Planning for city, state, region, and nation : proceedings of the Joint Conference on Planning

PLANNING FOR

CITY, STATE, REGION

AND NATION

1936

AMERICAN SOCIETY
OF PLANNING OFFICIALS

From the collection of the

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Prelinger

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San Francisco, California
2006

PLANNING FOR

CITY, STATE, REGION

AND NATION

PROCEEDINGS OP

THE JOINT CONFERENCE
ON PLANNING

MAY 4, 5, AND 6, 1936, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

American City Planning Institute

American Planning and Civic Association

American Society of Planning Officials

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLANNING OFFICIALS

850 EAST FIFTY- EIGHTH STREET
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

COMMITTEE ON PROGRAM AND
PROCEEDINGS

FLAVEL SHURTLEFF, Director of the Conference
CHAIRMAN

FOR THE AMERICAN CITY PLANNING INSTITUTE

RUSSELL VANNEST BLACK, President
HOWARD K. MENHINICK, Executive Secretary

FOR THE AMERICAN PLANNING AND Civic ASSOCIATION

FREDERIC A. DELANO, President
HARLEAN JAMES, Executive Secretary

FOR THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLANNING OFFICIALS

ALFRED BETTMAN, President
WALTER H. BLUCHER, Executive Director

CONTENTS

PAGE
INTRODUCTION Alfred Bettman 1

THE CITY

City Planning Extends Its Boundaries L. Deming Tilton 3

City Planning and the Urbanism Study L. Segoe 7

Large-Scale Housing and the City Plan . . Russell VanNest Black 13
Effect of Certain Significant Characteristics of City Housing Projects
of All Kinds Upon City Planning Procedure in Locating Such

Projects Frederick Bigger 17

Discussion 22

Revision of Zoning Ordinances Arthur C. Comey 27

Discussion 31

The City Official Needs the Plan . . . . ^ . .. . Clifford W. Ham 35
EXPERIENCE WITH CITY PLANNING PROGRAMS

The Gymnastics of Municipal Planning Procedure . . . . '.. '. -. ,'.t

Charles B. Bennett 40

How City Planning Programs Are Made S. R. DeBoer 44

Richmond's Experience in City Planning .... G. M . Bowers 47

THE COUNTY

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING

Chairman's Introduction Marshall N. Dana 53

County Planning in Iowa P. H. Elwood 54

Distinctive Features of Planning Procedure in Clackamas County,
Oregon L. C. Stoll and V. B. Stanbery 59

COUNTY AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT PLANNING . Bushrod W. Attin 66

INTER-COUNTY ORGANIZATION

The Georgia Eastern Coast District Henry T. Mclntosh 72

Tennessee Counties . Gerald Gimre 75

THE STATE

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS

Massachusetts Elisabeth M. Herlihy 81

South Dakota W. R. Ronald 87

Florida C. B. Treadway; Read by Mrs. M. M. Ebert 91

New Jersey Charles P. Messick 94

vii

viii CONTENTS

Virginia PAGE

Chairman's Introduction Willard Day 95

State Planning and Education . . . ... . . . Sidney B. Hall 96

State Planning and Conservation and Development

Wilbur C. Hatt 97

State Planning and Legislative Planning . . William R. Shands 101

THE REGION

REGIONAL PLANNING

Incentives and Objectives in Regional Planning . George T. Renner 105
Political and Administrative Aspects of Regional Planning ....

Marshall E. Dimock 1 1 1

Accomplishments in Regional Planning .... Charles W. Eliot, 2d 116

THE NATION
NATIONAL PLANNING

Emerging Population Problems Frank Lorimer 123

Industrial Resources Gardiner C. Means 126

Planning for Public Works Fred E. Schnepfe 132

Highlights of the National Water Resources Study . . Abel Wolman 138

RESOLUTION OF THE CONFERENCE 146

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET

Chairman's Introduction Morton L. Wallerstein 149

A Permanent National Resources Board .... Maury Maverick 149

Chairman's Introduction 157

State Planning George C. Peery 157

Chairman's Introduction 162

Planning and Progress Frederic A. Delano 163

Citizen Support for Planning ...... Samuel P. Wetherill, Jr. 164

Introduction

By ALFRED BETTMAN, Cincinnati, Ohio
President, American Society of Planning Officials

THE annual planning conference is now entered into jointly by the
three organizations which resulted from the reorganization a year
or so ago of the planning movement, namely : the American City Plan-
ning Institute, the American Society of Planning Officials and the
American Planning and Civic Association, representing respectively,
in a general way, the professional group, the group which is officially
connected with the making or administration of plans, and the group
which is engaged in promoting the movement and creating popular
support for it.

I think it may be said that it will not be necessary for each of us as
we speak to define planning, especially as we have been spending many
years unsuccessfully in arriving at a definition, but in general we mean
the sort of thing we have done in city planning, the designing of the
uses of land for human purposes and for the protection of human wel-
fare. That may be said to have been begun in the field of the city
thirty-five years ago. I believe it grew out of two streams of recognition
of the problem. Those who had had some experience with city adminis-
tration began to realize the wastes of uncoordinated, unplanned effort
in the different administrative departments and the different adminis-
trative activities of the city.

I doubt whether at the beginning the social objectives were con-
sidered. I think this first sense of the need of coordination and adjust-
ment by means of design- and program-making was felt rather as an
economic than as a social activity idea. But, at any rate, there was
here and there throughout the cities this sense of the need of having
the street and recreation activities and so on programmed so as to assure
each department getting itself under way and keeping its end up.

The second stream, so far as organizing the movement is concerned,
was that which we call zoning, which was simply urban land-use classi-
fication in the case of privately owned land. It developed with the
growth of the automobile, which involved the invasion of residential
districts by garages, and to some extent also out of special experiences
such as that of New York's Fifth Avenue with the invasion of the tex-
tile industry into that fine shopping street. These two streams and
possibly others came together to produce the city planning movement.

As we discussed and talked we began to realize more and more, in
the first place, that zoning was not separated from planning, but that
it was simply a feature of it, a feature which could not be successfully
met without an equal amount of attention paid to it, an equal amount
of effort put into it, and with the same thoroughness as is put into
all the other features of the lay-out of the city.

1

2 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

That is one lesson we learned. Another lesson was that our objectives
were social, that we were originating the street system and the recreation
system and the school system and all the rest of it in order that human
beings who live in urban areas might live better lives; more orderly,
more convenient, more healthful lives. So I feel that gradually the city
planning movement became enriched by the consciousness of its mean-
ing, its social purpose.

In the meantime there had been going on, especially in the colleges,
and more particularly in the agricultural colleges, studies of the classi-
fication of rural land. I do not think that either the city planner knew,
or that the men studying land-use classification of the rural districts
were conscious of the fact, that in technique and in objective they were
parts of the same idea. They grew up separately; they have not yet
realized that they are parts of the same idea, and one of the things
that we should bring about is this realization that they are fundamen-
tally, in objective and in method, the same, differing only in the factors
which rural areas or suburban areas or urban areas contribute to the
problem.

There came along the depression, and that produced a consciousness
of the terrific wastes of planlessness in the national and state fields.
The National Planning Board, and its successor the National Resources
Committee, realized that the same wastes had caused an enormous
national loss, whether one expressed that loss in terms of dollars and
cents or in terms of social ills, and from this realization grew the national
planning movement. It inspired and brought into being the state plan-
ning movement and the great river basin regional movements, and
consequently this fundamental concept is now present in more or less
degree in each of the geographical and political fields and levels.

The tremendous interest in national planning and state planning by
virtue of the prestige which, of course, national action always carries
with it, and of the men who have engaged in it, and the novelty of it,
the somewhat thrilling size and magnitude of it, and its ideals, has
tended rather to overshadow city planning. That is something we
must counteract because no skill, no high degree of thought, no degree
of thoroughness in national, state or interstate planning will provide
for the social welfare of the American people unless local planning be
kept alive and growing and made effective.

So I think it is somewhat symbolic of a correct point of view that
this national conference begins with the subject of city and local plan-
ning. The activities of the city come home to us and contribute to our
welfare from the beginning of time, over every minute of the twenty-
four hours of the day; the air we breathe and the water we drink in the
cities, the streets we walk or drive upon going from business to the
home and from the home to business. The quality of our lives is very
much affected by what goes on in the public activities of the locality.

CITY PLANNING EXTENDS ITS BOUNDARIES 3

So there will be no real, general health in American life unless local
planning be kept as alive and as growing as in the higher levels of the
planning field, not higher in the sense of more important, but higher in
a political and geographical sense.

Mr. Pomeroy was to have read the first paper, "City Planning
Extends Its Boundaries," but because of illness is unable to be here.
Mr. L. Deming Tilton, one of the most active men in the practice of plan-
ning in Southern California, has consented to speak on the same subject.

City Planning Extends Its Boundaries

By L. DEMING TILTON, Santa Barbara, Calif.,
Consultant, California State Planning Board

1AM HAPPY to be before you this morning because it gives me an
opportunity to call to your minds that there is a tremendous interest
in planning on the other side of the continent. The State of California
is definitely committed to the system of planning with some thirty
county planning commissions, about half of them active, and about ten
of them possessing technical staffs and budgets to carry on a regular
program of work, with a good many cities actively engaged in planning
and carrying on during the depression period with about as much vigor
as they did before. That is the record over there, and I want to call it
to your attention as indicating that planning is still regarded as an
important function of government out on the Pacific Coast.

There is a general recognition today in California, as elsewhere, that
planning has moved into wider fields. The city is seen as a part of the
organism that is known as the State; it is a definite area set aside for
certain particular functions. We have an illustration of that in Cali-
fornia— the importance of seeing our urban areas devoted to the func-
tions which they are fitted to serve — in the case of a little town called
Newport Beach, which lies south of Los Angeles. It is a recreation
community pure and simple, and exists for the primary purpose of
enabling people to go down to enjoy Newport Bay. Yet the city council
of that city just a few months ago in a moment of weakness — after
the Federal Government had spent about a million and a half dollars
to dredge their bay to make it more useful for recreation purposes —
the city council of that city, forgetting that the primary function of the
city was recreation and pleasure, voted to grant permits for canneries on
the waterfront, thereby introducing an element which everyone was
bound to say would very largely destroy that whole area for the pur-
pose for which nature ideally fitted it. We argued that Newport Beach
should function as a recreation community in the interest of giving the
entire State a balanced type of development — communities devoted to
recreation here, communities devoted to industry there, and commu-
nities devoted to commerce elsewhere. When that point was presented

4 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

to the Newport council they said: "Let's revise our zoning scheme, and
let's keep this community a recreation community and do everything
we can to enable it to discharge its function."

Now that is merely a thought that indicates by an actual example
how the cities have to be regarded as functional elements in the larger
region with various kinds of roads, as Mr. Bettman has indicated, run-
ning out into the larger areas. There is the water supply that has to
be brought from great distances into the city; there are forest areas
that have to be depended on for the supply of essential building mate-
rials; there is, of course, the agricultural background which the city
dweller must have some interest in because that is where his food is
produced. It is that new understanding of the relationship between
the urban communities and their functioning and the larger region which
they serve and upon which they are dependent that gives this planning
movement at the present time its wider scope.

The problems of the cities, however, are still acute and difficult to
solve. The principal problem today in cities, as we all know, is that of
trying to find some corrective for the spread of blight and decay at the
heart, and that is a very difficult problem, one which challenges the
ingenuity and thought of everyone engaged in this line of work. Another
job, it seems to me, is to indicate clearly to those who are concerned
with the improvement of power distribution that there is a special
function in government today that has to be performed by someone.
He can be called a planner or any other title you want to apply to him,
but planning there must be, and it is possible within cities to show
easily what we mean by planning.

This whole program in terms of our own individual interests and in
terms of our group interests is vast. The problems are intriguing, and
it is, after all, a work that has possibilities of giving us a rich sense of
satisfaction in the knowledge that what we do, even though it may be
just a little, is for the benefit of our fellow creatures.

THE CITY

CITY PLANNING AND THE URBANISM STUDY 7

City Planning and the Urbanism Study

By L. SEGOE, Cincinnati, Ohio,
Director, Research Committee on Urbanism, National Resources Committee

WHEN invited to make a statement at this Conference on the
subject "City Planning and the Urbanism Study," perhaps I
should have referred the program makers to Mr. Eliot's paper at last
year's Conference in Cincinnati, "New Approaches to Urban Planning,"
which, although we didn't know it at the time, announced the intention
of the National Resources Committee to undertake the Urbanism Study
and pointed out its significance as a means to a new approach to urban
planning. Having overlooked this opportunity of escape, I shall endeavor
to present the subject in closer perspective.

City planning, or, more accurately, the planning of the physical
structure of urban communities and regions (which is really what we
mean by the abbreviated term) and the research study of urbanism are
related to one another in a number of different ways. In some respects
the relation may be said to be reciprocal: the findings of the Urbanism
Study being expected to offer a more solid foundation for the planning
of urban communities and regions, to supply over-all controls and general
directives; in turn, city planning, from the standpoint of the Urbanism
Study, is one of the tools for accomplishing such improvements in the
condition of urban life as can be brought about or fostered by the re-
shaping of the physical structure of urban communities.

In general terms, the objectives of the Urbanism. Study are to deter-
mine what the role of the urban community is in national life; what the
social and economic functions are which can best be performed in urban
communities; and what can be done to enable these communities better
to perform such functions and, at the same time, to remedy and combat
the evils and problems which appear to be associated with intensive
urbanization.

The urgent need for at least a preliminary study of this sort was
called to the attention of the groups here assembled during last year's
conference by Dr. Merriam. He pointed out the difficulties confronting
the governmental agencies and the planners of government in formulating
programs of action affecting urban communities and in determining the
correct policies on which to predicate such programs, without answers
to some of the following fundamental questions: What kind of urban
community should we desirably plan for? Should we encourage the
building of larger and larger cities and the further concentration of
urbanization or should we foster a wider dispersion of urbanization?
Should public and private policies be directed towards industrial cen-
tralization, dispersion, regional specialization or diversification and
balance? Should we try to improve the lot of the workers of congested
industrial centers by encouraging them to move to smaller communities

8 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

and attempt to take their jobs with them, or should we seek to accom-
plish the same ends by transforming our cities and industrial areas into
places where these workers will have a more decent environment in
which to live?

Whether we should plan for the rehousing of much of our working
population in the larger cities or in the smaller ones; whether we should
attempt to discourage further urbanization by new Federal policies in
respect to transportation and rates, the distribution of public works,
and relief, or what form of urbanization we should encourage; whether
one kind or another kind of city planning policies, land policies, transit
policies, etc., should be pursued by our local governments — all will depend
on the primary question, what do we have to look forward to in the
matter of further urbanization and what is the direction we desire that
this should take, to produce the kind of urban communities best adapted
to the role these are to play in the social and economic life of the nation
and in which we can expect to find or provide most of the good things
and least of the bad of city life?

Search for the answers to these questions opens up an extremely
broad and complex field of inquiry. We should have to ascertain the
extent and nature of urbanization and its effects on urban life as well as
on our national life; the forces that may be presumed to cause it; the
probable future direction of the movement; and the means which may
be employed to guide and control it.

1. What have been the effects of increasing urbanization and its concentra-

tion on various aspects of urban and national life, and what
variation may be found in the consequences of urbanization in
cities of different sizes and types? In somewhat more detail,
what have been the effects?

(a) On population — its composition, characteristics, fertility, mortality,
migration.

(6) On the economic and social conditions of the population.

(c) On the general physical development of the community.

(d) On health, safety, security and welfare, on recreation and education.

(e) On transportation and other public services and facilities.
(/) On the economic, political, and legal order.

(0) On culture, arts, science, and religion.

(h) On governmental administration, local, State, and Federal.

2. What are the forces and factors and the public and private policies foster-

ing urbanization, and what changes may be expected in such
factors and their influence?

3. What can we anticipate concerning further urbanization and what na-

tional policies might be formulated so to influence or control it
as to mitigate present problems, guard against the creating of
new ones and assist the cities in improving the quality of urban
life?

4. What instruments and methods may be employed under our political and

economic system for controlling urbanization and for dealing
with the problems incident thereto?

CITY PLANNING AND THE URBANISM STUDY 9

No definite answer can be found probably to several of these ques-
tions but we will have to have some answers to most of them if we are to
understand the process of urbanization, the forces that produce it and
equip ourselves to chart the course of its future. No one will deny that
an attempt to find these answers would be an extremely large and com-
plex undertaking. "The growth of large cities constitutes perhaps the
greatest of all problems of modern civilization," said Mackenzie towards
the end of the last century, and he could not possibly foresee what
has transpired since.

The present effort of the Research Committee on Urbanism cannot
hope to make an exhaustive study of such a problem because of time
and other limitations. Such a study would have to be conducted over a
period of years and demand much more information and data about
urban communities and regions than are at present available through
public and private fact-collecting agencies. The present Urbanism Study
can only hope to make an initial exploration of the field on a rather
broad front but with limited penetration. By necessity it is focused on
several major phases of the problem of urbanization which are pressing
for attention by reason of developments during the last few years and
the need of determining some guiding policies arising therefrom.

In their relationship to urban planning the studies programmed by
the Research Committee on Urbanism may be grouped in the following
four categories :

1. Those that deal with some of the most important factors expected to

influence the future course of urbanization: population, the locational
trends of industry, transportation and rate-making policies, power distri-
bution, communication, etc.

It is anticipated that these will throw light on the probable future
amount, distribution and characteristics of the future urban population.

2. Those studies that will compare the relative advantages and disadvantages

of communities of various sizes and types, also of the urban and the
rural way of living and will strive to discover the reasons for the presence
of certain problems in some communities and for the absence of like
problems in others.

These ought to lead to some conclusion as to the desirable types of
communities, not perhaps in terms of size but in terms of the minimum
standards of social and economic existence and of physical environment.

The uncovering of cause and effect relationship may furnish a new
set of remedies, and illuminate the social origins and consequences of
the existing maladjustments and deficiencies in our cities.

3. Those studies that will examine, appraise, and endeavor to improve the

instruments already available for guiding and controlling the future
development of the urban community, will seek to discover and ex-
periment with new implements and methods of control, and will aim to
strengthen them all by broadening the field of conscious social planning
for shaping urban life.

10 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

City planning as practiced to date is to be examined to determine
how effective a tool it has been and how it may be strengthened and
made more effective. Experience with planned communities and neigh-
borhoods is to be reviewed to ascertain their successes and shortcomings
and the applicability of this experience to certain urban problems.

The effects of past and prevailing urban land policies and transit
policies are to be traced to discover the influence these had on the
development of urban communities and to what extent these may be
held to be responsible for some of the maladjustment existing, to see
what changes hi such policies may be made to remedy these and to
foster desirable future development and redevelopment.

An attempt will be made through experimental studies to explore
the possibilities of rationalizing by industrial planning the industrial
structure of urban communities and regions, directed not to produce
just growth, as heretofore, but towards soundness of industrial develop-
ment, greater stability, and the wiser use of natural and human resources.

An examination is to be made of recent trends in local government
and the relationship of the Federal Government to cities, also the part
that the unions of cities (formal associations, governmental and regional
associations) can play in such relationship. These comprise the studies
of the governmental machinery for implementing national policies and
programs involving urban communities.

4. The studies of this category are to turn to some of the more mature foreign
countries with a civilization like our own, to find out what we ought
to look forward to in the light of their experience as a result of con-
tinued urbanization, what changes in our political, social, cultural, and
economic life, what new problems and intensifications or lessening of
old ones we should be prepared for. Likewise, to find out what instru-
ments and methods were employed in these countries for guiding and
controlling urbanization and dealing with the problems incident thereto
and how effective these had been found to be, to determine which of
these may be suitable and adaptable to our problems under our politi-
cal and economic system.

With this summary of studies organized with respect to their relation
to urban planning, and purposely severely condensed, it is now possible
to discuss in more detail the relationship between City Planning and
the Urbanism Study briefly stated at the beginning.

Manifestly, the studies in the first group will assist in answering
those primary questions in the planning of urban communities which
heretofore we have endeavored to arrive at without benefit of the over-
all controls and general directives to be developed by these studies.
We had to grope almost in the dark trying to arrive at some reasonably
acceptable forecast of such a basic question as the population for which
the plan of the urban community or region ought to be prepared, and
faced even greater difficulties when called upon to substantiate any such
forecast not meeting the most buoyant expectations. Such over-sanguine

CITY PLANNING AND THE URBANISM STUDY 11

prognostications as used by official and semi-official agencies for the
regions of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Cleveland,
Washington, and Boston, which in the aggregate, it was found, would
absorb all of the national population increase and some more, would not
have been entertained if there had been adequate knowledge of the
national outlook. Likewise, it should be possible to gain the acceptance
of zoning regulations more reasonable than those of New York under
which, according to recent studies of the New York City Housing Au-
thority, the area zoned residential would accommodate almost 77 million
people and the business and industrial districts could provide working
space for 340 million people. Perhaps we may even succeed in making
an impression on the subdividers who provided enough lots around
Chicago estimated to be capable of housing 10 million people and on
Long Island to resettle the entire population of the five Boroughs of New
York, and in comparably absurd proportions around Los Angeles,
Detroit, Cleveland, and other cities.

More adequate knowledge about the locational trends of industry
nationally, the probable effects of the reorganization of the transporta-
tion system and the wider availability of fluid power, should permit a
sounder appraisal of the probable future of the community for planning
purposes. It would no doubt stimulate the examination of the forces
responsible for the growth of the community, and studies of the trends
in direction and potency of these forces. This would be another approach
to a reasonably sound prognostication of what the outlook is for the
community, without which there can be no real planning.

With a reasonably reliable indication of future growth and with the
aid of the studies of the comparative advantages and disadvantages of
communities of different sizes and of the experience with planned com-
munities and neighborhoods, it should be possible to 'formulate the basic
general pattern of development appropriate for the specific urban com-
munity or region, which is to serve as a framework for the more detailed
community plan. This would indeed be a new procedure in urban plan-
ning. Such a procedure, it seems to me, is fundamental to realize its full
possibilities, although, I admit, it would be of no avail to attempt it
unless we can develop stronger tools than heretofore available for carry-
ing out such a plan.

The studies of the third category consist of the examination of the
availability of several such tools and the ways these could be employed,
including city planning itself as it had been practiced. Urban land
policies, transit policies, the reorganization of the transportation terminal
facilities are among such tools. The extension of the field of planning to
industry and the securing of a stronger place for planning in govern-
ment at various levels are additional avenues to be explored, for the
purpose of strengthening planning and making it a more potent instru-
ment for controlling the future development of our cities.

13 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Some additional exposition may be of interest concerning the experi-
mental industrial planning studies. It is not being proposed that city
planning extend its scope to include this kind of planning, but it should
not require much argument to show how important such planning is as
a basis for the city plan and that it should be undertaken by someone.
It has often occurred to me before, how much consideration we have
given in the preparation of city plans to the configuration of the land on
which the city is located and will continue to expand, on which the
roads, schools, recreation facilities, etc., are to be built, and how little
to the composition, the soundness and stability of the industrial struc-
ture on which the very existence of the community and its future depend.

The sample studies contemplated are to experiment with the pos-
sibilities of evolving a program of selective future industrial development
directed towards attaining through better articulation of the industrial
structure such aims as: greater stability of employment, improved or-
ganic relationship between manufacturing industries, fuller use of ad-
vantages in point of labor supply and special aptitudes, natural resources,
markets, etc., and the coordination of the manufacturing industries with
other productive industries such as agriculture, forestry, extraction, and
with service industries. Also to demonstrate the desirability to the
public and private agencies of guiding further industrial growth in ac-
cordance with a selective program.

In answer to those who would raise objections to such a program and
any attempt at public control of the sort involved here, I wish to point
to free land, tax exemptions, free rent, preferential utility rates, etc.,
that have been used by cities in the past to compete for industries with-
out discrimination. What is proposed here is only that such inducements
be extended with discrimination in accordance with a selective program
of development.

Although city planning accomplished considerable good, taking into
account that it is still a very young governmental function, at least a
few of us felt for some time that it was deficient in two major directions :
outwardly, because city plans were framed by the corporate limits or at
the most by a border of a few miles outside, thus floating, as it were, not
being anchored to or integrated with their immediate environs or with
the broader plans for large regions and States; inwardly, because city
planning stayed too close to the surface, because its approach was not
fundamental enough, and because of lack of adequate tools with which
to make a more fundamental plan effective.

The possibility of remedying the first of these major deficiencies —
integration with the plans of region and State — appears now to be in
sight with the state and regional planning movement in full swing.
Assistance in a new approach to urban planning and finding new means
for making it more effective, are hoped to emerge from the Urbanism
Study.

LARGE-SCALE HOUSING AND THE CITY PLAN 13

Large- Scale Housing and the City Plan

By RUSSELL V.\NNEST BLACK, New Hope, Pa., Consultant-Director,
New Jersey State Planning Board

TO what extent has the Federal housing program been handicapped
by the lack of adequate city plans? Are city plans essential to in-
telligent large-scale housing procedures? If city plans are important to
housing, what special form should they be given best to serve housing
purposes? These are among the questions that have been especially
troublesome to both housing officials and city planners during recent
months, producing, to put it mildly, much friendly conflict.

The planners contend that neither location nor character of housing
projects may be well determined upon the basis of a three-day investi-
gation by a zealous houser in a strange land, no matter how well he may
be armed with real-property inventories. Housing officials concede that
real city plans might be useful if such things existed but that, in their
experience, such plans as they have come across are more likely to be
obstacles than aids. They add that they have not much time for plans
anyway — their job is building houses. The planners still insist that
intelligent housing cannot be done safely on any considerable scale
except with the guidance of good comprehensive plans. "All right,"
says the houser, "produce them."

I stand with my colleagues, the planners, not in support of all that
has been done in the name of planning but in their insistence upon the
essential contribution planning has to make toward solution of the
national and local housing problem. To me, it is obvious that, since
houses are a major part of the flesh upon the skeleton of the city plan, the
plan can have little meaning except as it determines the housing pattern
and defines the extent and character of and the limitations upon essential
services to housing. If housing can be advanced safely and effectively
without the guidance of comprehensive city plans, then what after all
is the purpose of comprehensive planning?

There is both direct and implied criticism from housing people that
existing city plans and information available at planning-board offices
are quite universally inadequate to housing determinations. But this
criticism seems never to include clear definition of what different and
what more is needed.

There are, admittedly, all kinds of city plans and few indeed that
represent any near approach to exhaustion of planning possibilities.
The authors, themselves, would be the last to advance their plans as
having reached the ultimate in either scope or refinement. Many city
plans are frankly only introductions to planning in their respective
communities. In few cities has there been either the money or the
interest to do the real planning job. I venture that more money has
been thrown into the making of any one of several recent real-property

14 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

inventories than has been available for city planning in the whole
country during any given year since planning gained its new impetus
early in this century. I think I can assure the housing people that their
disappointment in the character and extent of existing city plans is
shared with only slightly less poignancy by the planners.

But our purpose today is not to bemoan the shortcomings of past
planning performance but to determine if we can the degree to which
worthwhile housing is dependent upon what we call comprehensive
planning and the kind of city plans that will be most helpful. Probably
no more pressing problem faces either the public housing officials or the
city planners. I believe that large concentration upon the job of re-
housing the lower-income workers, in the relatively near future, is
inevitable. We may soon find ourselves in the full tide of rebuilding
many American cities. Added to the pressure of social necessity for more
and better housing is the threat of chronic unemployment likely to seek
at least a fair measure of relief through this form of expanded public
activity. I may seem optimistic in thinking that enforced public enter-
prise will find one of its major releases in public housing, but such
optimism as I have is leavened with enough realism to caution that
whether or not public housing reaches any large proportions during
your and my working lives depends in considerable part upon the quality
and soundness of the beginnings. If behind public housing, from the
start, there is no breadth of vision, if public housing accepts perpetuation
of the old social and economic evils of the present outmoded form of
American city structure, then public housing carries within itself the
seeds of its own destruction and promises too little of permanent good
to be worth serious effort. Really constructive housing offers an engaging
challenge to housing experts, to planners, to planning boards, and to the
entire citizenry of these United States. Good planning and good plans
are essential safeguards of both the form and direction of public housing.

I do not wish to bore you with the technical details of the kind of
city-plan background that many of us believe to be necessary to the
proper selection of housing sites and to determination of the kind of
housing that may be placed appropriately in any given locality, but a
few rather specific suggestions may not be out of place.

First of all, I am rather convinced that a city plan which fails to
serve such housing purposes as those of guidance in selection of sites,
indication of the type of houses most appropriate to the site or sites
selected, and direction as to appropriate street pattern, fails likewise
and perhaps in equal degree to serve the various other purposes for
which that plan is intended. In other words, any really good compre-
hensive city plan should be as effective in guiding these particular hous-
ing determinations as it is in directing street extensions and improve-
ments, the routing of traffic, expansion of the park and playground
system, and location of the new city hall.

LARGE-SCALE HOUSING AND THE CITY PLAN 15

For housing purposes, however, it may be that somewhat more than
usual emphasis should be placed upon existing and future use-of-land
studies. Existing use-of-land information should include: mapped indi-
cation of land and building uses and land coverage; approximate popu-
lation density by blocks or by census tracts; and, possibly, a real-
property inventory. For all general purposes, existing land and building
uses and existing land coverage can be observed or shown most simply
and quite adequately on a good large-scale air map. Existing population
density usually can be determined with sufficient accuracy for general
planning and programming purposes from information supplied by the
most recent census count and by the existing use-of-land map. The real-
property inventory serves multiple purposes but, so far as city-wide
application is concerned, is most valuable in determining the extent of
deficiencies in the various dwelling types and in establishing a scheduled
construction program to correct these deficiencies. It is probable that,
in most instances, the detailed real-property survey can be limited to
otherwise determined specific problem areas, leaving quantities of and
vacancies in the several dwelling unit types to be got from other
usually available public records or by special vacancy surveys.

Existing-condition surveys as outlined above are, of course, merely
a matter of money, men, and mechanics. The real and the difficult job
lies in the prediction and establishment of future land-uses, to be based
upon visible needs, suitability, adaptability, and probable future de-
mands. The future land-use study must extend beyond the confines of
a city to visualize so far as may be possible that city's place in the future
regional and national pattern. There should evolve a reasonably well-
founded guess as to the qualitative and quantitative future of the city
under study. This guess must represent a fine balance between what
it appears the city should be and what perhaps irresistible forces are
likely to make of it. Within such a guess of quantitative and qualitative
probability, the next step is to allocate most logical and most desirable
functions to the various portions of the city. This is to be done in ac-
cordance with a proper coordination of interrelated functions, in accord-
ance with the relative adaptability of the several land areas; and in
accordance with existing and still feasible service facilities.

The future use-of-land plan, not only for housing but for all planning
purposes, should go far beyond the usual present-day zoning ordinance
and plan which is essentially negative in its determinations. To be fully
effective, the future use-of-land plan should be legally established and,
at least with respect to residential neighborhood units, should be fixed
and virtually unchangeable. Such a fixed land-use and population-
density plan is, of course, a far cry from now established zoning pro-
cedures. It would require much more thorough and competent basic
studies and plans than have been employed in perhaps ninety-nine out
of a hundred existing zoning ordinances. It may be that neither the

16 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

courts nor the planners are now prepared to take safely this long step
in planning. Observing the weaknesses of much of zoning in its present
embryonic stage, I hesitate to suggest rapid advance into a more positive
application of the zoning principle however seemingly desirable. I offer
this suggestion, therefore, not so much as a recommendation for im-
mediate and universal action as an idea important to real city planning
— as an idea worthy at least of much serious experimentation.

Regardless of whether or not the future use-of-land plan can be
legally established, it remains an essential foundation for the general
city plan and for the housing plan and program. The future use-of-land
plan both determines and is determined by the structural form of a city
as shaped by transportation arteries, underground utilities, parks and
other public properties, and natural features such as mountains and
rivers. The structural form of the city as represented by the above
public facilities can be fixed by law. God is not likely to change His
mind very much about most mountains and rivers. Private building
enterprise and the use of land can be controlled in some degree through
zoning. Much of guidance can be exercised through land subdivision
control. Public housing enterprise certainly can be established quite in
conformity with the land-use plan. There is no real reason, therefore,
for shying from such basic planning while waiting for the time of crystal-
lizing the long-period use of land through direct legislation. The in-
tegrity of the land-use plan can be preserved in considerable degree
through the proper employment of already available machinery.

It may be argued that housing deficiencies are so obvious in nine
cities out of ten that no shot aimed in the general direction of these
deficiencies is likely to miss. I have tried that kind of shooting at bunches
of quail and usually have had better results from more selective aim.
It is possible, of course, in most cities to find here and there, without
much study, a few blocks of vacant or otherwise available land, in an
obviously residential district, where chances of subsequent interference
with other major improvements is comparatively slight. By sponging
upon existing park, school, and other community facilities in the general
neighborhood it may be contrived to build upon one of these sites a few
hundred dwelling units, irrespective of existing and traditional housing
densities and dwelling types, without seriously disrupting the prevailing
conditions and the future prospects of the community concerned. If
this were the beginning and the end of new housing or rehousing in a
given city, perhaps something might be said for such a hit-or-miss pro-
cedure. But even so, basic to planning philosophy is the idea that first
things should come first. I venture that, from point of view of long-
time serviceability and of safety to itself, the superficially selected site
will seldom coincide with the site selected upon the basis of compre-
hensive planning studies.

The public housing job, however, is not going to end with the build-

CHARACTERISTICS OF CITY HOUSING PROJECTS 17

ing of a few hundred or a few thousand dwellings in a few scattered
cities. Those who should know say that we need in this country between
eight and ten million new or modernized low-cost houses. Sooner or
later we are going to build these houses if not upon the persuasion of
our social conscience, then in the interest of our economic salvation.
Large portions of many properly situated cities will be rebuilt. This
rebuilding cannot and should not take place, block by block, but by
whole neighborhoods and upon completely modernized street plans.
To perpetuate the old street patterns, with their disrupting qualities,
their inefficiencies, and their disregard for amenities, would defeat those
corollary purposes of new housing — quiet and assured residential neigh-
borhoods, adequate public services at reasonable cost, and effective
coordination of community functions. This does not mean that the
whole rehousing job has to be done at one time but that it should be
conceived as one operation and that each step should be taken in ac-
cordance with a preconceived objective.

May I repeat — if the comprehensive city plan is of any value and at
all worth making, it has a vital part to play in the broad and adequate
approach to housing, and further, if a comprehensive city plan is really
good enough to serve the other purposes for which it is intended, it is
quite likely to serve equally well the needs of the housing official.

Effect of Certain Significant Characteristics of
City Housing Projects of All Kinds Upon City
Planning Procedure in Locating Such Projects

By FREDERICK BIGGER, Architect and Town Planner, Pittsburgh, Pa.

IT has been impossible for Mr. Black and me to attack our subject
cooperatively as it was suggested we do. My approach to it is, there-
fore, an individual one; and I venture to revise the title so I may justify
a special, if only partial, approach.

It is axiomatic that housing projects in cities (the only location this
paper allows to be discussed) necessarily constitute elements of the city
plan. They may be alike in that the definitive characteristic is that each
project is "a group of dwellings." But beyond that, it is my impression
that, between housing projects, there are significant differences which
of themselves raise questions of some importance to the planner.

Perhaps we should not attempt any too exhaustive classification of
housing projects; but I may be forgiven for observing that we as stu-
dents, and the general public as the bewildered victim, do not have any
very specific and accepted picture in our minds when we use the mere
phrase "housing project." Therefore, some classification and definition
is necessary for the purpose of this discussion. Two major classifications

18 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

are in order. That which concerns only physical characteristics is a more
obvious one, and may be laid aside until we examine the other. That
classification has to do with ownership, and its social and pecuniary
objectives.

Category No. 1. I would limit this to a housing project which is
designed and built as one thing but is destined to be sold off, dwelling by
dwelling, to future individual owners. To design this sort of housing
project is to design something as an entity which will not remain an
entity afterward. By this I mean that the individually owned small
properties, into which the project will have been converted, are hardly
likely collectively to retain intact the wholesome characteristics of the
original unified design. Each of the individual owners will be subject
to the vicissitudes and hazards of small property ownership, to which
in the past our communities have been altogether too oblivious. Changes
in the family financial status, or sale of a property to another family
with a different point of view or different mode of living — these and
other unpredictable conditions will tend to break down the original lay-
out and character of the planned project. Therefore, from the point of
view of the general public and from the point of view of the public
officials, the kind of project here discussed may be nice to think of in
the beginning, but is not an unqualified blessing for the urban com-
munity if the hazards of the future are considered. It cannot be em-
phasized too strongly that these hazards are real and serious; and, if
time permits today, there should be discussion of this aspect of urban
adjustment.

Category No. 2. Here may be included a housing project designed as
an entity, but destined to be rented to many individual families, at the
generally prevailing rates. This is a commercial venture, in which one
or the other of two alternatives must be noted : (a) either continuity of
ownership is implied, with the housing project representing a long-term-
high-class investment; or (6) the ownership may shift from time to time,
possibly quite frequently, with either gain or loss to the seller, in which
case the method of handling the project makes it a venture of speculation.

In the case of the housing project which is an investment, the problem
of the designer is to make a design for living, the conveniences and amen-
ities for the occupants of the dwellings being a major consideration in
order to prevent vacancies and to preserve tenant satisfaction and
stability of income. In the case of the venture which is speculative,
although the designer may have had comfort and amenity as one of his
objectives, the actual manipulations of ownership have converted the
project into something in which the housing is a mere commercial com-
modity, and the comfort and well-being of the occupants of the dwellings
will in varying degree have less consideration than the primary pe-
cuniary one.

Category No. 3. In this group may be included all housing projects

CHARACTERISTICS OF CITY HOUSING PROJECTS 19

which might be carried out by a limited-dividend housing corporation
or by a housing authority, wherein rentable dwellings are produced,
calculated to serve people of modest or low income, and under a policy
of limitation of rent and return on the invested capital. In this case
there is a social objective, the promise of which is implied by the very
undertaking itself; and the designer will provide all the comforts and
conveniences that he can reasonably furnish with the money which is
to be expended, and with a careful calculation of the probable rental
that can be secured from modest-income and low-income families. The
difference between this limited return on the invested capital, and the
return upon ordinary commercially invested capital, represents the
premium that is paid to achieve the social objective. This type of housing
project, in theory at least, and, of course, if well designed, is a permanent
asset as a part of the city pattern. However, it might very well be that
such a project would be but one attractive oasis set down in the midst
of other housing which is completely subject to commercial manipulation.
In that event there would undoubtedly be a constant tendency for the
desirable housing project to break down and become less desirable be-
cause of the conditions existing in the surrounding neighborhoods.
This immediately suggests to the planner that, if at all possible, the
future safety of a good project of this kind conceivably might be safe-
guarded if the project itself were completely surrounded by park areas
which would effectively separate the project from the less desirable
surrounding neighborhoods.

Category No. 4- In this group we must include all projects which are
similar to that described above under Category No. 3, but different
only in that the ownership is different, i.e., the ownership in this case
vested in the occupants of the houses, each renter being also a part
owner of the entire project. This is the same idea that we know as the
traditional English "co-partnership housing," and it is not essentially
different in its principle of ownership from that applied in the familiar
"cooperative apartment buildings." I reaffirm the warning to provide
protection against the malign influences of blighted districts and un-
desirable housing which surround a well-designed housing project.

These four classifications, when reviewed, drive home to us the im-
portance, to the planner, of knowing (a) whether a housing project is to
be split up for ultimate sale to individuals; (6) whether it is to be utilized
as a manipulated profit-and-loss commodity only, regardless of a para-
mount interest of the occupants of the dwellings; (c) whether there is a
social objective contemplated, and in a measure secured by an effective
limitation of income and of rent levels; and (d) whether or not the
occupants of the dwellings are themselves the owners of the group of
dwellings. The importance I assign personally to this matter may not
have your concurrence; but I maintain that the issue is a vital one,
even if we look at the entire matter without any bias favoring housing

20 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

projects based on social objectives as contrasted with housing projects
based on pecuniary objectives.

The Joker About Ownership. If there were such a thing as a "realist,"
I think he would say something like this about ownership. He would
admit that the possession of a title deed, and the complete freedom of
the property from any lien or mortgage, could be called real ownership,
since it involves complete control or opportunity to control on the part
of the owner. On the other hand, if one holds a title deed to his property,
but continues to be obligated to pay considerable sums to some money-
lending institution on a mortgage or a note of any kind related to the
property in question, then certainly ownership is only partially vested
in the so-called owner who holds the title deed. He is not free to control;
he may not be able to meet the financial obligations upon his dwelling;
he may very well have to give it up and turn the property over to some-
one else who can pay to the money-lending institution the moneys that
are due. In hundreds of thousands of instances of presumed ownership
the ultimately effective and, therefore, the "real" owner is the holder
of the mortgage. As I am not settling the affairs of the world, I pass
on after posing the question: When is an owner not an owner?

