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the puritanical concepts of the people who regarded hard work as 
virtue and leisure as something to be shunned. At the same time, the 
very activities, which are demanded today for recreation, such as 
hunting and fishing, were just part of the everyday life then. 
It was not until the urbanization of the late 1800’s and early 
1900’s that the demand for parklands and recreational areas started 
to materialize. The concentration of people in cities and their increased 
affluence, created different needs in society. The establishment of pro- 
fessional sport teams helped counter some of the puritanical attitudes. 
The major impetus came during the 1910’s and 1920’s. Population 
concentration in the urban areas was reaching 40 to 50? percent, and 
the mobility of the people improved with the development of the au- 
tomobile. In 1916 the National Park Service * was founded, with 17 
national parks and monuments being established before 1932. Many 
other Government departments have been established since to de- 
velop parkland and multiuse areas for recreation and conservation. 
What are the causal factors in the demand for recreation? First 
and foremost is the population and its demographic distribution. 
In 1850 there were 23.2 million 2 people in the United States. Over 
the interim years there has been a rapid increase to the current 
220 million. * this number is projected to reach 351 million by the 
year 2000.” In 1850 only 15 percent of the people were urbanized 
while by 1900, almost 40 percent lived in cities.” Today over 70 
percent of the population live in the urbanized areas and by year 
2000 the concentration could exceed 80 percent.” This means a 
critical congestion of people onto a small percentage of the available 
land and a continuous reduction, due to the increasing numbers, in 
the land available. 
Another of the causal factors that influences the demand for 
recreation is the level of affluence in our society. There has been an 
upward sweep of both the real personal income per capita and the 
percentage of it spent on recreation. Adjusting for the depression 
and the war years, expenditures on sports equipment as a percentage 
of disposable personal income rose on the average of 1 percent per 
year during the 1930’s and 1940’s and increased to 1.5 percent during 
the 1950’s.* The demand for recreation is keeping up with the 1.5 
to 1.75 percent increase of population annually.* The current trend 
in real income per capita is nearer to 2 percent. 
Leisure time is also a most important causal factor. With the 
continual shortening of working hours, the hours of leisure available 
to each person are increasing. Recent proposals for converting to 
a 4-day workweek indicate how strong this trend may be. Over the 
50 years from 1900, leisure time per capita rose about 27 percent, while 
real incomes increased about 150 percent.’ Today the rate of increase 
in leisure time is changing even faster and is expected to increase by 
by 12 percent by the year 2000.* The working week in the year 2000 
may be only 32 hours long. : 
The mobility of the population is another of the causal factors in the 
demand. As transportation systems improved, the relative cost per 
person in traveling to and from his favorite recreation area decreased. 
2 Ottoson, H. W., Land Use Policy and Problems In The United States, University of Nebraska Press, 
63. 
Lincoln, 19 
3 Barlowe, Rahleigh, ‘‘Land For Recreation,” Land Use Policies and Problems In The United States, 
University of Nebraska Press, 1963. 
4 Clawson and Knetsch, ‘‘Economics of Outdoor Recreation,’’ Resources For The Future, The Johns 
Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1966. 
