Given these conditions and 
motivations, no one saw fit to investigate the relationship between outdoor 
recreation and mental health empirically. 
How then can we go about determining what relationship, if any, 
exists between recreation and mental health, or, in broader terms, the 
general health and well-being of man in modern society? Most psy- 
chologists and sociologists would concur that the human predicament 
can best be described as the task of maintaining a balance, both 
internally and externally, between man’s often conflicting existence as. 
an organism and as a personality. This predicament has been de- 
scribed by Lawrence K. Frank: * 
A crucial problem for mental health is how an individual can resolve this conflict 
without incurring high costs psychologically and persistent damage to his personality, 
and what sources he can rely upon for strength and renewal in facing his life tasks. 
In the spirit, Herbert Gans has described mental health as “the 
ability of an individual or an occupier of social roles and as a person- 
ality to move toward the achievement of his vision of the good life 
and the good society . . . mental health is a social rather than an 
individual concept, because if society frustrates the movement toward 
the good life, the mental health of those involved may be affected.” 7* 
There are considerable present-day indications that society does tend 
in many ways to frustrate an individual’s movement toward the good 
life, and that it is increasingly difficult to maintain the balance neces- 
sary for well-being as described above. The characteristics and 
intensity of the emotional stresses and strains of modern life have: 
41 Herbert Gans, “‘People and Plans”, Basic Books, Inc. New York (1968) p. 109. 
22 Tbid.; p. 109. 
*% Lawrence K. Frank, et al., “Trends in American Living and Outdoor Recreation,” ORRRC Study, 
Report No. 22, p. 218 (1962). 
% Tbid., reference 21; p. 112. 