Relationship of Owner s Objective to the Problem. Obviously those who
hold an equity in property, those who hold a financial interest in it, are
owners. If these owners are not identical with the occupant families in
the project, then we have divergent forces. The needs of the occupants
for more space and better living pull in one direction, while the demand
for return on investment, or profit from speculation, pulls in the op-
posite direction.

There are those who would abandon the profit motive (if they could) ;
there are those who would apply to it checks and balances; there are
those who would have nothing but more and dizzier profits. Present-
day planners in America know that the issue will be settled, if it ever is,
almost without their assistance, even though they might contribute
much to the stable evolution of an ultimate policy.

Why so relatively great a proportion of my presentation is devoted
to this issue will be somewhat clearer if I give an example. The planner
necessarily is controlled by the over-all financial consideration arising
out of the cost of his land, the cost of revamping or building new public
utilities, the cost of dwellings, the cost of attractive landscaping, etc.,
in addition to the basic item of cost of financing of the project. If he
thinks carefully, he knows that he may have to provide funds for, and
to design and construct, for example, sewers or a public school, because
the city itself has not yet provided them to serve the part of the town
in which he is proposing to locate his project. The designer realizes that
the city with which he is dealing has not completely developed its entire
utility system and school system for the service of a comprehensively
designed distribution of dwellings, commercial buildings, and industrial

CHARACTERISTICS OF CITY HOUSING PROJECTS 21

areas. If a purely pecuniary objective controls the designer, he will
locate his housing project so that it can be subsidized by the existing
community through an earlier provision of utilities and schools, even
though some other location involving new construction of some of these
facilities is a better one from the standpoint of the community's social
and financial interest, i.e., better from the standpoint of the city plan.

Projects as Assets and as Liabilities. We have seen that of the four
categories of housing projects listed in the beginning, Number 1 (that
which becomes a multitude of separate ownerships later) and Number
2-b (commodity housing on a speculative basis) might very well be said
to promise no permanence and no stable contribution to the community.
Those types might be thought of as leeches whose nourishment is
filched from the social and economic life-blood of the more stable parts
of the community. That would be a fair assumption, in the case of one
because individual owners have no ability to cope with the disintegrat-
ing forces which surround them; and the other speculative one because
its basic intention is to get the most out of the community, with the
least possible contribution by itself. On the other hand, long-term in-
vestment housing, co-partnership housing, and limited-dividend-and-
rental housing all share the need for certain stability and continuity of
existence within the urban pattern. So we have every right to expect
the community planner (city planner or town planner or regional
planner) to look askance upon the two kinds of housing and with favor
upon the others. That he must have an opinion is axiomatic, if he is to
assist in the determination of the relationships of dwellings to open
spaces, and of both to streets and other buildings, which relationships
he must deal with as a planner.

Two More Points. There remain but two points that seem necessary
to include in this presentation. One has to do with another kind of
classification of housing projects, namely, that which concerns the
actual physical arrangement in relation to the needs of the particular
people who are to occupy the project. The other has to do with the
procedure and technique of the town planner himself.

Physical Characteristics of Housing Projects. It has seemed to me
that the discussion of what a housing project should be is one which
has been and continues to be of prime importance to the people of this
country. It is of paramount importance to those who take part in such
a meeting as this. And it happens, fortunately, that many of those
here present, and many other competent persons, are engaged upon
those problems at this time under the leadership of the Federal Govern-
ment. I do not consider it my function to describe either the physical
characteristics of what ought to be done, or the multitude of cases that
could be imagined. I do assert that a generous amount of open space,
generously distributed, is a basic element in planning a housing project
if that project is to be a socially desirable one, and if the financial values

22 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

in the project are to be stable and reasonably permanent. That is why,
previously, the preference was expressed for those types of housing
project which, judged by the type of ownership and the objectives of
the owner, promise more stability.

More Obvious Angle of Approach Ignored Here. Again, it has seemed
to me that the title of the subject which I am supposed to be discussing
offered an opportunity to enter at considerable length into a discussion
of the calculation of land values; the appraisal of the shifting aspects of
population and the shifting of values from one locality to another; the
character and adequacy of utilities and services of one kind and another;
and, in general, the entire technique of preliminary analysis of existing
conditions and synthetic formulation of new and better relationships
which we refer to as planning. A discussion along these lines may be
appropriate, it may be offered at any tune, it is probably a perpetual
one. I offer no apology for ignoring such discussion as of less funda-
mental significance than the points to which greatest attention is given
in the paper now happily drawing to a close.

DISCUSSION

MR. JOHN IHLDER, Washington, D. C.: Last week in New York
I was informed that I was causing some gratification as being at least
one housing worker who seemed to be optimistic, not so much because
of certain definite things that are taking place, but because of the very
rapid and widespread increase of interest in the subject of housing,
and the realization that it is an integral part of a number of other subjects.

In this planning group we have, during the past few years, had a
very progressive increase in the realization that housing is intimately
connected with effective city planning, but there is a danger that the
planner approaching it from a physical point of view, seeing things in
a definite form, will go into too great detail or be too rigid in the appli-
cation of his solution.

Mr. Segoe said a number of things that require a good deal of study
and a good deal of consultation before we can get anywhere definitely
with them, but, as you know, there was once a poet named Browning
who penned the lines: "Unless our reach exceeds our grasp what is a
heaven for?" We are trying to make something analogous to heaven
here on earth, and our reach is exceeding our grasp at the present time.
For example, Mr. Segoe blithely proposes we shall go into the matter
of industrial relations, and even that of taking over the old discredited
Chamber of Commerce practice of granting free sites, only doing it
democratically and, of course, with intelligence rather than in the un-
intelligent way that local Chambers of Commerce used to do. Now it
may be that this sublimated method may be effective where other
methods appear discredited or futile.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CITY HOUSING PROJECTS 23

Mr. Black proposes that city planning, in order to be effective, must
take account of the kind of housing development that there should be
in each part of the community. Every housing worker certainly would
agree with that. For a good many years we have been advocating
exactly that. Only remember that when one goes into details of that
kind, if he is too rigid, if he says you "must" — and, as I understand it,
Mr. Black is inclined to say "must" — instead of saying "Thou shalt
not," he may impose handicaps which will interfere considerably with
the development of the proper housing in that area of the city. There
must be flexibility.

If the city planner, for instance, is going to decide exactly how wide
every lot must be before approval is given to a housing development,
he may impose just that additional handicap that prevents the develop-
ment from being made.

Mr. Bigger gave you an indication of the various kinds of complica-
tions that the housing worker must face. I don't suppose that the
city planner can possibly become technically informed on every
question involved in the different kinds of housing financing, but
he should have general information that will make him receptive to
counter-suggestions from the housing worker when he makes his city
plan in detail.

MR. HERBERT S. SWAN, Montclair, N. J. : I have been particularly
interested in the paper read by Mr. Segoe because it recognizes that
stability of industry is essential to proper city growth. Throughout the
depression there has been a process going on of shutting down the high-
cost plant and concentrating more in the low-cost centers. The situation
today is practically this, that many of our smaller communities are, on
the basis of the present industrial situation, from 25 to 50 per cent over-
populated. What are we going to do with these cities? Are we going to
liquidate this surplus population or are we going to find work for the
people to do? If we are going to find work for these people we have got
to analyze the economic basis of existence of our community, and it is
not sufficient that we draw plans.

We have ignored almost completely during the twenty years of this
conference the importance of such things as raw materials and markets
and the freight rate structure. Take such things as transit freight rates
extended by the railroads. They are designed to equalize economic dis-
advantages between the communities midway between the producing
centers and the consuming centers. They have had a tremendous effect
on the concentration of building industries in many places. Such places
as Kansas City and Minneapolis undoubtedly owe their industrial
development in flour milling to this factor; such a community as Buffalo
has its location at the foot of the Great Lakes to thank for the tre-
mendous advantage that has come to it. One of the most important

24 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

factors in the centralization of the automobile industry around Detroit
is the differential between set-up and knocked-down freight rates.

MR. JOHN NOLEN, Cambridge, Mass.: I am certainly vitally inter-
ested in both city planning and housing and am greatly concerned with
the gap and the lack of understanding between the planners and the
housers and puzzled to understand and more puzzled to know what
to do about it. I agree 100 per cent with Mr. Black's general statement
and his philosophy, and yet I believe that there is danger in any em-
phasis on what may be called rigidity. After all we are dealing with a
living organism, biological in its character. A part of our difficulty may
be that as planners we do not take enough into consideration that we
are dealing with matters of real life. It is unfortunate that we appear
before the public as academicians, as writers of books. Just now plan-
ning appears to be dead or sleeping, but housing is alive. If the housing
people could more realistically adopt the planning idea of locating their
housing projects with reference to existing city plans, or see the ad-
vantage of drawing upon city planning data where comprehensive plans
do not exist or cannot be quickly drafted, much of our present difficulty
would disappear.

MAJOR GEORGE W. FARNY, Morris Plains, N. J.: I have noticed
that where two groups in the planning field consider themselves funda-
mentally opposed, and neither wants to give in, nothing is done. I am
a trustee of the cooperative movement of America, but I find too often
that cooperation means that the other fellow expects me to cooperate
with him, but he doesn't want to cooperate with me. If the houser is
expected to wait for the planner to present to him all that the planner
wants to present, housing will never go forward. If the houser builds
where the planner does not want him to, proceeds with the housing
program without considering the planner, we are going to have even
worse conditions than those that exist today.

MR. J. ROSSA McCoRMicK, Scranton, Pa.: The separation between
housing and planning and possibly the reason of it may be further
illustrated by a recent story told of King Edward. He had visited the
shipyards of Glasgow and had inspected the Queen Mary. From there
he visited the slums of Glasgow, and is said to have remarked to the
people who were attending him: "How is it possible that the scientific
minds of the men of Great Britain have achieved such an excellent thing
as that great ship, and on the other hand are content to allow the living
conditions under which human beings are suffering?" Perhaps we do
not, as planners, see the human element that enters into housing. The
thing that we should achieve in America is that the man who has to
work for a living shall be given enough wages to own his own home.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CITY HOUSING PROJECTS 25

ME. FREDERIC A. DELANO, Washington, D. C.: I think that the
city planner can make the greatest contribution to housing if he will
address himself to the problem that is more aggravated in our country
than in European countries, that is, the set-up of our cities. When it
comes to where people's homes will be located — whether homes of the
rich or the poor — there seems to be very little attempt at stabilization.
When you consider that most of the altruistic housing projects are
based on amortization in thirty to sixty years, it seems ridiculous to
talk about them if there is not some definite plan of stabilization. When
the city of New York adopted a subway system with stations every
five to ten blocks, a destructive blow was dealt to many sections of the
city. Where the stations were located values were greatly increased;
between the stations properties were blighted. So, 1 appeal to you as
a layman that you give close attention to stabilization of values.

MR. CHARLES B. BENNETT, Milwaukee, Wis.: I think raising the
question whether planning should have anything to do with housing
is an indictment of our intelligence. Certainly it is an integral part of
planning. We have always considered it so in Milwaukee, perhaps be-
cause the Milwaukee Planning Commission is the housing authority. For
years we have been making housing studies and when the Federal
Government inaugurated its housing program we were prepared, and
we worked closely with the housing division at Washington. If we have
not established amicable relations, it is not because the problems are
not related. In getting together each of us has to give up a little. The
planner cannot design the apartment and neither should the houser
select the site. The planner should have at hand those factors which
should determine the location of housing projects. If he has not got them
he is not qualified to do planning.

MR. WAYNE D. HEYDECKER, White Plains, N. Y.: The three papers
presented this morning and the comments thereon all point to the need
of greater attention to the quantitative side of city planning. The study
that Mr. Segoe is making of urbanism has revealed the astounding
excess of area provided for business and industry and even excess of
housing sites that are already available in subdivided land. Some studies
which have been made in Washington, for instance, show that under
supposedly wise zoning ordinances areas have been provided for business
many times in excess of those which can profitably be used. It does not
profit the community to be forced to provide the city service facilities
and public utilities for areas vastly in excess of those which can be in-
telligently used. We have wasted our substance in public expenditures
far in advance of needs. The study that Mr. Segoe is making should
be of inestimable benefit in bringing our estimates of future growth
somewhere within probability.

26 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

MR. HABLAND BARTHOLOMEW, St. Louis, Mo.: The urbanism study
will produce a great deal of interesting information that will be useful
to us in the planning field. I hope it can be extended into the field of
actual appraisal. For instance, will this information be used by those
who advocate new forms of city development? Will it be used as a
justification for the development of rural or suburban projects of the
type proposed by the Resettlement Administration ? Has the time come
when we must admit that we are incapable of developing satisfactory
cities by following the patterns which have so far been used? Now the
fact that we haven't done more real appraising leads to a great deal of
confused thinking on past trends and future programs. I know of com-
munities where, because of planning, the growth is satisfactorily con-
trolled. Some are self-contained, some are suburban communities. I
know other communities wherein the planning commission has been
able to discover the improper policies that have led to bad development.
Now if those things were more widely known and studied in a number
of communities and were found to be parallel cases, that in itself would
be a very useful contribution in the planning field. I don't believe we
can over-emphasize the importance of two things; one is the control of
population density and the development of a very definite pattern which
will result in better communities. The other is the working out of a very
much more basic urban land policy.

REVISION OF ZONING ORDINANCES 27

Revision of Zoning Ordinances

By ARTHUR C. COMEY, Assistant Professor of City Planning, School of
City Planning, Harvard University

THERE have been a thousand reasons why zoning ordinances need
revision today and every one of them is valid. They do not all
apply to any one place, but practically every zoning ordinance in the
country is in the same position in the end: it needs revision. We may
consider zoning ordinances as they are from the point of view of the
defects when they were written, the defects in their application, the
fact that they are old, the fact that they are pioneers, the fact that the
people who wrote them are departed, the fact that they could not get
any money, the fact that they could not get any support for anything
at all, practical or theoretical, the fact that there was no city planning.
As to the hope of getting revision, I am not going to spend any amount
of time on that. We owe no apology to anybody for the zoning ordi-
nances that have already been perpetrated; they were drafted under
conditions which were not within our control.

People wonder sometimes why the planners do not get up and do
something. The unfortunate thing is that we are professional people.
We can only serve our clients. We cannot go off in a corner and theorize
about city planning and develop a wonderful structure. We have to have
a body brought to us to work on, just the same as a surgeon, and with,
I hope, as satisfactory results. But we have a very much greater diffi-
culty in that we cannot do a thorough job and put out a new man. We
have to patch up, as the public will allow.

But what is to be done? In the first place, it is fairly obvious from
cursory observation that if every city and town adopted all the tech-
niques and applications of zoning now applied anywhere in the country,
every city and town would be pretty well zoned. In other words, our
first job is to look around and see what other cities are doing. We made
two investigations at Harvard not long ago. We found many cities
where we had to dig the ordinance out of the town clerk's records be-
cause nobody outside of the town clerk knew the town was zoned, or,
perhaps, no technician had ever seen the ordinance. Among those or-
dinances we found many valuable ideas.

Another opportunity in revision is not in the wording of the zoning
ordinance, but in the map. We have heard a great deal on that; I do
not need to dwell on it, except to bring it into the picture. Our cities
are mapped for untold millions, untold thousands of feet of business
area, great industrial districts. We did not adequately protect our cities
because the map was too generous. The clue is not simple, because
zoning has to be adopted in the face of public opposition. Those whom
the zoning shoe pinches hardest are the ones that are energetic in oppo-
sition, and our well-wishers simply give us mild and friendly smiles.

28 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Then we like to base zoning on comprehensive city plans. I have
looked upon zoning as an opening wedge to get comprehensive plans
into effect. Once a little of the city planning idea is tried the citizens
are ready for more, and we give them a homeopathic dose in a moderate
zoning ordinance.

Under those conditions the zoning became more like good house-
keeping; it was an orderly procedure, making the city more orderly.
It was not living up to the hopes of zoning by any means, but it was all
we could do. There are hundreds of cities in that situation which have
profited, and it is my belief that the ultimate complete zoning of cities
in this manner has been advanced by this attempted partial application
of zoning, this process of the adoption of a very mild preservation of
status quo, and a little application of some of the principles we have
had in mind.

Another reason that zoning ordinances need revision is the fact that
zoning was a pioneer activity — at least, in New York and a few of the
leading cities — and they knew they had to fight the case through the
courts. Mr. Bassett has emphasized that point over and over again.
I believe that the other cities of the country were well advised not to
go beyond these pioneer leaders; they had not the resources to fight the
legal battles which the interested private parties who were adversely
affected by the zoning were bound to wage. For that reason, when
people have asked me to send them a number of zoning ordinances, I
have said: "Take one; the others are much like it."

We have been criticized for that; I think not properly. We can excuse
ourselves from that criticism because we had to consolidate the legal
position. That legal position is now well consolidated. That excuse is
no longer good, and we now have many towns branching out and adopt-
ing what makes some of our legal friends, who might approve a different
zoning ordinance, shake a little bit or tremble with horrible fright
because of the risks these towns are taking; but they also assure us that
the upset of that particular feature in that town, if it should not prove
to be tenable, will not damage the main structure. Since the main
structure is now legally established, towns are perfectly within the
proprieties to go ahead and try something new.

As to the other features in the ordinance — such familiar ones as
use, height, area, density of population or number of families — all are
capable of great extension in the control exercised to the benefit of the
city, and there are several other features included in a few of the or-
dinances which can be applied to advantage.

In the first place, we have the refinement of the ordinance. Today
where there is a comprehensive plan and an active planning board, the
procedure is well understood and is part of the regular system of govern-
ment. There is little use to try to refine the ordinance in a town where
it is not well understood, although I see no harm in trying it. Zoning

REVISION OF ZONING ORDINANCES 29

is like trying to carve with a sledge-hammer. It is a crude weapon; but
where the zoning works as a part of the plan and is a part of the regular
administration, there is a chance to refine it, make it cut sharply, and
actually to start a scheme which will really mold the city. The first
opportunities are sometimes in the suburban and country towns, and
we have seen several examples of that. There are also a few of our more
prosperous cities where the refining process is beginning to give the
protection that the community needs for its best development.

Now on the question of use. We are cutting down the opportunity
for industry in those suburban communities to a negligible factor. Why?
Because if the metropolitan area were being zoned, as a rule that partic-
ular residence section would not have any industry in it. Therefore,
if it happens to be a separate municipality, why should it not be able
to protect itself in the same manner? We let in perhaps one industry
because the board of appeals or selectmen considers it not unsuitable for
that particular location. That means protection such as these small
communities have not had under the zoning plans which are based on
the feeling that they must have industrial districts. We also can go
further than we did at first and make sure that the local business dis-
tricts, or even the central business district, shall not be cluttered up with
the back-yard or back-alley type of industry which is so apt to lie right
alongside the good business property. Of course, the drawing of the
map helps.

When we come to residences we can zone the whole town for one-
family houses. There are very few of the early-zoned communities that
dared to do that. We find that it is popular. That is what the people
want, although the housers do not like to unscramble our communities;
they intimate that is anti-social.

Many of the towns are now finding that it is not to their advantage
in any way to have any district in which houses can be built close
together. That was interestingly argued by a politician, if you please,
a town father, a young man who was influential in the town in which
I happened to live. He said, "You people who come out from the big
city to live here do not want small lots. If you do, you will not be able
to get the schooling your children need because we cannot collect the
taxes out of the town to pay for that schooling."

We have seen the soundness of this argument over and over again
in the experience of the outer metropolitan district. If the number of
houses per acre is high, the number of children per acre is high, con-
sequently more schools are required and land values do not bring in
sufficient revenue to support the town.

Then the same politician appealed to the people who do the work in
this little town, mow the lawns, keep up the gardens, repair the streets.
He said, "If you let other people live on small lots out here you will get
too much competition for your jobs, and it is not to your interest."

30 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Now in the town meeting form of government we have in Massachusetts
it is absolutely essential that the majority of the people be convinced.
When the zoning ordinance was up for consideration they crowded the
hall and galleries; there must have been 600 to 800 people out of a small
town of 1,400. They unanimously voted to zone the whole town for
40,000-foot lots.

There are other towns which have gone much further and our lawyers
are not quite sure how they are going to support us, but presumably
when we ask them to, they will find out. There are towns with 5 acres
per family in the principal part of the town as a minimum size lot, for
zoning could not otherwise protect the people who want to live there.

The same town that adopted the 1-acre lots adopted at the same
town meeting a 40-foot building line for all the streets in the town
including those in the business districts. That, too, was by practically
a unanimous vote. They had a new super-highway built through the
town in the last two years, a great arterial route, 100 feet wide between
property lines and with a 40-foot pavement. Somebody pointed out:
"The people are already 30 feet back from the pavement before they
get to their own land. Why not reduce the building line on this street?"
No, sir; they wanted to protect that street. It would be the beauty
street of the town in the future, not just a back alley or a through-truck
route. The property owners trembled for fear the town would have
business districts all along the highway. They did not take any technical
advice on how to protect it; they did not need any. They kept off all
business from the street. They said, "There is business on it at either
end of the town; let them fill up their gas tanks before they get in the
town or walk," or words to that effect. Drastic zoning, but it works;
the people are satisfied with it.

Now as to zoning provisions covering apartment houses. It seems
to me the way to get light and air in an apartment house is to say that
no window shall be less than so many feet from a wall or property line;
make it, say 40 to 50 feet and provide for open-court or no-court apart-
ments. We find that people are voluntarily building that type of apart-
ment under our zoning ordinances. We hardly keep pace with the better
builders, because a revolution has taken place among the people who
have learned there are such things as air-light apartments and will not
stay in the others more than a year or two while the building is new.
When the building begins to deteriorate, sufficient rent to maintain the
closely built apartment is not available.

There is little to be said for relying upon number of families per acre
as controlling density in apartment-house districts. Studies were made
in Detroit a number of years ago showing that the number of people
per acre was less where the density of families was greater, because in
the two-room apartment, which had kitchenette and bathroom also,
nobody slept in the kitchenette and nobody slept in the bathroom

REVISION OF ZONING ORDINANCES SI

and you had an average of two people per apartment. In the four-room
apartment you still had one kitchenette and one bathroom and
had an average of four people per apartment. The average number
of people handling the door-knobs and other places where they could
get disease was fewer than under the denser type of regulation. I would
use the family-per-acre regulation only as a stop gap where the political
situation prevents the adoption of a decent zoning ordinance. I call a
decent zoning ordinance, with respect to apartment houses, one which
requires 40 to 50 feet between all walls of three- or four-story buildings.
Such a provision gives the proper amount of light and air for each
apartment. The notion of the side yard is all wrong. It may be too
narrow and practically all light and air is in the front and in the rear.
The ordinance should specify that every required window should have
a yard or a certain reasonable space outside of that window. Then you
will get light and air and will not have to worry about density of families
and oversize apartments.

What use can be made of zoning to preserve rural conditions? When
Frank B. Williams, whom we consulted in this matter, told us in his
opinion open development could not be sustained by the application of
zoning when the building-site value was greater than the value for open
property, I was inclined to agree with him. That brings us back to the
possibilities of zoning in theory. What we are driving at is what is pos-
sible under police power, and in spite of all the definitions of police
power, I always fall back on this one: "When you do not pay damages,
it is police power; when you do, it is eminent domain." That is about
all there is to it. Apparently we cannot reserve large spaces for open
development. By large spaces I mean golf courses, state parks, institu-
tional grounds, air fields, possibly small farms and truck gardens, and
many other spaces that would be valuable as open wedges in the town
or belts around the town, or perhaps both. To assure this kind of develop-
ment, I am free to say that we must find some other method than zoning.

The opportunity for the revision of zoning ordinances is here, and
there is a good deal of popular interest in it. Just now the interest is
somewhat diffused. There are responses here and there from all sorts
of people — your friends, technical people, some of the zoning and plan-
ning boards, and magazines. I think the time is about ripe for another
forward movement in zoning.

DISCUSSION

MR. HAROLD S. BUTTENHEIM, New York City: Believing that the
zoning ordinances of most of our cities need early and drastic revision,
a committee of the American City Planning Institute has been gathering
information as to the degree of land-overcrowding now permitted in

32 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

residential buildings in the congested sections of large cities. This survey
has been made by means of a questionnaire addressed on April 14 to
the American Planning and Civic Association's list of 66 planning com-
missions in cities of over 100,000 population.
The following questions were asked:

1. What is the maximum bulk in cubical contents (or square feet of floor
area) which would be legal for a new multi-family building on a 1-acre lot, if
built to the greatest height and lot coverage permitted under your zoning
ordinance?

2. If your ordinance has a density limit, what is the maximum number of
persons (or families) which may be housed in a new building on a 1-acre lot?

3. Has your zoning ordinance been amended recently, to reduce future land-
overcrowding? If not, is such an amendment now under consideration?

Replies have been received (up to May 4) from 42 cities. Of these,
28 of the answers to Question 1 were sufficiently definite for tabulation :

BULK RESTRICTIONS

Maximum Bulk Maximum Floor Area

City Cubic Feet Square Feet

Atlanta, Ga.* 2,065,000 247,800 (total)

Buffalo, N. Y 4,247,100

Chicago, 111 5,227,200 39,204 (per floor)

Cincinnati, Ohio 2,401,600

Cleveland, Ohio . 4,250,000

Dayton, Ohio* 2,756,600 34,514 (per floor)

Denver, Colo 3,404,660

Duluth, Minn.* 2,900,000f 258,800* (total)

El Paso, Texas 4,650,000 26,136 (per floor)

Erie, Pa 1,400,000 112,000 (total)

Fort Wayne, Ind 1,306,800

Hartford, Conn.* 2,250,000 30,000 (per floor)

Kansas City, Mo.* 2,634,220 293,580 (total)

Louisville, Ky.* 4,356,000

Los Angeles, Calif 3,920,400

Memphis, Tenn.* 4,774,800

Milwaukee, Wis 5,445,000

Minneapolis, Minn 4,237,000

Nashville, Tenn 6,519,000

New Bedford, Mass 1,557,720 25,962 (per floor)

New Orleans, La.* 2,209,950 176,797 (total)

New York, N. Y 4,400,000

Providence, R. 1 4,664,000

San Diego. Calif 26,136 (total)

Scranton, Pa 1,437,480 23,958 (per floor)

Spokane, Wash 277,450f (total)

Washington, D. C 4,261,000 390,680 (total)

Yonkers, N. Y 2,273,400

NOTES to the foregoing table:

* See also density restrictions in the table on the next page.

f From the Duluth figures the areas of "necessary interior courts" should be deducted.
For Spokane the total floor area indicated is "absolute maximum permitted by the zoning
ordinance under the city's 8-story height limit, and this total would actually be greatly
reduced by required light courts and the necessity of providing windows for all rooms."

REVISION OF ZONING ORDINANCES 33

As will be seen, half of the replies listed above gave no answer to the
question as to maximum permissible floor area. Where such figures were
given, as above indicated, some replies showed the maximum floor area
for the entire building, and others the maximum area per floor.

It will be observed from the foregoing tabulation that the city of
New York, though high in the hierarchy of sinners, is not the only or
indeed the worst offender as to permissible land-overcrowding with
residential buildings. In several cities, including New York, it is legally
possible in this year of enlightenment, 1936, for a developer to erect on
a 1-acre plot a residential building having a bulk of more than 4,000,000
cubic feet. Let us see what this means.

Assuming no serious overcrowding within the building — allowing,
say, 10 vertical feet per floor, and 240 square feet (of the gross floor
area) per room and an average of only one occupant per room — this
would mean an occupancy of one person for each 2,400 cubic feet of
the bulk of the building. Hence a multi-family building with a bulk of
4,000,000 cubic feet on a 1-acre lot, would house, on a plot less than
210 feet square, more than 1,600 persons. In other words, 100,000 per-
sons could thus be housed on about 60 acres — less than one-tenth of a
square mile — an obviously needless and absurd degree of congestion.

In few cities are there bulk or density restrictions as such. In general,
therefore, the figures in the foregoing list are not to be found in the
respective zoning ordinances, but represent computations of zoning or
planning officials as to maximum bulk for which a permit would be
granted under existing restrictions as to height, lot coverage, and re-
quirements as to courts, yards, setbacks, etc.

DENSITY RESTRICTIONS

Families-per-acre restrictions were reported by the following cities,
the figures given in each case being presumably those for the apartment
house district of highest density. The figures are based in most cases on
restrictions as to minimum lot area required per family. The Louisville
minimum, for example, is 250 square feet of lot area per family; New
Orleans, 400 square feet; and Memphis, 625 square feet.

Maximum Families
City Per Net Acre

Atlanta, Ga 70

Dayton, Ohio 174

Duluth, Minn 216

Hartford, Conn 140

Kansas City, Mo 116

Louisville, Ky 174

Memphis, Tenn 69

New Orleans, La. 108.9

Wichita, Kans 174

MB. EDWARD M. BASSETT, New York City: I agree fully with Mr.

34 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Comey and with Mr. Buttenheim and nearly all of the people that are
studying this question, that the zoning ordinances of the United States
need revision. I am intimately acquainted with the zoning ordinances
of Greater New York. I fully agree with the committee with which I
have worked which is about to submit a proposal of smaller cubage, less
height and changes from business to residence in many parts of the city.

Now how to get results. Let us say that this committee in New
York City goes before the Board of Estimate, and says: "We have
worked out very carefully these desirable changes of cubage that will
make less density, and changes to residence instead of business." The
presiding officer says: "Whom do you represent?" "I don't represent
anybody except this body that has studied this subject all over the
city." "WTell, don't you represent any property owners?" "No, I don't
represent any property owners." "Those opposed arise," and perhaps
three hundred property owners arise, and the presiding officer says:
"Don't you think you had better get a petition or have a meeting to start
the ball rolling in order to bring about your ideas?" All right; we will
hold meetings, and the meeting is advertised, let us say in Flatbush.
Nobody comes to the meeting. Why not? Because no one is interested
among the property owners in discussing the density or decreasing the
allowable height. It is one of those difficult things to get started.

I think I am able to say that the zoning of the United States to the
extent of nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of a thousand is what
the average informed real-estate owner of that district will stand for.
It is simply remarkable why those things which you work out ought
not to penetrate more quickly. Now there is a way to get results. I am
not a pessimist on this. I am working on it all the time myself in New
York City as counsel of the zoning committee.

About one year ago when Robert Moses enlarged some of the park-
ways into Queens, we got about twenty square miles of beneficial changes
because a dozen of us jumped right in to alter the zoning along those
new parkways, and under the momentum of the new parkways we ac-
complished great changes along the lines of less density, less height and
changes from business to residence.

If we will be ready to grasp opportunities, we can in many cases
bring these changes about. On the west side of Manhattan an enormous
district is now preparing a change in zoning, inspired by the property
owners themselves. The proposal will prevent the spread of blight in an
area of at least twenty square miles.

THE CITY OFFICIAL NEEDS THE PLAN 35

The City Official Needs the Plan

By CLIFFORD W. HAM, Chicago, 111., Executive Director,
American Municipal Association

IN DISCUSSING this subject I should like first to pay my respects
to the city officials of this country and give a word of testimony as
to the work being performed by that group. This testimony is given in
light of the fact that, in addition to being a city official for a great many
years, it has been my privilege to know and work intimately with a very
large body of city officials in America over the past twenty -five years.
It is now my privilege also to watch them operate and to assist them in
the study of their problems directly and through their combined efforts
in leagues of municipalities in the various States. Local public officials
on the whole are a sincere and able group, desirous of doing the best
possible job, and increasingly do we find them reaching out for improved
methods of administration and improved techniques in government.
When one scans the results of the current period of economic stress
through which we have been passing the last several years, he finds that
city government has stood the strain remarkably well, and in comparison
with the record of private business the record of the cities, to say the
least, is commendable. City officials throughout this period have con-
sistently, through their national and state organizations, taken co-
operative steps for the solution of governmental problems, carried on
research into the facts and best practices, and in a great variety of ways
dug in intelligently into the problems of local government.

I should like to make another observation, the truth of which is
becoming increasingly apparent to those charged with the administra-
tion of local government. The maintenance of the high standard of
living and our democratic civilization is dependent directly upon the
ability of cities to continue local services. The maintenance of these
civilization standards of living and democratic institutions is not auto-
matic, as we are so often apt to consider it. These standards and institu-
tions can be, and are, maintained and advanced only through conscious
effort and cooperative action. It is largely, I think, for their perpetua-
tion that we concern ourselves so directly with the subject of planning
and why planning must and does enter into the program of public ad-
ministration at so many points. The National Resources Committee has
stated that planning consists of the systematic, continuous, far-sighted
application of the best intelligence available in order to provide higher
standards of living and greater security for the people. "Planning," says
the Committee, "is the use of scientific and technical skill coupled with
imagination to determine and influence trends or changes which can be
helpful to this larger purpose." Of course, too, when we speak of plan-
ning we think of relatively long-term planning.

The city official finds himself in the midst of two different dilemmas

36 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

in the execution of any plan. The first is the hiatus that exists between
any long-term planning and the necessity for short-term appropriations.
State governments appropriate usually on a biennial basis. Likewise,
elected public officials and the policies of administrations are subject to
review in periods ranging from one to four years. Planning, on the other
hand, aims to project the program, policies and objectives over a much
longer period in order that the work will not be subjected to the ineffec-
tiveness of a short-range view. To bridge this gap between long-term
planning and short-term appropriations challenges the genius of
administration.

From year to year many matters, of course, intervene and experiences
show that parts of a program once adopted must be changed and em-
phasis thereon must be shifted from time to time through the pressure
of events. Because of all of these reasons the current and detailed
program is many times modified, as conditions warrant, and yet we
must prosecute the work with the long-term objective in view. The fail-
ure to bridge this gap successfully explains why so many good planning
efforts gather dust.

The second dilemma faced by the city official is the training in
budgetary practice and the worthy pride of achievement in sound
current finance programs and balanced budgets. I sometimes think that
we men who have occupied administrative positions as city managers,
quite necessarily lack the imagination which the planning people say
must be coupled to the use of scientific and technical skills. We are
pressed to achieve sound current finance practice, balance our budgets,
gain immediate results, render honest government. These are of im-
mediate concern and test the skill of any official.

One of the most caustic criticisms I ever heard on the subject of city-
manager government, spoken partly facetiously and mostly seriously,
was that there was not enough corruption in it; that the City of Tokyo
after the earthquake had a marvelous city plan for the rebuilding of that
city and it failed miserably in many respects, because the people back
of the plan were honest and had nothing to gain in a personal way in
seeing it pushed to completion. This same critic pointed out some of the
great developments of parks, arterial boulevards, and unfolding city
plans which had been achieved in larger American cities. "Most," said
he, "are monuments to corruption, but they got the parks and the
boulevards." He was by no means condoning corruption in public office
and would be the severest critic of such practices for any purpose. He
was, however, calling attention to this dilemma in which the administra-
tor finds himself when he is confronted with annual balanced budgets
and current programs as ends in themselves and the pushing along of a
long-term plan. I raise the question, therefore, whether we, as planners
and public officials, have considered the problems of management and
planning together and made a sufficient effort to reconcile the two.

THE CITY OFFICIAL NEEDS THE PLAN 37

The city official needs the plan which will consider its own imple-
mentation. The plan must provide for its own salesmanship and a con-
tinuity of program during and beyond budget periods and beyond
changing public policies and economic conditions. We have unconsciously
limited very often our scope of activity in this respect and have been
content with physical planning and that primarily in one community.
The problem of getting plans approved, once they are drawn up, of
reconciling the conflicting elements and personal interests, the bringing
to bear upon the problems of execution solid public support, and even
enthusiasm, is as much a part of planning as the physical and geographi-
cal phases. Plans cut across all levels of government, local, state,
regional, national. Until national, regional and state plans are trans-
lated into actual accomplishments of particular projects within particular
local areas, the attempt remains so much paper work. Conversely, until
local plans in their execution are coordinated with the larger aspects of
regional planning, the city official fails in the opportunities for the best
and most orderly developments.

Let me give you a current example. The Federal Government is now
constructing the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in the
northeastern part of the State of Washington. At the dam-site there has
been, or will be, constructed a set of permanent buildings for the housing
of the operating force required after the completion of the dam. This
housing development, I understand, is on Government-owned land.
There have been constructed a permanent school-building and other
essentials of permanent community life.

On the other side of the river there has been built a rather large
number of temporary homes to house the labor force during the con-
struction of the dam. This community, known as Mason City, is fairly
well built but is recognized to be of temporary nature, arid, I understand,
is to be torn down when the construction work is finished.

The Federal Government has built a paved roadway on government
right-of-way from the main highway leading into this construction site.
Straddling this Federal highway there has grown up a rather large
number of houses of all descriptions occupied by the natural hangers-on
that are found in proximity to large construction operations. Some four
or five thousand people are now living in this settlement and there have
sprung up stores, shops, garages, and other sorts of commercial establish-
ments serving the community. This settlement grew up in unorganized
county territory, and in addition to the problems of sanitation, schools,
water supply, there were also the usual vice conditions to be found in
that type of community. Some of the leading and more enterprising
individuals of the community felt that the county organization was not
in position to provide the requisite community services and protection.
I believe the Federal Government has discouraged the growth of the
community and feels that when the dam is completed the community

38 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

will have no reason for existence and quite naturally fall to pieces.
However, real-estate speculation and other factors have operated to
convince certain of the people that they have there the beginnings of
a community.

To procure for themselves the essentials of community services they
have just organized this community under the Washington State laws
as a city under the name of "Grand Coulee." This city has paid its
dues into the Association of Washington Cities and is now asking the
Association for its assistance and guidance in solving its problems.
I believe it is proposed to float bond issues, levy special assessments and
make other financial commitments, with bonds being placed on the
public market and probably sold to uninformed investors. It should be
pointed out, also, that the main street of this new city is the right-of-way
owned by the Federal Government on which is the paved road. A
number of very serious questions are involved, perhaps the least of
which is the control of this city over its own streets the main one of
which is the Federal right-of-way.

The problem is one in which the Association of Washington Cities is
quite powerless, and while the city is there and conditions of public
health and safety are thus serious, the Association of Washington Cities
is vitally concerned in seeing that every assistance is given to correct
the condition.

The National Resources Committee, the Reclamation Service which
has charge of the construction of the dam, the Resettlement Administra-
tion, are all vitally concerned in this particular problem and other
problems of this sort. I am of the opinion that leadership must come
from this group in a solution of this particular problem. If there is no
reason for believing that the community will be permanent, then im-
mediate steps should be taken to provide the essentials of community
service without the building up of a municipal debt structure, sold to
widely scattered private investors who would stand to lose in the future,
thus presenting exactly the problem which the Resettlement Administra-
tion is now trying to solve in the older communities in the drought
area. An attempt should be made to prevent this condition from jelling,
necessitating later unsatisfactory efforts to unscramble the egg.

The city official is also confronted with the execution of the plan in
light of the changing status of private undertakings and industry. Sound
plans, if their administration is to succeed, must look for possible changes
in the private industries of the community, as well as to the public needs.
If I may be pardoned a personal reference, I had occasion in 1927 to
rebuild the main street of the city in which I was then serving. An
electric railway, connected by an interurban line to the city of Detroit,
operated the local street-car transportation in the city, and its lines
traversed the length of our main street. The company was in receiver-
ship, its franchise was expiring, its tracks completely worn out. To

THE CITY OFFICIAL NEEDS THE PLAN 39

rebuild the main street, without either removing the street-car tracks
or completely rebuilding, would have been folly. To recommend an
additional long-term franchise was not wise.

We negotiated with one of the large manufacturers of buses and
taxicabs to see whether they would be interested in replacing the street-
car system with a coordinated bus and taxicab transport service.
Traffic engineers spent many weeks in a detailed study of the problem, and
the conclusion and recommendation of the bus people was that we should
keep the steel rail backbone in the rebuilding of our main street, regard-
less of the cost to the city. They said frankly that we could not handle
the mass transportation needs of the community by buses but must
maintain the rail service.

To make a long story short, may I recall that the franchises of the
street railway company were expiring, the company was in receivership,
its structures in complete disrepair. We told the receiver that if he saw
fit to rebuild the street-car tracks, coincident with our paving, and to
meet our specifications as to the material, workmanship and time of
completion with no franchise, we would permit them to rebuild. This
was done. The court approved the expenditures from receivership and
the defunct railway company spent over a million dollars in cash in the
rehabilitation of that system, and there was built there, without cost to
the city, the best street railway track in the country. They even paid
for the seventeen feet of pavement surface in the center of the street
occupied by their double track. This, may I recall, was in 1927, nine
years ago, and yet there has not been a street-car operating in that
city for five years and all of the local public transportation is being
handled by buses.

An example, I think, of the need for the city official and the planner
to canvass, not only the public needs but the changing status of private
and quasi-public activities which tie-in directly to the problems of city
planning and municipal operation.

