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This attitude has been a natural outgrowth of the pioneer spirit. Today, we are 

 coming to realize that our land is finite, while our population is growing. The 

 uses to which our generation puts the land can either expand or severely limit 

 the choices our children will have. The time has come when we must accept the 

 idea that none of us has a right to abuse the land, and that on the contrary 

 society as a whole has a legitimate interest in proper land use. There is a na- 

 tional interest in effective land use planning all across the nation. 



I believe that the problems of urbanization which I have described, of re- 

 source management, and of land and water use generally can only be met by 

 comprehensive approaches which take into account the widest range of social, 

 economic, and ecological concerns. I believe we must work toward the develop- 

 ment of a National Land Use Policy to be carried out by an effective partnership 

 of Federal. State and local governments together, and where appropriate, with 

 new regional institutional arrangements. 



On February 8 of this year the President's national land-use policy 

 was articulated in the form of the legislative proposal submitted to the 

 Congress in H.R. 4332. 



In developing national land-use policy legislation we identified three 

 fundamental problems which make it difficult for local governments 

 to accord lands which have critical environmental characteristics, such 

 as our coastal and estuarine areas, the regulation they require. 



First, small units of government are inherently limited by the con- 

 fines of their jurisdiction. Scenic or important natural areas are rarely 

 viewed by a locality in terms of their regional importance. Even when 

 one locality acts wisely to fit development to the capacity of the land, 

 it may not be able to affect the adjoining town's land-use control prac- 

 tices. The limits of local jurisdiction are simply not adequate to en- 

 compass regional ecological or development systems without policy 

 guidance from larger units of governments. 



The second reason for the inadequacy of local solutions to regional 

 land-use management problems derives from the dependency of many 

 local governments upon development-related property tax revenues. 

 Wliatever may be in the best interests of the region must confront 

 powerful local economic incentives. American cities find it very diffi- 

 cult to act on concert in planning and controlling land use, partly be- 

 cause neighboring committees compete economically. 



A third reason for the inadequacy of our current approach to land- 

 use regulations has to do with the changing character of the United 

 States. Once it could be said that if one community allowed one wet- 

 land to be filled or one woodland to be developed there was always 

 another. This is no longer true. The frontier has long since been 

 closed, but the myth of inexhaustible land resources has survived into 

 an era when it has become clear that our supply of land, especially of 

 lands we refer to in H.Ii. 4332 as areas of critical environmental con- 

 cern, is finite. 



As a consequence of problems largely beyond the control of local 

 governments, the current locally oriented land use regulatory system 

 is doing very poorly at dealing with three kinds of issues : Protecting 

 lands which serve vital natural or esthetic purposes for a regional 

 population; accepting and siting development which the larger areas 

 may badly need but which may represent net tax costs or pose social 

 problems ; and controlling growth which is induced on such a scale by 

 certain magnetic developments that it altogether changes the ground 

 rules of the conventional planning and zoning game. 



The objective of a national policy for land use must be to reform the 

 institutions of government in such a way that important conservation 