The city officials of this country look with hope to these conferences
on planning. They believe there is here the possibility of resolving the
difficulties which beset them in their work in the ways I have described.
The problems are mutual and the aims of officials are one with the aims
of the planners. City officials have done much in improvement of ad-
ministrative practices and techniques. They are pursuing these efforts
with increasing zeal. The planning people have done much in the
techniques and physical aspects of planning. Between the two fields,
though, there has existed a sort of No-Man's-Land. I urge a more com-
plete merging of efforts whereby the planning aspects of administration
can be properly dealt with, while at the same time the administrative
difficulties in planning can be recognized and solutions developed. Then
we can go forward toward the objectives we all cherish.

40 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Experience with City Planning Programs

THE GYMNASTICS OF MUNICIPAL PLANNING PROCEDURE

By CHARLES B. BENNETT, City Planner, Milwaukee, Wis.

A<TER seventeen years of rough-and-tumble experience with the
Milwaukee Planning Commission, it is only natural that I should
have formulated opinions on the value of city planning and the technique
of putting it across, and, since today is my day to be opinionated, I
shall not hesitate to take advantage of the occasion. While all of my
experience has been in one city, I feel that human nature and politics
are pretty much the same everywhere, and that the problems existing
in all large cities are fairly comparable. Therefore, what I have to relate
may be of some value to other municipal planners.

One's estimate of the value of city planning is wholly dependent upon
one's conception of what planning is. Personally, I would define city
planning as being the highest form of municipal research — a research
that goes beyond mere figures on into human values, and the relation
between these values and physical objects, both natural and man-
created, a research that will some day evolve a perfect design for living.

To us technicians and others meeting here in mutual admiration,
there can be no question of the value of planning. We, however, consti-
tute but a handful of those upon whom the successful application of
planning depends. Until a much larger group of disciples is organized,
planning will not be effective as an instrument for perfecting a social and
economic Utopia. How to organize such a group is one of the major
problems facing planners.

As a step in this direction I would suggest that we first convert
elected officials to our cause before attempting to organize large citizen
committees. Unless they are convinced that planning is a necessary
function in municipal administration, inside resistance will be more than
outside pressure can overcome. I make this suggestion in the belief
that, as a general rule, elected officials are not as yet convinced of the
importance of planning. If they were, a much fewer number of planning
commissions would have had their budgets cut to zero during the
depression.

Unfortunately, no books have been written on city planning sales
psychology and it is, therefore, necessary for whoever undertakes the
job of selling planning to elected officials to blaze his own trail.

In my opinion, most of our failures in the past have been due chiefly
to the method of approach. Too often, we have tried to sell city planning
as a panacea for urban difficulties. I also believe that in many instances
planning has been over-publicized. Nothing offends other public officials
more than having a new municipal activity receive all the newspaper
ink, when departments of long standing have to beg for space. Large

EXPERIENCE WITH CITY PLANNING PROGRAMS 41

citizen committees organized to whip elected officials into line are also a
mistake, I believe. They are apt to build up the very resistance they
are intended to overcome.

In the city of Milwaukee, we work without large citizen groups,
although special committees of the City Club and Real Estate Board do
take an interest in city planning. However, we do not rely on these
committees for much support, because we have found that elected
officials do not relish having such groups tell them how to run their
business. Fortunately, of course, elected officials in Milwaukee are
fairly well converted to the importance of city planning, and we never
fail to get their support on planning recommendations which fall within
the city's financial ability to absorb.

How to sell city planning to politicians is a problem that needs a
great deal more attention than we have been wont to give it. I can tell
you, from my own experience, that in most cases it is no job for a dilet-
tante. Any planner who attempts to use flowery rhetoric, delivered in
the grand manner, to a group of hard-boiled aldermen, is apt to find
himself looking for a job in a corset shop next budget-tune. In most
cases, rough-and-tumble salesmanship is the only medium that will be
found effective.

Just for the fun of it, I am going to list what I believe to be the
necessary attributes of a successful planning salesman. He must possess:

1. A diploma in the technique of planning;

2. A bachelor's degree in personality;

3. A master's degree in salesmanship;

4. A doctor's degree in tact and diplomacy;

5. A sense of humor;

6. A working knowledge of curbstone vernacular;

7. Ability to judge a good nickel cigar; and

8. The fortitude to drink a glass of beer without making a wry face.

Possessing these qualifications, only invincible ignorance can prevail
against his success.

If I had my job to do over again, I would initiate planning into the
municipal administration as a research bureau — a department charged
with the responsibility of first gathering all of the facts having any
relation whatsoever to urban problems. I would say nothing about
master plans for expensive physical improvements. These can be intel-
ligently discussed only after all of the facts have been assembled. Too
often have we been criticized as an agency of the Government preparing
plans for improvements which, if carried out, would bankrupt the city,
and since wise planning dictates that recommendations be made only
after competent research, I suggest this as the most important and first
order of business.

A city planning commission set up on this basis can be of immeasur-
able value, not only to all other units of government but to commercial

4fc PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

interests as well. The more one studies municipal government the more
one realizes how much intelligent research is necessary before we can
hope to make any degree of progress in planning. The responsibility for
this research, I believe, belongs with the city planning department. If
we can put city planning on this basis, charged with the responsibility
of such research, it will have little, if any, difficulty becoming one of the
permanent functions of municipal government. Research never ends
and, consequently, the city planning commission's job never ends.

I also believe that city planners should know more about the func-
tioning of other municipal departments, and, certainly, more about the
problem of taxation. After all, the primary purpose of taxation is to
furnish the most necessary bread-and-butter services needed by the
community for safety, health, and education. When the cost of these
services gets up around $30 per thousand, there is little, if any, hope for
programs for expensive embellishments, even though man cannot live
by bread alone. The average taxpayer first wants those services which
come closer to home, and Mrs. Taxpayer gets a great deal more satis-
faction out of having her ashes hauled regularly than she does out of a
street-widening improvement or a new viaduct.

There are many recommendations the planning commission can
make which are extremely important and do not affect the tax rate.
Among these are: zoning ordinances, setback lines for the future widen-
ing of streets, and platting restrictions. These phases of city planning
can be of tremendous value to a community and are financially painless.

For the past decade the Milwaukee Planning Commission has been
operating more as a municipal research bureau than as an agency pre-
paring plans for parks, boulevards, and civic centers. We entered the
field of research mainly through a desire to probe deeper into the reasons
why certain physical improvements should be recommended. The result
of this research has been that not only are other city departments
dependent upon us for factual data, but local and outside commercial
interests as well. The research data available in our files were one of the
primary determinants in the selection of Milwaukee for a $2,800,000
PWA housing project and a $7,500,000 Resettlement Administration
suburban development.

Milwaukee has done nothing of a spectacular nature in city planning,
and one reason for this is that we do probe deeper into the reasons why
or why not certain improvements should be recommended. To us, care-
ful city planning dictates that no matter how seemingly advisable certain
improvements may appear to the planner, if they are beyond the ability
of the taxpayer to pay for, they should not even be recommended.

We believe as faithfully as others in the preparation of master
plans, but such plans should only be prepared after careful research and
analysis. We do not believe in official master plans unless accompanying
such a plan is a financial program well within the taxpayers' ability to

EXPERIENCE WITH CITY PLANNING PROGRAMS 43

carry out. In the archives of the Milwaukee Planning Commission
reposes an unofficial master plan. This plan is used as a guide in making
all decisions affecting proposals for street widenings, additional play-
grounds, parks and parkways. We find it a great deal more flexible and
less embarrassing to have an unofficial plan than it would be to have
one of an official nature.

Of course, I realize that an unofficial master plan requires a strong
city planning commission whose recommendations will be strictly ad-
hered to by elected officials. In any event, we should certainly want
planning commissions more firmly entrenched, and it is toward the
accomplishment of this end that I believe we should concentrate more
of our efforts.

Since I have had so much to say about how the Milwaukee Planning
Commission functions, it might be interesting if I enumerated some of
its accomplishments during the past two decades. They are as follows:

Civic Center Plan. Well on its way to completion.

Zoning Ordinance. Adopted in 1920 and administered with excellent co-
operation between the Building Inspector, Zoning Board of Appeals, and City
Planning Commission.

Comprehensive System of Fifty Playgrounds. Costing three million dollars.

Platting Code. Adopted in 1924, which has considerably raised the standard
of platting and secured many miles of widened highways through dedication.

Major Thoroughfare Plan. (First step.) This plan was adopted by the
Common Council in 1930 as a guide in arranging a financial program, if possible,
for the widening of important thoroughfares in the city.

River Parkways. Plans completed and three-fifths of the property needed
purchased by the city. In connection with one of these plans WPA officials
allocated $2,300,000 for the development of the Lincoln Creek Parkway for a
distance of three-quarters of a mile.

Housing. As previously mentioned, housing surveys made in the city of
Milwaukee were responsible for the development of a $2,800,000 low-rent
housing project.

Municipal Airport,. A comprehensive survey of the airport situation was
made by the Planning Commission with definite recommendations for its location.

Neighborhood Parks. A comprehensive survey of the recreational facilities
available has been finished, and the data secured will be used as a guide in all
future park purchases.

Truck Routes. The Commission has just finished an analysis of truck move-
ments within the Milwaukee region, and sometime in the near future will make
definite recommendations to the Common Council.

In addition to the above, the Planning Commission has also made
numerous studies on other matters, such as transportation, union
terminal facilities, harbor development, grade separation, health centers,
branch police stations, comfort stations, branch ward yards, dump-sites,
water-tank sites, school-sites, and branch incinerator sites. Added to
these, the staff has done research work in land economics, the motor
vehicle parking problem, zoning experience, vacant-lot situation, tax
delinquencies, and the rehabilitation of blighted areas.

44 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

HOW CITY PLANNING PROGRAMS ARE MADE

By S. R. DeBOER, Planning Consultant, Denver, Colo.

CITY PLANNING has fully redeemed itself during the days of
emergency work. During the late twenties it seemed as if planning
had come to be like the proverbial prophet's preaching in the desert —
there was no one to listen to it. Today the groups who valiantly proposed
better ways of city building, who courageously stood for the sneers of
stupidity and lack of imagination, may smile up their sleeves. They
have been fully vindicated.

If city plans have not been as thorough in the past as they might
have been, certainly it cannot be said that those who criticized planning
have come forward with ideas for broadening it. The emergency period
has shown the need for more planning and has shown the way toward
broader planning.

This is perhaps the proper time to check up on experience with city
planning programs. Many of them were prepared in the days before the
industrial crisis, and great programs of construction were based on them.
To many of us the work must have been rather gratifying.

In the light of the broader field of planning which is now opening up
for large regions and States, the first decades of city planning look like
a rather weak attempt toward broad planning. Traffic studies, recrea-
tional plans, zoning, and platting of additions have been the major lines
of city planning in the past. There were some studies in economic plan-
ning but most of them were beginnings only. Studies in social planning
for cities were lacking in most cities. Financial planning has barely
been touched.

City planning work had to evolve and grow like everything else. The
previous statements must not be taken as a lack of appreciation for the
work done by city planning commissions. The fact is that the Emergency
Relief work has been nearest to boondoggling in those cities where no
city plans existed, or where they were fully ignored. In one city with
which I am familiar, over one half million dollars was wasted in shoveling
sand from sidewalks in subdivisions which were not as yet built up. The
first storm brought new sand back on them again. This money was not
from Federal funds, however, but was raised from private subscriptions.
I have seen no Federal boondoggling that compared with this.

My observation in regard to building of utility lines for water,
sewerage, and power, is that in the few cities which had broad plans of
development for this purpose, unusual work has been done and that
cities without them have built at relatively the same cost temporary,
makeshift systems which eventually will need replacing. This, however,
may be a rather exceptional case. Much good work has been done in
cities, and every where • one sees accomplishments which a few years ago
were thought impossible.

EXPERIENCE WITH CITY PLANNING PROGRAMS 45

One night, while stopping over between trains in one of the smaller
cities in the Colorado River basin, the city manager came to the hotel.

"It is really too dark to see much," he said, "but I have a good
spotlight — I would like to show you something." Together we drove to
the river front and then over a rough dirt fill to the building of a great
embankment. "Here," he told me, "is your river drive." He had made
use of emergency labor to build a monumental boulevard along the river.

Another time, from another far-distant city, came an excited, hurried
telephone call. "We are building this traffic line on your city plan. How
does it cross the creek at such and such a point?" Again, at a third city,
great plans of development were under way. "I don't know about the
city plan," said the engineer, "our Planning Commission is dead; but
this is what we are doing." Unconsciously, this man was carrying out
the lines of the city plan which might never have been built except
under the present emergency conditions.

This experience during the emergency period seems to indicate the
fact that these first city planning programs were wholly inadequate and
incomplete. We must now lay the foundation for more complete plans.

A future city planning program should contain :

1. A complete physical plan including arteries, streets, parks and play-

grounds, utility lines, power provisions.

2. A complete economic plan based on economic history, economic founda-

tion and future of city industry, commerce and agriculture.

3. A human resources plan, showing education, crime, health, employment,

population studies.

4. A complete financial plan showing private and public finance, taxation,

and indebtedness.

5. A study of the city's form of government and its laws.

6. A public works program based on the previous items.

Cooperation. The bold program of Federal emergency work, which
is a challenge to our vision as city planners, has brought out the incom-
pleteness of city plans as well as deficiencies in our methods, even though
our plans have been mere beginnings. There has been a serious lack of
cooperation between planning boards and city executives. The former
have set themselves up as highbrow learned bodies of men who were
willing to transmit their bigger and better plans only in a condescending
way. The latter, secure in their nooks of executive power, have come back
with sneers about visionary schemes and dreams. There should have
been some all-seeing hand or power to take the two by the napes of their
necks and knock their heads together to make them realize that the
welfare of thousands of citizens was at stake. This supreme overlord, of
course, can be found in adequate laws.

There have been many technical mistakes in the plans. As a rule they
have been either too detailed or not enough so. The planning bodies
have hardly ever had the technical assistance to make very thorough
surveys; besides this is the province allotted to the city engineer. An

46 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

ideal arrangement would be for a planning board to limit itself to a
general recommendation by stating that — for instance — a diagonal
artery is needed, naming its advantages, but leaving the actual mapping
and estimating to other civic departments.

Similar things might be said about such matters as sanitation. Very few
city plans have brought out the relation between sanitation and health.
In one city where health conditions and sewage disposal were very bad,
the matter was not brought to a head until the state health com-
missioner of an adjoining State threatened to prohibit importation of
produce from this city into his State.

Each city department has more or less complete plans for future
work. The department heads are jealous about these plans. They know
that once they give this material to the Planning Commission their
personal thunder is gone. The Commission from then on is the shining
light in the minds of the people. Not all of these department heads are
politicians, but behind every office of this kind is — or must be — popular
approval. If the office lacks this it will be in danger of abolishment or of
lack of accomplishment. This holds also for planning commissions, but
these bodies can take the broader viewpoint of the coordinating body
and give due credit to departmental work. Planning commissions should
be rather aloof from the detailed difficulties of the departments and
encourage the heads rather than discourage them.

In the future, a much broader attitude by planning commissions is
necessary. This attitude must be based on vision, legal background and
a desire not to interfere with the detailed working of departments. With
that, however, must go a greater determination to carry out the plans
and this must come from greater contact with the people. City plans
must be promoted far more courageously. If carefully studied, they
contain the most important phases of a community work and the
community is entitled to know about them.

The work of city planning commissions in the future must be based on :

1. Carefully drawn laws of authorization;

2. Greater cooperation between executive department heads and the plan-

ning board;

3. A far more courageous method in spreading knowledge about the plans.

Many of the programs outlined in city plans have been carried out to
a certain degree of completion. It is now time to restudy these plans
and in the light of all the new thought which the depression has given
us in such plentiful measure, to broaden them and put into them a far
greater amount of human service.

City planning has successfully outlived the weaknesses of the infant
period; it is now entering the youth period, the time of ideals, of feeling
of strength, and power. There is still more need for this type of planning
to provide for the livability, the beauty and the practical usefulness of
our cities.

RICHMOND'S EXPERIENCE IN CITY PLANNING

By G. M. BOWERS, Director of Public Works, Richmond, Va.

R:CHMOND'S first City Planning Commission was created by
authority of an ordinance approved by the City Council on Decem-
ber 18, 1918, appointing the Advisory Board, consisting of the Mayor
and his four department heads, the Directors of Public Works, Public
Utilities, Public Safety and Public Welfare, as a City Planning Com-
mission.

No meeting of this Commission, as such, was ever held, although its
functions were carried on under the direction of the then Director of
Public Works in the establishment of a precise triangulation — traverse
control survey and topographic mapping of territory adjacent to the
corporate limits of the city. This initial work was begun in 1921, and
within less than two years thirty-two square miles of territory outside
of and partially surrounding the city had been completely surveyed and
mapped at a cost of approximately $70,000 as a foundation preliminary
to the preparation of a city plan.

Concurrent with this work the General Assembly of Virginia enacted
on March 10, 1922, and subsequently amended on March 21, 1924, a
law known as "The Platting Act," which provided, among other things,
that no plan of subdivision of land lying either within the city or within
five miles of the corporate line shall be recorded by the Clerk of any
court without the approval of the Director of Public Works. The act
further provided that all public utilities, such as gas, water, sewers, etc.,
installed by the owners in any subdivision within the limits of five miles
of the corporate line should be installed in accordance with plans first
approved by the Director of Public Works of the city, and if the instal-
lation met all requirements and acceptance of the Director, then, in
that event, the city would, within six months after annexation, com-
pensate the owners for the then fair value of such utilities.

After the enactment of this, "The Platting Act," and the completion
of the initial topographic surveys by contract in 1924, considerable
difficulty was experienced in obtaining funds to carry on and extend the
topographic map work with the result that, despite the authority given
us by the act over subdivisions of land, our efforts to plan and control
the territory beyond the corporate limits were, for a time, handicapped
for lack of basic map information.

Means were finally worked out for extending the control surveys and
topographic map work by the use of our own departmental forces with
the result that we now have completely mapped more than 100 square
miles of territory both within and adjacent to the corporate limits of
the city. This includes the area over which the Director of Public Works
is given jurisdiction under the provisions of the "Platting Act." The pre-
cise control in both the triangulation net and traverse was established and

48 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

executed in accordance with methods used by the U. S. Coast and
Geodetic Survey. The topographic mapping was done by plane table
methods in sectional form on sheets approximately 20 by 26 inches to a
scale of 200 and 400 feet to the inch depending upon its location, topog-
raphy and the desired detail.

It would indeed be difficult to estimate the value of this extensive
map information to the city. Some appreciation of its value may, how-
ever, be grasped by pointing out that the lack of such information prior
to our last annexation in 1914 cost the City of Richmond upwards of
one million dollars in the acquisition of streets for drainage purposes
alone that could have been largely, if not entirely, obviated had similar
map information been available at the time of the subdivision of the
parcels involved. In this particular we have experienced a material
value in this phase of city planning.

Since the adoption of the "Platting Act" in 1924, there have been
submitted to the Director of Public Works for approval under the pro-
visions of that act about 175 plans covering the subdivision of land
embracing in all approximately 6,500 acres and aggregating 225 miles
of streets. Likewise, plans have been submitted covering approximately
90 miles of sewer, gas and water lines constructed within the five-mile
limit beyond the city. These were carefully investigated and checked
and modifications made where necessary before approval. Much of such
proposed construction was installed under the supervision of the De-
partment of Public Works.

By the further use of this basic map information or first element of
city planning, we have been able to develop and execute since 1924
many worthwhile projects. Plans for widening and extending more than
50 miles of streets have been prepared of which about 37 miles or
70 per cent have been executed. What has been accomplished by its use
in planning street improvements also applies in great measure to the
planning of parks, playgrounds, cemeteries, airport and other projects,
especially the improvements proposed in connection with the navi-
gability of the James River and the Harbor at Richmond.

Zoning regulations were first introduced in Richmond in 1922 through
the enactment, by the General Assembly, during that year, of a tenta-
tive law authorizing the governing bodies of cities within the Common-
wealth to divide the municipal area into districts and to regulate and
restrict the use of land and buildings within their corporate limits. As
a protective measure, the Council of the City of Richmond adopted in
1922 an interim zoning ordinance which was in force and effect pending
the development and adoption of a comprehensive zoning ordinance.
This act was subsequently amended in 1926 so as to enlarge and clarify
its original purposes; provide for a board of zoning appeals and so
modified as to be in harmony with the recognized standard zoning law,
varying in instances only where local conditions seem to justify. This

EXPERIENCE WITH CITY PLANNING PROGRAMS 49

was followed by the adoption of a comprehensive zoning ordinance ap-
proved by the Council of the City of Richmond, April 13, 1927, pro-
viding for its enforcement through the Bureau of Building Inspection
and the setting up of a Board of Zoning Appeals. The operation of our
zoning ordinance has, since its creation, met with marked success and
cooperation between the public and city officials alike.

The original ordinance adopted by the City Council in 1918, creating
the City Planning Commission, which never functioned, was amended
and in its stead a new ordinance was adopted by Council on February 11,
1932, which provides that the Commission be composed of five members,
namely, the Director of Public Works and four citizens, each citizen
to be appointed by the Mayor subject to the approval of the Council
and to serve without compensation for a period of four years. The Com-
mission thus composed and appointed meets upon call of the Chairman.
Its functions are limited to studies and recommendations for the im-
provement of the plan of the city, both within and for at least five miles
beyond the city limits. Its duties are of an advisory nature without
authority to appropriate funds to carry out and execute its recommenda-
tions, the authority to appropriate funds being reserved by the Council
of the City of Richmond. The Commission is empowered, with the
approval of the Mayor, to procure the advice and services of an expert
City Planner.

Our City Planning Commission, has, since its creation in 1932,
undergone some slight changes in its membership due to resignations
and removals from the city. Its personnel from the beginning, and as
now constituted, has always been of a high order; each member is well
qualified, displaying rare interest, and rendering splendid and patriotic
service in the studies and problems presented.

The General Assembly of Virginia, by an act approved March 5,
1934, adopted its first and only "City Planning Enabling Act," author-
izing the councils or other governing bodies of incorporated cities and
towns to provide for municipal planning and for the organization and
powers of its planning bodies. This act, in general, followed the usual
recognized standard form and gives to the locality a clear definition of
its powers and legal stability to its enforcement in matters of City
Planning.

The city planning ordinance defines as one of the duties of the Plan-
ning Commission, "to prepare a comprehensive city plan for the future
improvement and growth of the city within and without the city limits.
. . . After money to cover the cost thereof shall have been appropriated
by the Council, to cause under the direction of the Director of Public
Works the necessary survey to be made and the collection of statistical
data, and to prepare a plan, etc." No realization of this accomplishment
has been reached in face of the retrenchments made in the past several
years in the personnel of the Department of Public Works due to the

50 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

curtailment of its budget. The present administration fully recognizes
the desirability of such accomplishment but in view of the decrease in
the city's income, the demand for more urgent needs and the burden of
relief, the city has thus far been unable financially to provide funds for
the necessary expense involved. Notwithstanding this, the department
has nevertheless made definite advances in surveys and in the collection
of statistical data pertinent and necessary to the development of a
comprehensive city plan.

Taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the various Federal
work relief plans, the Department of Public Works from time to time
submitted several statistical project proposals pertinent to city planning.
These proposals were approved and the services of Mr. Harland Bar-
tholomew were engaged in an advisory capacity. In order to familiarize
himself with local conditions, Mr. Bartholomew made several visits to
Richmond at which time he advised and aided in the preparation of the
State Enabling Act previously referred to and outlined very thoroughly
and very clearly statistical data to be gathered and surveys to be made
that were pertinent and essential to the development of a comprehensive
city plan. The studies outlined were related to street planning, housing
and slum clearance, zoning, recreation and parks, transportation and
regional planning.

The results of some of these surveys, more particularly those referring
to housing and slum clearance, have been completed and published in
pamphlet form, and we hope the time is not far distant when funds will
be made available for the development and completion of a compre-
hensive city plan.

THE COUNTY

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING 53

An Approach to County Planning

CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION

MR. MARSHALL N. DANA, Portland, Ore., Chairman, Pacific North-
west Regional Planning Commission: I come from the Pacific North-
west where planning, under its various forms at its various levels, has
been found necessary. Of the 220 local organizations in the four States —
Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon — somewhat less than a
hundred represent county planning organizations. Our experience is
probably that of other States, that county planning is not original, that
it is an outgrowth of city planning and of state planning; that it is an
outgrowth of city planning, particularly where counties are urban in
their character; that it is an outgrowth of state planning where counties
are predominantly rural in their character and in their interests. County
planning assures a common interest and that is the technical guidance
of county planning organizations from the time that they are organized.
It is a misfortune to organize a county planning commission and then
leave it to its own initiative and orientation. There is a common meeting-
ground between the local ambition and interest and recognition of the
value of the work to be done and the technical wisdom, experience and
guidance that can be supplied.

I would say that in Montana, Idaho and Washington, the legislative
support of county planning organizations has considerably advanced.
In Oregon, with the cooperation of the Governor, county planning boards
have been appointed, but are unofficial in character. Whether efficiency
is determined by legislative support, I think our experience does not
permit me to say. The comment is often made that conferences of this
kind are dominated by the interests and technique of city planning. The
inference is that between city planning and other forms, particularly
county planning, there is a conflict or competition. We think we have
discovered in the Northwest a movement of cooperation between city
and county interests or between the county and the near-by metropolis
and between the county and state planning organization.

I have sometimes been accused of being a planner. If to have a
plan is to be a planner, then I am one, and my plan is to translate the
words of the professional planner into the language of the man in the
street. I have a conviction that planning must abide in the understand-
ing and the confidence of the people whose interests now and hereafter
are affected by good planning.

54 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

COUNTY PLANNING IN IOWA

By P. H. EL WOOD, Ames, Iowa, Consultant, Iowa State Planning Board

THE first, and perhaps the most important requirement in approach-
ing any planning problem is inspired leadership. The leaders, how-
ever, in any movement should not proceed too far ahead or beyond
the ranks of the followers. No captain should be so far ahead of his
company that he loses contact with his men or the objectives might
not be attained.

So it is with planning. County planners in the United States have
been cast in the role of followers, who have been inspired by the wise
and intelligent leadership of the national and state planning move-
ment of the past three years.

We should clarify the present confusion in the minds of many con-
cerning planning. The term planning is often assumed to include actual
control and administration. While this interpretation remains, there
can be little sound, thoughtful, long-range local planning.

The County as a Planning Unit. It is my firm conviction that the
next planning development in this country will be concerned chiefly
with the county as the basic planning unit. The planning idea, now so
magnificently developed through Federal and state planning agencies,
must go to and come from the people who are most concerned. They
must initiate the planning program and carry it out.

The state planning boards should help the counties in their planning
efforts, serving as fact-finding, coordinating bodies providing facts and
consulting personnel in a manner somewhat similar to the procedure
followed by the National Resources Committee. Technical advisers and
lecturers would be available for service in the counties.

In many ways the county is a logical and effective planning unit. It
is a legal political unit with very definite physical boundaries. These
boundaries, as planning proceeds, are often found very inefficient and
poorly adapted to effective planning or administration. In many States,
with improved transportation, there should be a restudy of the whole
problem of county consolidation and the readjustment of county lines
to insure more practical planning units. Many counties in our country
have been doing a certain amount of planning in the past.

Examples of County Planning. Without attempting anything like an
inventory of county planning in the United States, it is well for us, when
approaching the complex problems of county planning today, to examine
the work already accomplished. Many of the earlier efforts in county
planning were confined chiefly to systems of parks and parkways.
Outstanding among these were Essex, Union, and Hudson counties in
New Jersey and the well-known Westchester County, New York, park-
ways. Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, and Cook County, Illinois, were
the outgrowth of expanding cities into a metropolitan region or county,

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING 55

repeating somewhat the earlier experiences of Boston, Massachusetts.
Los Angeles County, California, is another example of a complex, intricate
tangle of mushroom, haphazard, planless urban developments revamped
into order out of chaos through comprehensive planning. In Los Angeles
County the county planning program included: research and statistics,
highways, land subdivision, zoning, and landscape and recreation design.
It is interesting to note that the date of this plan is 1929, placing it among
the early efforts toward comprehensive coordinated county planning.

A new approach, or the application of the principles of zoning to
rural land-use, has been developed during the last three years in Wiscon-
sin where several counties have legally established zoning laws which
designate the use of land for recreation, agriculture or forestry. Several
Kansas counties during the past year have presented planned public
works programs. This, however, seems much too restricted to be termed
comprehensive county planning.

In Tompkins County, New York, an interesting planning experiment
is being unfolded which apparently springs more directly from the will
and the wishes of the people concerned than any of the examples of
county planning already mentioned. Here the people are working out
their own problems with a minimum of control and guidance from the
New York State Planning Council and the staff of Cornell University.
This really constitutes another approach more human, perhaps, and
decidedly more rural.

Unity of Rural and Urban Interests. One of the first and most im-
portant facts to bear in mind concerning county planning, especially in
agricultural States like Illinois and Iowa, is the interdependence of rural
and urban interests within the county. In an address before the recent
Iowa Conference on Planning, Prof. Murl McDonald, Assistant Director
of the Agricultural Extension Service and Chairman of the County Land
Use Planning Committee of the State, said, "According to the project
chart of the Iowa State Planning Board, land, water, people and com-
merce are our basic interests. They represent our physical and human
resources and our economic, educational and social backgrounds. They
are at the root of all planning. They concern all people whether rural or
urban.

"Today, much of the land in this State is owned jointly by rural and
urban people. Both have an interest in the land. They have a joint
interest in land use and soil conservation. Likewise, the people living on
farms are potentially heavy consumers of the products of labor and pro-
fessional services; consequently rural as well as urban people have an
interest in the problems of commerce and industry. Surely the experi-
ences of the past, out of which have emerged the conditions of the
present, have revealed the absolute interdependence of rural and urban
people."

This interdependence of urban and rural interests we have tried to

56 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

emphasize in our suggested approach to county planning in Appanoose
County, Iowa, particularly as it may differ from those already mentioned.
Two facts I wish you to keep in mind are: (1) The Appanoose County
Report is not a master plan. It is a vast reservoir of facts, some of which
are from hitherto untouched sources of information, with but a few
suggested plans for physical development and an outline of procedure
for effective follow-up work. (2) It is a response by the Iowa State
Planning Board to the call of the people of Appanoose County through
their voluntary Soil Conservation Association and county and city
agencies for help and guidance in solving their planning problems. In
other words, the facts are placed in the hands of the people of the county
for action.

The next step in this approach to planning should be an appraisal
and analysis of existing conditions, problems and resources. From this
analysis it may then be possible to decide on the disposition of these
resources to achieve the desired end, which would be the greatest happi-
ness of the greatest number. The plan, which will then be seen as the
last step in an approach to planning, should be the outgrowth of the
analysis and appraisal of resources, natural and human. Such a plan
should be sufficiently broad and elastic to allow for its adaption to
circumstances which may not be clearly recognized at the time of its
inauguration.

In its final form this plan must be the plan of the people most con-
cerned. They must decide what disposition is to be made of the resources
they possess. However, in the appraisal and analysis of resources, not
all of us have the necessary qualifications for such analysis. Parts of this
work must be done by trained technicians. The soils program should be
based upon the recommendations of the soils expert, flood control and
water supply upon the analysis of the hydraulic and sanitary engineer,
housing by architects, and parks by landscape architects.

The study of Appanoose County, Iowa, represents an attempted
appraisal of the physical and social resources of an Iowa county in the
light of present maladjustments or problems. It has been compiled from
various sources and much of it is a result of original investigations and
compilations by members of the Iowa State Planning Board staff. A
great deal of the material is of a sort basic to planning in any Iowa county.

Appanoose County was chosen for this demonstration study because
in many ways it seemed, when the study was undertaken, to be a county
in great need of readjustment. This county had one of the heaviest relief
loads in the State. It has suffered from a more steady and serious decline
in population than most counties. Even so, a study of the employment
figures would seem to indicate that there are still in the county a con-
siderable number of persons, especially miners, who cannot reasonably
expect reemployment in their regular occupation, even if the county
were to return to prosperity.

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING 57

The idea of planning is not new to Appanoose County. Soon after
the Treaty of 1842, by which the Sac and Fox Indian tribes sold the
last of their Iowa lands to the Government, a survey of the newly
acquired territory was undertaken. Appanoose County was created the
following year and the first election was held. Pending the completion
of the necessary land survey and the opportunity for purchasing their
claims, the settlers in 1845 organized a claim protection society. The
first agricultural society was formed ten years later, since which time
various orders have arisen to act as educational and planning forces in
the county, including the more recently (1934) organized Appanoose
County Soil Conservation Association.

To give a fair conception of the scope of our fact-finding survey and
report on Appanoose County, let me mention briefly the subjects or
aspects of the problem considered.

Part I concerns primarily the rural county and includes:

Physical characteristics Electrification and communication

Population and employment Public water supply
Agriculture and industry Transportation

Part II includes the urban problems : Existing Conditions —
Population trends Residential areas

Social organization Commercial areas

Income and employment Industrial areas

Housing and health Streets

Urban land-use Parks and playgrounds
Public and semi-public areas

Conclusions with Suggestions for local committees. This report has
been presented to the local officials and organizations in Appanoose
County. They are taking active steps to make full use of it, and the
State Planning Board hopes to keep alive the fine enthusiasm for plan-
ning in the county.

As stated at the beginning of this discussion, leadership, local leader-
ship, is a prime necessity in successful county planning. It is suggested
that some group of interested citizens — perhaps a civic organization,
women's club, commercial club, church organization, American Legion,
Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, or similar group (or combination of groups
acting jointly) — take the initiative to the extent of sponsoring an
organization meeting.

An organization meeting ordinarily should be held at the county seat
or other convenient location, and should be open to the general public.
All civic and service groups in the county should be invited to attend.
At an organization meeting, the general objectives of county planning
and the purpose of the meeting should be stated.

It may be desirable to have representatives from other planning
agencies — state, county or municipal — on hand to relate practical
experience and aid in the explanation of a planning program. Graphic

58 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

material in the form of maps and charts may be found very helpful in
emphasizing the procedure and purposes of county planning.

The citizen group, service club or other sponsoring agency should
provide continuity to the county planning movement until an official
county planning council has been selected. (After the passage of an
official county planning enabling act, of course, a sponsoring group
should work directly for the appointment of an official county planning
commission by whatever appointing agency the law designates.)

If a representative attendance is present at the first organization
meeting called by the sponsor, the unofficial county planning council
may be chosen then. If for any reason it seems preferable to postpone
selection of the planning council until a later meeting, such action is
at the option of the sponsor. Unnecessary delay, however, should be
avoided, and the county planning council should be selected as soon
as conditions warrant.

Unofficial County Planning Council. In Iowa it is possible for munici-
palities to appoint official planning and zoning commissions (which in
some cases have identical membership), but there is at present (1936)
no legislation to provide for official county planning bodies. Nevertheless
it is entirely possible for an unofficial county planning group to be
appointed or selected, and for such a group to carry forward a program
which can be as comprehensive as the vision and energy of the group
members.

An unofficial county planning committee or council, should seek to
promote a comprehensive county planning program and urge the enact-
ing of enabling legislation if needed to permit the establishment of
official county planning bodies.

It is desirable to consider the administrative and technical officers of
the county when choosing the members of a county planning council —
not necessarily to have such officers on the council except as ex officio
members, but their planning experience and executive authority should
be recognized. The council should represent the lay citizens, but it also
must be able to cooperate with the officials elected by those citizens.

It is my firm conviction that fostering, guiding, advising and assisting
county planning boards in any way is one of the most important func-
tions of state planning boards at the present time. Consultants and
technical advisers, as well as all the facts pertaining to individual
counties, should be furnished and interpreted for the local people.

The State Planning Board advisers might effect better integration of
the many county committees, such as those on wildlife, recreation,
parks, land-use, safety, housing and others, into a smooth unit working
toward the general welfare of the people.

If such collaboration could be conducted in all States and counties,
nothing could ever halt the forward march of planning in America.

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING 59

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF PLANNING PROCEDURE
IN CLACKAMAS COUNTY, OREGON

By L. C. STOLL, Executive Secretary, Clackamas County Planning Board,
and V. B. STANBERY, Consultant, National Resources Committee

EECE Iowa, Oregon has no state law authorizing official county
planning boards. A bill for an enabling act was recommended to the
last regular session of the State Legislature by the State Planning Board.
It passed the Assembly and failed in the State Senate. It will be again
recommended by the State Planning Board.

Twenty-eight unofficial county planning boards have been organized
in Oregon during the last year. Twelve of these are active and productive.

One of these, the Clackamas County Planning Board, has won par-
ticular attention, because, through its efforts, it has obtained allocation
of nearly $2,000,000 of Federal funds for construction projects of perma-
nent value to the county and because it linked itself functionally and
actively with local, state and Federal agencies. In this county there is
an active and actual coordination of public agencies.

Clackamas County is predominantly a rural county. It covers
approximately 1,800 square miles with a total population of about 46,000.
The county seat, Oregon City, has a population of only 5,800. The
county's resources are chiefly those of agriculture, forests and recreation
areas. It may interest you to know that it was in Clackamas County
that Rudyard Kipling caught that extraordinary salmon he wrote about
in his "American Letters."

Purposes and Aims. The Clackamas County Planning Board con-
ceives county planning as covering :

Study and analysis of county problems.

Plans for conservation of resources and increasing the efficiency of and
benefits from public facilities and services.

Initiation and furthering of needed and justifiable improvement projects
and development programs, including advance planning for public works and
work-relief projects.

Creation of informed public opinion leading to active cooperation of public
bodies and citizen support for the Board's recommendations.

Intensive follow-up of planning recommendations to full accomplishment.

The Board feels that planning must produce demonstrably useful
results, that the real purpose of practical county planning is to insure
that reports and recommendations are actually put into effect or are
conclusively rejected by a majority of the people through definite expres-
sion of public opinion. This requires forceful and continuous follow-up
of each advisory action and recommendation. The procedure adopted by
the Clackamas County Planning Board in following through each
separate recommendation to ultimate accomplishment is probably the
most distinctive feature of planning in Clackamas County. It has
produced highly successful results within a short time.

60 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

The Board recognizes two distinct phases of planning: (1) planning
under emergency conditions for projects to be included in immediate
unemployment and relief programs; (2) long-range planning on a broad
scale for the future growth and development of the county. The Board
has given much thought and effort to both these phases.

Organization, Staff and Budget. The Clackamas County Planning
Board is, in effect, an unofficial, voluntary planning committee nomi-
nated by the Clackamas County Court, May, 1935, and appointed by the
Governor of Oregon, so that the Board could cooperate with the State
Planning Board, under the State Planning Board Act of 1935.

The Clackamas County Planning Board has eleven members, includ-
ing two civil engineers, two bankers, two businessmen, one school
superintendent, one farmer, one labor representative, one lumberman,
and one County Commissioner. The Board feels that since its first duty
is to advise county officials, it must be closely affiliated with the County
Court. The County Commissioner was therefore elected chairman of the
County Planning Board.

The present staff consists of an executive secretary, who is also a
member of the Board, a stenographer-secretary, and one additional
stenographer provided by the State Planning Board under its WPA
staff project.

During the last year the Board received contributions equivalent to
approximately $1,600 from the following sources:

Cash allotment, working quarters, office equipment and supplies, furnished
by the Clackamas County Court.

Cash contributions by public agencies which have been directly assisted by
the Board.

In addition, WPA technical workers furnished by the State Planning Board
under its WPA staff project have assisted the County Planning Board on a
number of special studies.

General Policies and Procedure. The Board meets regularly twice a
month. Because of these frequent meetings and a large average atten-
dance, it has functioned with a high degree of efficiency. As far as pos-
sible, each meeting has been limited to the discussion of a single subject,
such as flood control, forest problems, and farm conditions. Representa-
tives of all Federal and state agencies, and local groups and organiza-
tions having special knowledge of these particular subjects, are requested
to attend and participate, affording full discussion of each subject. Dur-
ing the last year representatives of nearly every Federal and state
agency in Oregon have attended these meetings, given valuable advice
and offered their cooperation.

Meetings of the Board are open to the public, and public attendance
is steadily increasing. The people are gradually recognizing that the
Board is endeavoring to act for the best interests of the county and not
for any particular group or special interest.

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING 61

Every effort has been made to instil public confidence in the Board's
recommendations. A continuous educational program is being carried
on to give full publicity to the Board's activities and reports. The policy
of complete frankness has been followed throughout. Adverse opinions
delivered at meetings have been given the same press notices as favorable
support. This policy has been effective and cumulative in its results.
Newspapers in the county and throughout the State have respected this
frankness and have given widespread publicity to the Board's work.
News stories appear several times each week. Many columns have been
printed during the last six months concerning the Board's recommenda-
tions and follow-up on projects.

Differences of opinion are brought out, together with the underlying
reasons for these differences, and usually a satisfactory solution or work-
ing compromise has been agreed upon. This is an important feature of
the Clackamas County procedure, since whole-hearted and effective
cooperation of all interested groups and agencies is required to solve
many difficult county problems.

The Board has no standing or permanent committees. Whenever a
detailed investigation or study of a particular subject is required, the
Board appoints a special joint committee, composed of members of the
Planning Board, outside technicians, experts from Federal and state
agencies, and representatives of interested groups, to make the study.
Upon completion of the study and submission of a satisfactory report,
the committee is dissolved. This procedure eliminates the series of
progress reports usually submitted by standing committees.

For each meeting a definite agenda, listing subjects for consideration
by the Board and speakers, is carefully prepared. A folder containing the
agenda, with copies of all relevant reports, correspondence, memoranda
and excerpts from minutes of previous meetings, is made up in advance
and given to each member at the meeting. Special reports upon which
the Board is expected to act are mailed out to each member at least
five days prior to the meeting, so that he may study them thoroughly
and participate intelligently in the discussion .

The Clackamas County Planning Board maintains close contact
with the State Planning Board and the State Consultant. Before taking
any definite action on subjects directly related to the State Planning
Board's program, or affecting development outside Clackamas County,
the Board refers such subjects to the State Planning Board for considera-
tion and advice, accompanied by the County Planning Board's com-
ments and recommendations.

Whenever available, the advice of outside technicians and experts is
obtained before decisions are made. The Board has endeavored to in-
vestigate every proposal thoroughly and base its decisions on an unbiased
study of all relevant facts and conditions. Naturally, the Board has
assumed heavy responsibilities in giving definite recommendations for,

62 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

or rejection of, projects and proposals submitted for its consideration.
The Clackamas County Planning Board feels that its progress has been
largely due to its accepting these responsibilities and in taking definite
action on questions affecting the county's welfare. At first the opposition
of unsuccessful petitioners was very strong, but by firm adherence to
this policy, the Board has gradually built up a reputation among the
citizens of Clackamas County which has given it considerable standing
and prestige.

The Board is now beginning to function as a clearing house and
coordinating agency for improvement projects within the county. It
also serves as an information bureau, giving out information and advice
on conservation and development programs being carried out by Federal,
state and local agencies within the county.

The Board also anticipates future unemployment and relief programs
by advance investigation of needs of local subdivisions and public
agencies for improvements and increased facilities, and outlining sound
and justifiable projects to be constructed when funds become available.
Where necessary information is lacking, field surveys and investigations
are made to obtain data required for project analysis. The Board feels it
must take the lead in anticipating future requirements of the county and
stimulating public bodies to study their own problems and needs in
advance of future programs. The Board then reviews specific projects
suggested by local agencies in relation to estimated future unemployed
workers and to the broader aspects of county development. Approved
lists of future PWA and work relief projects are on file for next year's
program. Complete programs for county road construction during 1937
and 1938, with recommended priorities, are now being prepared and will
soon be submitted to the County Court.

The Board acts as a buffer or cushion between county officials and
pressure groups. Members have been subjected to severe criticism be-
cause of their definite stand on controversial questions, but have agreed
to take these thrusts, feeling that they can render most effective service
to their county by maintaining their position as a forthright advisory
agency. The members of the Board have consistently rendered unselfish
public service, inspecting field conditions and attending hearings upon
short notice and often at considerable inconvenience.

The methods and procedure followed by the Clackamas County Plan-
ning Board may be considered by some as outside the scope of legitimate
planning activities. However, this Board has accomplished so much
during the last year that its methods and practice merit recognition by
other planning bodies.

Example of Emergency Planning. In order to take advantage of the
opportunity offered to obtain funds for needed public works and im-
provement projects under the Emergency Relief Act of 1935, the Board
conducted an intensive campaign to stimulate the submission to the

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING 63

PWA, WPA, the Army Engineers and the State Highway Commission of
worthwhile projects of enduring value. A questionnaire and letter were
first sent out to all political subdivisions and public agencies in the
county, asking them to submit to the Planning Board detailed informa-
tion on projects which they felt were needed and desirable, so that the
Board could investigate these projects and give its recommendations
thereon. This letter also pointed out the opportunities given public
agencies to obtain financial aid from the Federal Government under the
1935 Relief Act.

The following description of the Planning Board's action on the
County Court House is a typical example of the Board's procedure.

The Clackamas County Court House was over fifty years old and
was in poor condition. It was a serious fire hazard, endangering many
valuable county records and documents. It was also inadequate for the
needs of a growing county. The Board therefore decided to make a
detailed investigation of the need for constructing a new Court House.
The State Fire Marshal was first requested to submit a report on the
fire hazards and safety features of the building. A report was received
which showed that the fire hazard was great and that a large amount of
money would have to be spent to remove this hazard and make the
building conform to state fire laws.

A competent engineer was employed by the Board to make a survey
of the needs for future space requirements of all county offices which
would logically be located in the new Court House. This survey showed
that the present building was inadequate to house the present offices and
that the county was spending approximately $2000 yearly in outside
rentals for county agencies.

Upon recommendation of the Board, the County Court agreed to
submit an application to the PWA for loan and grant for a new Court
House. The Board was asked to recommend the most economical method
of financing the county's share of the cost. A study of the possible
methods of financing was made by a special committee whose report
showed that a direct tax of five mills for one year (plus the use of O. and
C. grant money in the amount of $37,000) would enable the county to
pay its portion of the cost of the Court House in one year and that this
was the most economical method of financing, as it eliminated carrying
and interest charges required for a bond issue.

As soon as the application was submitted to the PWA, the Board
engaged in an active educational campaign, urging voters to approve
this five-mill one-year tax. Members of the Board spoke throughout
the county on the subject. Five thousand pamphlets were printed and
issued by the Board and every effort was made to inform the people of
the opportunity for obtaining a new Court House at lower cost than
would otherwise be possible. At the election the proposed tax was carried
by a majority of two to one.

64 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Continual contact was maintained by the Board with the PWA
Administrator to see that all details were ironed out and taken care of
expeditiously. The Court House is now under construction.

Anticipating possible future appropriations by Congress for future
PWA, WPA and state highway programs, the Board has sent out
questionnaires and has initiated a new series of projects to be submitted
by political subdivisions for construction from 1937 to 1940. The Board
plans to investigate carefully each of these projects before making
recommendations so that balanced programs for future PWA, work
relief and highway projects will be ready when funds become available.
By thus anticipating and studying future needs, hasty, ill-advised
decisions are eliminated.

Example of Long-range Planning. Since an active campaign was
being carried on by real estate and other promotion interests in the
county to induce farmers to come to Clackamas and settle on the land,
the Clackamas County Planning Board felt that it should determine
whether such a campaign was justified. Accordingly, the Board initiated
a survey of existing farms and an investigation of the present economic
condition of farmers throughout the county. This survey was made by
the County Agricultural Agent in cooperation with the Oregon Agri-
cultural Experiment Station. A report was submitted to the Planning
Board indicating that in the past twenty years the number of farms in
the county had increased from 3,000 to over 6,000. The average acreage
per farm unit decreased from 52 to 22 acres. The farms in Clackamas
County were obviously already of minimum size under existing pro-
ductive capacity to support the present farming population adequately.

The report also showed that practically all super-marginal agricultural
land in Clackamas County is now being farmed; further, that with an
average of only 22 acres, the present farm income was not sufficient to
provide a satisfactory standard of living and that this could only be
attained by increasing the productivity and gross income of the present
units, through drainage, supplemental irrigation, fertilization and more
intensive crop production. The Planning Board therefore recommended
that no additional farmers be brought into the county until further
development work had been carried out.

In order to determine the feasibility of supplemental irrigation of
Clackamas County lands, the Planning Board requested that an experi-
mental demonstration irrigation project be set up by the U. S. Army
Engineers and the Oregon State Engineer, with the definite request that
$15,000 be made available to determine the feasibility of irrigation on
this experimental area.

Upon the recommendation of the State Planning Board, the Oregon
State Legislature had appropriated $7,500 to the office of the State
Engineer for making surveys to determine the economic feasibility of
supplemental irrigation development in the Willamette Valley. This was

AN APPROACH TO COUNTY PLANNING 65

to be matched by an equal amount of Federal funds from the U. S. Army
Engineers. This survey also covers a detailed investigation of the cost
of building canals, laterals and other irrigation works. Upon completion
of the report, if favorable, an irrigation district will be formed and the
U. S. Reclamation Bureau will be petitioned to construct the necessary
works.

Study of Unemployment and Relief Conditions. For the past six months
the Clackamas County Planning Board has conducted a study of the
unemployment and relief conditions in the county, under the Emergency
Relief Act of 1935. Reports were first obtained from the National Re-
Employment Office, the Clackamas County Relief Committee and Works
Progress Administration offices. The Planning Board then met with
representatives of the WPA, USES, Clackamas County Court, Clacka-
mas County Relief Committee and several groups of unemployed
workers. In the presence of these officials and representatives of the
unemployed, the whole subject of unemployment and relief was thor-
oughly reviewed, and the Board finally recommended:

1. That the allotment quota in Clackamas County should not be increased
at the present time; but that the certifications for WPA workers from relief
rolls, based on the May 1 and November 1 limits, were no longer applicable to
the present relief status of relief cases.

2. That the Federal Administration should call for a recertification of all
relief cases, determined solely on the basis of present need, the number of such
certifications to be limited to the quota allowed the county.

3. That the Clackamas County Court should assume responsibility for all
unemployables, who are working on WPA projects at the present time; that
there should be a thorough physical examination of each worker by a doctor
employed by the Clackamas County Relief Committee. Whether or not a
worker is designated "unemployable" should be determined by the type of
work available on active projects at the time of his physical examination, the
list of persons to be examined to be furnished the Clackamas County Relief
Committee by the District WPA Engineer.

These recommendations were sent to all the representatives men-
tioned above, to Harry L. Hopkins, and U. S. Senator Charles L. McNary
for consideration during recent hearings on the $1,500,000,000 appro-
priation.

The Board recently received a telegram from Senator McNary stating
that its recommendations were very constructive; and, further, that he
was introducing an amendment to the appropriation bill, covering the
recommendation for recertification of all relief cases to be eligible for
employment under the new appropriation, based solely on present need
for relief.

66 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

County Agricultural Adjustment Planning

By BUSHROD W. ALLIN, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Washington, D. C.

ORGANIZED farmers have never subscribed to the idea that indi-
vidual self-interest or individual action alone can be relied upon as
an infallible governor of economic and social relations. If by planning
is meant the purposeful attempt to modify such relations by collective
action, farmers have been large-scale planners ever since Oliver Hudson
Kelly founded the National Grange at the close of the Civil War.

From that time until now, one great farmer movement after another
has held the national spotlight. The Grange, the Alliance, the Union, the
Equity, the Non-Partisan League, and the Farm Bureau — all, in turn,
have arisen in response to conditions which farmers believed should be
changed by specific programs of joint action. Taken together, they have
profoundly affected American economic and political institutions. All
but the Alliance exist today, and, along with other more recent organiza-
tions, have in large measure determined present national agricultural
policy. They have been the spearhead of the farm relief movement which
was inaugurated in 1920 by the post-war collapse of farm prices, and
which has culminated in the enactment of the Soil Conservation and
Domestic Allotment Act of 1936.

The Federal Government first assumed responsibility for dealing
with the farm relief problem when Congress created the Federal Farm
Board in 1929 and replaced it with the Agricultural Adjustment Ad-
ministration in 1933. When this happened, the national interest in main-
taining farm income at a reasonable level was officially recognized.
What had been previously a group or class interest became in part, at
least, a national purpose. As such, it began to affect national planning.

To think that governmental assistance in agricultural adjustment is
only a temporary phenomenon is to overlook its historical background
and to misunderstand the intent of its immediate sponsors. It has
always been the intention of those who framed the Agricultural Adjust-
ment Act "to pass from the purely emergency phases necessitated by a
grave national crisis to a long-time, more permanent plan . . . ."* The
transition began in the spring of 1935 when the Department of Agri-
culture, in cooperation with the various agricultural experiment stations,
launched a nation-wide research project in an effort to determine changes
in cropping practices needed for soil conservation, and the possible effect
of such changes upon production.

A second step was taken last August when the Agricultural Adjust-
ment Administration, in cooperation with the Extension Service,
inaugurated the county agricultural adjustment planning project, which

a statement to the press by President Roosevelt, issued in mimeographed
form at the White House, October 25, 1935.

COUNTY AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT PLANNING 67

is the subject of this discussion. At that time, a start was made by organ-
izing in each agricultural county of the United States an adjustment
planning committee of ten to twenty members, representing the various
agricultural interests of the county. Such committees now exist or are
in the process of being established in most counties where agriculture is
of economic importance. Each committee, with the assistance of com-
munity committees and subcommittees, is undertaking to determine a
long-time plan for the agriculture of its county.

The reason for starting county adjustment planning is to provide the
farmer participation needed both for formulating and achninistering
long-time plans. The widest possible participation is needed if such plans
are to be flexible and give proper weight to local as well as national
interests, and if they are to be supported permanently by an adequate
sense of local responsibility. Because of the necessity for swift action to
reduce burdensome surpluses, it was inevitable that the emergency
programs could not have maximum usefulness in the encouragement of
sound farm practices and soil conservation. From the beginning, it has
been recognized that uniform adjustments applied to all farms could not
be maintained indefinitely without creating difficulties more serious than
those they were intended to correct. While quite appropriate for emer-
gency action, they were never intended as long-time measures. To ask
all farmers to make uniform percentage adjustments in the production of
a given crop is to disregard the need for differential adjustments required
by differences in the topography, history, economics, and land resources
of individual farms — it is to freeze agriculture to a historical mold
regardless of the merits of past development.

Because of extreme variation in both the technical and economic
adjustments appropriate for regions, communities, and individual farms,
a satisfactory national plan cannot be developed by state and Federal
agencies acting alone. They do not have all the knowledge and skill
required for such planning if it is to be done with any consideration for
the people now living on the land. The task is one in which individuals,
communities, the States, and the Federal Government must all
participate.

The complexity of the problem is at once apparent when it is recog-
nized that there are 787 different type-of-farming areas in the United
States. There are the well-known Corn and Cotton Belts — as well as the
wheat, range-livestock, dairy, and other regions. But the character of
farming in any one of these regions is by no means uniform. The Cotton
Belt is divided into various subregions according to differences in both
physical and economic conditions. At least fifteen to twenty such sub-
regions can be easily distinguished. They include such areas as the small
irrigated valleys of the Southwest, the large-scale cotton area of western
Texas and Oklahoma, the Black-waxie Prairie of Texas, the Mississippi-
Alabama clay hills and rolling uplands, the Northern and Southern Pied-

68 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

mont, and the Coastal Plains.2 The process of refinement may be carried
still further. In the Mississippi-Alabama clay hills and rolling uplands,
for example, there are six different type-of -farming areas; and within
each of these, differences between individual farms are often as great as
those between areas.

The soil scientist, the economist, and other experts cannot develop
the best program without farmer participation; and even if they could,
farmer approval and assistance would be required for its administration.
A plan developed solely from a national or state point of view, moreover,
is likely to overlook or disregard important local interests. On the other
hand, a national plan is not merely a summation of local plans. The
problem is one of finding a workable program of action concerning which
most national and local interests are in harmony. Plans formulated
jointly by central and local agencies will be different from any which
might be developed by central agencies acting alone.

Nor is county agricultural planning being done merely to provide a
sounder basis for judgment as to needed adjustments and to give proper
weight to local and national interests. It also seeks to provide a demo-
cratic procedure which will foster a feeling of local responsibility so
essential for an enduring program. As Secretary Wallace has pointed
out, "An effective county agricultural planning agency, adequately
supplied with local and national data, established in every agricultural
county of the United States would provide the organization required for
planning in a democracy."3 The economic, social, and political fact of
paramount importance in agricultural planning is that the Nation's
farm land is operated as more than 6 million separate enterprises by
people who represent the most individualistic class of American society.
There are probably half as many separate owners who now have, and
very likely will continue to have, authority to do virtually as they please
with the land they own. A national plan, therefore, must come to terms
with millions of owners and operators, or an overwhelming majority of
them, and it cannot be put into effect by Federal compulsion.

The immediate purpose of county agricultural planning, which com-
prehends the broader issues already discussed, was to get farmer judg-
ments concerning changes in cropping practices needed for soil conserva-
tion, and the possible effect of such changes upon production. As pre-
viously pointed out, this is the same problem to which research workers
addressed themselves last spring. The tentative conclusions reached by
them last fall indicate that in order to check soil erosion and depletion,
farmers of the Corn Belt would have to reduce their acreage of corn and
oats and increase their acreage of soil-building crops such as legumes,

*M. L. Wilson and H. R. Tolley, "Some Future Problems of Agricultural Adjustment,"
mimeographed by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, December 18, 1934.

'Henry A. Wallace, "The States, the Regions, and the Nation," an address before
the Association of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, November 18 and 20, 1935,
mimeographed by the United States Department of Agriculture, p. 7.

COUNTY AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT PLANNING 69

hay, and pasture. Southern farmers would have to decrease their cotton
acreage and increase their acreage in pasture and feed crops other than
corn. In the wheat-producing regions of the Great Plains and the
Pacific Northwest, wheat acreage would have to be reduced, and low-
yielding land would have to be taken out of production. They also
concluded that in the semi-arid range region, the number of cattle and
sheep on the range should be stabilized at or near the present low level
in order to restore the grass cover and check wind erosion.4

But these were the judgments of experts, and there was no way of
knowing the extent to which farmers themselves would agree with these
conclusions. Until this is known, the research results cannot develop
maximum usefulness in modifying future action programs. This need for
local judgments disclosed the lack of any effective procedure for bringing
about an agreement between farmer and expert opinion. Since 1923,
the Agricultural Extension Service, through the county agricultural
agent, has conducted outlook programs with farmers. Together with
farm management and related extension work, these programs have
provided farmers with information which has helped them in making
individual adjustments in the light of prevailing and prospective eco-
nomic conditions. In a number of States, moreover, farm leaders have
worked with the Extension Service in building what are known as county
extension programs. Logically, such efforts were made almost entirely
from the point of view of the particular counties concerned. An adequate
program was impossible, for there was no national or state plan with
which local planning might be coordinated, there was no coordinating
agency, and there was no authorization for needed governmental
assistance.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act provided both the necessary
authority and the coordinating agency, but there was still the task of
establishing a workable relationship between these and the necessary
local agencies. This was facilitated by past experience of the Extension
Service. By focusing outlook and extension programs upon specific
problems which could not be previously considered, a "two-way track"
for the interchange of facts and judgments between local and central
agencies engaged in building a national plan is being established. Thus,
county adjustment planning cannot be understood apart from the
national planning to which it is related.

Building upon the extension organization that had grown up in the
past, the usual procedure during the first year of county adjustment
planning has been for state and Federal agencies to work with the county
agent's committees. These are the committees that have been most
active in the past in developing and carrying out extension programs.

"Oris V. Wells, "The Regional Adjustment Project: A Summary and Some Sugges-
tions for Further Work," an address before the annual convention of the Association of
Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, November 20, 1935, mimeographed by the Agri-
cultural Adjustment Administration, United States Department of Agriculture.

70 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

They have volunteered their services, and, for the most part, represent
the agricultural leadership of the counties. State agricultural colleges
and the Department of Agriculture provided them with available sta-
tistical data and other background information. In an effort to reach
sound conclusions as to the possible effect upon production of changes
in farming systems needed for the maintenance of a permanent agri-
culture, these committees made a careful study of national, state, and
local data bearing on this problem. With the assistance of the county
agent, they have considered the possible effect on livestock production of
recommended changes in cropping systems. Many meetings were held
during the winter, both at the county seats and in the various communi-
ties throughout the counties. After these deliberations, definite recom-
mendations were made concerning needed changes in the production of
each crop and livestock product.

In view of the multiplicity of farms and the complexity of the
problem, there are many who question the feasibility of this procedure
for developing a workable, long-tune national plan for agriculture. But
these are the same considerations advanced in support of it. Of one
thing, however, there is little room for doubt. The nation cannot afford
to postpone longer the adoption of effective measures to arrest the
present appalling waste of its land resources. Whether major emphasis
is given to soil conservation or production control, the problem involved
cannot be dealt with effectively by individual action alone.

A large proportion of our farms is in the hands of people who do
not have a sufficiently long-time interest in the land they are cultivating
to make it economically worth their while to take appropriate action in
soil conservation. The income of many farmers is so low that they are
unable to follow practices they know would better serve their own long-
time interests. For a considerable number, the reason is that their farms
are too small to make possible a type of agriculture which will yield a
decent standard of living and at the same time conserve the soil. If
remedies are to fit the causes, the necessary lines of action are clear.
Positive incentives must be provided, farm income must be stabilized at
a reasonable level, and the size of many farms must be changed. It is
scarcely possible to accomplish these things without both the centraliz-
ing power of government and the active support of local groups.

Since the Supreme Court decision invalidating a part of the Agri-
cultural Adjustment Act, the need for local planning has become even
more urgent than previously, because the principal effect of the decision
was to accelerate the development of long-time aspects of national
agricultural policy. Relatively greater emphasis is now given to soil
conservation, which requires a vastly more complex program. And while
the Federal Government can no longer control output by contracts by
individual producers in order to maintain prices, it can grant financial
assistance to States for the same purpose if state programs are developed

COUNTY AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT PLANNING 71

by 1938 which are in line with specifications included in the Soil Con-
servation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936. When, under the pro-
visions of this Act, the problem of developing state control programs is
faced, those States in which county adjustment planning has been done
most thoroughly will have a distinct advantage. Work done this winter
by the county planning committees should make the task less difficult.

Recommendations of these committees have been recorded on uni-
form tabulation sheets and sent to the state office of the Agricultural
Extension Service where state totals are now being tabulated for the use
of state agencies. Comparisons will be made with results of the research
project already referred to, and meetings will then be held in the counties
for the purpose of getting agreement and considering the extent to which
the two estimates coincide. The data are being forwarded also to the
Department of Agriculture for tabulation of national and regional totals.
When agreement is reached between farmer, state and Federal repre-
sentatives, it is expected to have a major influence in determining the
procedure for arriving at the national goal for agricultural production.
If this goal is really to promote public rather than merely group interests,
it must represent a use of land which will provide consumers with con-
tinuous and abundant supplies of farm produce at reasonable prices,
yield a reasonable income to farmers, and at the same time maintain
soil fertility and control erosion.

In conclusion, it should not be understood from this description of
the purpose and method of county adjustment planning that the useful-
ness of the county committees ends with the performance of the task
undertaken this winter. At the same time this work was being done, a
start was made toward planning for the more distant future. This in-
volves balancing the agricultural resources and population of the various
counties so as to make possible a satisfactory level of income. It includes
not only soil conservation, but also other problems of agricultural land
use, such as the retirement of submarginal land. County agricultural
adjustment planning is a job begun that can never be finished. Most
States are anxious to continue the work, and regard it as one of the best
efforts ever started. It is expected that the county committees will
continue to collaborate with state and Federal agencies on all matters
of mutual interest, and that they will consider questions of purely local
concern also — as they are now doing in a number of States.

72 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Inter-County Organization

THE GEORGIA EASTERN COAST DISTRICT

By HENRY T. McINTOSH, District Chairman, National Resources Committee,

Albany, Ga.

THE East Georgia Planning Council is the direct outgrowth of the
Southeastern Planning Conference which was held in the city of
Savannah on December 4 and 5, 1935. At that Conference, the first of
its kind in the Southeast, those contributing to the program brought
informative discussions of local, state, regional and national planning.
Attendance from the four participating States was splendidly repre-
sentative, the proceedings were given excellent publicity through the
press, and leading newspapers made constructive editorial comment on
the significance of such a meeting.

The almost immediate fruitage of the Savannah conference was a
movement to organize a group of counties of the Georgia coastal section
for regional planning. Planning-minded citizens of Savannah supplied
the initiative, and other communities were prompt to evince interest
and give assurance of cooperation. At a meeting held at Savannah on
January 14, the East Georgia Planning Council was organized, with
sixteen coastal counties extending from South Carolina to Florida par-
ticipating. Mr. D. T. Simpson, of Savannah, was named president, and
one member from each of the participating counties was appointed to
an advisory committee.

At a subsequent meeting an invitation was extended, through the
Florida State Planning Board, for a group of contiguous Florida counties
to become members of the Council. Through the cooperative efforts of
Mr. M. L. Montgomery, executive secretary of the Florida Board, the
counties of Nassau, Baker and Duval, two of which touch the Georgia
line, accepted the invitation and are now members of the Council.

This Georgia-Florida coastal region offers an inviting field for plan-
ning studies. In it are five South Atlantic ports, the more important
of which are Savannah and Jacksonville. It is level country in which
interesting land-utilization problems are presented, and where much of
the rural population can be greatly benefited by intelligently directed
programs to influence changes of existing agricultural practices, as well
as many which prevail in naval stores production and lumber operations.

Understandable difficulties in inducing cordial cooperation in a
regional planning activity by counties more accustomed to keen rivalry
than to coordination of effort might have been expected, yet all such
difficulties were avoided. When, in addition to crossing many county
lines, a program such as this assumes an interstate character by crossing
a state line, the invitation to obstacles is widened, yet it is a pleasing
fact that in this case what might have been was not, and is not. The

INTER-COUNTY ORGANIZATION 78

nineteen counties embraced in the set-up view the program not as one
for local benefits or advantages, but designed to benefit the entire region.

The planning studies contemplated are suggested by problems of the
area. They will, of course, include such as are necessary in connection
with the National Resources Committee's development of a National
Plan. It is conceivable that the same problems would not be encountered
in any other region embracing a score of counties of a coastal area.

Resident in the region are many belonging to the struggling tenant
and share-cropper class, of whom there are 8,000,000, in 1,700,000
families, in the Southern States. Embraced in any program designed
to improve the condition of these dwellers in rural areas, and bring
economic benefits to the region in which they live, should be planning
for better farming, and for diversified industries making use of agri-
cultural products. The region is capable of extensive production of crops
which may be utilized in the manufacture of starch and of alcohol.
Such possibilities suggest studies of great potential value.

Every region offers something more or less unique to the planner,
and in this flat country which extends from the Savannah River on the
north to points well below the St. Marys on the south, he may find the
peculiar and the unusual.

For example: The entire region is covered with an abundant growth
of pines of the several types which Dr. Charles H. Herty's experiments
have proved are ideally adapted to the manufacture of newsprint and
other papers, as well as rayon. Hitherto these pines have possessed
rather low timber value. They grow in open woodlands, much of which
is used as cattle ranges. But the grasses indigenous to the region possess
low nutritive value, and, as a rule, cattle from the pine ranges are of
rather poor types.

But while the native grasses, including the wire-grass, have low
grazing value, they feed fires which spread through the woodlands every
winter, destroying the pine mast which falls in October and November,
as well as thousands of young trees. Leading citizens of the region see
in this situation a challenge to planning intelligence, and the problem
falls within the field of land utilization. The problem seems to be :

1. To demonstrate the practicability of introducing carpet or other grasses
into the flat-country woodlands — grasses on which the ever-present cattle will
thrive, but which will not feed destructive fires such as have for many years
taken heavy toll in the region.

2. To conserve the timber growth which a hopeful industry requires. One
large paper mill in the region is about ready to begin operations, and plans for
others are in preparation.

I repeat that every region offers certain situations or conditions more
or less unique, and to which practical planning (and any planning which
is not practical is certain to prove disappointing) must be adapted.
That is true of the East Georgia-North Florida coastal region. Here is

74 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

an area in which thousands of acres of land are ideally adapted to limited
profitable uses, principally cattle raising and the production of timber
for naval stores, lumber and pulpwood. The reference is to timbered
lands, in addition to which there are, of course, fine areas where profit-
able farming operations are carried on. Every newspaper in the region
has discussed these and related problems from tune to time, for their
solution is recognized as of great importance.

It is to be borne in mind that these are the observations of one whose
planning zeal may border on enthusiasm, but who does not profess to
be a planner. The layman merely views a problem or a task; the expert
considers how best to deal with it effectively, yet only common sense is
required for one to understand that planning boils down to this: How
may the resources of a region, be it great or small, be best conserved
and utilized for the benefit of the men and women who live and labor in
it, and not forgetting that other generations, with rights as sacred as
our own, come after our generation?

All planning is more or less experimental. That will be true of this
regional plan. Mistakes probably will be made, but who believes the
perfect plan will ever be born of human intelligence? New problems
present themselves with each rising sun, with countless old ones still
unsolved.

But is it not true that the test of our fitness for any responsibility,
whether voluntarily assumed or thrust upon us by circumstances beyond
our control, is in the use we make of what we have? The answer to that
seems obvious, and it lies very close to the heart of planning, both good
and bad. We are making many experiments. We are daring to try the
untried. We presently shall be immeasurably richer in experience crowned
with success— yes, and illuminated by failure as well. It is trite to say
that what we know already of the importance of planning is no less the
fruit of experiments which have failed than of those which have wholly
or measurably succeeded.

But in every venture in planning — or call it adventure if you will —
the task is to take that which the region planned for offers, and direct
its use to the end that the greatest benefits may flow to the people of
the region who are the most important factors in the plan. We hope
to do that in the coastal region of Georgia and northeastern Florida,
where the program will receive united support from the nineteen co-
operating counties.

INTER-COUNTY ORGANIZATION 75

TENNESSEE COUNTIES

By GERALD GIMRE, Nashville, Term., Consultant, Tennessee State
Planning Commission

DURING the period in which planning legislation was being con-
sidered for Tennessee, the question arose as to what type or size
of governmental unit should be used to make the plans effective. The
State functions under a very old constitution, with the municipal and
county governments operating under a system of private statutes which
has resulted in a state-wide group of principalities, each with its own
laws and different methods of functioning. The counties in Tennessee
were carved out by an old law which provided that the boundaries of
any county should not be more than one day's journey from the county
seat. This has resulted in a large number of county governments, each
entrenched in its own locality and usually averse to any change. County
consolidation has long been agitated, but with the entrenchment of the
multitudes of office-holders, and because the people of the State are, in
general, very deliberate in changing to newer procedures, it will be some
time before there is any change in the established system. It was there-
fore realized that in our planning, the existing order would have to be
recognized and that such detailed plans as might be perfected would
depend on the individual county courts for enactment.

As would be expected under such a system of county governments,
many counties exist for no real economic or governmental purpose and
are so impoverished as to be unable to support the normal requirements
of government. It was thought that, in light of existing circumstances,
perhaps a means could be derived whereby, for planning purposes, exist-
ing county boundary lines could be forgotten and plans formulated on
the basis of areas or regions of such size or character as might be ex-
pedient. Not only would planning be made more comprehensive by such
a method, but perhaps an eventual effect might be a breakdown of the
resistance against changing the existing county system.

It was decided, therefore, to delegate to the State Planning Commis-
sion the authority to create regional planning commissions without
reference to any existing county boundary lines. The State Planning
Commission appoints the members of the regional commissions and
must approve the selection of the executive directors. After such regional
planning commissions are established, they have the usual powers of
municipal planning commissions in controlling subdivision layouts, per-
fecting major road plans, formulating zoning ordinances and the for-
mation of such other parts of comprehensive plans as may be required.
An additional restriction is that no state aid of any nature whatsoever
may be given to any local government within any such region, until
and unless the proposed aid has been referred to the State Planning
Commission for recommendation and report.

76 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Preparatory work has been under way for a number of months for
the establishment of several such regional planning commissions. For
the present, activities are under way only for those parts of the State
where certain specific problems enabled the State Planning Commission
to determine the boundaries of the regions and to outline the problems
to be studied. Three such commissions have now been established and
several months' preparation has been made on the establishment of
a fourth.

The Northeast Tennessee Regional Planning Commission has been
established for the area comprising the five most easterly counties of
the State. The area embraced is one of the most important industrial
and agricultural areas in Tennessee and covers an area of approximately
1,600 square miles. The problems to be studied immediately comprise
the study of agriculture and land classification and certain physical
developments such as roads and schools. It is hoped that this area will
be one in which a very detailed study will be made of industrial and
urban trends.

A regional planning commission has also been created for Hamilton
County, in which is located the city of Chattanooga, and the New Chick-
amauga Dam of the Tennessee Valley Authority. This commission for
the present is functioning as a county planning commission rather than
as a regional planning commission. This was done because it was neces-
sary to exert speed in getting certain measures of control into effect
before the erection of the Chickamauga Dam was begun, and this would
not have been possible if more than one county court had to be dealt
with. This area will be expanded in the future to embrace the contiguous
counties to this area. The commission has effectuated a road plan, a set
of subdivision regulations and a subdivision manual and through the
County Court has secured the enactment of an interim zoning law. A
comprehensive zoning plan is now being formulated, and more detailed
studies are being made of road relocations, which will be necessary
because of the Chickamauga Dam and pool. The existing school plant,
tax delinquency and the utility requirements are also being studied by
the commission.

A regional planning commission has been created for the City of Nash-
ville, giving control to the City Planning and Zoning Commission for the
unincorporated area outside the city limits. Since this Commission is
more localized in its operation, it need not be discussed in this paper.

Another region under consideration is that of the Obion River-
Forked Deer River watershed areas in West Tennessee. Preliminary
surveys and a report on the conditions within the area have been made
by the State Planning Commission and negotiations are under way
with the county courts within the area leading towards the establish-
ment of a regional planning commission. The area embraced includes
parts of thirteen counties containing approximately 4,500 square miles.

INTER-COUNTY ORGANIZATION 77

It is one of the most fertile and best agricultural areas within the State,
but is faced with acute problems arising from over-capitalized drainage
districts which, in many cases, have made flooding worse than before
drainage began. Serious erosion in the uplands has clogged the streams
and resulted in destruction of timber and the abandonment of much
good agricultural land. This region, with its extensive drainage districts,
sets forth a perfect example of the lack of planning in attempting to
carry out large-scale enterprises. More than 6 million dollars have been
expended by the citizens of this area in attempts to correct conditions,
but, because of the piece-meal methods of construction, conditions are
worse than they were in the beginning.

These regional commissions are necessarily difficult to establish in
that the State Planning Commission does not wish arbitrarily to set up
such regional planning commissions unless the citizens of the areas have
an understanding of their purposes and are willing to lend interest and
support. For that reason, it has taken the State Planning Commission
considerable time to get the regional commissions actually in operation,
and, while it is too early to report on their definite accomplishments,
we hope they will serve as examples to the citizens of the State in arriving
at a means of giving services to the citizens in the regions, which they
could not otherwise obtain under the present form of county government.

THE STATE

State Planning Progress

MASSACHUSETTS

By ELISABETH M. HERLIHY, Boston, Mass., Chairman, Massachusetts State

Planning Board

WE, in Massachusetts, are a very young board. In fact, the Massa-
chusetts Federation of Taxpayers' Associations, Inc., a voluntary,
unofficial organization, in a recent report on the Massachusetts budget
and related matters, prepared for the House and Senate Committee
on Ways and Means, characterized the State Planning Board — ap-
pointed in 1935 — as "one of the latest contributions of a generous
Legislature to the field of new activities." The report proceeds with a
burst of oratory which I believe well worthy of perpetuation in the
annals of planning literature :

The history of all new activities seems to be strangely similar. They grow
with the rapidity of mushrooms. They flourish with the verdant luxuriance of
the proverbial bay-tree. Their original intent seems always to become sub-
ordinated to the primal urge of reproduction and expansion. Therefore while
considering . . . new additions to the "infant industries" of the Commonwealth
it is well to utter a word of warning that just over the fence, busily burrowing
to reach the inner circle, are the beauticians, the steam-fitters, the civil engineers
and surveyors, the dry cleansers and dyers, the architects, the real estate agents
and the magnetic healers, to be followed perhaps by the ward heelers

And, finally, after making certain misleading statements with regard
to expenditures and certain sarcastic references to functions as set forth
in the legislative act, the report concludes with the words, "It is an
infant board of great promise." Verily, many a true word is spoken in
satire. Our best hope is that the implied prophecy may be fulfilled.

The Massachusetts State Planning Board opened its permanent
headquarters in the State House on November 25, 1935, less than six
months ago. We have a fine board, with eminent consultants, and we
have made an excellent start in our technical staff and in our clerical
staff. We have adopted an eight-point program which is coming to be
rather generally recognized by my own characterization as an eight-
cylinder program. Briefly this eight-cylinder program includes studies of

LAND: Agriculture, forestry, geologic resources, urban use, etc.;

WATER: Supply, flow, sanitation and flood control;

POWER: Production, distribution and use;

INDUSTRY: Trade and social conditions;

RECREATION : Extensive and intensive, scenery, wildlife, etc. ;

TRANSPORT: Highway, rail, air and water coordinated;

PUBLIC WORKS: Ten-year state program and budget; Federal aid; and

COMMUNITY PLANNING : Encouragement and advice.

In order that there shall be smoothness and efficiency of operation,
therefore, we have considered it advisable and even necessary to advance
along all fronts at one and the same time, in the belief that no single

81

82 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

classification or cylinder is in itself complete, but that each one is, to a
more or less degree, dependent upon the others in the group.

For the present, however, I shall ignore all but two of the classifica-
tions referred to. I have been asked by the Program Committee to
direct my remarks particularly to the local situation, or our Community
Planning cylinder, while at the same time the elements have conspired
to flood completely our Water Resources cylinder. These two classifica-
tions, therefore, become the joint objective of this particular paper.

We have a somewhat anomalous situation in Massachusetts. In the
natural order of things, the State Planning Board should be the parent
organization, the stimulant and inspiration for the establishment and
guidance of the local boards; but in Massachusetts the State Board,
upon its organization in 1935, found local planning agencies scattered
throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth, 129 orphans
so to speak, some of them pretty well grown, which the State Board is
supposed to adopt and to continue to function toward in the role of
"guide, philosopher and friend."

Planning is mandatory in our Commonwealth, a fact with which the
members of this Conference are perfectly familiar. Chapter 494 of the
Acts of the year 1913, which later became sections 70, 71, and 72 of
Chapter 41 of the General Laws, decreed that every city and every town
having a population of more than 10,000 shall, and towns having a
population of less than 10,000 may — mandatory in the first instance and
permissive in the second — create a planning board. The Act further
recites that such board

shall make careful studies of the resources, possibilities and needs of the town,
particularly with respect to conditions injurious to the public health or other-
wise in and about rented dwellings, and make plans for the development of
the municipality, with special reference to proper housing of its inhabitants.

So far as the letter of the law is concerned, it has been apparently fairly
well upheld, nearly one-half of the total number of boards being estab-
lished in towns of under 10,000 population where the provisions of the
enabling act are merely permissive rather than mandatory. I am not
sure that I can speak with equal confidence so far as the spirit of the
law is concerned for, while some of the boards have rendered splendid
service, by far too many of them have remained inactive so far as
studies of the ''resources, possibilities and needs of the town" are con-
cerned, and certainly few plans have been advanced "for the develop-
ment of the municipality with special reference to proper housing of its
inhabitants." This is not said in any spirit of criticism. It is part of the
job of the State Planning Board, as I see it, and as specifically set forth
in the legislative act under which we are functioning, to "advise and
cooperate with national, regional and county, municipal and other local
planning, housing and zoning agencies within the commonwealth for
the purpose of promoting coordination between the state and local

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 83

plans and development." This same provision is set forth no less than
three times in succeeding sections in the legislative act calling upon the
State Planning Board in its relations with other agencies within the
Commonwealth to "confer and cooperate," to "advise and cooperate,"
to "plan and assist in planning" to the end that there may be better
housing, better planning, better zoning and the better distribution of
population and industry.

You will recall the statement contained in the Findings of the Na-
tional Resources Board in its Report on State Planning (1935):

Planning is an attitude and a practice which must command the confidence
and invite the cooperation of wide groups of people. It must come from the
bottom up as well as from the top down, from the circumference as well as
from the centre. Indeed if it were not for local initiative and planning impulse,
it would be necessary to continue its cultivation and stimulation. Fortunately
the spirit of planning is strong in the American local tradition, in industry and
engineering, in State as well as Nation, and the task is that of bringing together
and making effective the various planning agencies so that the largest results
may be achieved.

With this in mind, I have made a rather hasty, and by no means
complete, survey of the work of the local planning agencies throughout
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in an attempt to ascertain to
what extent the foundation has been laid upon which the State Planning
Board is expected to build "from the bottom up." The results, while
not entirely gratifying, are by no means discouraging.

We have, to begin with, 129 boards, more or less, including several
unofficial and inactive bodies — perhaps the largest number in any State
in the Union. Their growth has been steady rather than spectacular,
dating back to the establishment of the Salem board in 1912, nearly a
quarter of a century ago. This means that the seed of planning has been
planted in the midst of more than three and a half million people and
while some of it may have fallen upon barren ground, I believe it to be
one of the functions of the State Planning Board to attempt at least,
and I hope to succeed in reviving boards that may have become dormant,
to cooperate with them in securing efficient support, and to assist them
in developing constructive and forward-looking programs.

Appropriations for the work of the local boards, while reasonable in
some instances, as a whole have left much to be desired. According to
a survey made by the New England Regional Planning Commission,
fifty-eight communities reported budgets with a total of $44,181.15, or
an average of $762.50. In my own survey, I am impressed with the fact
that the 1936 appropriation, in a number of instances, shows a very
healthy increase over the average for the preceding ten years.

I am further impressed, or perhaps I should say depressed, by the
comparatively few local groups that have taken advantage of the op-
portunity to secure Federal funds for planning purposes. In this my own
city of Boston stands out in what is to me a most significant manner.

84 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

The Boston City Planning Board, in the two-year period beginning
December, 1933, received Federal allocations to the amount of $480,
053. This enabled us to assemble a vast amount of basic material; to
make housing, engineering and landscape studies; to complete a real
property inventory, and a survey of business and industrial building;
an alley survey covering in detail the conditions obtaining in more than
two thousand alleys, and a report on the income and cost of six typical
districts in the city of Boston, a survey which has now been extended to
cover the entire 127 census tracts into which Boston is divided. Against
this amount of $480,053, the city of Boston appropriated $11,500, or
less than 2J^ per cent, for the purchase of equipment and materials.
In addition, we have now received a WPA appropriation to the amount
of $892,726 for the purpose of accurately surveying the street and lot
lines of the city of Boston and developing therefrom an official map.
More than 500 workers are engaged in this project at the present tune.

Perhaps it is not too late for the State Planning Board to be of as-
sistance to the local boards in developing programs for planning work
that will find sufficient favor in the eyes of the Government officials to
warrant them in approving for the work an allocation of Federal funds.

Few complete plans have been prepared, but here and there plans
for streets, parks and playgrounds, civic centers and public buildings
are reported. It shall be the ami of the State Planning Board to give
to these existing plans new meaning, to assist in perfecting them, and
to coordinate them with those of the neighboring communities. Housing
plans are apparently non-existent, although housing was the motivating
spirit back of the planning enabling act in 1913. Here the duty of the
State Planning Board will be largely one of cooperation, since the State
Housing Board, established in 1933, is fully equipped, by authority,
ability and intent, to investigate defective housing, to study the oper-
ation of building laws, to acquire land by eminent domain, and to take
various other steps in order to increase the number of wholesome homes
for the people.

In the local communities in Massachusetts, the accent appears to
have been placed upon zoning work. There are in the State 73 munici-
palities with a population of more than 10,000 persons, and of this
number 50 have adopted zoning regulations. Here again the work of
the State Planning Board is made clear by legislative act, to "confer,
to advise, to assist," in zoning as in planning activities. If there is work
to be done in connection with zoning activities, it is perhaps largely a
matter of interpretation in so far as relates to variances granted and
changes in the plan itself. It is generally recognized that a zoning plan
must be flexible in order to meet changing conditions, but it is not so
well appreciated that it must also possess stability in order to afford
proper protection to persons and to property.

Many of the local boards report the lack of funds as their present

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 85

major difficulty; others the lack of public support, although here and
there I found refreshment in the statement that officials and citizens
were sympathetic and conditions generally favorable. One at least
reported enthusiastic public support; and still another that its chief
difficulty was the great extent to which the local officials relied upon it
for information and assistance.

Many and varied were the suggestions offered by the local boards
as to ways and means by which the State Planning Board could be of
assistance to them, including information service on legislative matters
and the work of other boards, clearing house activities, cooperation,
assistance and advice.

Through long years of service on the Boston City Planning Board,
and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts
Federation of Planning Boards, I have had the privilege of working
with many of the members of the local boards for years. The opportunity
has, of course, broadened in the last few months, and out of the experience
of nearly a quarter of a century I am glad to pay tribute to the ability,
the unselfishness, and the perseverance of the splendid group of women
and men who make up the local planning boards of the State of Massa-
chusetts. I could ask no higher reward for my own efforts than that I be
permitted, as I now have been, to join my labors to theirs to the end
that by our united efforts there may be brought to the people of our
Commonwealth a larger measure of comfort and convenience in their
homes, prosperity in their undertakings, and happiness in their daily
lives.

We have just been visited, in Massachusetts, by a flood which in its
severity broke all existing records. Events moved too rapidly in con-
nection with it to permit, even at this time, of any coherent account.
Drama quickly became tragedy as to the rush of water, the roar of land-
slides, the breaking up of ice jams, and the crash of falling bridges were
added the destruction of homes and the loss of human life. That side of
the story, with a full sense of my own incompetence, I leave to a more
fluent pen.

To those of you who are not familiar with our State — if such there
be — I would say that it has an area of 8,093 square miles. It is traversed,
enriched and threatened by the Connecticut River, the Merrimac
River, the Blackstone River, the Housatonic River, the Quinebaug
Valley of which French River is a part, and the Hoosic River, in all
comprising a drainage area of 5,188 square miles. To this might be added
a large number of streams which are purely interstate in character.
This means that with the exception of the eastern portion, including
Cape Cod, practically the entire State shared in the tremendous damage
experienced in the flooded areas.

It means also that a majority of our local planning boards were
involved, which is my excuse for combining the two subjects at this time.

86 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

In November, 1935, in common with the State Planning Boards of
the other New England States, the Massachusetts Board joined in
sponsoring a project having for its purpose the securing of hydrologic
and other data in connection with the Connecticut River drainage areas.
At the present tune there are about thirty persons employed on a pro-
gram outlined by Prof. H. K. Barrows, who has but recently been ap-
pointed by the National Resources Committee as one of fifteen water
consultants assigned to the different river-drainage basins as the next
step in fulfilling President Roosevelt's recent request for a national
water plan.

From the beginning of our project there was proposed a thorough
study of the usual spring freshet caused by melting snow and ice break-
up usually occurring in the latter part of March. According to the laws
of probability, the flood should not have occurred. We had one in 1927
and the prediction was that such events would occur on something like
a 75-year frequency. Unexpected as it was, however, it found our field
parties on the job, both before and during the flood, working day and
night in order that not a single detail of the unprecedented rise of the
Connecticut River and its tributaries should be lost to future study
and analysis.

The flow of ice was so violent that even the trees were stripped of
their bark; travel became impossible; power and communication lines
were severed, and several of our field parties, finding their return blocked
by six to seven feet of water, were forced to seek refuge in farmhouses
on higher land where they remained isolated for a number of days.
Even in the headquarters office of the hydrology study at the Court
House in Springfield, it was not possible to keep the water out. Entrance
to the office was gained by wading in a foot of water along the corridor,
and climbing over a few feet of sandbags at the door, all in pitch dark-
ness, relieved here and there by the flickering rays of a candle.

As the waters receded, efforts were redoubled by our field parties
to map the flooded areas, to obtain the elevation of high water along
several hundred miles of main rivers and tributaries, to investigate the
fifty or more bridges and dams destroyed, the millions of dollars worth
of highways undermined, the farms inundated and covered with silt,
gravel and debris, and to estimate the flow and discharge hi river and
over spillways.

Nor is this work now confined to the Connecticut River basin. With
the aid of Federal funds, both in our staff project and in our WPA
Projects, work is under way in the various river valleys throughout
the State. Members of the State Planning Board and of the regular
staff have worked continuously on emergency problems as well as on
planning problems, with Federal, state and local agencies, giving as-
sistance, encouragement or advice as the case may be.

No accurate estimate of the loss occasioned by floods has been

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 87

attempted, but it is safe to say that it has reached a higher figure in
millions than many of us have attained in years. Suppose as a conserva-
tive estimate we say a 50 million dollar loss, or, in other words, a loss
more than a thousand times greater than all of the budgets of the local
planning boards throughout the State put together. In fact, if we sub-
tract the city of Boston budget and the budgets of the other cities and
towns in the Metropolitan Boston area and the Cape, and consider only
the budgets reported by cities and towns in the flooded areas, then the
loss may easily reach a figure 5000 times greater than the amount made
available for planning work. This is a situation which should be brought
forcibly to the attention of the local authorities, particularly to the end
that the local boards in future may be properly equipped with personnel
and with funds to enable them to do their full share toward the preven-
tion of a repetition of the recent catastrophe.

President Roosevelt in his speech of acceptance at Chicago in July,
1932, declared:

Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind arises with
some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose.

If, as a result of the 1936 flood in the State of Massachusetts, there
shall come to pass a better appreciation of the possibilities of planning
and a willingness to devote a larger share of public effort and of public
funds to prevention rather than to cure, then from the standpoint of
future generations, the flood shall not have been in vain.

The situation as it stands at the present time is a challenge to the
local planning agencies as well as to the State Planning Board. It may
be the knock of opportunity. In any event the State Planning Board
will leave no stone unturned to bring about a better understanding of
the benefits to be derived from a reasonable application of planning
principles to public progress.

SOUTH DAKOTA

By W. R. RONALD, Mitchell, S. D., Chairman, South Dakota State Planning Board

CAN the planning program be made practical? The outstanding
impression that I have of the South Dakota State Planning Board
is that it is very much on the spot and that the spot is constantly getting
hotter and hotter. We have a marvelous staff in our State, not less than
one hundred people working on research, with five different offices in
the State. Squirrels accumulating nuts for their winter supply could
not possibly be more industrious than this staff, and as the reports come
to the central office, constantly getting higher and higher, I wonder
more and more whether the consequences so far as the State Planning

88 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Board is concerned will be anything more than an acute attack of mental
indigestion.

It would be altogether trite to observe to this group that the planning
board is a newcomer in the house of government. If one may judge
from a rising tide of sentiment or expression over the country, there is
a growing demand for some kind of limitation on government — a sort
of zoning scheme — to establish an outside maximum for departments,
bureaus, boards and commissions in state and Federal Government.
In addition to that, many of these departments, bureaus, boards and
commissions are engaged in planning on their own account. In fact, we
might even say we have always had planning, consciously or uncon-
sciously. Many acts of the legislatures and of Congress are the result
of some idea of a plan. The same is true of many executive orders.
Now, with all that going on, we have introduced something else — the
planning board — and the burden of proof is certainly on the planning
board to the extent that it must find for itself a place in this crowded
house that will be its exclusive and natural habitat.

I think those of us who are on planning boards have a considerable
degree of conscience in the matter. My own state's appropriation is not
large — $20,000 — but it was liberal under existing conditions. Much
more has been spent by the Federal Government. If we have the right
idea, we must feel that full value received must be given, and in a very
definite and unmistakable manner.

I have tried to work out the basis upon which the planning board's
existence should be justified and its place found. I think there is no
question that members of planning boards have no illusion as to their
particular talents. They are not suffering from the belief that they are
supermen. From the fact that each and every one here has been deny-
ing that he is a planner, it is more likely we are suffering from an in-
feriority complex. So it cannot be said that we are going to justify our
existence by reason of any superior talents on the part of the personnel.

Therefore, apparently, the only way by which we can warrant the
planning board as an institution is by the methods it pursues. These
must be unique in some respects. Of course, we are all familiar with the
formula. The planning board differs from others whose members have
sought to look forward in that the planning board proceeds first to
ascertain the facts and then go on from there and arrive at more in-
formed opinions. We must accept that as perhaps the distinguishing feature
of the planning board, and if any of its practices will justify its existence
they probably are to be found in that approach.

Mr. Herbert Hoover said one thing some twenty-five years ago that
may be recalled when everything he has said as President has been
forgotten. He was then a business engineer, and he made this statement :
"A correct statement of any problem is nine-tenths of its solution/*
Now if that is correct, it should be possible for the planning board to

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 89

find a problem or problems in the reports on research and the facts that
are found, but it should also be able to discover a solution inherent in
the facts themselves. That will not be a tremendously difficult task
if Mr. Hoover was right, and I think he was.

But there is a much more severe test that will be applied to the
reports and recommendations of the planning boards, whether they are
conscious of it or not. That is, that any and all plans adopted must be
practical of accomplishment. We know the answer to many of these
problems. We need no investigation to discover what should be done.
In some cases it is almost common knowledge. So as to those matters,
the task of the planning board will be to discover how to arrive at the
accomplishment of these particular solutions. I am frankly wondering
if our Planning Board will go around and around and around and
finally finish exactly where it started. We will probably confront
obstacles of which we are not now aware, but there are three very definite
hurdles which we must take if our plans are to be practicable of accom-
plishment.

First of all, there is the problem of cost. We are confronted with the
fact that the demand is for a reduction in public expenditures instead
of an increase. Therefore, the burden of proof is very definitely upon
any proposal that calls for any additional expenditure. The Planning
Board must, if it can, find a practicable and acceptable means of pro-
viding revenue required for its proposals.

Secondly, there is the time element. We talk a great deal about long-
time planning. We know that erosion is doing its worst and destroying
our resources in some parts of the country at a very rapid rate. Plans
thus far developed to combat this very definite attack upon our resources
call for a very long period if they are carried to completion. So of human
resources we must time our program so we will not have lost irrevocably
a valuable human possession. That calls for the expediting of conserva-
tion programs.

And, third, there is a very definite difficulty in the human equation.
The people of the United States are notoriously conservative. Public
opinion involves a great deal of inertia. What has been in the past
hangs like a dead weight on what ought to be in the future. This is
made more serious by reason of the fact that our form of government
works in reverse. In the United Kingdom, for example, there is no
stated period in which a commission is allowed to govern. It is what
we call in our own newspaper business TF — 'til forbidden. In our own
country, in county, state and Federal governments, we choose officials
for a stated term, and we give them unlimited commission to do as they
please for that period of time. After two or four years we have a hectic
two or four weeks in which each side tries to talk louder than the other
and the voter gets more confused and we have another commission,
unreserved, to handle the public for another two or four or six years.

90 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

The only recourse of the voters is to turn people out of office if they
do not like what they have done, and that develops an attitude on the
part of the public official and on the part of the voter that makes it more
difficult to enlist their support in a forward-looking program that calls
for understanding.

Now I might illustrate what I mean. We have 30,000 Indians who
are going to be dumped on the State of South Dakota some of these days.
They have been pushed along, of course, until now they are living in an
area where the Resettlement Administration says whites cannot pos-
sibly make a living, and from which they are being removed. The Indian
problem is not solved. It is going to become our responsibility. How
are we going to work that out? In the matter of land-use, we know
what should be developed, of course, but we have the difficulty of up-
setting institutions and of changing the disposition of people to go on
living on the lands whether they produce or not. They are apparently
content to prosper on next year's crop.

We realize that somehow our plan — when we work it out — must be
put over. We have developed a technique which I think is perhaps a
combination of the Socratic, the bonfire and the alibi method. The
Socratic method puts up the problem and asks for a solution. This will
make men think, we hope. Then if that fails we are going to try to build
a bonfire under the public officials by calling in the chairmen of all the
county boards before we arrive at any plan, permit them to discuss it
and give their recommendations, so they will feel it is their plan and
will talk to their legislators. Finally, the alibi will be in these reports.
We can say to the legislators, "Pass this bill," and if any ask you why,
refer them to this report. It will contain hundreds of pages and nobody
will read it but it will present the legislators with an excellent alibi.

I am not pessimistic; rather, I am hopeful and jealous — jealous of
this plan because of its immeasurable opportunities, because it is a
definite assault upon and an attempt to correct what might be described
as our national fault, namely, our thoughtlessness and our heedlessness.
So we are trying by our picture to give people the advantage of perspec-
tive, by projecting the past into the future, from a close-up of the present.
We are hoping that we can accomplish enough so that it will be said in
our State the money was not wasted, and that there is a place for one
more board in South Dakota.

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 91

FLORIDA

By C. B. TREADWAY, Tallahassee, Fla., Member of the Florida State Planning Board,
and Chairman of the State Road Department

Read by MRS. M. M. EBERT, Lake Wales, Fla., Member of Florida State Planning Board

AS a member of the State Planning Board, and also chairman of the
XJL State Road Department of Florida, I am particularly interested in
planning as it affects highways. The importance of highway transpor-
tation in Florida is not limited to any governmental subdivision; it is of
vital interest to all citizens of the State. The highway problem in
Florida is perhaps very little different from that in most of the other
States, with the possible exception of our seasonal travel by guests
from other States during the winter. We also have an extensive trucking
industry, both in and out of the State, which constantly hauls our
products, such as citrus, winter vegetables, fish and the like, ov^er
the highways.

The history of roads in Florida, too, is probably but little different
from that of any other section of the United States — there were no pre-
conceived plans. Foot, or horse, trails were, of course, the first paths of
land transportation, or travel, and preceded settlement of the country.
As the settlement of the country proceeded, roads were advanced to
permit transportation of commodities in greater quantities and at lower
cost than was possible by means of pack-sacks on men or loads on pack
animals. In some cases military roads preceded the roads and trails
for civil purposes and in some cases were constructed coincident with
the need for roads for civil life. With the development of the need for
more rapid transportation and transport of commodities in greater
quantities, there were developed the public post roads for rapid travel
on horse, or by stage coach, and on which roads freight wagons also
moved. There were also developed the toll highways built and main-
tained by private interests. These highways, which were the best of
their time, permitted, for payment of a toll for use of the road, rapid
travel by horsemen, passengers in stage coaches and freight in freight
wagons, which moved more easily over the paved and well-maintained
toll roads than was the case on other roads. With the increase in density
of population and development of settled territory and establishment
of local governmental bodies, there began the construction of public
roads necessary for transportation between all of the small communities
and between the small communities and the large trading centers.
Land transport moved on these public highways until the development
of the railways began to offer transportation at much higher speed and
lower gross cost.

The highways became a most important factor in a movement
of individuals in individually owned conveyances as the motor vehicle
superseded the horse and buggy. New developments for the high-

92 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

ways were based on the requirements for the individually owned and
operated passenger motor cars. Later the opportunity of using the
public highway for commercial transport was recognized, and the
growth of this commercial transport has been one of the main factors
influencing the maintenance and rebuilding of motor roads constructed
prior to a date about ten years ago.

Road construction could not possibly keep up with the many demands
placed upon it by the mushroom growth of the automotive industry, nor
could our system of roads be discarded. It was a case of making the
best of existing facilities. If proper future planning had been thought
of and applied ten to fifteen years ago, we would not now be confronted
with many of our road problems of today.

In Florida, state roads are designated in three classifications by the
Legislature, namely, first, second, and third preferentials. The first and
second preferential highway systems have been about completed by the
Highway Department, and the necessity for wise planning for the future
expansion of our highway system is more evident than ever before.
The third preferential system of roads has been designated with very
little thought toward the utility of the road, the territory that it will
serve, or the expense of construction and maintenance. A properly
developed long-range plan for highway construction will eliminate this
hit-or-miss method, and will save millions of dollars to the taxpayers of
Florida during the next few years. Further, a long-range plan will, if
properly conceived and executed result in construction and improve-
ments in maintenance and operation that will better serve the people
who use the facility and will better develop natural and human resources.

About twro years ago the State Road Department, in cooperation
with the Florida State Planning Board, conducted a road survey within
the limitation of FERA financing and the amounts of money that could
be used by the Highway Department and the Planning Board for this
purpose. While a mass of data was secured at this time which is most
valuable for highway planning, this work is now being supplemented
with a state-wide survey in cooperation with the Bureau of Public Roads
similar to that now being carried on in over forty other States.

Florida has embarked upon another most interesting experiment.
This is the creation of county planning agencies by statute. When the
bill was written creating the State Planning Board officially, the question
of county planning agencies was thoroughly discussed by the State
Board and others interested. There was a variance of opinion as to
whether such county planning agencies should be authorized under the
law, or, as an alternate, regional planning groups comprising several
counties be created for this purpose. Inasmuch as we realized that the
counties were the political subdivisions with which it was necessary for
us to deal in our planning work, it was finally determined that the county
planning groups would be authorized under the law.

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 93

These County Planning Councils, as they are officially known, are
composed of one member from the County Board of Public Instruction,
one member of the County Commissioners, and one member from each
official municipal planning agency within the county, in addition to
which the Governor appoints members at large to a number that will
exceed at least by three the total of the ex-officio members.

The first task was to obtain from the ex-qfficio bodies designations of
their members for inclusion in these county planning councils. After
this was done the Governor appointed the members at large, which
appointments were made in October, 1935. To date all of the councils in
the State, with the exception of two, have organized and elected officers
and are officially functioning. Shortly after this organization, county
planning councils were called upon by the state WPA officials to establish
priority of WPA projects that had been submitted to the state office,
approved, and on which, in many cases, work had already begun. There
was, of course, no time for these planning councils to formulate a well-
rounded public works program from which proper recommendations for
WPA work could be made. However, from the knowledge of conditions
by the members of the councils who were selected from the county at
large, a very worth-while contribution to the development of a WPA
works program was made.

The sudden induction into the service of planning of a mass of people,
nearly five hundred, most of whom had no previous experience in the
planning field, has been a most interesting experiment. The State Plan-
ning Board has had neither the finances nor the personnel to make the
number of personal visits to these planning councils that we think
desirable. Another feature that has prevented more progress by these
county groups has been the total lack of finance for their activities.
No provision was made in the law for financing with state funds and all
of the county budgets had been closed before their appointments. It has
been possible in some instances to secure county funds to help the
councils carry on their work, but these have been very few. It is hoped
that when the next budget is prepared within the next sixty days most
of the counties will include some funds for county planning.

A number of the counties have attempted to secure through the WPA
technical and clerical assistance to carry on planning activities within
their counties. So far, while most of these projects have been approved
by the state WPA officials, they have not been able to overcome the
barrier at Washington. On the whole, we feel that this experiment has
been successful, because most of these county groups have been con-
stantly requesting that some representative of the State Planning Board
appear before them and assist them to get started in the field of planning.
This has been done in as many instances as possible, and the planning
idea has been well received. We hope within the near future to hold one
or more state conferences for these groups.

94 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

There still is a division of thought in Florida as to whether these
counties should be grouped into planning agencies which would give us
from seven to ten planning agencies in the State rather than sixty-seven,
other than the municipal and state agencies. It is thought by some
that the smaller number of groups, but covering a large area, would
be able to accomplish a great deal more and the State Board could make
more and better contacts with the fewer groups and that it would be
easier to finance the activities. This is a question that probably will
come up for further discussion, and a possible solution before the next
Legislature, which convenes in the spring of 1937.

We do feel, however, that Florida is becoming more planning-minded
every day and that much good has come from our efforts, and that
state, county and municipal planning, with the possibility of regional
planning, is now in Florida to stay.

NEW JERSEY

By CHARLES P. MESSICK, Trenton, N. J., Chairman, New Jersey
State Planning Board

WE in New Jersey are situated, as you know, between two great
metropolitan centers, New York and Philadelphia. Stated more
accurately, New Jersey is part of these areas and must, therefore, face
the constant fact of congested population. The social and economic con-
sequences of heavy population density make two groups of the many
state problems especially urgent — those of transportation and of water
resources.

Before any solution to the transportation problems of New Jersey
can be found, some knowledge of the present and future distribution
and movement of population is necessary. It is thought, for instance,
that the future rate of population increase in New Jersey will be greater
than that for many other parts of the country because the State, with
its peculiar location, will probably continue to attract both industries
and residents from neighboring States. Information about future trends
is of inestimable importance in planning for tomorrow's highways, air-
ports, and railroad systems. Because of the primary importance of this
information the State Planning Board has placed, and continues to
place, special emphasis upon studies of population and land-use trends.
As more material is accumulated and as the trends of population growth
and land-use become clearer, it will be possible to estimate future popu-
lation with some fair degree of accuracy. These predictions depend, of
course, upon many different social and economic factors. The Planning
Board is studying these fields as well and hopes to expand its research in
the future. A sound transportation program for New Jersey must be
founded upon accurate basic data if it is to be economically sound.

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 95

The solution of the water problems of New Jersey is an extremely
difficult one. The New Jersey State Planning Board is cooperating with
the Federal Government in its studies of water resources within the
area which surrounds and includes New Jersey. A committee of the
Board is at the present time collecting material relating to the water
problems of New Jersey. Within the State itself the chief problem centers
about future water supply for the metropolitan district of northern
New Jersey. In order to coordinate the work which has already been
done along these lines, the Board has brought together the various
departments, agencies, and committees which have worked upon, or
are interested in, these matters. It is hoped that in this way a real
beginning has been made toward the solution of the state's water
problems.

As we see our function in the State, it includes much work toward
a better understanding of these two fundamental problems. Our pur-
pose is to build slowly, to keep asking questions, and to continue our
research in the hope that we will assist in the education and information
of the people of the State as to the basic questions of securing those
services which we must make in living together.

VIRGINIA

CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION

MR. WILLARD DAY, County Manager, Henrico County, Virginia:
The Virginia State Planning Board was appointed in 1933 by Governor
Pollard and the same personnel was continued by a resolution of the
1934 General Assembly at the request of Governor Peery.

The Board is composed of 14 members, 11 of whom are the head of
or connected with one of the various state departments. The other three
are Morton L. Wallerstein, Executive Secretary of the League of Virginia
Municipalities, who is chairman of the Planning Board; Colonel Leroy
Hodges, Managing Director of the State Chamber of Commerce, Vice-
Chairman; and Dr. Douglas S. Freeman, Editor of the Richmond News
Leader.

Thirty-five Virginia cities and three counties have adopted the
manager form of government; in fact, it originated in this State in 1908
in the City of Staunton. The State Planning Board sponsored a bill
which was adopted by the 1936 General Assembly authorizing the
appointment by local Boards of Supervisors of county planning com-
missions. Henrico, one of the three manager counties, is the first to
appoint a Planning Commission under the new law, and the newly
created Planning Commission finds many opportunities for constructive
planning.

96 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

The most pressing problem of the moment is in connection with
contemplated annexation of the county's territory by the City of
Richmond. It is the viewpoint of the County Planning Commission
that the growth of Richmond can best be fostered by a plan providing
for the joint control of the suburban areas around the City. The State
Planning Board will cooperate with local planning commissions, and it
has been in close contact with the various state departments.

This group here assembled will doubtless be interested to know
something of what the state departments think of their Planning Board.

One of the speakers during the morning session has stressed the point
that state or local planning must not be entirely in the realm of theory,
but must be capable of practical application and workability. From
the statements of these state officials, I am quite sure there is no doubt
in the mind of anyone present as to the practical application and co-
operative working out of state planning in Virginia.

STATE PLANNING AND EDUCATION

By SIDNEY B. HALL, Superintendent of Public Instruction,
Commonwealth of Virginia, Richmond, Va.

THE Virginia State Department of Education has for some time
realized that a very uneconomic, unplanned program of school
building locations, and an unsound policy of pupil transportation, have
existed. With the limited facilities available we have been unable to
make the necessary studies and attempt to put into effect in the various
communities the results of such studies. In 1933 we did begin a de-
tailed school plant survey in an effort to determine the school building
locations, the physical condition of school buildings, and various de-
tailed items concerning the construction, planning, obsolescence, etc.
With the assistance of the State Planning Board the State Department
of Education was able to complete maps for each county, showing the
location with reference to highways, population centers, along with a
vast amount of detailed information covering the physical condition
of the school plant.

This study has brought forcibly to the attention of all interested
parties a number of conditions that need attention and correction as
soon as practicable:

First: School buildings in many cases are located just across county lines,
resulting in two buildings where only one would adequately serve all instruc-
tional purposes.

Second: School buildings have been located without reference to highway
development either for the present or for planned future highway development.

Third: School buildings have been located without reference to any well-
planned system of transportation.

Fourth: Consolidated schools have been built without reference to the
development of improved highways, with the result that we find in Virginia a

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 97

high school for approximately each 100 square miles. A study reveals that with
a carefully planned system of transportation, one high school for every 200 or
250 square miles would adequately serve the communities without excessively
long transportation hauls for children.

The State Department of Education has been able to use to excellent
advantage the studies made by the State Planning Board in advising
local communities when buildings have been contemplated at locations
that might be unwise in the light of points raised above, and it is con-
servatively estimated that already we have been able to save to the
local taxpayers several hundred thousands of dollars in capital outlay
by pointing out in the light of these studies that such capital outlay
would be unwise.

Through the State Planning Board there has already been developed
a close coordination between the Highway Department and the State
Department of Education in preparing a master plan of school building
locations, along with a master plan of highway development for the
State as a whole. This should result in economies not only in capital
outlay in the location of buildings, but also in the planned program of
transportation.

Through the activities of the State Planning Board we are furnished
with detailed information on marginal and submarginal lands, which
serves as a guide in school building locations.

The State Department of Education has cooperated and will con-
tinue to cooperate fully with the State Planning Board in an effort to
develop a long-time master plan that will involve school building loca-
tions in cooperation with a master plan of highway development, look-
ing to the end that carefully planned consolidations may be effected and
savings will result to taxpayers in locating buildings.

STATE PLANNING AND CONSERVATION
AND DEVELOPMENT

By WILBUR C. HALL, Chairman, State Commission on Conservation
and Development, Richmond, Va.

I AM glad for several reasons to take part in this planning conference
and to address you briefly at this time on "State Planning in Rela-
tion to Conservation and Development." As Chairman of the Virginia
State Commission on Conservation and Development, I encounter each
day problems of a most varied nature pertaining to the natural resources
of our Commonwealth. As a member of the Virginia State Planning
Board, I am often reminded that we have many hurdles to clear and
obstacles to surmount before the lack of well-coordinated planning in
past decades can be overcome. We are thankful, however, that in recent
years the need for planning has become so evident that we enter the

98 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

campaign with a vision and a vigor that can do no less than improve
conditions for this and succeeding generations.

Organizations such as the American City Planning Institute, the
American Planning and Civic Association, the American Society of
Planning Officials, the National Resources Committee, and the several
state and other planning groups, must develop the methods, organize
appropriately the materials, and press steadily forward toward new and
better goals in the conservation and development of all of our resources :
community, state and national; material and human.

In a society such as ours, there are two ways of approaching the
manifold problems that naturally and inevitably arise in connection
with the conservation and development of our natural resources. One
way is aptly characterized by the familiar expression "muddling
through"; the other method is typified by thorough planning. We have
seen the results of the first way in many fields of activity. Often they
have not been a credit to our vaunted engineering methods and our
practical business acumen. We are beginning to see the results of the
second method more and more in fields to which it has customarily
not been applied.

With the examples from other nations, or even in our own land,
recorded by history or illustrated in the current geographic and con-
servation periodicals, it is difficult to understand why we who live in the
United States have been content so long more or less to "muddle
through" in regard to our natural resources. This has become almost
an insidious chronic state of mind and activity that affects vitally our
whole social structure — in national, state, county and municipal groups.
I doubt very much if present conditions are due in large part to mental
indolence or social independence; rather I think they are the unhappy,
almost tragic, result of several factors. Some of these factors have not
been foreseen, but some have been so evident that we have overlooked
their full significance.

One of the most important factors no doubt is the youth of this
Nation. In spite of our pride in our antiquity as a commonwealth and
the manifold examples of cherished historic traditions, after all, as a
Nation we are young, quite young, compared to most of the world. It
would be better, perhaps, to say that, as a group trying social experi-
ments, we are in our youth and sometimes are harmed by the impetuosi-
ties and by the lack- of farseeing planning which are characteristic
of youth.

The germ of conservation — applied planning — is really as old as
civilization. Natural resources coupled with some planned efforts have
been the stepping stones upon which society has slowly progressed to
its present state. Man has sought the treasure-trove of Nature and has
mastered many of the refractory materials, but in turn he has become
enslaved by them.

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 99

When our Colonial ancestors landed at Jamestown and at Plymouth
Rock, they were confronted by primeval forests with magnificent trees
in bewildering array such as most of them had never seen before. As
they worked their way into those forests and up the rivers, it is little
wonder that they and their children easily arrived at the conclusion
that the forests on this continent were everlasting. It is little wonder,
too, that they cleared them away almost with a vengeance in order to
follow agricultural pursuits. Nowadays we accomplish the same result
by carelessness with fire, so that forest fires are a constant menace.
Efficient fire control and practical reforestation wisely planned and
insistently practiced should go far to correct some of the mistakes of
the past and the abuses of the present.

Time permits me to speak only of forests as an illustration, but the
same mass view has applied, since Colonial times, to most of our natural
resources. Consider for a moment soils as another example. Virgin soils
of age-old fertility and tremendous productivity were found over vast
areas. Our lack of foresight in the conservation of these soils has been
almost ruthless. It is becoming a tragedy of modern civilization because,
in the final analysis, soils are our most fundamental natural resource.
Those losses are evident to all of you. As a single illustration, geologists
tell us that the Mississippi River alone carries each year to the Gulf
enough soil to make 200 daily trains, each train containing one hundred
50-ton cars. One such train in every seven minutes! Soils are produced
so slowly and washed away so rapidly when the checks and balances of
Nature are upset by man. Entrenched erosion is difficult to overcome,
and eternal vigilance based upon wise experimentation and shrewd
planning must become a general policy.

Note that I said age-old fertility. That suggests another factor, an
almost complete lack of understanding of the antiquity of our natural
resources. New forests can be grown, but in this day of great demands
within short periods of time, in most places adequate quantity and
quality can not be grown rapidly enough without long-range planning.
Our soils have been produced through the mechanical and chemical
disintegration and decay of the underlying rocks. That has not been
done overnight even in a geologic sense, but has been the result of surface
processes acting through millenia. Once our soils are destroyed through
our carelessness and lack of planning, future generations may suffer
severely before results of adequate planning become effective.

Mineral resources to the layman are generally considered inexhaus-
tible, but they too have their limits in quantity and quality. The day
is bound to come when the supply of some of our most useful mineral
resources will be either inadequate or else the cost of production will be
far beyond the present cost. Until we have the facts brought forcefully
to our attention, we little realize how much our daily living is affected
at every turn by minerals in this "Age of Mineral Utilization." Not

100 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

until we begin effective planning do we understand how tragic is the
monetary and social waste involved in the unplanned development of
some of our mineral deposits.

Water is commonly considered as free as air, but an understanding
of the dendrologic and geologic conditions that control our water supplies
soon leads to a different understanding and an emphasis upon the need
of careful planning. Floods must be prevented or minimized. Adequate
water supplies of high quality must be assured for all domestic and
industrial purposes.

In brief, then, our American civilization has until recently more or
less "muddled through" in regard to our essential natural resources,
such as forests, soils, mineral resources, and water resources. We have
been expressively reminded by J. N. Darling that as a nation we have
been living upon a dole, a "dole that came from a rich inheritance of
natural resources ... as a gift of nature in the shape of public forests,
rich mineral deposits, water, and an abundance of wild life seemingly
inexhaustible in its profusion." It is true, of course, that planned efforts
at conservation and development of some of these resources have been
made more or less sporadically throughout the past century, but it was
not until near the dawn of the present century that determined efforts
were made towards the conservation of some of our resources. As is well
known, it has only been within the past few years that well-planned
efforts have been made to establish national and state planning on a
sound basis.

The creation of the National Resources Board, now the National
Resources Committee, was a step in the right direction. It should be-
come a permanent organization to compile data on the resources of our
country and to formulate plans and policies for their proper conservation
and development. Our State Planning Board has those objectives for
our commonwealth. Our General Assembly, which convened a few
months ago, enacted a bill authorizing county planning commissions
and defining their duties. One of those duties is "to make and adopt a
master plan for the physical development of the unincorporated terri-
tory of the county."

The work of the State Planning Board should be intimately related
to the work of the State Commission on Conservation and Develop-
ment, through all of its divisional activities. Although their methods of
approach may, at times and in certain fields, be somewhat different, the
ultimate objectives should be approximately the same.

It may be taken for granted that the State Planning Board intends
to search out all obtainable facts about Virginia, particularly as they
bear on industrial and social problems. It is, in a word, a fact-finding
organization, to which is added the duty of collating and correlating
these facts and, upon those foundation stones, developing a well-planned
system for the best utilization of all of the resources of the State. The

STATE PLANNING PROGRESS 101

State Planning Board must rely, in considerable measure, upon the
activities of state and other fact-finding departments for its basic data.
Somewhat like an engineer using familiar materials, it organizes those
materials into new structures to serve new purposes or to serve better
long-established activities.

In the brief time available I have attempted to call your attention to
some of the basic principles of conservation and development, to some
of the activities of the State Commission on Conservation and Develop-
ment as they pertain to the natural resources of Virginia, and to stress
in a general way some of the needs and benefits of state planning as
applied to them. Each division of our Commission is carrying forward
well-planned activities in its own field. There is some need for a co-
ordination of those diverse activities in a cooperative plan from the
point of view of all the industrial and social needs of the State. That is
a function and aim of the Virginia State Planning Board. From the
basic facts about our natural resources, obtained from competent
authorities, and all the social activities dependent upon them, it is
envisioning and developing a program that we hope will make for
industrial progress and greater social comfort and security throughout
Virginia.

Our reflections are poignant as we inventory present natural resources
and social conditions and we are made keenly aware of the tremendous
losses sustained through lack of fruitful planning. A clear and sharply
focused foresight should convince us that national and state planning
along appropriate lines have become a necessity if our modern civiliza-
tion is to persist and prosper. One is tempted to emphasize the need
of a slogan — Plan and prosper; plan or perish!

STATE PLANNING AND LEGISLATIVE PLANNING

By WILLIAM R. SHANDS, Director, Division of Statutory Research and Drafting,
Commonwealth of Virginia, Richmond, Va.

VIRGINIA is at this time one of a few States specifically engaged
in coordinating the activities of a State Planning Board and a
Legislative Council.

The General Assembly of Virginia meets in regular session for a
period of sixty days once every two years. During this short period it
is necessary for the members of the General Assembly to consider,
usually, over a thousand bills in order to determine which measures
should be enacted. Under the circumstances it has been found necessary
to do a considerable amount of advance planning.

In the past, legislative planning has been carried on by individual
members of the General Assembly and legislative committees and com-
missions. The Governor has also played a most important part in legis-

102 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

lative planning through the performance of the duty imposed on him
by the Constitution to communicate to the General Assembly at every
session the condition of the State and to recommend to its consideration
such measures as he may deem expedient. The Legislative Reference
Bureau, now known as the Division of Statutory Research and Drafting,
was created in 1914 to assist the members of the General Assembly,
legislative committees and commissions, and the Governor in their
work pertaining to legislative planning.

The Governor in the early part of 1935 appointed an Advisory Legis-
lative Council to consider and submit to him recommendations concern-
ing such matters as might be referred to the Council by the Governor.
Funds for the Council were provided by a grant to the Governor by the
Spelman Fund of New York, which also provided funds for the Virginia
State Planning Board. The latter Board, an outgrowth of an unofficial
board, appointed in September, 1933, to assist in planning public works
to relieve unemployment, had, in 1934, been officially recognized by the
General Assembly through a resolution authorizing the Governor to
continue the Virginia State Planning Board.

The Governor's Advisory Legislative Council submitted reports to
the Governor on seven subjects referred to the Council by the Governor
and recommended the adoption of twenty measures, all of which were
subsequently introduced in the General Assembly during the 1936
session and thirteen of which were finally enacted into law.

No specific recommendations of the State Planning Board were
referred to the Council, due to the fact that the State Planning Board
has so far been busily engaged in gathering factual data to be used as
the basis for future recommendations.

During the recent session the General Assembly passed an act creat-
ing the Virginia Advisory Legislative Council. The Council will consist
of seven members, to be appointed by the Governor. At least five of the
members must be members of the General Assembly. The Director of
the Division of Statutory Research and Drafting is Secretary of the
Council. The new Council will replace the unofficial body previously
appointed by the Governor. The act provides that it shall be the duty
of the Council (a) to make an investigation and study of any matter or
question which may be referred to it by the General Assembly, and
submit a report containing its findings and recommendations to the
Governor and to the members of the General Assembly at least thirty
days prior to the next regular session of the General Assembly, or at such
other time or times as the General Assembly shall direct, and (6) to
make an investigation and study of any matter or question which may
be referred to it by the Governor and to submit to the Governor a copy
of its report containing its findings and recommendations at least thirty
days prior to the next regular session of the General Assembly or at
such other time or times as the Governor may request.

THE REGION

Regional Planning

INCENTIVES AND OBJECTIVES IN REGIONAL PLANNING

By GEORGE T. RENNER, Department of Geography, Columbia University,
and Senior Economist, National Resources Committee

The Problem. It is a constitutional fact that the sovereignty of the
American people resides in the several States. Nevertheless, state
boundaries do not correspond to many modern social, economic or
administrative requirements. Therefore, while the States are units of
sovereignty, they are by no means satisfactory units for planning.
Indeed, when taken individually, they are usually so geographically
incomplete for this purpose that the joint action of States becomes a
prerequisite for constructive action. Interstate cooperation is, there-
fore, a matter of almost universal concern to the planning profession.

Interstate cooperation is not a new concept; indeed, the Federal
Government seems to have had its inception in an initial attempt of
the States to create a means whereby they could do collectively what
they could not do individually. Now that the States have federalism,
they seem not to like it in all its aspects. At present there is an increas-
ing need for planning, resource conservation, and large-scale engineering
development. In connection with this, a paradoxical situation has arisen;
namely, there is a growing reluctance to allow the Federal Government
to make and execute large-scale developmental and conservational
plans, even though it is often a geographical impossibility for any indi-
vidual State to do these things.

Two agencies are at work seeking to overcome this dilemma, the
Council of State Governments, and the United States National Re-
sources Committee, together with its wholly non-partisan state plan-
ning boards. Both of these agencies are concerned equally with the pro-
motion of state action and interstate cooperation. The Council of State
Governments represents a long-delayed second attempt to secure general
interstate action, this time through a completely decentralized structure
rather than a centralized or Federal one. The National Resources Com-
mittee has considered the same method of approach, but, in addition,
has been exploring the possibility of a way out through regional organ-
ization for planning.1

Interstate Cooperation and Regionalism. The joint action of States
may assume two distinctly different aspects, as follows: (a) The pro-
jection of certain sovereign state powers laterally at the same govern-
mental level, and (b) the projection of certain sovereign state powers
vertically to a new governmental level.

iGaus, J. M., Crane, J., Dimock, M. E., and Renner, G. T., "Regional Factors in
National Planning and Development," National Resources Committee, Washington,
D. C., 1935, p. 223.

105

106 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

The first of these is where two or more States agree to act in unison
or toward a common end. This extension of state powers at the same
level is interstate cooperation in the ordinary sense; the interstate com-
pact is a specific application of the principle.

The second of these is where two or more States project certain of
their powers upward, so that these focus at some point below the Federal
level; this in such manner as to form a new polity whose areal jurisdic-
tion is not synonymous with the combined areas of the participating
States and whose functions are not the combined functions of those
States. This is regionalism in its operative aspect.

These two political phenomena are often confused, or rather they
are never separated in the minds of most people. It may be readily
seen, however, that interstate cooperation and regionalism are not
necessarily synonymous. They are promising but different ways out of
a dilemma; it is possible to have either without the other. Even then
the mere projection of certain sovereign state powers upward to a new
administrative level does not necessarily produce a bonafide regionalism.
Instead it may assume any one of three possible forms.

First, it may create a new unit similar to the States but larger in
area and above them in administrative level. Second, it may create a
purely subnational unit, or what has been called a "little capital,"
wherein certain Federal functions are concentrated. Or third, it may
give rise to a new type of polity with an entirely new geographical
basis. To this last, the name region may be applied.

Planning officials and planning-minded citizens have been groping
after this third solution; but, in general, it has been rather generally
misunderstood. Consequently, many different concepts have been posed
as regionalism, and many different things have been done under the
guise of regional planning. There is no desire to disparage any of these,
but if we be planners, then we must understand the exact nature of the
planning device which we propose to use, its implications, and its in-
evitable results.

Incentives to Regional Planning. There are today some six significant
incentives toward regional planning. First, the constantly increasing
complexity of society demands a constantly increasing service of govern-
ment to the individual and to the group. This means an augmentation
in the problems of control which transcend state jurisdiction. Some of
these focus at the Federal level and demand national planning, while
some focus at a lower level and demand regional planning.

Second, large-scale physical development and conservation of resources
are becoming increasingly urgent. More and more these two processes
are giving rise to interstate problems, most of which are of national
interest but which concern areas smaller than the whole country.

Third, it has been suggested that the planning and execution of pro-
grams of resource development and conservation be done by blocs of

REGIONAL PLANNING 107

States actuated from a local center, such as Boston for the New England
States or Atlanta for the Southern States. This is probably one of the
results of a growing "sense of community" in the mind of modern man
in America. The village or grange hall is now too small to hold the man
with an automobile; counties are too small for their original purposes;
in many respects the States are also too small, and need to be supple-
mented by the region. This is strengthened by the fact that it is easier
for men to think kindly in terms of Boston, or Atlanta, or perhaps Des
Moines, than in terms of far-off Washington, D. C. This regional prin-
ciple is also strengthened in reverse order by the fact that the Federal
Government finds its bureau functions can be administered in the field
more satisfactorily from sub-centers than from Washington directly.

Fourth, economic planning, precipitated largely by the "depression,"
has also provided an urge toward the regional approach. The late NRA
industrial program, the regulatory program of the Petroleum Adminis-
trative Board, the former crop-control planning and the present nascent
soil-improvement schedule of the AAA, all these and other forms of
commodity or functional planning have required specialized areas as
bases for calculations or operations.

Fifth, the growing manifestation of the social phenomenon known as
regionalism has also played a part. Regionalism arises out of a sponta-
neous loyalty to area. It may be described as "a clustering of environ-
mental, economic, social, and governmental factors to such an extent
that a distinct consciousness of separate identity within the national
whole, a need for autonomous planning, a manifestation of cultural
peculiarities, and a desire for freedom of administrative action, arises
and clamors for recognition."

Regionalism is to be measured neither entirely in the social realm
nor in the physical realm. Rather it grows out of man's adjustment to
area. For example, "an area, wherein there has grown up one character-
istic pattern of human adjustment to environment, one general class of
human use of resources and locus, — is a region."

Most States possess regionally only to a slight degree. Hence we
tend to identify ourselves as Southerners, or Middle Westerners, because
our basic or natural loyalties are elicited by other areas than States.
We, therefore, tend to think in terms of the region rather than the State.
As pointed out by Prof. John Gaus, regionalism is the basis for "the
encouragement of a richer and more varied life for the Nation, whereby
the peculiar characteristics, resources, and contributions of the major
sections of the country can be protected from invasions, exploitation,
and suppression by ill-considered and hasty national policies. The very
stimulation of self -consciousness of the individual region or section may
recruit a wider leadership for civic affairs, and a richer culture."

The sixth and last incentive to regional planning is the deliberate
encouragement and systematic stimulation by professional planners.

108 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Many of these latter have perceived the limitations of both the national
and the state approach, and have deliberately steered for a new polity.

The Promise of Regional Planning. Regionalism, as a motif for plan-
ning, seems to offer manifold promises, the road to which involves
several definite steps: (a) identifying the regionalism which is present;
(6) demarking the area which encompasses it; (c) determining the needs
of this area; (d) making a plan and fitting it to the area in question;
(e) implementing the plan in terms of state and federal sovereignties.

An eminent Southern scientist has outlined the aims and opportuni-
ties of regional planning for his region, as follows :

The task of planning (for this region) is an extraordinarily difficult one, but
all the elements necessary for success are present and only need to be focused
in the right ways and combinations. There is ample evidence that unless there
be a definite change in regional economy, there will be retrogressions in agri-
culture, in industry, and in general culture and institutions. Some aspects of
this prospect are alarming, indicating that the South can ill afford to make
many more mistakes.

Regional reconstruction can be successfully achieved only in relation to
national integration and interregional adjustments. By the same token, national
social planning must be based upon regional analysis and functioning, giving
logical values to regional differentials and distributions.

Realistic and stable results can be attained only through approximate de-
limitation and definition of the region on the basis of scientific and functional
analysis, reclassifying border areas, and providing for adequate functional sub-
regional divisions to meet the practical needs of overlapping areas and specialized
activities. In this regional classification there is need for more approximate uni-
formity among the many national and local boards, agencies, and consultants,
and less accidental and arbitrary allocation of areas and functions.

The objectives of the new planning envisage no Utopias, yet they do look
toward the rehabilitation of the people, toward the reconstruction of cotton
economy, toward increasing the Southeast's revenue to the nation as well as
its own wealth, and toward general regional, cultural adjustment. . . . Such
emphasis in the Southeast ought to serve as a new regional motivation as well
as to point the way to tangible, visible next steps.

While continuous emphasis must be placed upon state planning, regional
planning can contribute wisely to many special aspects and to the general re-
gional development. This is especially true in agricultural reconstruction, in
land and other resource utilization, in institutions of higher learning and research,
and in social legislation needed as adequate framework for practical planning.

This means a very realistic program . . . comprehending the whole problem
of land use and planning, and of optimum programs of agricultural production
in relation to population, to industry, and to total capacity of the region, its
interregional relations and its foreign markets. This . . . involves the measure
and use of present surplus people and labor as well as land of readjusted crop
production and land improvements, or programs of rural housing and rural
electrification. It implies new emphasis upon special activities such as dairying
and livestock industry, small industries and part-time farming, new occupations
and new crops, new industries, and it assumes new reaches in expanded co-
operative organizations and endeavor.2

2Odum, H. W., "Southern Regions of the United States." University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill, N. C., pp. 664, various pages.

REGIONAL PLANNING 109

Possible Regional Forms. So far, most of the discussions which have
been carried on in this country regarding regional planning have cen-
tered about two questions: First, shall we have regional planning or not?
Second, what powers will be assigned to it? The answers to these will
perhaps appear in the two related papers which follow. Meanwhile, it
is here proposed to raise a third question and examine its implications,
namely, "What kind of regional planning are we going to have?" In
order to answer this, one must examine the major proposals along this
line which have already been made.

First, it has been proposed to create blocs-of -States operating by
compact agreement. To many, a unit consisting of, say, six States is
preferable to one of 48 States, partly because it is more wieldy and
partly because it is nearer both the citizen and the problem.

Second, it has been proposed to project city planning over the hinter-
lands of the large cities. The advantages and problems of this pro-
cedure are fairly obvious, but it should not be overlooked that at present
there is in progress all over the Western world an almost silent but
bitter struggle between the urban and the rural way of living. Indeed,
it has been asserted by some that the present need for planning has, in
considerable degree, arisen out of the need to protect rural culture and
resources against those exploitive forces emanating from the modern
city. To adopt this premise for regional planning might, therefore, place
the emphasis in regional planning in an undesirable quarter.

Third, it has been proposed to orient regional planning in terms of
that deep-seated regionalism which is geographically inherent in America
and which is constantly apparent in the culture of its inhabitants. This
would be not so much a new polity in American government as it would
be an entire realignment of loyalties, incentives, and objectives in our
national life; a harnessing of an heretofore neglected factor to achieve
desired and worthwhile ends.

An Example — The Great Plains. In order to evaluate these three
alternative proposals, suppose they be applied to the Great Plains.3

The general characteristics, both natural and human, of this area are
well defined; its boundaries are fairly clearly established. Politically
the Great Plains Region involves parts of ten States, but does not include
all of any one State.4 This is one of the crucial problem areas of the
Nation; indeed, it presents numerous serious problems which demand
treatment as a unified region rather than as part of ten States. Chief
among these problems are:

(1) recurrent drought;

(2) extensive farming on submarginal land;

(3) need for enlargement of farm units;

(4) control of wheat production;

'The writer is a native of this region and hence particularly familiar with its conditions.
4These are: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New
Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.

110 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

(5) feed, seed, and land loans;

(6) shelter-belt planting;

(7) restoration of range grasses;

(8) conservation of water;

(9) revision of local governmental pattern;
(10) partial revision of settlement pattern.

At once arises the question as to what premise shall be used in creat-
ing a region to deal with these problems?

First, shall regionalization be on the basis of urban spheres of in-
fluence? If so, Denver, Portland, St. Louis, Dallas, Chicago, and the
Twin Cities, all have valid claims to pieces of it. On such a premise,
the area falls apart.5

Second, shall it be on the basis of grouping together the ten States
concerned? If so, it becomes necessary to include much area and popu-
lation outside of the Great Plains.6 The extraneous parts thus included
comprise some of the finest portions of the adjacent cotton, corn, and
wheat belts. The external better portions of the States concerned so
color the total combination as to convert the bona fide Great Plains
interests into an assemblage of minorities. The primary regional objec-
tives are thus obscured or submerged.

Third, shall we recognize that the Great Plains are a fundamental
unit in both physical and human terms, and proceed by setting the area
up as a prima facie region? If so, our main concern is to identify the
fundamental regionalism which is the core or nucleus of the area. Simi-
larly, our major objective becomes that of preserving the area's essential
unity and homogeneity as a frame for program formulation and for the
execution of those programs. Thus the paramount emphasis is placed
upon the problem area and not the States, although the sovereignty of
the latter is not impaired.

Conclusions. Regionalism is real, regardless of what may be done
with it, but its instrumentation is neither self-directing nor self -executing.
If it is to be useful, it must be rationally controlled. Otherwise we will
reproduce the same old medley of checks, balances, compromises, and
fractional jurisdictions, which has come to be identified with the Ameri-
can system, but which has little to offer the planner.

Regional organization is unquestionably the coming polity. Whether
it will eventuate next year, next decade, or next century cannot be
forecast. There are many forms which it may assume. Its future pat-
tern may be left to chance, with all which that might mean in waste,
inefficiency and indirection. Indeed, developments to date suggest that
regions are apt to be created administratively by catch-as-catch-can
methods similar to those used in the past in laying out States and lesser

•There is already a movement on foot to include part of the Great Plains in a unit of
this kind.

•There is already under way an organization including the four northern Great Plains
States together with one State entirely outside that area.

REGIONAL PLANNING 111

civil divisions. On the other hand, regional organization can be care-
fully planned ahead of tune in the interest of efficiency and harmony
within the structure of national life. At any event, regionalism presents
one of the most significant and insistent challenges to the professional
planner today.

POLITICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS
OF REGIONAL PLANNING

By MARSHALL E. DIMOCK, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago,
and Consultant, National Resources Committee

TT^EDERALISM remains the most difficult problem of the American
JL constitutional system. It becomes increasingly clear, therefore,
that in a country as vast and varied as ours, there is needed an inter-
mediate level of administrative coordination and planning authority
midway between the States and the Federal Government.

There has recently appeared a vigorous revival of the doctrine of
states rights. In large measure this is a result of the feeling that too
much Federal control results in a paralyzing over-centralization and loss
of democratic participation in government. Regional decentralization
and regional planning can provide the needed balance.

A few planners, geographers, and political scientists have been aware
of this fact for a long time, but not until recently have they begun to
work out its practical implications. Within the last six months, three
significant studies have appeared: first, Howard Odum's penetrating
and challenging "Southern Regions"; second, Karl Lohmann's "Regional
Planning"; and third, the National Resources Committee's "Regional
Factors in National Planning."

This represents splendid progress. But the regional solution is far
from being realized. It is one thing to know what is best to do from a
rational standpoint, but quite another thing to change popular lethargies,
constitutional rigidities and administrative modes. Francis Delaisi, a
distinguished French economist, has written a book entitled "Political
Myths and Economic Realities." He points out that boundaries are
merely myths and that well-being is to be secured by following economic
dictates. We would all agree with him. But there is irony in the words
Delaisi employs. Political boundaries are stubborn facts; popular attach-
ments to symbols are realities — disappointing as their irrationality may be.

Regional government may possibly be a long time in coming. This
despite the fact that regional consciousness has grown rapidly in almost
every section of the country within the last few years. But even when
the desire has become strong, it will probably be found difficult to trans-
form our constitutional and administrative structure, so as to pro-
vide for it.

112 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Meantime there are a number of very definite things that can be ac-
complished. Some of them will lead us toward an ultimate sub-national
regionalization. It should be possible to effect a substantial degree of
regional planning within the existing boundary provisions and govern-
mental powers of this country. Moreover, administrative coordination
on this level can be effected in several ways. One of the most significant
developments of recent years has been the almost universal regionali-
zation of Federal departments and newly established agencies ; the next
step is coordination between them at regional centers and the use of
such centers for Federal cooperation with state and local governments.
There is no reason why we should not recognize regional capitals in fact
even though we do not do so in constitutional law for some time to come.
The Federal Government has already fostered regional planning com-
missions in two sections of the country and has established the Tennessee
Valley Authority in an area including parts of seven States. Then there
are means also whereby closer cooperation can be obtained among the
several States, among regional groups of States. The interstate compact
is one way. State Commissions on Interstate Cooperation, a recent
development, also seem to hold promise.

If we are to make progress within the limitations of present areal
and administrative alignments, all possible means of cooperation and
coordination need to be employed. While I would not discourage the
search for the best and most efficient system of sub-national planning
and administration (and I have made it clear, I think, that personally
I favor regional governments), I am also convinced that no one present
method is in itself sufficient. The regionalization of Federal agencies has
undoubtedly improved the efficiency of their administration. There are,
in all, 106 regional schemes in use by the Federal Government. Concern-
ing this development, James Fesler has said, "The areas chosen were in
almost every case larger than States and were usually formed by the
grouping of several States. Over three-fourths of the regional schemes
use less than 17 regions. In other words, the 48 States have been found
both too small and too numerous for use as paramount areas of federal
administration."1 For national planning purposes, it is important that
the various departments and bureaus concerned with natural resources
and social planning be located in the same regional city. This is far from
being the case at the present time. However, proposals for remedying
the situation have been worked out and it is to be hoped that speedy
progress along that line can be made.

Regional planning has already been given concrete administrative

expression in New England, the Pacific Northwest, and the Tennessee

Valley. You are already familiar with these developments.2 But, for

tfames W. Fesler, "Federal Administrative Regions," American Political Science

Review, April, 1935, pp. 257-268.

*They are described in Regional Factors in National Planning, National Resources
Committee, chapters 9, 10.

REGIONAL PLANNING 113

the purpose of the present discussion there are two questions of major
importance which ought to be considered. In the first place, should pre-
liminary planning be kept distinct from the execution of plans? Should
planning and execution be entrusted to separate bodies or is it desirable
to combine the authority? The first method is represented in the set-up
of the New England and Pacific Northwest planning commissions, while
the unified procedure is exemplified in the Tennessee Valley Authority.
However, the difference is not as great as might at first appear, because,
as you know, a very complete survey of basic data was prepared for the
Tennessee Valley Authority before its present development program
was started. Personally, I am glad that both methods are being experi-
mented with. I presume that the planning profession still adheres to the
principle that planning is a separate process and that program execution
should be turned over to others. However, both business management
and public administration have found that there is a continuous chain
of responsibility and control between planning and execution, with the
result that they tend increasingly to be commingled rather than differ-
entiated. The Tennessee Valley Authority is a testing-ground for the
diverse theories. I think the most important point to be insisted upon
is that irrespective of which method is employed, adequate advance
planning must be required in every case. The second administrative
matter to which I wish to refer is the use of the public corporation, as
exemplified by the Tennessee Valley Authority, for planning purposes.
It can be said with assurance that the public proprietary corporation has
demonstrated its social utility and administrative effectiveness when
trading activities are to be undertaken by governments. Will the same
advantages result when a governmental body is charged with the mixed
responsibilities of social planning and public utility management? Here,
again, we must expect a longer trial period before a conclusive answer
can be given.

Regional planning can be furthered by means of interstate compacts.
For this governmental procedure ample constitutional provision has
been made. Within recent months certain persons and organizations
have thought that they saw in the compact method a panacea not only
for physical planning but also for social planning within the realm that
the Supreme Court has held Federal power unconstitutional. I believe
that such an expectation is far too sanguine. The history of the compact
method does not support any such supposition. On the other hand,
there are things that can and should be done by means of interstate
compacts. The number of compacts has been fairly small, suggesting
limited applicability. According to records compiled by the Library of
Congress, 57 compacts have been authorized, of which 34 have finally
become effective through state ratification. In addition, 13 have been
authorized by one or more States without congressional authority and
approval. In the Regionalism study of the National Resources Commit-

114 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

tee some of the important conclusions reached concerning the compact
method were these:

(1) Compacts when most serviceable have dealt with problems that were
traditionally "governmental," such as boundary disputes and debt settlements.

(2) The compact method may be expected to succeed when confined to
subject matter involving definite conclusions and uniform laws to be administered
through the already existing departments of government.

(3) Compacts are not recommended for situations involving the opposite
set of circumstances, that is, when the problem is a continuing one; when the
solution demands the establishment of independent machinery over and above
the separate state departments; and when independent planning and autono-
mous execution are clearly indicated. (It is this conclusion which is obviously
of greatest significance for planners.)

(4) The interstate compact has not proved a satisfactory medium for con-
tinuous and progressive planning activity. Additional grants of power must
constantly be secured. The system lacks independence, initiative, flexibility
and coercive authority.3

However, matters such as crime prevention, bridge building, park plan-
ning and stream pollution have been effectively handled by use of the
interstate compact.

The Interstate Sanitary Commission, created in 1931 by New York,
New Jersey and Connecticut, is probably the best-known example of a
pollution-prevention program. The Commission has the task of attempt-
ing to control pollution of the upper New Jersey coast, most of the
shore line of Long Island and the Hudson River up to Tarry town. It
cannot itself undertake construction projects, but can bring suit against
any of the 103 communities in its territory which are negligent in pre-
venting water pollution. The compact has recently been given greater
effectiveness by legislation in New York, in harmony with acts of the
New Jersey legislature. Enforcement is left to the appropriate adminis-
trative agencies of the cooperating States. The compact method may
be expected to succeed in cases such as this, where compacting States
simply agree to do certain definite things and where continuous adminis-
tration is not a major factor.

Just recently six out of the seven principal petroleum-producing
States signed a compact promising to observe prorating schemes; Cali-
fornia refused to join. The results of this compact should be watched
with great interest. However, I think you planners would agree with me
that the basic difficulties in the situation can be adequately adjusted
only by Federal authority.

The most active effort to bring about regional solutions by means of
agreements between two or more States is being sponsored by the Council
of State Governments. At the present time fifteen States have created
Commissions on Interstate Cooperation. About half of these are on a
statutory basis. The movement held its second annual conference not

^Regional Factors in National Planning, op. cit., pp. 50-52.

REGIONAL PLANNING 115

long ago in Chicago. The Council of State Governments has set up a
regional office in New York to serve the Commissions on Interstate
Cooperation in that area. To date the principal activities of this new
movement have centered in the States of New Jersey, New York and
Pennsylvania. Matters which have been dealt with are milk supply,
crime, transients, highway safety, the Palisades Park and stream pollu-
tion. The uses of streams and the protection of water supply constitute
the chief question around which recent efforts have revolved. The New
York secretariat of the Council of State Governments has been particu-
larly concerned with the Delaware River pollution-prevention scheme.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania have created Commissions on Interstate
Cooperation; Delaware has not. The pollution problem is being con-
sidered by a joint authority consisting of four representatives from each
State, three Commissioners on Interstate Cooperation and one person
from the Planning Board of each cooperating State.

There are three significant features of this cooperative movement
sponsored by the Council of State Governments that should be noted.
In the first place, a well-financed national organization is behind group-
of -states schemes; secondly, if the example of the New York secretariat
is followed elsewhere common agreements among States are more likely
to result; and finally, individual state commissions make provision for
representing both the legislative and the administrative branches of
the government. It is this last feature that may be most important in
the long run. In the past, planning and other programs have all too
frequently been jeopardized by failure to educate the legislature, upon
whose action approval and funds depend.

I have tried to show that several methods of regional planning and
administration are already functioning. Regional planning commissions
are in active operation. A Federally created planning authority has made
substantial progress. The regionalization of Federal administration is
well-nigh universal. Tentative centers of regional planning and coordi-
nation have been proposed by a technical committee of the National
Resources Committee. Efforts are being made to revitalize interstate
compacts and to use them wherever it seems wise. Commissions on
Interstate Cooperation are off to a promising start. Every conceivable
political and administrative device must be utilized if regional realities
are to be given deserved recognition within the confines of the American
constitutional system.

All of this results in administrative complexity. But in a Federal
system such a result is seemingly inevitable. Eventually, however, let
us hope that fully recognized regional governments, standing as a buffer
between the extremes of Federal over-centralization and outmoded state
particularism, will be demanded by our fellow-citizens.

116 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN REGIONAL PLANNING

By CHARLES W. ELIOT, 2d, Executive Officer, National Resources Committee

E.ST winter the report on "Regional Factors in National Planning
and Development" gave a general background for regional planning
work. It has been described to you in more precise terms this morning
by two of the authors. Growing out of that report and partly as a result
of it, the National Resources Committee is now about to issue three or
more separate reports on regional activity in special areas. Do not be
alarmed at this stack of documents, I am not going to read them all,
but this is a sample of what wre are doing. Regional planning is going on.
Another report, another barrel of facts or whatever you want to call it,
is being issued this morning with the release of this document on "Re-
gional Planning, Part I, — The Pacific Northwest." That report is one,
as the title suggests, of a series of reports.

This Columbia Basin Report is a sample of planning work by joint
Federal and state action in order to suggest a new agency or new method
for operating the great Federal works at Bonneville and Grand Coulee.
The report includes a general statement of the development of the
Pacific Northwest and particularly of the great Columbia valley and
recommends the establishment of a new "northwest power agency," —
a proposed corporation of three members who would be given the re-
sponsibility of operating and distributing the power from those plants.

Sometimes it seems necessary to add a few words as to why a problem
of this sort is important. I don't know whether this audience appreciates
the situation in the Northwest. One fact alone is sufficient to open most
of our eyes to the importance of that area. When you realize that 41 per
cent of the total possible hydroelectric power of this nation lies in the
Columbia basin you get some idea of the size of this power problem in
the northwest corner of the country. It is for that reason that the recom-
mendation in this report by the Northwest Regional Planning Commis-
sion with the covering statement from the National Resources Commit-
tee is now before Congress. Since the report recommends action at this
session of Congress, its issuance today is opportune.

The other two reports which are coming out in the next few weeks
deal with two other kinds of regional problems and demonstrate two
other kinds of regional planning activities. The next one on the schedule,
which we hope will be out before the end of this month, is another
example of voluntary procedure without state authority for planning —
this time, in the St. Louis regional area. Those of you who attended the
St. Louis conference two years ago will remember that we were just
getting under way with the St. Louis plan at that time. The report is
now complete and will be issued with a covering statement from the
National Resources Committee.

So we have two examples: first, in the Pacific Northwest of a body

REGIONAL PLANNING 117

set up from the chairmen of the state planning boards as the official
group with the addition of a district chairman from the National Re-
sources Committee; and, second, a scheme in St. Louis of a voluntary
association patterned on the same method that was described to you
last night by Colonel Wetherill in the Philadelphia Tri-State District
or the New York Regional plan or the Chicago Regional plan.

The third report represents still another approach and problem. It
is the report of the New England Regional Planning Commission which
is an outgrowth of many years of work by the New England Council
and many other New England federations and groups in those six States.
New England is unique in having a longer period of regional conscious-
ness than most other sections of the country. The Regional Planning
Commission grew out of the previous efforts of the New England Council
which, in turn, was generally representative of the chambers of commerce
and the business men. So there is a business interest in the movement in
New England which is not equalled probably in any other part of
the country.

Now we hope to add to that list of reports as the year rolls on and
give you other examples. Perhaps I can give you very briefly a few of
the newer activities to expand the picture already given you of the actual
accomplishments and past doings in the regional planning field.

First, let me refer to another western example. Dr. Dimock made
some remarks about the difficulty of getting any action through inter-
state compacts. We have found that difficulty to be a very real one. We
were appealed to last summer to do something about the controversies
which were going on in the upper Rio Grande Valley. They had an inter-
state compact among the States of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado for
agreement on the division of the waters of the upper Rio Grande. Our
attention was first directed to the problem by some of the Federal
bureaus which showed that Federal agencies were actually competing
against each other for water that did not exist in the upper Rio Grande
Valley. This situation was a cause for concern to the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation, to the Resettlement Administration, the Reclama-
tion Bureau, Biological Survey and to other Federal agencies conduct-
ing projects with little correlation among them.

The result of this disclosure was a presidential "stop order" on all
projects on the upper Rio Grande, subject to clearance by the National
Resources Committee. That gave us an opportunity to deal with the
larger problem as a planning project. We have now under way another
demonstration project showing the possibilities of regional or interstate
planning in those three States.

I would like to give you a little more of that story because it casts so
many side-lights on the methods and the problems which are involved.
For years those States have just been unable to agree on what was a
fact. Nobody believed anybody else could present an unbiased fact to

118 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

the commission. So, obviously the first necessity was for some impartial
agency outside of the group which could provide the facts and bring
them in definite form to the attention of the three States. The Resources
Committee is the agency to initiate this demonstration project.

But we obviously could not get the facts without cooperation of a
great many agencies and we had to secure money. So the first thing to
do was to pass the hat. I am giving you this detail because this is what
regional planning really is. Dr. H. H. Barrows, a valued member of our
water committee, and I took our hats in hand and went from one agency
to another: "How much money can you put up? How much can you
put up?" and in that process we corralled quite a nice little nest egg for
the encouragement of the States and later of the Public Works Adminis-
tration; we got $30,000 from Reclamation, an agreement from Dr. Gray
for $10,000, from the Geological Survey $20,000, and so on. We then
went to the Public Works Administration and said: "We have got to
have at least $250,000 more." They cut us down to $200,000. Then we
went to the States and said: "We are practically ready to go, but we
are not going to move until you show serious intention to participate,"
and they came across with approximately $17,000 apiece. So now the
project to gather those disputed facts and to present a planned program
is under way in the Rio Grande basin valley.

Still another example of procedure of this sort is evidenced by the new
water plan which will be discussed by Mr. Wolman, the head of our
water committee, this afternoon.

I would like to sum up a few of my own reactions to the remarks of
the two previous speakers. This is more in the nature of discussion than
of a paper.

I am concerned personally with certain doubts about this new regional
program. There are certain things about it that leave me quite jittery
as to what they may portend. One thing I hope we may avoid is adding
a new level of government in this country. It has been repeatedly pointed
out that we have too many governmental units already, and if we are
going to add on some more, it seems to me more a loss than a gain. If
we have now 192,000 units of government, surely we do not want to
add even 12 more regional units!

The second thing I hope we can avoid is this idea of boundaries. We
do not want, as I see it, provinces or regions in any sense in this country.
What we must have is elasticity without those powers that go with
administrative organization.

I hope that out of these doubts or worries we may get some corre-
sponding hopes, particularly the hope that through the technique of the
planner, separate from execution, we can make some cooperative agree-
ments among groups of States, different groups and different combi-
nations, to meet different problems, who shall perform as opportunity
arises without attempting to set up any new level of government.

REGIONAL PLANNING 119

I hope also that for the time being we can keep the emphasis on
physical planning as being more easily understood by the public and
less subject to misinterpretation.

I hope further that we can stress what was already indicated by both
the preceding speakers — concentration of effort in centers instead of at
the fringe of the problem. We can get agreement on certain centers of
interest and we might be able to work out some arrangement for co-
operation among officials as has been demonstrated to be possible in
the organization of state planning boards.

I should not stop this discussion without reference to the fact that
practically all of the district chairmen of the National Resources Com-
mittee are very vitally concerned in this question of cooperation among
States for regional planning and practically all of them are making some
effort to get either a center established or some understanding among
groups of States for this work. Mr. Bettman, for instance, has succeeded
in organizing the Ohio Valley Regional Planning Commission; Mr.
Moderwell has called a conference of the upper Mississippi Valley States
to discuss how they can work together effectively; Mr. Ronald is now
acting chairman of a similar group in the Missouri Valley States and
part of the Great Plains area where they have adopted a scheme of a
rotating chairmanship among the state planning board chairmen. In the
Pacific Southwest our district chairman, Mr. Woods, has in mind the
early calling of meetings for the discussion of organization in that area.
On the Delaware River problem, help has been forthcoming from the
Council of State Governments.

We have certainly not yet had sufficient experience with different
forms of regional organization to be ready to recommend any one form.
We have before us a long period of experimentation and a different kind
of experiment from that we have been conducting in the field of state
planning. It seems to me the fact that the States were organized as
administrative units made it entirely logical and proper that that was
the first and most important step to be taken in the way of enlarging
the scope of planning work, but this regional problem because it involves
both the powers delegated by the States to the Federal Government and
the powers reserved by the States to themselves, is something which
must be worked out with much more backing of public opinion than
was necessary in the case of starting the state planning movement. We
need all of your thought, all of your advice in the further development
of this regional planning field.

THE NATION

National Planning

EMERGING POPULATION PROBLEMS

By FRANK LORIMER, Technical Secretary, Committee on Population Problems,
National Resources Committee

THE American colonists were exponents of a population policy so
appropriate to their situation that it was universally taken for
granted. They found the classical expression of this policy in the ancient
admonition, "Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth." The young
Nation responded exuberantly to this ideal which seemed peculiarly ap-
propriate to the situation. Before them stretched the wide wilderness, a
land to be tamed and replenished. Even in an era of rapid expansion of
world population when the combined population of Europe and its
colonies rose from about 150 million in 1750 to about 550 million in 1900,
America was outstanding. Malthus, in 1792, was able to point to the
doubling of population in America once every twenty -five years as
affording the best illustration of the type of population growth to be
expected in the absence of "positive checks" on natural increase.

The dividends of this increase naturally accrued in greatest measure
to the owners of established enterprises, those in possession of land,
railroads, factories, and to a considerable degree to the entire population
in centers that served surrounding areas of expanding population. The
tradition that population expansion is a fundamental characteristic of
a normal, healthy Nation became firmly fixed in American ideology.
"Bigger" came to be regarded as more or less synonymous with "better."
Even in the sober language of the Census, a population increase is a
"gain," a decrease is a "loss."

This expansion was, of course, irregular. Areas of population pressure
began to develop at an early date, but these were constantly relieved by
migration to new lands. A number of Virginia counties, for example,
had a larger population in 1790 than in 1930. It is true that titles to the
best unoccupied land had been taken up about 1890, but the West, and
especially the Far West, remained an area of primary opportunity
throughout the last decade. In fact, the net interstate migration into
California during the period 1920-1930 passed the million mark, and
was the largest movement into any State ever recorded in any decade
of American history. The posting of guards on the California border
during the present depression symbolizes the fact that free expansion
into undeveloped areas has ceased to be a ready automatic-adjustment-
mechanism for the maladjustments of a planless economic order. The
first important reversal of population policy in this country, the limita-
tion of immigration, although in part an expression of ethnic conflicts,
may be ascribed primarily to recognition of the changing outlook in
this country with regard to population growth and resources.

123

124 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Signs of the slowing down of population growth are already clearly
in evidence. It is apparent that our present crude rate of natural in-
crease is due entirely to the disproportionate number of persons now
alive at reproductive ages. When an intrinsic rate of natural increase is
calculated by applying age-specific birth rates and death rates for the
United States to a population with normal age distribution, these rates
are found to have reached a point of equilibrium in 1932. It is therefore
highly probable that within a few decades population growth through
natural increase will be superseded in this country by a period of dimi-
nution. The public reaction to this situation may lead to wholesome and
constructive measures designed to give greater support to normal family
development, or may result in repressive measures with possible dis-
astrous consequences. This suggests an emerging problem of consider-
able interest and importance.

Other aspects of population change present problems of more imme-
diate urgency. We have at the present time some severe cases of mal-
distribution of population in relation to economic resources. Various
factors tend to retard the adjustment of population to opportunity by
migration, such as attachment to local situation, lack of adaptability
on the part of certain groups in areas of limited opportunity, the high
birth rates in such areas, bad schooling which intensifies the lack of
adaptability and is partly responsible for the high birth rates, and above
all, the absence of industrial opportunity. Any permanent solution of
the farm problem must involve population adjustment. Sound popula-
tion adjustment appears to depend on a balanced industrial expansion.

Problems of differential reproduction are more intimately related to
problems of population distribution than is generally recognized. Using
an index of economic level, developed by the Study of Population Redis-
tribution, the group of counties characterized by the lowest plane of
living was found to have, in 1930, a ratio of children to women 62 per
cent above that sufficient for mere population replacement, and the
group at the next level showed a rate of natural increase of about 40 per
cent per generation, whereas in the fifth or sixth groups there were 10
per cent fewer children than would suffice for mere population replace-
ment, and in the group of counties at the top there was a fertility of
about 25 per cent.

Differential reproduction trends that are similar in character, though
less in degree, are found in comparing families classified according to
occupation, economic or social status. The reproductive tendency of
scientific occupational groups, using a study based on 1928 birth statis-
tics, and taking differences in child mortality into account, is represented
by such reproductive indices as the following, using 100 as a base repre-
senting tendency toward equal population replacement: Coal mine
operatives 134, carpenters 107, semi-skilled operatives 104, electricians
94, bankers 76, physicians and surgeons 70, architects 65.

NATIONAL PLANNING 125

There is clearly a tendency for a disproportionate number of the
forthcoming generation to be recruited from parents with meager edu-
cational advantages, and to be brought up in areas marked by inferior
economic and social opportunities. There is a high negative correlation
between reproduction indices and indices of school efficiency for States.
A similar analysis by counties would undoubtedly yield an even more
decisive result. Such a situation raises national problems relating to
public health, education, and economic adjustment which it would be
rash for anyone to attempt to define in a brief address.

In many other ways population studies supply a necessary base for
institutional and regional planning including, for example, estimates of
population of school ages, population to be covered by old age bene-
fits, trends in location of population as affecting school building pro-
grams, and other features of community development. It is becoming
increasingly imperative that population problems receive careful re-
search attention by government and private agencies far beyond past
efforts in this direction and merit a large place in planning activities
with local and national development.

The appointment of a Committee on Population Problems by the
National Resources Committee marks a significant recognition by the
Federal Government of population problems as a matter of national con-
cern. Such recognition has long been made by professional bodies, in-
cluding the President's Committee on Recent Social Trends. Studies by
the Scripps Foundation, Milbank Memorial Fund, the Social Science
Research Council's Study on Population Redistribution, and the Con-
ference on Population Study and Social Planning, under the auspices of
the Population Association of America, in Washington, May, 1935, may
also be cited in this connection. Population studies have been conducted
by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, with reference to farm life,
and the activities of the Resettlement Administration have implicit
reference to population problems. The recent establishment of a Division
of Research in the Bureau of the Census implies recognition of its re-
sponsibility for the scientific development of data on population and
related topics. The subject has also frequently received occasional
recognition in the addresses of public leaders, notably by the President.
The appointment of a Committee on Population Problems is directly
in line with the attention to population studies which has been one of
the most important features of the State Planning Board reports.

The Committee on Population Problems has been requested to pre-
sent its report early this fall. This Committee, therefore, cannot do more
than define problems of national importance in this field, present enough
data to illustrate the character of these problems, indicate some tenta-
tive results and suggest significant research by Federal, state, and local
agencies.

126 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES

By GARDINER C. MEANS, Director, Industrial Section, National Resources Committee

1HAVE been asked to speak on the subject of industrial resources
and to. describe some of the work which is being carried on by the
Industrial Section of the National Resources Committee.

In considering industrial resources I wish to use that term in the
very broadest sense. Our industrial resources consist of our man-power,
our machines and our knowledge of techniques. The problem of con-
serving industrial resources is primarily the problem of conserving our
man-power and the use of machines.

Now, man-power is a very peculiar resource. It is like water-power.
If you do not use it when it is there, it is gone, and no amount of king's
horses and king's men will bring it back again. Man-power which is
allowed to go over the dam unused is so much sheer waste.

Machines likewise present a resource which can easily trickle through
our fingers and be waste. Idle machinery can often lose its usefulness
quite as rapidly as machinery and equipment which is used. Here again
failure to use machines is likely to involve waste.

Consider the waste of man-power and use of machinery which has
occurred in the last six years. If all the man-power and use of machinery
which has gone to waste during the depression could have been used to
build houses, every family in the United States could have had a brand
new $6,000 house. Think of the waste of resources which this involves.
The waste of forest resources, the waste in oil extraction, the wastes
from unplanned cities are no greater than this tremendous waste of
human and machine resources. It is the conservation of this type of
resource with which the Industrial Section of the National Resources
Committee is concerned.

In approaching this problem the National Resources Committee
organized an Industrial Committee composed of Jacob Baker, Assistant
Works Progress Administrator, Chairman; Hon. E. G. Draper, Assistant
Secretary of Commerce; Dr. Isador Lubin, Commissioner of Labor
Statistics; Leon Henderson, formerly Director, Research and Planning
Division, NRA; Edwin G. Nourse, Brookings Institution; Col. G. T.
Harris, Jr., Director, Planning Branch, Office of Assistant Secretary of
War; Thomas C. Blaisdell, Jr., Economic Adviser, Office of the Adminis-
trator, Resettlement Administration, and myself. We have commenced
studies into the joint problems of industrial capacities and consumption
requirements. What are the industrial capacities of the country and
how many people would be required to produce this, that, or the other
amount of goods and services, of shoes and ships and sealing wax and
cabbages? What things are the people going to demand at different
levels of national income? How much are they likely to spend on coal
and shoes, how much on cotton cloth and how much on food? These are

NATIONAL PLANNING 127

the problems of industrial capacity and of consumption requirements
with which our studies deal.

The purpose of these studies — and I will explain their detailed
character in a moment — is to furnish more adequate and comprehensive
data for those who have to make decisions in respect to industrial ac-
tivity. The uses to which such data can be put are many and important.
Both individual producers and the community as a whole suffer great
economic losses from mistaken estimates on the part of businessmen as
to consumer demand and as to existing capacity. In planning new
factories or in expanding old ones, individual businessmen are likely
to have excellent information on the immediate problems of engineering
and economics which they face, but they are not likely to have an
adequate framework picture of the larger engineering and economic
problems into which their enterprises will have to fit. Such a picture
would be too complex for any but the largest enterprises to construct.
Accurate information on industrial capacities and their relation to con-
sumption requirements could greatly reduce the waste resulting from
the inability of the individual business to create the larger picture.
Thus data on consumption requirements could constitute a direct aid
to business in the layout of sales campaigns and sales territories. Data
on industrial capacities could constitute a direct aid to business in plan-
ning new industrial facilities. Labor and consumer groups can use such
data as a direct aid in protecting their interests and working for a higher
standard of living. Finally, local governments will find such material a
direct aid in the development of particular regions, while such data
would aid the Federal Government in seeking to bring about better
economic balance.

In dealing with these problems the function of the Industrial Section
is primarily that of a research agency planning studies to be carried out
by different bureaus of government, coordinating actual studies as they
are undertaken and combining the results of the separate studies. It is
not the intention of the National Resources Committee that the Indus-
trial Section should build up a large staff. Ours is the work of stimu-
lating and guiding research and of integrating material to give a more
comprehensive picture than any single department of government is
in a position to give.

In carrying on this work it is our intention to approach the various
facts concerning industry from two quite different points of view.
First, we will examine the industrial process from the point of view of
the producer looking down the stream of goods as they flow toward the
consumer. Second, we will examine the industrial process from the point
of view of the consumer looking up the stream of goods as they flow down
from the producer. The first of these approaches involves primarily the
problem of jobs, of industrial capacity, and of markets. The second
involves primarily the expenditure of income, the goods and services

128 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

received, and the using up of valuable resources. Only as both of these
points of view are adopted can we present a well-rounded picture of
industry.

The work of the Section up to the present time has made the most
progress in the field of consumption requirements. This has been due in
part to the pioneer work already done by other government agencies.
Two bureaus of government, the Bureau of Home Economics and the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, are particularly concerned with the subject
of consumption, though each has approached the problem with a slightly
different emphasis. The Bureau of Home Economics has made several
small studies of family expenditures, placing special emphasis on the
adequacy of the living obtained. In making these studies it has taken
important steps in developing effective techniques for the collection of
family-consumption data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has made
similar studies with respect to the expenditures of families of wage-
earners and low-salaried workers, placing particular emphasis on the
money outlays necessary to maintain a constant real income. This
Bureau has expanded its work in the last two years and has devoted
considerable sums to collecting data on family expenditures, to be used
in revising cost-of -living indices. In this work it has further improved
the techniques for collecting family-consumption data. However, in
spite of the work of these two bureaus and of other agencies which have
made small studies in this field, the techniques developed for making
such studies have required further elaboration and the existing infor-
mation on family consumption is entirely inadequate for the many pur-
poses for which it is needed, and particularly it is insufficient for drafting
an adequate picture of the consumption patterns of the population.

Because of this inadequacy of information on family consumption,
the Industrial Section was directed to undertake as one of its functions
the development of more adequate techniques for studying family con-
sumption and the planning of a national investigation of the expenditure
on goods and services by American families. This it has done in close
collaboration with the Central Statistical Board, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics and the Bureau of Home Economics. As a result of eight
months' work on the part of a technical staff, working in cooperation
with the two bureaus concerned, a coordinated plan was developed with
two projects to be administered respectively by the Bureau of Home
Economics and by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This plan carries out
the recommendations for such an investigation made by the Social
Science Research Council and calls for study of urban and rural families
of various income classes and occupational groups in 50 cities and 22
rural sections. Funds for the projects have been obtained from the
Works Progress Administration, and field work is now going on under
the direction of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and of the Bureau of
Home Economics under the general supervision of the WPA.

NATIONAL PLANNING 129

The families being covered in the study are distributed according to
six major classifications: (1) by geographical area, (2) by size of com-
munity, (3) by income, (4) by occupation, (5) by color, and (6) by
family composition. The geographical distribution has been provided
for through the adoption of six areas and two metropolitan districts. In
each area large, middle-sized and small cities as well as villages and
farm sections will be covered so as to reflect differences in the degree
of urbanization. Several rural sections will also be covered in other
areas, representing the important types of farming not found in the six
main areas. Twenty income classes, eight occupational groups and seven
family types will be covered.

Most of the information will be obtained by the schedule method
through personal interviews, voluntarily given. It is expected that data
will be secured on income, occupation and family composition from ap-
proximately 336,000 families selected through random sampling. From
approximately 53,000 families detailed information will also be obtained
on current expenditures and savings, ownership of durable goods, hous-
ing facilities and other indices of levels of living. This sample is being
selected according to a prearranged plan assuring an equal number of
families at all income levels for each occupational group. From a small
part of this sample, dietary records, health records and household ac-
counts will also be obtained.

It is expected that the statistical results of the project in each com-
munity studied will be published by the two bureaus making the field
studies. These bureaus are likewise expected to publish the analytical
reports on the expenditures of particular occupational groups.

On the basis of this material the Industrial Section expects to present
pictures of the consumption requirements of the American people as
they would exist under various possible conditions, as they would be if
the national income were of a given size and were distributed geographi-
cally and with given frequency. The whole problem is how people are
likely to spend their money, how much is likely to be spent on coal, on
shoes, on cotton cloth, and on tobacco.

Corresponding to the work on consumption requirements is a series
of studies concerning industrial capacity. Though there is a great mass
of information concerning industry, very little of the pioneer work has
yet been done in organizing the data to show what our industrial capac-
ities really are. As a result, the work of the Section in this field is not
yet as far advanced as is that on consumption requirements.

In developing this work, the Industrial Section has first undertaken
studies to work out techniques for estimating industrial capacities. The
problem was found to be vastly more complex than is usually supposed,
and as a result the techniques of analysis developed tend to be quite
different from those previously employed and call for a redevelopment
of data with respect to industry.

130 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

The most important differences in approach have developed in con-
nection with the question — what do we mean by industrial capacity?
In general discussions of capacity, the problem is usually considered as
one of capacity to produce. The same attitude is reflected in discussing
certain industries. Thus, the capacity of a blast furnace is spoken of as
the capacity to produce so many tons of pig iron per day. However,
for many industries capacity is rated as capacity to consume. Thus the
capacity of a coke oven is rated as the capacity to consume so many tons
of coal a day. (In the technical language of the industry a coke oven
has a "throughput" of so many tons of coal in twenty -four hours.) Simi-
larly the capacities of ore milling plants, packing houses, and refineries
are spoken of in terms relating to capacity to consume. In other cases
neither the capacity to produce nor the capacity to consume gives an
adequate clue to the capacity of an industry. For instance, some blast
furnaces have been built in connection with city gas plants in part to
consume coke and in part to produce flue gas for mixture with coal gas.
The pig iron is a by-product. Here neither capacity to produce nor
capacity to consume would give an adequate picture. Just what then
does industrial capacity involve?

In meeting this problem, the Industrial Section reached the follow-
ing conclusion: the industrial capacity with which the National Re-
sources Committee is concerned is neither the capacity to produce items
of output nor the capacity to consume items of input but rather the
capacity to convert items of input into items of output. Stated in the
broadest terms, the question to be put in studying the capacity of a plant
or industry is the question — how much of what items can be converted
into how much of what items in a given period of time? Under given
price conditions how many tons of ore of a given quality, how many tons
of coke, how many tons of limestone, how many man hours, and how
much power can be converted in a blast furnace into how much pig
iron, how much flue gas, and how much slag per twenty-four hours? The
problem of industrial capacity thus becomes one of conversion capacity.

Such a shift in emphasis greatly complicates the problem of estimat-
ing industrial capacity but it does more correctly state the problem.
Only as adequate estimates of the conversion capacities of industries are
developed will a clear picture of industrial capacity be obtained.

With conversion capacities established as the objective, the next step
in studying industrial capacities has been to develop techniques for
estimating conversion capacities. This work has been under way and has
resulted in a generalized technique which should be available for publica-
tion in the near future. The concrete application of the general tech-
niques to specific industries is also under way.

In making these studies, striking inadequacies in the existing data on
industry became immediately apparent. Little or none of the data on
industry has been collected with a view to estimating conversion capaci-

NATIONAL PLANNING 131

ties. Much of the available data will be useful for this purpose but
many serious gaps must be filled before the data can be effectively used.
This is not a matter of getting more refined data, but of getting data
which are of primary importance to the problem of industrial capacity,
yet have not been important to the particular purposes for which data
have been collected by the different agencies in the past.

This inadequacy of existing data makes necessary the laying of plans
for filling the gaps at the same time that plans for organizing the data
are developed. The latter is an essential step in disclosing the gaps while
the former is essential to an adequate picture of industrial capacities.

As in the case of consumption requirements, it is regarded as the
function of the Industrial Section of the National Resources Committee
in collaboration with other government agencies to develop plans for
studying the conversion capacities of particular industries and to assist
in coordinating the activity of government agencies carrying out such
studies.

As a background for such activity, the Industrial Section is making
a series of studies in particular industries which will, in large part, form
the basis for the organizing of existing data and the collection of any
new data necessary to throw a clear light on industrial capacity.

The initial exploratory studies to develop techniques were undertaken
in the blast furnace industries and in that of cotton spinning. Studies
are now under way covering iron ore, coal, coke, and cement. Plans
have been laid for carrying the exploratory studies into other parts.
The work is being carried on by a small staff of engineers and economists
and will result primarily in laying a foundation for the development,
with other agencies of government, of plans for more comprehensive
studies into particular industries so as to estimate their conversion
capacities. It is presumed that these plans will be comparable in nature
to the plan for the study of family consumption developed by the In-
dustrial Section in collaboration with the Bureau of Home Economics,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Central Statistical Board. Of
course, the planning of such studies is only a beginning. The actual work
of carrying them out will rest with other government bureaus.

This type of work goes slowly and the initial results are not spec-
tacular. The developing of techniques, the careful working out of pro-
posals for study involve time and energy without showing immediately
useful results. Yet as this type of work is carried on and the studies are
made we will gradually be able to build up a very clear picture of the
industrial capacities of the country. Such a picture will be an effective
guide to all those concerned with the problems of industry. The com-
bination of this material with the data on consumption requirements
should allow us to picture the possibilities for the more effective use of
our man-power and machines — more effective use of our human and
material resources.

13* PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

PLANNING FOR PUBLIC WORKS

By FRED E. SCHNEPFE, Director, Projects Division, Federal Emergency
Administration of Public Works

WHILE the advance planning of public works has actually been
practiced only to a limited extent, so much has been written and
discussed in regard thereto as to make it difficult to present any thoughts
on the subject without the risk of repetition.

For some years certain cities have prepared plans relating to their
future physical development. However, until recently little has been
done to provide a construction program containing a list of definite
projects to be undertaken at a specific time over a period of years.

In the Federal Government most of the bureaus planned only one
year in advance, or at best, two years. Not until 1931 did the various
construction agencies of the Federal Government begin the formulation
of a six-year advance plan. This was brought about by the passage of the
Act known as the "Employment Stabilization Act of 1931," a measure
sponsored by the Honorable Robert F. Wagner, Senator from the State
of New York.

The fundamental purpose of the Act is stated in its title as follows:
"An Act to provide for the advance planning and regulated construction
of public works, for the stabilization of industry, and for aiding in the
prevention of unemployment during periods of business depression/'

Senator Wagner's foresight in fostering legislation for the advance
planning of Federal public works resulted in untold benefits and was
indeed timely. Subsequent to the passage of this Act the advance plan-
ning programs resulting from this legislation were used as a basis for the
selection of Federal projects for the allotment of funds by the Public
Works Administration. The establishment of the Federal Employment
Stabilization Board marked the first step in actually bringing into being
an authorized advance planning activity of the Federal Government.

Necessarily, a large amount of preliminary work with the various
agencies of the Federal Government had to be carried on so that these
agencies would have a clear understanding of the purpose of the board,
and at the same time enable the staff of the Board to become familiar
with the intricate procedure which had been followed in connection
with the construction work of the many agencies of the Government.

Some of the agencies questioned the policy of disclosing these plans
so far in advance, fearing that it might cause embarrassment with
Members of Congress if certain projects were not included in the pro-
gram. Others objected to listing their projects on the grounds that they
did not think it possible to visualize their construction needs six years
ahead. A campaign of education and demonstration gradually broke
down this resistance, with the result that complete cooperation was
obtained from all the agencies.

NATIONAL PLANNING 1S3

This period of conference and contact required considerable time,
and it was not until June, 1982, that the Stabilization Board first sent
to the construction agencies of the Federal Government a request for
the submission of a six-year plan for both construction and repair. These
plans were submitted in August, 1932, by approximately 70 agencies
and formed the basis for many discussions with the agencies concerned,
in order to reduce the plans to a somewhat common basis. With the
convening of the 73rd Congress in March, 1933, it became evident that
the possibility of the passage of necessary legislation would embark
the Federal Government on the construction of an expanded program
of public works.

While the six-year plan which had been prepared did not anticipate
a program of the size required by the proposed legislation, it did serve
admirably as a base on which to build the so-called expanded program.
The construction agencies, through their association with the Federal
Employment Stabilization Board in carrying out the requirements of
the Employment Stabilization Act of 1931, had been made conscious of
the necessity for the advance planning of public works. The knowledge
and experience which they gained in this activity was invaluable to
them and to the success of the public works program. Therefore, when
in May, 1933, before the National Industrial Recovery Act was passed,
a request was made to the agencies to submit immediately programs
arranged by priorities, the submission of such programs was accom-
plished with a minimum of delay and contained projects which had been
subjected to months of study and from which the least desirable projects
had been eliminated. Without the planning experience gained by the
construction agencies from 1931 to 1933, the submission of such well-
selected projects in the short time available would have been impossible.

The National Industrial Recovery Act, signed by the President on
June 16, 1933, established the Federal Emergency Administration of
Public Works and authorized an appropriation in the amount of $3,300,
000,000 for public works and other purposes. The Administrator, under
the direction of the President, was charged with the task of preparing
a comprehensive program of public works.

As previously mentioned, the agencies had already submitted lists
of projects which they considered suitable for inclusion in an expanded
program. In submitting these lists it was essential that they furnish for
each project recommended, the location, character of work, estimated
cost, the estimated increase or decrease in annual expense of physical
upkeep and operating cost, and the estimated cost of acquiring the site.
Inasmuch as the speed with which work could be commenced and the
amount of employment that would be given are of prime importance in
any program for the relief of unemployment, information was required
indicating how soon work could be started after funds became available
and how soon it could be completed. Specific data regarding the status

134 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

of site and the status of plans were also required. Furthermore, to
determine the status of projects as expressing the will of Congress, a
question was included as to whether the project had previously been
authorized by Congress.

Priority numbers were assigned to all projects to indicate the order
of their relative necessity and importance as viewed by the agencies.
In assigning priorities, they were asked to do so with due consideration
to the following:

Whether the projects were under construction or under contract and had
to be completed if financial loss to the Government was to be avoided,

Whether necessary for the national protection of life, the national protection
of property, to sustain the physical property of the Government, the conserva-
tion of national resources, the conservation of national health, the housing of
Government activities, replacing obsolete facilities, and if revenue producing.

With this information in hand the Public Works Administration made
a tentative selection of projects through its engineers and its special
subcommittee on program. These projects were separated into categories,
including in the first group those which were considered "highly desir-
able public works, not adding to future expense. " Less desirable proj-
ects were separated into groups in the order of their importance and
value. Projects requiring a large expenditure for land were considered
among the less desirable because of the relatively small amount of
employment which they would provide per dollar of expenditure.

The replacement of necessary facilities that were obsolete and would
soon require substitution under normal procedure, and the recondition-
ing of existing facilities to put them in first-class condition, offered proj-
ects that demanded favorable consideration. Thus work has been
accomplished that under normal conditions would have been completed
within the next few years, and with a consequent reduction of the
necessary expenditures for such projects in future years.

Projects were carefully examined to determine whether they would
entail recurring expense for operation, maintenance, increased personnel
and ultimate reconstruction, with a view to eliminating those projects
which would place a burden on the taxpayers in the future.

Another factor requiring consideration was the geographical distri-
bution of the work. It can readily be seen that the projects of high
priorities in several of the many bureaus might all fall within a com-
paratively small group of States in which the necessity for emergency
employment was not sufficiently pronounced.

The methods which I have outlined were closely adhered to in the
selection of projects comprising the Public Works Administration pro-
gram of Federal projects, the total of which exceeded $1,560,000,000.
This program is now nearly complete, and the more than 15,000 Federal
projects distributed all over the United States and its possessions speak
for themselves in answer to the question — "Were these projects wisely

NATIONAL PLANNING 135

selected?" Not only did these projects put men to work at the site and
throughout the industries by the manufacture of material and equip-
ment, but they stand as a wise investment, serving the people and the
Nation in countless ways and adding to our wealth as capital investments.

The value of an advance plan for public works has been demonstrated
by the usefulness of the programs of the Federal Employment Stabi-
lization Board to the Public Works Administration. The existence of
this plan made possible the immediate allotment of funds and the prompt
beginning of construction, which resulted in men being given, without
delay, the employment so sorely needed.

In the planning of non-Federal Public Works, that is, public works
projects of States and subdivisions thereof, the first movement toward
a coordinated plan of national scope occurred in 1935, when the State
Planning Boards prepared for the Public Works Administration a com-
prehensive inventory of public works in their respective States. While
it cannot be said that this inventory furnished a list of definite projects
on which to base a series of allotments, yet it made available to the
Congress and to the country at large a knowledge of the situation as it
actually existed, and had the effect of bringing public officials of States,
counties and cities to a greater realization of the necessity for a co-
ordinated public works plan.

Political units of every State were given an opportunity to express
their need for useful public works. The inventory, as some of you know,
involved more than 130,000 individual projects reported by over 20,000
units or agencies and exceeded $20,000,000,000 in estimated cost. The
projects reported in this inventory were well distributed throughout the
country, and their apportionment bears a fairly uniform relation to the
distribution of the population of the country.

Many State Planning Boards have encouraged county planning and
the preparation of well-considered county-wide programs. In one Kansas
county the planning committee, composed of interested citizens, for-
mulated a 20-year plan for improvements to be carried out by Federal,
state, county, town and township agencies. The Committee's purpose
was to work out such a plan of public improvement as might eventually
bring about coordination of effort between the various political sub-
divisions, to the end that all public works in the county should be built
economically, be properly located, and adequate, both in design and
utility.

In all States and subdivisions thereof, officers change frequently,
but it is believed that a plan will, to a noticeable extent, assure con-
tinuity in public works development.

The inventory has also brought forcibly to the attention of municipal
and county officials the advantages of city and regional planning in
developing their programs of public works, and local interest in plan-
ning agencies has been aroused by requirements that projects sub-

136 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

mitted for grants under the Public Works Administration be checked
against city and local plans. In brief, the inventory will assist the State
Planning Boards in their coordinating functions among state and local
authorities, particularly in bringing out long-range programs not pre-
viously available from cooperating agencies.

A definite opportunity emanating from the Public Works inventory
lies in the development of contacts established with county, municipal
or metropolitan planning agencies.

The success of the majority of the State Planning Boards, in ob-
taining data and analyzing it for the inventory, indicates the possibil-
ities of continued service in this field in order to establish a permanent
policy of public works planning.

The principles involved in the advance planning of expenditures for
construction projects have been applied for many years in commerce
and industry. The principal difference between planning expenditures
for a commercial enterprise as compared to planning governmental ex-
penditures lies in the fact that in commercial projects the measure of
the return to be expected from the investment is in terms of dollars
alone. While this is also true in some instances as applied to govern-
mental projects, the returns, while they may be of great value, for the
greater part cannot be measured from a purely monetary standpoint.
For example, it is obviously impossible to place a dollar value on ex-
penditures that the government might make for the construction of
military facilities for national defense, for improvements in the national
parks to provide healthful recreation and pleasure, or for lighthouses
for the protection of shipping. It is more difficult to measure the social
values to be obtained by a governmental expenditure than it is to esti-
mate the returns on a proposed investment for a commercial enterprise.
The reason for this is, of course, the difficulty of measuring social values
with a dollar yard-stick. While certain projects are revenue-producing or
provide economies or services, others produce social benefits only.

As the number of projects that can be shown to be economically
justified is so much greater than those which can be financed, the mere
statement that a project is economically sound is in itself not sufficient
reason to cause it to be given high priority in a planning program, or
even to justify giving it a place on the program. The true measure of
the importance of a project resolves itself into questions as to whether
the project is necessary, how urgently needed, and its value as com-
pared to other projects of a similar type; and what is more difficult, to
determine its value as compared with needed projects of other types.

In any discussion of planning the term "economically sound" as
applied to projects to be included in a public works progran is likely to
be heard and properly so. The official engaged in planning a public
works program, to be successful in his work, must have a sound appre-
ciation of the economic factors to be dealt with. He must have a clear

NATIONAL PLANNING 187

conception of the weight and importance to be assigned to the many
elements that must be considered in arriving at a decision regarding the
relative importance of a project as compared to other projects. Naturally
there is a limit to the amount of money available and the ultimate
selection of the projects and the assignment of priorities to them is
largely an economic problem. Of course the project must be feasible
and sound from an engineering standpoint. This, however, in itself
would not assure its receiving a high priority or even cause it to be
placed on the program.

In determining the usefulness, practicability and desirability of a
project and the order of importance of the various projects that com-
prise a program, the planning body cannot apply a formula and obtain
the answer. Sound judgment, obtainable only through a suitable back-
ground of technical knowledge, broad experience and vision, is indis-
pensable to the proper functioning of a planning body.

The number of projects disclosed by a planning program as being
"economically desirable," and, to go a step further, that are "economi-
cally justified," may be very large. Due to a lack of sufficient funds, to
undertake all of them would be impossible and unwise. The tests to be
applied in determining their priority are current need and relative need,
not only as existent between projects of the same type, but between
projects of different types.

In setting up a program for several years in advance, the projects
appearing for the first year should express the current needs for that
year. Likewise, the succeeding years each should show a listing of proj-
ects that endeavor to meet the requirements for each year specified in
the program. This should provide for an annual program in normal times.

It may be well to emphasize at this point that the list of projects
appearing for the first year of a program should not include those proj-
ects to be used in an expanded program. In other words, the projects
listed for any one year should comprise a normal program for that year.

In order to expand the program in a period when it is necessary to
relieve the unemployed, the list of projects shown for the first year can
be augmented by adding those shown for succeeding years to the extent
necessary for increasing the program to the volume desired. Projects
included in an emergency program should be of the same general type
as those set up in a normal program, but should be selected with prime
consideration of the extent to which such projects will relieve un-
employment.

Certain data are necessary prior to determining the position that a
project should be given in a planning program. This information should
be assembled by the sponsor desiring the allotment and a carefully
prepared form used for the reporting purposes. The form submitted
should show definitely certain specific information along the lines pre-
viously mentioned in connection with the plans submitted to the Stabi-

138 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

lization Board, such as the location of the project, the sponsoring agency,
whether the project is for construction or repair, the priority number, a
clear description of the project, ample justification for its inclusion, the
estimated cost by fiscal years, the status of plans, the status of site,
how soon the project could be started, how long it would take for com-
pletion, the direct employment which it would afford and the man-year
cost for such direct employment.

If a plan is to serve with any degree of adequacy, annual revision
must be made to provide for changed conditions and emergencies which
may have arisen.

In commenting upon advance planning, the Honorable Harold L.
Ickes, Chairman of the National Resources Committee, stated as follows :

I hope State Planning Boards, backed by legislative and popular approval,
will develop continuous six-to-ten-year programs, annually revised, and that
larger goals of attainment can be visualized and reached. . . . Their effective-
ness will depend on the character of their personnel, the wisdom and vision of
their plans, the scope and accuracy of their researches and, more particularly,
on the firm support of the public.

If public works are to be timed to aid in counteracting industrial fluctuations,
one of the essentials is a long-range program, constantly kept up-to-date, such
as State Planning Boards are now attempting. To embark on public works
expansion without such advance planning is to increase the danger of including
ill-advised projects. . . .

I believe that the catch-as-catch-can method which ignores the necessity of
national planning is a thing of the past. It is a wasteful, futile and unscientific
method which deserves oblivion.

In the National Resources Committee, which is an integral part of the present
Administration, we have a body that is gradually evolving a national plan
which I am sure will fit into an adequate social vision of the future.

I am convinced that long after the necessity of stimulating industry and creat-
ing new buying power has been removed, national planning will continue as a
permanent government policy.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NATIONAL
WATER RESOURCES STUDY

By ABEL WOLMAN, Chairman, Water Resources Committee,
National Resources Committee

PROBLEMS in the use and control of water resources of the Nation
are not new. Their importance, however, becomes clearer and clearer
as competition for, and conflict in, their uses become more frequent and
intense. The geographical distribution of such conflicts varies from
time to time, and it is only in recent years that the controversial as-
pects of western water resources have penetrated into the East. In-
creases in population, more varied uses for water supply, competition
between municipalities and industries for relatively limited quantities
of water, all tend to focus attention of the public upon a problem as
old as civilization itself.

NATIONAL PLANNING 139

Periods of drought succeeded by periods of flood flow in the past
six years have emphasized once more, but with greater dramatic effect,
the fact that water is a menace to life and property as well as a neces-
sity for the continuance of our existence.

The study of water resources is likewise not a novel enterprise, for
many millions of dollars and many years have been spent in their de-
tailed study. In few instances, however, have our agencies been so
constituted as to make it possible to review the national water problem
as a whole and in particular relation to the economic and social situation
of the country, as exemplified in land-use, industrial development,
population trends and the requirements of health and recreation. In
this field as in all others, the detailed immediate problem, specific in
nature and local in implication, has naturally held the attention in the
past. This is by no means surprising in a country of rapid growth and,
until recently, except in limited geographical areas, undisturbed by the
specter of resources decreasing in proportion to need. The pressure of
immediate solution of specific problems of water-use and control so often
may preclude the balancing of all uses or even of their prior review.

In recent years, however, even in the eastern part of the United
States, Nature has reminded us that conservation of water resources
and balanced development for their use and control cannot be ignored
in successions of droughts and floods. With these lessons in mind, the
National Resources Committee, through its Committee on Water Re-
sources, is undertaking a national study of water-use and control in the
major drainage basins of the United States. The Committee hopes to
obtain a reasonably clear picture of the long-range pattern for each im-
portant drainage basin and at least a preliminary list of projects which
may be properly constructed in keeping with that pattern. This pre-
liminary plan or reconnaissance it is hoped will be submitted to the
President of the United States on December 1, 1936. This can only be
accomplished through the complete cooperation of state and regional
planning boards, of interested Federal, state and local agencies and of
private industry.

By this effort the Committee is attempting to provide a sound and
nation-wide outline for securing the greatest beneficial use of the water
resources of each major drainage basin in the United States. Obviously,
with the limited tune and financial resources available for the study,
only a skeleton plan, largely of preliminary character, is feasible. Such
a bird's-eye view, however, of the national problem and of the available
data shedding light thereon should be the beginning of recurring and
continuing adjustments in each major basin.

By this study the Committee should also be able to furnish various
Federal, state and local agencies a clear statement of the dominant
physical and economic considerations affecting the use and control of
water resources in each basin, even though such a reasonably integrated

140 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

pattern of development can be furnished only in broad outline. Out of
this study a series of specific construction projects should also appear
which might properly be executed as time goes on, in accordance with
the integrated plan of ultimate development.

To those of you familiar with various parts of the United States, it
should be clear that uneven programs of development will necessarily
result from this study. Some areas of the country have been intensively
studied for years while others have had little or no detailed review by
either state or Federal agencies.

In the latter areas, the elements of an investigative program for
further study and revision of the general program which may be out-
lined during 1936 are to be presented.

The three major objectives, therefore, of the Committee in this pro-
posed study of drainage basin water resources are :

(1) To point out the outstanding problems of water-use and control in the
different parts of the country.

(2) To outline in broad terms a reasonable and integrated pattern of de-
velopment, and

(3) To present specific construction and study projects which, in the light
of available information, are consistent with the broad plan.

Questions of administration and financing of programs and projects
developed in the study will not be reported upon in any detail, since
they offer problems of national policy which can be determined only
after long discussion in the public forum.

Specific recommendations will vary greatly in detail from one basin
to another. In one basin further surveys and investigations may be rec-
ommended before any construction work is proposed. In another, it is
probable that a number of projects ready for construction or requiring
a short period of detailed design may be recommended. The Committee,
of course, will not attempt to prepare detailed plans and specifications
for construction projects, although it will enumerate projects for which
plans and specifications are already available.

In order to provide working arrangements with state planning and
other boards, and to secure the continuous views and criticisms by state
and Federal authorities, the Committee has assigned 17 water consult-
ants to work with the state and regional boards. These consultants will
be responsible for the conduct of the field work necessary for the prepa-
ration of the water plans. They have been selected according to major
areas and convenience of operation. They will be responsible for the
review of existing information and reports, for the crystallization of
long-range plans and for the preparation of a final document embodying
the answers to the three major objectives already pointed out above.

The Committee hopes for participation of the various state planning
boards in three ways:

NATIONAL PLANNING 141

(1) The water consultants will require the assistance of such agencies as
state and local health departments, state engineers and state departments of
conservation. They will look to the state planning boards for smoothing the
way in providing for this cooperation of local and state agencies. Precedent for
accomplishing this cooperation is at hand in the experience in connection with
a similar survey which has been in process for some months in the basin of the
Red River of the North. In that area the State Planning Boards of Minnesota
and of North and South Dakota have cooperated with Federal, state and local
officials in a study under the general supervision of a water consultant appointed
by the Water Resources Committee. The respective state boards initiated the
conferences leading to the present survey. Their cooperation has produced ex-
cellent progress and the completion of a comprehensive report on this particular
area should be possible within the next two months.

(2) The state planning boards, in addition to the general clerical and technical
assistance rendered by their staffs, may be able to assign full time technicians
to this survey by an arrangement with WPA.

(3) Wherever possible, it is hoped that the state planning board or other
offices concerned may be able to make office space available for the water con-
sultant and his assistants.

In other words, the intent of the Water Resources Committee is to
carry out this study in the closest cooperation with existing Federal,
state and local agencies whose familiarity and experience in the field
of water resources are essential to the development of any comprehensive
long-term program. With the necessities of time and money confronting
us, however, it is obvious that the ultimate review and crystallization
of the program in each drainage basin must be placed upon a single
responsible authority, in this case the water consultant.

ORGANIZATION

The field and office operations leading to the preparation of the
report proposed will be under the direction of Frederick H. Fowler of
San Francisco, California, a consulting engineer of wide experience in
water resources problems. He is a director of the American Society of
Civil Engineers, a member of its Committee on Dams and on Flood
Protection Data, a member of the Federal Emergency Public Works
Administration Technical Board of Review and a consultant on flood
control problems in the Kansas City and Los Angeles regions.

The assistant director is Merton L. Emerson of Boston, Massachu-
setts, a consulting engineer and a former member of the Public Works
Administration Technical Board of Review.

The Water Resources Committee will outline and supervise the study
through the special organization established under Mr. Fowler's general
direction. The drainage basin districts so far organized and the water
consultants assigned to them are as follows. All of the studies are now
under way and the detail of accomplishment must wait upon the receipt
of the preliminary reports of these consultants.

142 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Drainage Basin District 1 :l

Prof. H. K. Barrows, Water Consultant, 6 Beacon St., Boston, Mass.

Drainage basins in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and Connecticut and New York, including the Housatonic
as the westernmost basin.

Drainage Basin District 2:

James F. Sanborn, Water Consultant, Room 1725, 30 Church St.,
New York, N. Y.

North Atlantic drainage basins in Connecticut, New York, Pennsyl-
vania, New Jersey and Delaware west of the Housatonic and including
the Susquehanna as the most westerly drainage basin.

Drainage Basin District 3:

William McKinney Piatt, Water Consultant, 401 Depositors National
Bank Bldg., Durham, N. C.

Chesapeake Bay and South Atlantic drainage in Maryland, Delaware,
West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, south of the
Susquehanna basin, including Port Royal Sound drainage as the most
southerly basin.

Drainage Basin District 4 :

Dean Blake R. Van Leer, Water Consultant, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Fla.

South Atlantic and Eastern Gulf drainage in South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama and Mississippi from the Savannah basin on the north-
east to Mobile Basin on the southwest, both inclusive.

Drainage Basin District 5 :

Fred. H. Weed, Water Consultant, 1123 Carew Tower, Cincinnati,
Ohio.

Ohio River drainage in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West
Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Drainage Basin District 6 (a) :

Royce J. Tipton, Water Consultant, 2083 Clermont Street, Denver,
Colorado.

Southwest Gulf of Mexico drainage, south and west of Vermilion
River, Louisiana and including drainage in the United States entering
the Rio Grande south of Fort Quitman, Texas.

Drainage Basin District 6(b) :

Gerard H. Matthes, Water Consultant, Mississippi River Commis-
sion, Vicksburg, Miss. (By detail from Corps of Engineers, Mississippi
River Commission.)

lThe tentative subdivision of the United States into areas for water resources study
would define the regions as follows: (1) New England, (2) Middle Atlantic, (3) Southeast
Coast, (4) Southeast Gulf, (5) Ohio Basin, (6a) Southwest Gulf, (6b) Lower Mississippi
Basin, (6c) Red River of the South and Arkansas Basin, (7a) Upper Mississippi Basin,
(7b) Great Lakes and St. Lawrence, (8) Upper Missouri Basin, (9) Lower Missouri Basin,
(lOa) Colorado Basin, (lOb) The Great Basin, (lOc) California, (11) Pacific Northwest.

NOTE: The Red River of the North and the Upper Rio Grande Basin are not segre-
gated because work is already under way in those basins. The Tennessee Valley is omitted.

NATIONAL PLANNING 143

The Alluvial Mississippi Basin and Gulf of Mexico drainage, in the
States of Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas and
Louisiana, from Pascagoula River on the East to Vermilion on the West,
both inclusive, and northerly to the mouth of the Missouri; excluding
the main drainage basins of the Red, Arkansas, Missouri and Ohio Basins,
but including the White and St. Francis Basins to the West and drainage
lying west of the Mobile River Basin to the East.

Drainage Basin District 6(c) and 6(d):

Wesley W. Homer, Water Consultant, 1325 International Bldg., St.
Louis, Mo.

Western Mississippi River drainage in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico,
Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, from the Red River basin
northwardly to the Arkansas basin, both inclusive.

Drainage Basin District 7 (a) :

Wesley W. Homer, Water Consultant, 1325 International Bldg., St.
Louis, Mo.

Mississippi River Basin Drainage North of the Ohio and Missouri
Basins, in Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois.

Drainage Basin District 7(b) :

LeRoy K. Sherman, Water Consultant, 53 West Jackson Boulevard,
Chicago, Illinois.

Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Drainage in Minnesota, Wis-
consin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and
Vermont.

Drainage Basin District 8:

Prof. S. T. Harding, Water Consultant, University of California,
Berkeley, California.

The Northerly portion of the Missouri River basin, to and including
the basin of the Platte River on the west side, and to and including the
basin of Mosquito Creek on the east side, in Iowa, Minnesota, South
Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.

Drainage Basin District 9:

Frederick H. Fowler, Water Consultant, 4308 Interior Bldg., Wash-
ington, D. C.

The portion of the Missouri River Basin south of the basin of the
Platte River on the west side and south of the basin of Mosquito Creek
on the east side, in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas.

Drainage Basin District 10 (a) :

J. C. Stevens, Water Consultant, Spalding Building, Portland, Oregon.
The Colorado River basin in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyo-
ming, Utah, Nevada and California.

Drainage Basin District 10(b) :

Walter L. Huber, Water Consultant, 1325 Crocker 1st National Bank
Bldg., San Francisco, California.

The Great Basin drainage in California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming,
Idaho, and Oregon.

144 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Drainage Basin District 10(c) :

Ralph I. Meeker, Water Consultant, 303 Flat Iron Bldg., Denver,
Colorado.

Southwest Pacific drainage in California and Oregon, to and including
Smith River basin on the north.

Drainage Basin District 11:

Prof. Samuel B. Morris, Water Consultant, Leland Stanford Uni-
versity, Palo Alto, Calif.

Northwest Pacific drainage in Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Wyo-
ming, Montana, and Washington, from and excluding Smith River basin
on the South.

To facilitate the work of these consultants and to maintain a con-
tinuous and completely coordinate contact with state and regional plan-
ning boards, with Federal agencies and with other cooperating agencies,
two regional coordinators have also been appointed by the National
Resources Committee. These individuals will travel throughout the
country for the purpose of assisting the water consultants and keeping
them currently informed of various phases of the study so that uniform-
ity of approach and of ultimate reporting will be assured. To accomplish
this purpose the country has been divided into two major areas, the
western area, covering Districts 6 (a), 6(c), 6(d), 8, 9, 10(a), 10(c), and 11.
The western regional coordinator is Donald M. Baker of Los Angeles.
The eastern coordinator, Howard Critchlow of Trenton, New Jersey,
will cover Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6(b), 7(a), and 7(b). These areas are
listed in footnote, page 142. Both of these individuals are consulting
engineers of long experience in the water resources field and members of
the American Society of Civil Engineers and of the American Water
Works Association.

The compilation of existing lists of rated water projects under new
and improved rating methods will be under the supervision of an office
coordinator, Mr. Brent S. Drane, who has had considerable experience in
this field with both the Mississippi Valley Committee and the Water
Resources Section of the National Resources Committee. It will be his
function to amplify existing lists of water projects throughout the United
States by the addition of all new water projects planned by Federal,
state and regional agencies and such other projects as may be developed
by the field forces and ultimately approved by the Director and the
Committee. He is to act further as liaison officer with all Federal agencies
concerned with the economic problems affecting or affected by the plans
of the drainage basins. The cooperation of other committees and agencies
of the National Resources Committee on land, minerals, power and
industrial resources is assured through his efforts.

From time to time special consulting service will be available to both
field and office organizations in the solution of complex technical prob-
lems involved in comprehensive basin planning. Such men will be on

NATIONAL PLANNING 145

call to render service when requested by the Director or Assistant
Director.

It should be emphasized that, when these preliminary inventories
and crystallizations have been completed, no mere compilation of proj-
ects now on file in various state and Federal agencies should be the
result. For the first time in the history of this country the various
Federal, state and local interests in a drainage basin are to be brought
together in the field for the development of the broad program. Aside
from the important end result of developing a preliminary long-range
plan, the study should go far toward initiating cooperative planning
activities in the field of water resources which it is hoped will continue
long after this first national study has been completed. Progressive
modification, refinement and adjustment of program should be the
continuing ultimate aim of this first effort. The broad picture here pro-
posed for the water resources of the United States will be the framework
within which more detailed study and evolution should take place in
the future.

The Water Resources Committee responsible for the final presenta-
tion of the report on the study of drainage basin water resources has
the following membership :

H. H. Barrows, Department of Geography, University of Chicago.

H. H. Bennett, Chief, Soil Conservation Service, Department of Agriculture.

Ira N. Gabrielson, Chief, Biological Survey, Department of Agriculture.

N. C. Grover, Chief Hydraulic Engineer, Geological Survey.

Edward Hyatt, State Engineer of California.

Major General Edward M. Markham, Chief of Engineers.

John C. Page (Representing the Commissioner of Reclamation), Chief of
Engineering Division, Bureau of Reclamation.

Thorndike Saville, Associate Dean, College of Engineering, New York
University.

R. E. Tarbett, Sanitary Engineer, U. S. Public Health Service.

Thomas R. Tate, Director, National Power Survey, Federal Power Com-
mission.

Sherman M. Woodward, Chief Water Planning Engineer, Tennessee Valley
Authority.

Abel Wolman, Chairman.

RESOLUTION OF THE CONFERENCE

APPRECIATION

RESOLVED, That this Conference express its
sincere appreciation to the Governor of Virginia, to
the Virginia State Planning Board and to its Chair-
man, Morton L. Wallerstein, the local chairman of
this Conference, to the officials of the City of Rich-
mond, and to all others who contributed to this most
agreeable and successful meeting.

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT
THE BANQUET

Addresses Delivered at the Banquet

CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION

MR. MORTON L. WALLERSTEIN, Chairman, Virginia State Planning
Board, Richmond, Va. : Before presenting our first speaker, permit me
to welcome to this dinner meeting of the conference a large number of
our people, both from Richmond and other places in Virginia, who have
so generously manifested their interest in the planning movement by
their presence here tonight. I am glad to say also for the benefit of the
conference that many of them have attended our session throughout.

Representative Maverick, whom I have the privilege of introducing, is
a member of Congress from Texas and comes from the city of San
Antonio. He is a lawyer by profession, was an officer in the 28th Infantry,
First Division, during the World War, where he was wounded and cited
for gallantry in action and extremely meritorious service. Of all his
qualifications, however, I am most interested in his membership in the
Circus Fans of America, as I belong to that great galaxy of American
citizens who attend every circus on the theory that my children enjoy
it. I am sure all of us would be interested in knowing the qualifications
for membership in that organization. Certainly I would. But seriously,
Mr. Maverick has been one of the Congressmen most outstanding in
his interest in the planning movement and most cooperative with the
National Resources Committee. He served as president of the Citizens'
League of San Antonio, which league was most instrumental in bringing
good government to that city. It was only natural, therefore, that one
so interested in good government should be a leading advocate of the
planning movement.

I present to you — Hon. Maury Maverick of the State of Texas.

A PERMANENT NATIONAL RESOURCES BOARD

By MAURY MAVERICK, Member of Congress

Thomas Jefferson was a believer in individual liberty — civil, religious,
and academic — he believed in the utmost liberty of intellect and spirit.
But let us remember he was the first man in America who advocated
plowing on contours, conservation, reforestation, and the preservation
of our natural resources. Not only that, but he advocated farm co-
operatives— and some people tell us that that is some terrible form of
socialism.

Yet neither Thomas Jefferson nor any man then living could have
foretold the tremendously changed conditions in the United States of
America today. And, of course, he did not have the integrated ideas
of today on the subject of planning and conservation by all our govern-

149

150 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

mental units, but he did have the idea of conservation within the limits
of science of that day.

He thought, and so expressed himself even before the Louisiana
Purchase, that there was enough land to last our people forever. And
then, as President, he made the Louisiana Purchase and thought for
sure that the day would never come when there would be a shortage of
land. He did it just as in the old days when a Texan would go out and
get ten or twenty thousand acres more land, feeling sure that the ranch
business would go on prosperously forever and that the trail up to
Abilene, Kans., would always be roaring with the cloven hoofs of cattle.
But in that thought Jefferson was mistaken, just like the early cattle-
men of Texas.

We who are Americans have an "important mission/' or else, to put
it in plain American language, a big job to save our country. Most of
you know that cities and metropolitan areas and States must be planned
with all the tremendous problems of roads, highways, bridges, homes,
apartment houses, business buildings, sanitation — everything. You all
know that our resources are in extremely bad shape. So let us all quit
making reactionaries out of our ancestors and do what they did — think
for ourselves, be democratic, and plan and coordinate our country so
that it will be a decent place in which to live.

When we talk about planning and conservation, let us talk about it
in such a way that we come to certain logical conclusions, upon which
we can act intelligently. Let us go into a labyrinth of thought, and if
this labyrinth of thought brings us to certain conclusions, then let us
accept those conclusions without fear. In this adventure will come all
of our concepts of the Declaration of Independence, the theories of our
forefathers, the interpretation of the Constitution, our opinions on the
Supreme Court, everything. But we need not go into all this intricate
phraseology and thought; let us think only of the simple necessity of
the preservation of a free country to live in, with a free people in it, and
with the people in possession of their God-given resources.

Natural Resources Belong to the People. The natural resources of Amer-
ica are the heritage of the whole Nation, or the people as a whole, and
should be conserved and utilized for the benefit of all the people. I deny
no man the right to his ambition, or his individuality. But I deny to
every man in America any right to destroy any portion of the natural
resources, or so to plan his business or industry as to be a danger to the
health and lives of his fellow citizens. The gains of our democracy in
civilization and culture are essentially mass gains. If you do not believe
that, I am sure you will understand that the losses of our democracy in
the matter of our natural resources are essentially mass losses.

Let me be more specific: If in a certain section of the country we
destroy the natural resources and there come great floods or dust storms,
then the people as a whole suffer the result of all this destruction. There-

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 151

fore, we should not let a few people or any number of people destroy
these resources, but the resources should be protected for the general
welfare.

There can be no logical, constitutional, patriotic, or sensible denial
of this. Yet in the past, when efforts have been made to put these
principles into living facts, a multitude of pretexts and evasions and
obstacles have been advanced. We cannot stay progress — or rather, we
should not do it. Nature is the servant of man — or, again, she should be
the servant of man. Our natural resources, properly conserved, are
limitless — why shouldn't we take a limitless advantage? There is abso-
lutely no excuse for the senseless, savage, and brutal exploitation which
has defaced many pages in our national history.

I have been interested in conservation for a few years, and do not
know as much as those who are in this audience about its technical
aspects. But I can remember in the old days when Gifford Pinchot and
Theodore Roosevelt and the others were making a good fight against
great odds in the matter of conservation. I remember then the dis-
cussions about saving our forests, our rivers, our hills, and valleys —
that was 25 or 30 years ago, but since then we have destroyed untold
natural wealth. In fact, all that Teddy Roosevelt accomplished was to
save a little, build an idea, and have it as a matter of record that we
were really destroying our natural resources, and ourselves.

And now, at this time, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Government
are starting all over again a policy of conservation with intelligent zeal
and real convictions. "Planning" may sound odious to some — but that
is now possible through various agencies of Government. And I see no
reason why we should not "plan" to prevent dust storms, floods, dis-
eases— and save our country.

Now that a large body of public opinion is alert, let us, as Americans,
make a clean breast of the fact that for years the attempt to execute
even rudimentary conservation policies was jeered as visionary or
banished as a threat to individual liberties. The recent floods and dust
storms have shocked and appalled the whole country.

Let Us Plan Against Dust Storms and Floods. Now what are we going
to do about it? Are we going to stop the dust storms and the floods?
The answer is that we must; we have to do it. And the reason is that
we cannot do as we used to do and exist. We cannot move West nor go
to a foreign country. We must stay in our own country and conserve it.
We must stay in the big city and make it livable.

Generally we have almost broken down the natural "plan" in America.
Now it must be restored. It is of little use to rehabilitate and conserve
our lands if we cannot thereby improve the condition of human beings.
Therefore, the final and most significant element to be considered is
neither land nor water but the people who live on the land and are
dependent on the water.

152 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

I have recited these facts because the use and control of our natural
resources presents a bewildering array of problems, some technical, some
economic, some social, some legal and constitutional, in which, without
a guiding master plan, we would inevitably lose our way. The vastness
of the country, the wide range of climate and topography, the abrupt
seasonal changes, our inherited prejudices all tend to make the formula-
tion of a national policy difficult. But nothing short of a national policy
can deal effectively with conditions.

The task of making and carrying out such a policy will involve many
agencies. It will take a long time. It will demand the highest order of
patriotism, statesmanship, and skill.

T. V. A. Example of Profitable Planning. Now let me bring together
the different ends of the threads and make something of a conclusion.
In many of these things our inherited ideas, our ideas of government,
may clash with the principle of saving our own lives. But, I hold that
individuality should not go to the extent of destroying the country. I
should like to see a man make all the money he wants to make, but not
at the expense of the natural resources or the general welfare of the people.

Let me take a particular case on which we may base some conclusions,
the Tennessee Valley Authority. There is where dams are built — where
power can be produced cheaply (if we have as much sense as the Cana-
dians, and I think we have) — where there is a coordinated plan of con-
servation. Now, a dam is built. The water backs up. The water begins
to pour over.

Now the question is, should the Government steal this water from
its own people and give it to some private monopoly in order that it
may exploit the people, or should the Government take advantage of
the water which God let fall from the skies and use that for the benefit
of the people of the United States and to help pay for the project?
I hold unalterably to the latter view.

Now let me state a conclusion: The people of this country will not
accept the regimentation of fascism or communism. The people will,
however, find it necessary to conserve their own natural resources. This
will mean, when it comes to matters which solely concern the public
welfare, that the Government should have sufficient power to accomplish
the purposes. Sometimes it means government — national, state, or
local — ownership. Remember that, from a legal viewpoint, a drop of
water which falls in Idaho goes all the way through its course down the
Mississippi Valley into the Gulf of Mexico. Through its course it does
not worry about city, county, state, or national lines, about governors,
Congressmen, or even judges of the Supreme Court. Some of the water
even flows from Canada. No water cares anything for our courts and
cannot be cited for contempt, or at least water or nature does not obey.

With this in view, let us get back to the T. V. A. It concerns six or
seven States. It would be utterly impossible to have the various units

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 153

in there to make contracts and treaties in order to accomplish these
purposes. Therefore, the only way this great plan of conservation and
cheap power can be accomplished is through the Federal Government.
If our Government does not do it, it will not be done.

National Plan Necessary for States. Now I presume that there are
many here who will say that I am making a speech for a strong central-
ized government. I am not doing so. I am saying that the Federal
Government should have the necessary power to have a coordinated
plan, and that the work of the different States should be done by those
different States. Various state planning boards will have plenty to do;
in fact, they will have too much to do, and the Federal Government
has neither the tune nor the inclination to take any of their powers
away from them. And yet, I am perfectly frank in saying that I do not
believe that any State should have a right to destroy another State
either with its flow of water, its dust storms, or the effect that it may
have on another.

We are in the most primitive state of national planning. People are
afraid to use the word "plan." It is supposed to be radical or something
bad. But in order to accomplish anything in the conservation of natural
resources, we must start somewhere. The first thing we must do is to
enlarge the work that has already been established by the National
Resources Committee. As you know, the National Resources Committee
is appointed by the President and has no independent statutory standing.
I have introduced a bill known as the "national resources board bill,"
which provides for the statutory creation of a permanent board. I want
the board to be, and I am sure you want it to be, a permanent national
institution which will study our natural resources, collect data, and pre-
pare programs according to the hearings on the bill such "as may be
helpful to a planned development and use of land, wind, water, and
other national resources and such related subjects as may be referred
to it by the President."

History of National Resources Board. Let me tell you about the
National Resources Committee. It and its predecessors, the National
Planning Board and the National Resources Board, have brought to-
gether for the first time exhaustive studies and plans for public works,
land-use, water-use, minerals, and other related subjects in relation to
each other and to national planning. These reports provide a sound
basis for effective conservation.

When I came to Congress the first Government publication sent me
was this report of the National Resources Board. I believe it is by far
the most important work done by any Government agency and prob-
ably one of the most effective. I became interested in the National
Resources Board report because it brought together material on national
policy or national planning that had not been put in one place since
Theodore Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life got out its report

154 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

in 1909. I set about to find out what kind of people were working on the
report and what they were driving at.

First of all, I found out it was a non-partisan effort, and that the men
who were responsible for making this plan for the better use of our land
and water resources were Frederic A. Delano, Charles E. Merriam, and
Wesley C. Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Merriam had previously been
working on President Hoover's Committee on Recent Social Trends; in
fact, they were chairman and vice chairman of that committee. So
they were just carrying out what they had started some years before.

Back in 1929 Mr. Frederic Delano, through the Federated Societies
on Planning and Parks, got out a book on "What About the Year 2000?"
That book stated in concise and interesting form the problem of making
the best use of our land. Mr. Delano and his co-workers were interested
in this planning work as a continuing inventory of our natural resources
and a constant readjustment of our policies to meet emerging problems.
The planning wrork that they have been doing is a job that does not get
finished with just one report or with two reports. It must be continued
as long as we have a country.

The second thing I found out about this National Resources Board
was that its members not only talked about decentralization of planning,
but practiced it.

With Secretary Ickes' help, back in November, 1933, they suggested
to the Governors of the various States that each State ought to have a
planning agency to think about what was going to happen to the re-
sources of the State. The Resources Board agreed to help by assigning
specialists and consultants to these state planning boards. When they
started this idea there were one or two States where some work of this
sort had gotten under way — in Iowa and in New York, for instance.
Now there are 46 state planning boards, and 32 of these boards have laws
behind them to make them permanent. This National Resources Com-
mittee has done all that in a little over two years. Now they are en-
couraging the state boards to get the cities and counties to thinking
about their future, following the example of what has been done in
county planning in California and the rural zoning work that has been
going on in Wisconsin. There are three or four hundred of these county
planning boards in this country, and over 800 city and town planning
boards.

The third thing I found out about this report on the national resources
was that it represented a real cooperative job by a great many different
bureaus of the Government — that they did not just go out and duplicate
what a lot of other people were doing. They got the people with ex-
perience— the people who knew — in different bureaus to get together
and to put all of their material in one report.

They have followed up this cooperative work through continuing
committees on land and water and other things, which have helped to

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 155

prevent competition in the purchase of land by different Government
bureaus, and more recently to coordinate projects for drainage and
storage of water to avoid conflicts between the wildlife interests and
the agricultural, power, and other groups. The Resources Committee is
showing us a way to get results without interfering with bureau activities.

It is to assure the continuance of these valuable efforts that I intro-
duced in Congress the bill I just mentioned to make this National
Resources Committee a permanent and continuing body. Such a body
will take a long-range view of the entire national problem and will apply
the highest engineering and technical knowledge to the reorganization
of our natural resources.

Are We to Live Like Chinese Coolies? And all this should be done not
as an end in itself but as a means of decreasing the burdens imposed on
the average citizen, raising the living standards of the Nation, and en-
hancing the well-being of all Americans. And when I say Americans,
I mean it! If we keep on going, we'll be like a hive of Chinese coolies.
We might as well admit the fact, according to the situation of our
natural resources today and our lack of conservation, that our standard
of living is slipping. We of course have electric lights, automobiles, and
fine roads and apartment houses in different places; but the country is
blowing and washing away and we have certain large groups of our
citizens who have a lower standard of living than many Americans who
lived from fifty to a hundred years ago.

Thus we should proceed from the viewpoint of intelligent, human,
and natural conservation and planning, both within and without Con-
gress— that is, in the cities and States, our business relations, our human
relations, our clubs and societies, everywhere. And along with this, I
think we should support a statutory continuance of the National Re-
sources Committee. This will not come without effort, and I mean
great effort. That is because people talk about bureaus when it is not an
additional bureau, and is not going to cost any more than it does now.

As a matter of fact, it is going to save the country if established —
and if we carry on intelligently. So let me talk about this National Re-
sources Board in a legislative way :

At this point let me "coordinate" a few conclusions, and then let us
talk about what we are going to do about it.

The first conclusion is that we should not let our prejudices, however
dear they may be to our hearts, keep us from realizing the public neces-
sity of conservation. Many of you are technical men, engineers, pro-
fessional planners — I am an elected public official and, for all I know,
you probably call me a "politician." So in abandoning your inherited
prejudices — if you have any — you may also find it a good thing to
cooperate with elected public officials toward the end of effectuating
something really worthwhile.

Second, an immediate objective is the adoption of a coordinated

156 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

national plan with a proper decentralization for smaller units, and as a
first step in the realization of this the National Resources Board bill
must be adopted by Congress.

Third, the most important thing is to have a correct mental attitude
on the subject of "planning." The word is woefully misunderstood and
widely distorted. It does not mean destruction, anarchy, and the end
of the world. It means the opposite — the practical, orderly, and far-
sighted use of what God gave us. But by pernicious propaganda and
misrepresentation it has acquired a sinister meaning. Opponents of
conservation and planning are generally persons who have some in-
terest in some speculative enterprise which will bring a profit out of
the natural resources. The public must know this.

I have stated three conclusions briefly. They are, to repeat, leave off
your prejudices and cooperate with your elected officials; put over the
Resources Board bill; and let the public know what "planning" and
"conservation" really mean.

Now let us keep those in mind.

Congress Respects Intelligent Public Opinion. All right, let us get to
the practical things. A session of Congress immediately preceding a
national election is, of course, not such an opportune time to press a
measure like this. It is too easy for opponents to yell about "more
Government interference," "paternalism," "bureaucracy," and so on,
and it is not good manners of me to suggest that you "write your Con-
gressmen."

But I do say this: You have been doing a good piece of work in your
various capacities and in your various organizations and you must get
in the fight publicly and politically, yourselves, with your own courage
and your own minds. Hence, you must create public opinion so that
public opinion will know and you must also discuss this either person-
ally or by letter with your Congressmen — and back them up and give
them courage to do this. To put isolated pressure on a Congressman is
useless, but to have him understand an intelligent plan, with the backing
of public opinion, is another thing.

Let's Dramatize Our Peaceful Fight! Now, here are some other things
you can do. I have seen a lot of your state reports. You start out by
trying to tell a story from the beginning like an old English novel and it
is tiresome and unreadable. We should get out shorter reports, much
shorter; we should have a foreword, heads and subheads, colored draw-
ings that mean something, so that the average man can understand it
without going crazy over hideous black statistics that blur your eyes
and confuse your thoughts. Some of the stuff you get out goes to the
ashcan, where it belongs, or to the statisticians who make your statistics
and who are the only ones who can possibly understand it.

So my final message to you is that we must dramatize this battle to
save the natural resources. We must put color in it and organize, and

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 157

make the game worth fighting for. You can always put color in a war,
where people are killing each other and destroying each other and their
resources. It seems that we ought to have sense enough to make a
colorful fight for the preservation of human and natural resources and
for making this a decent country in which to live. Fellow Americans,
that is our job and let us go to it.

CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION

I have so often boasted at our annual conferences about our dis-
tinguished Governor that it is more than a rare privilege for me to
introduce him. I have painted him to you on various occasions as being
planning-minded, as having written that most splendid talk which was
circulated on State Planning and of having cooperated with us in our
various problems to the fullest extent. Certainly no Governor could
have given his State Planning Board any finer cooperation than has
Governor Peery, and I can say here now that whatever we may accom-
plish through our board should certainly reflect the fine spirit which he
has shown toward our operations.

It is a pleasure to introduce to you His Excellency, George C. Peery,
Governor of Virginia.

STATE PLANNING

By GEORGE C. PEERY, Governor of Virginia

St. Luke is one of the early authorities on the need for wise planning.
In his book of the Bible we find these words :

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and
counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply after he
hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to
mock him, saying, "This man began to build, and was not able to finish."

Planning is necessary to any well-ordered and successful individual.
It is likewise necessary in government.

But for the vision and wise planning of L'Enfant in laying out the
City of Washington, it would probably not be today the beautiful city
it is.

And but for the planning of the founders of our Republic, we would
doubtless be deprived of the proud boast that ours is the best of all
governments in the world. From the very beginning of our national
life, wise planning was in evidence. The Constitution itself was a great
plan providing for a democratic form of government. It dealt with
currency, tariffs, interstate commerce, and international relations. In
later years it was termed by a great Englishman as the greatest instru-
ment every penned by man. It was the Magna Charta for our political

158 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

and economic development. And within it many plans have from time
to time been made for the continued development and progress of our
Nation and people.

The policy of encouraging manufacturing in our early history by a
tariff was a form of economic planning. It may have been sound in the
beginning and served a good purpose to become outmoded in a later
day when American manufacturers became the equals of foreign rivals
in efficiency and production costs. Thereupon sound planning called
for a revision of tariff levies for the benefit of the consuming public,
based in the main upon the difference in labor costs due to the higher
standard of living enjoyed by the American laborer.

Still more recent developments which have resulted in retaliatory
tariffs have led to further legislative planning by which reciprocal agree-
ments as to tariff levies may be negotiated to the mutual advantage of
our country with other contracting nations. A tariff against the products
of other nations, of which America itself produces a large surplus, is
unworkable and harmful in its effects and calls for a change in economic
planning.

The early plans for education upon the western frontier rested largely
upon grants of land. The conquering of the frontier, the building up of
the country, and the settlement of the great areas of land called for
revisions and changes in the plans for education.

The early days in our Republic were the days of individualism. The
frontier beckoned to the hardy pioneer. He responded to its call, con-
quered a portion and made it a home. As master of his own castle, he
defended it from attack and developed a rich and self-reliant life. If in
the rearing of a large family his domain became too limited, he could
without great difficulty add other acres and enlarge the sphere of his
activities and increase the fruits of his labor.

In those days of individualism there was not so much need for state
and national planning. The chief planner was the individual himself.
But his operations as an individual were not sufficient in extent mate-
rially to conflict with the interests of the public at large.

But following the Civil War changes took place. Large enterprises
were launched. Intensive planning in their behalf sought to extend their
power and control over large areas of industry. The end sought was
monopolistic control and domination. While these plans resulted in
greater efficiency to the enterprise itself, they did not always promote
the general good. Quite the contrary was too often the result. The rail-
roads, promoted at first by grants of land and money, grew and flourished.
But with their growth came practices on the part of some of them that
may not have violated the letter of the law, but were violative of the
right and subversive to sound business morals. Rebates and discrimi-
nations were allowed to some and denied to others. One section could
thereby be destroyed while another would prosper. One enterprise or

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 159

individual could be wiped out of existence while another would go on
and profit. Planning for such private enterprise outstripped for the
time planning for the public good; and it became necessary to plan for
the common good to meet this condition. The Interstate Commerce
Act was the result, enacted in 1887. It provided against rebates and
discriminations and set up a tribunal to fix and determine rates. So,
likewise, did the growth of monopolistic enterprises and business prac-
tices, violative of the rights of others and contrary to the public good,
lead to legislative planning resulting in the enactment of the anti-trust
laws and the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission to prevent
and correct abuses of this character.

In great emergencies more intensive planning becomes imperative.
The World War compelled economic mobilization. The War Industries
Board, the War Board, the Food Administration, the Fuel Administra-
tion, the Railroad Administration, and other governmental agencies
were set up. Individual rights were subordinated to the plans of the
Nation for winning the war. We remember the meatless and wheatless
days that came to us as incidents of those plans.

And now seventeen years after the close of that momentous struggle,
which brought to the world the emergency of the greatest war in all our
history, we are in the throes of another emergency. It is not the emer-
gency of war — but an emergency, world-wide in its extent, and devastat-
ing in its effects. It is as complicated and difficult of solution as the
problems of war. In a land of plenty, there is hunger and suffering and
distress. It is a time that calls for wise planning, not only for the present,
but for the future.

It has been said that "Planning consists in the systematic, contin-
uous, forward-looking application of the best intelligence available to
programs of common affairs in the public field, as it does to private
affairs in the domain of individual activity."

Planning goes on continuously in every well-ordered home, in every
successful business, and in every other worthwhile organization.

In the national emergency that has come to us, the need for sound
planning on the part of the Nation and of the States has become manifest.

On July 20, 1933, the Administration of Public Works appointed a
National Planning Board. Its functions were :

To advise and assist the administrator in the preparation of the "Compre-
hensive Program of Public Works" required by the Recovery Act through —

1. The preparation, development and maintenance of comprehensive and
coordinated plans for regional areas in cooperation with national, regional and
state and local agencies based upon —

2. Surveys and research concerning:

(a) The distribution and trends of population, land uses, industry,
housing and natural resources; and

(b) The social and economic habits, trends and values involved in
development projects and plans; and through

160 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

3. The analysis of projects for coordination in location and sequence in
order to prevent duplication of wasteful overlaps and to obtain the maximum
amount of cooperation and correlation of effort among the departments, bureaus
and agencies of the Federal, state and local governments.

This board assumed that one of its primary functions was to stim-
ulate city, regional and state planning, and in the performance of this
function it was quite successful. Many city and regional planning
boards were organized and state planning boards were organized in
more than forty States. Virginia was among the number to set up a
state planning board.

By executive orders, issued on June 30, 1934, the President estab-
lished the National Resources Board as a successor to the National
Planning Board and the Committee on National Land Problems. The
new board represented a consolidation of previously existing agencies.
It has continued the activities organized by the National Planning Board.

In Virginia existing state agencies have planned constructively in
the past and continued to do so in anticipation of the future.

Our Department of Health, by sanitation and preventive medicine,
has substantially reduced the toll resulting from preventable diseases,
and has made good progress in improving and preserving the health
of our people.

Our Department of Public Welfare has made substantial advances
in caring for and in improving the condition of the unfortunates and
wards of the State.

Our Department of Education, with approximately 15,000 school
teachers in our public schools, with the financial support afforded by
the General Assembly, has assured a minimum school term to all of the
school children throughout the State. Comfortable and adequate school
buildings have been built in nearly every section of the State. Our
institutions of higher learning rank well with those of other States.

Our Highway Department, efficiently administered, has planned a
highway system and brought most of it to completion, affording a fine
system of splendid highways extending throughout the State.

Our Conservation and Development Commission, in addition to
making surveys of our material resources and marking the various
points of historical interest throughout the State, has established a
series of state parks, to which our people may easily go for recreation
and health.

Our Department of Labor has planned wisely and well for the welfare
of our working people.

Our Department of Agriculture has planned and worked successfully
for the development of the interests of that large body of our citizens
who are engaged in the production of food and the pursuit of agriculture.

In governmental planning we have adopted the plan of budget con-
trol so that we may count the cost in advance and provide for meeting

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 161

it in an orderly and business-like way. We have effected a consolidation
of governmental departments and agencies, thereby eliminating dupli-
cation of work and effort and promoting efficiency in the business of
government. We have set up modern methods of accounting, to the end
that sound business practices may be followed.

All of these things have proved helpful in our social, economic and
governmental life.

But new conditions have brought new problems, and with them the
need for continuous planning. The problem of unemployment is prob-
ably the chief one. We must plan our economic life so that those who
are able and willing to work and who must depend upon the rewards
of their toil for their sustenance have gainful work. And it is not enough
to provide for them a bare existence; for in a civilization such as ours
those who contribute the labor necessary for the production of our goods
and products are entitled not only to bare necessities, but to some of
the comforts and good things of life.

We need to plan for a sound development of our agricultural re-
sources, so that those who till the soil and produce the food for our
people may be assured a comfortable existence for themselves and
their families.

The problem is not that of former days to produce more food. It is
to control the production of food, so that those who need may buy and
those who produce may receive a reasonable and living price for the
things they produce. We need to plan for the conservation of our natural
resources. Our forests, our minerals, our water resources should not be
wasted and squandered for one generation. They should be economically
and wisely used so that the needs of future generations may also be
supplied.

Already our forests, which in the beginning seemed almost inex-
haustible, have largely yielded to the onslaught of the lumberman who
has in view present profit, rather than the interests and needs of future
generations. And the practice has been so wasteful as to fail to provide
for the growing forest to take the place of the mature trees cut and
removed.

Now private ownership can hardly afford the expense of holding
land, paying the taxes each year, until the forest has yielded another
growth of merchantable timber. This means that conservation of our
timber resources can be effectively accomplished only through public
ownership on the part of either the State or the Nation.

To the consideration of these and other kindred problems involving
our economic and social life, the planning boards are directing their
research and thought.

The State Planning Board in Virginia has been established pursuant
to a resolution of the General Assembly. Of the personnel comprising
the board, five are the heads of departments in the state government;

162 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

three are technical men employed in state departments; one is an agri-
cultural engineer in the service of one of the state's educational insti-
tutions; and the others are leading citizens of Virginia without official
position with the State. The plan, of course, is to correlate the work of
the planning board with the various state departments and supplement
the planning work done by them.

The board has set up nineteen committees for the consideration of
the different problems before them.

The first essential work is research, in order that the facts may be
definitely and accurately ascertained.

The Planning Board will utilize the facts and information already
collected by the various state departments and seek to ascertain such
additional facts as it may deem necessary. In this way it is hoped that
sound and constructive plans may be developed, not only for the present,
but for the future.

The board is without an appropriation from the General Assembly,
but it has been fortunate enough to receive a substantial grant from the
Spelman Fund which will enable it to enlarge upon its research work
and make more effective its work and investigations.

One of the essential objects in sound planning is to prevent dupli-
cation of work and expense. It is to be hoped that the various agencies
that are being set up to promote planning may afford concrete evidence
that they, in the very outset, are avoiding the very thing which they
advocated should be avoided, namely, the over-lapping of activities
and duplicating of efforts which result in unnecessary waste and expense.

Let our generation seek to plan wisely and well, not only for the
present, but for the generations that are to follow.

CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION

Our next speaker will occupy the dual role of making an address
and of introducing the speaker who will follow him. Although he has
been president of several railroads, served as a Colonel in the Trans-
portation Corps in the World War, I have no doubt that of all the terms
that might be applied to him he would prefer to be known as a planner.
He was Chairman of the Regional Plan of New York and is Chairman of
the National Capital Park and Planning Commission of Washington, and
Vice-Chairman of the National Resources Committee. In fact, he is the
dean of the planning profession. Several years ago Mr. Raymond Unwin
was knighted in England. His friends felt that it was not Sir Raymond
who was being knighted, but City Planning. I feel sure that if we had
that great institution of knighting and nobility in this country that exists hi
England, its first recipient in the planning field would be our next speaker
— Col. Frederic A. Delano, Vice-Chairman, National Resources Commit-
tee and President of the American Planning and Civic Association.

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 163
PLANNING AND PROGRESS

By FREDERIC A. DELANO, President, American Planning and Civic Association

I AM not here to tell you about the work of the American Planning
and Civic Association of which I have the honor to be President. The
speaker who follows me will do that. In my capacity as Vice-Chairman
of the National Resources Committee and as Chairman of the National
Capital Park and Planning Commission, however, I wish to stress the
need which we, as officials, feel for intelligent citizen understanding and
support of planning. If, as Socrates did, we could gather the citizens of
each community about us and by astute questions lead them on to a
knowledge of what city, county, state, regional and national planning
can do, we should indeed develop an invincible public opinion which
would express itself in legislation and appropriations from the appro-
priate governmental units, to insure the realization of those environ-
mental conditions which can only be brought about by intelligent plan-
ning based on sound investigation of social and economic as well as
physical facts.

The National Resources Committee has conducted a number of in-
vestigations of national import. A clearing house of research in planning
has a distinctly national significance. But we, in the National Resources
Committee, have from the first preached the doctrine of state's responsi-
bilities for state planning and state projects. We have practiced what
we preached. Of course we have thought that, in this emergency, follow-
ing the precedent in similar cases of making Federal aid available, the
Federal Government, through the National Resources Committee,
should extend Federal aid in some form to the many new and struggling
state planning boards. This we have done in the form of providing plan-
ning consultants when requested to do so by the state planning boards.

This has proved successful to the extent that progress can be mea-
sured. But naturally we hope that the time will come when the people
living in the States will see that, in the interest of preserving and pro-
viding high standards of living and working conditions for their own
people, it is both economically and socially desirable to maintain con-
tinuous state planning boards, charged with the responsibility of co-
operating with state departments and other state and local agencies to
prepare and keep up to date a sensible, consistent plan for the utilization
of the state's resources.

By utilization I do not mean using up. The preservation of natural
scenery for the inspiration and education of the people is one of the
highest forms of utilization. It is a form of utilization which permits
use by this generation without impairing the same kind of use by future
generations.

Now, I take it that we in this room are all converted to the principles
of planning just as thoroughly as though we had sat at the feet of

164 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Socrates and submitted ourselves to his canny questions. But our
problem is one of extending our influence. That is what we are trying
to do by setting up state chapters of the American Planning and Civic
Association, not with the idea of duplicating the work of other organ-
izations, but, on the contrary, with the definite idea of serving existing
organizations through a personnel of members well informed on plan-
ning principles and familiar with the planning proposals of their own
state planning boards.

Colonel Wetherill, who will speak to you on "Citizen Support of
Planning," has had successful experience in focusing public opinion on
the problems of regional planning. Through the Regional Planning
Federation of the Philadelphia Tri-State District, he brought about the
cooperation of the many governmental units in the Philadelphia district,
lying in three States, in the preparation of a regional plan.

I have the honor of introducing Colonel Samuel P. Wetherill, Presi-
dent of the Regional Planning Federation of the Philadelphia Tri-
State District.

CITIZEN SUPPORT FOR PLANNING

By SAMUEL P. WETHERILL, JR., President, Regional Planning Federation,
Philadelphia Tri-State District

MR. DELANO in introducing me has spoken very courteously of the
contribution to the planning movement which was made by the
Regional Planning Federation of the Philadelphia Tri-State District with
which it was my privilege to be actively engaged for many years.

Fascinating and interesting as is the technique of the making of
plans for the best development of the areas under the jurisdiction of the
community, region, State or Nation, even more fascinating and signifi-
cant is the underlying problem of how such plans will be received by the
communities which they seek to serve and under what circumstances
will they be most useful in guiding the future development of the areas
planned for.

The informal assignment to me of the subject "Citizen Support for
Planning" is a most happy one as it reflects that aspect of the work
which has intrigued me most ever since my first connection with it.

It is also significant that this title should be receiving the consider-
ation of those who are now associated with the American Planning and
Civic Association and its affiliated groups. Surely, no organization in
America is better qualified to give consideration to this question — a
judgment which would be confirmed by the most superficial review of
the long record of influential support of planned programs and policies
which stands to the credit of the American Planning and Civic Asso-
ciation and its predecessors.

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 165

Ever since 1897, when the Park and Outdoor Art Association was
organized in Louisville, Kentucky, its policy has been to mould and
inform public opinion and to rally this informed opinion behind one
governmental project after another.

In 1900 the American League for Civic Improvement, which was
organized in Springfield, Ohio, was another step in the direction of the
organization of the American Civic Association through the merger in
1904 of the two above named organizations.

From 1904 to 1924, Dr. J. Horace McFarland led this Association
vigorously and aggressively in support of planned progress for parks
and conservation of national resources, and his example will long remain
an inspiration to private citizens of the practicality of bringing effective
pressure to bear on their governmental representatives when the cause
they seek to serve is so clearly in the public interest.

In Chicago, from the days of the World's Fair in 1893, the stimulation
of public opinion in support of planning became progressively more and
more effective to the point where no citizen of Chicago could fail to trace
the progress of the city to those efforts with which our present President,
Frederic A. Delano, is so intimately identified and in which he acquired
such great skill in this technique of marshalling informed public opinion
in support of planning. Under his Presidency — from 1925 on — this same
policy has continued and the scope and significance of the planning
movement has spread from the region to the Nation and from the Nation
back to the 48 States in a manner most gratifying to those of us who
still believe that it is practical to establish long-term scientific planning
as a vital element in the success of our representative democratic in-
stitutions. It is particularly appropriate that the American Planning
and Civic Association, as it now stands, should be a merger of this type
of civic effort with the more highly professional group which composed
the National Conference on City Planning.

I have always said that were I a professional city planner, my greatest
concern would be the question of arousing public opinion in support of
the above planning practice. Therefore, it is almost instinctive with me
perhaps to appraise the development of the planning movement, not in
the light of the excellent technical achievement and progress which are
being made, so much as in the light of those factors which are conducive
to public interest in, and support of, the whole policy and principle of
community planning.

In the years preceding the establishment of the Philadelphia Tri-
State Federation, the sociological resistance to the planning idea was
great and was only overcome by us through invoking the most wide-
spread possible financial administration and technical cooperation
throughout the region to be served. In this way $600,000 or more was
contributed, innumerable citizens and professional people contributed
gratuitous service worth many times the total money spent, and the

166 PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

officials of 357 governments participated in tHe negotiations and de-
liberations which preceded the final adoption of the 400 and more
recommendations included in the Plan.

Even before the depression began, a number of projects under con-
struction were taken up by the local communities and put into effect.
However, when the question of the need for emergency employment
became acute, the Federal Government led off on a policy of using relief
funds for the construction of municipal projects which were in accordance
with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Philadelphia Tri-State planning
program.

Very wisely the L. W. D. administration employed William H.
Connell, who was the Director of the Plan and was therefore familiar
with all of the detailed studies upon which it was based. In conse-
quence, a high percentage of the plans has already been realized al-
though the Plan has been published for considerably less than five years.

Looking forward, much concern has been expressed regarding the
type of support which is to be expected for the work of the professional
planner of the future. There are those of a pessimistic turn of mind
who believe that a drastic reaction against all forms of public expenditure
will set in and that taxpayers will be blind to the benefits of planning
in their zeal to curtail public expenditures. Meanwhile, they predict
dire and overwhelming tax burdens of such magnitude as to discourage
over-taxed citizens from making gratuitous contributions through such
official channels as we in America have learned to look to for the sponsor-
ship and support of important civic planning effort.

At this point, and at the risk of stretching the boundaries assigned to
me, I cannot refrain from expressing a personal measure of optimism in
direct opposition to the rather pessimistic views above quoted. This
optimism, I believe, is grounded in a sound, thoroughly scientific ap-
praisal of the economic trend which seems to me to be turning the tide
away from despondency and toward a program of cooperative self-
realization such as, perhaps, no nation on earth has ever before experi-
enced. In these days of inter-dependence, planning must, and I believe
will, hold its own and grow immensely as the means of guiding and
articulating the common effort in the channels that will economize the
taxpayer's money and attain to standards of collective environment
probably beyond the vision of our most enlightened contemporaries.

I admit that this will involve large sums of taxpayer's moneys and that
it will involve a spirit of whole-hearted cooperation amongst citizens
who hold no public office and must pay large taxes. To me the question
is not so much, "Will the taxes be large or small?" as it is, "Shall we
have the resources with which to meet them and still have abundant
margin to maintain the high standards of living towards which all
Americans naturally yearn?" Here we come to the crux of the situation.
In those previous civilizations which were dependent upon human en-

ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT THE BANQUET 167

slavement to perform the work and create the surpluses with which
civilization advanced, it was inevitable that what one gained another
lost; that the prosperity of the few was earned by the self-denial of
the many. Within the last decade, however, America has learned that
great lesson of the potency of the machine age to turn out the products
needed for the progress of men with ever less and less human drudgery.
It is said that on an average, less than five man-days are required to
produce a Ford automobile through the use of modern machine methods.
I can see no reason why this principle should not be deliberately ex-
tended to meet a vast range of needs other than for transportation.
Already man's production methods are turning out automatic refriger-
ation and innumerable other devices, and the prices for these superior
products bring them within the range of modest pocketbooks.

For the first tune in human history it is now practicable, and practical
men with vision are demonstrating the fact, to pay higher wages to
increase the per man day output and to reduce the selling price of articles
of general consumption which are susceptible to this type of man's pro-
duction!

It is my belief that political, economic and social planning will best
be advanced if all of us dedicate our best thought and attention to the
extension of this great American system under which wages can go up
and prices can come down at the same time. Wise labor leaders will see
in this a short-cut to Utopian standards which could never be attained
by restriction of output, and financial profiteers who seek excessive
prices and the lowest possible wage will see that a small profit and a
mass production made possible by a higher general consuming power
of the wage-earners will be the only sound business practice of the future.
It is for this reason and because of my profound confidence that the
lessons of this philosophy of abundance are rapidly being learned by
the American people, that I am confident that for generations to come
the planning profession need have no fear of lack of popular support
for its well-considered program.

It is for these reasons that I am definitely a "bull" on America and
I feel that we of this generation are living through a thrilling and
significant era and, instead of handing on to our posterity nothing but
debts and burdens and impoverished self-respect, quite the reverse is
in store for them. They will learn to cooperate; they will learn to adjust
private to public interest ; the legitimate incentive to profit will be shared
by more and more and the American standard of living will once more
become the envy of the world.

OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLANNING OFFICIALS

ALFRED BETTMAN, PRESIDENT

Chairman of the City Planning Commission, Cincinnati, Ohio; Member
of the Ohio State Planning Board; District Chairman for the National
Resources Committee.

MORTON L. WALLERSTEIN, VICE-PRESIDENT

Executive Secretary of the League of Virginia Municipalities; Chairman
of the Virginia State Planning Board.

HAROLD S. BUTTENHEIM, NEW YORK CITY

Editor of the American City Magazine; Chairman of the Zoning Board
of Adjustment, Madison, N. J.

JACOB L. CRANE, JR., CHICAGO, ILL.

Planning Consultant, National Resources Committee.

CHARLES W. ELIOT, 2o, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Executive Officer of the National Resources Committee.

ESTES KEFAUVER, CHATTANOOGA, TENN.

Chairman, Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission.

HENRY H. KILDEE, AMES, IOWA

Dean of the College of Agriculture, Iowa State College; Chairman, Iowa
State Planning Board.

B. H. KIZER, SPOKANE, WASH.

Chairman, Washington State Planning Council; Member, Pacific North-
west Regional Planning Commission; President, Spokane City Planning
Commission.

WILLIAM STANLEY PARKER, BOSTON, MASS.

Member, Massachusetts State Planning Board; Vice-Chairman, Boston
City Planning Board.

L. DEMING TILTON, SANTA BARBARA, CALIF.

Director of the California State Planning Board; County Planning
Engineer.

SAMUEL WILSON, TOPEKA, KAN.

Executive Officer of the Kansas State Planning Board; Secretary of the
Kansas State Chamber of Commerce.

CHARLES S. ASCHER, TREASURER OF THE SOCIETY

Secretary of the Public Administration Clearing House; former Executive
Director of the National Association of Housing Officials.

WALTER H. BLUCHER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Former City Planner and Secretary of the Detroit City Plan Commission;
former member of the Detroit City Housing Commission; Planning Consul-
tant, National Resources Committee; President, Michigan Planning Con-
ference; Consultant to Housing Division, P. W. A.

168

INDEX

Agricultural Adjustment Admin., 66, 69,

70, 107.

Allin, Bushrod W., 66.
American City Planning Institute, 1, 31, 98.
American Planning and Civic Association,

1, 98, 163, 165.

American Society of Planning Officials, 1, 98.
Barrows, H. H., 86, 118, 145.
Bartholomew, Harland, 26, 50.
Bassett, Edward M., 28, 33.
Bennett, Charles B., 25, 40.
Bennett, H. H., 145.
Bettman, Alfred, v, 119.
Bigger, Frederick, 17, 23.
Black, Russell VanNest, v, 13, 23.
Blucher, Walter H., v.
Boston City Planning Board, 84, 85.
Bowers, G. M., 47.
Buttenheim, Harold S., 31, 34.
Central Statistical Board, 128, 131.
Citizen Support for Planning, 164.
City Planning, 3, 7-50.
City Planning, Richmond, 47-50.
Clackamas County, Oregon, 59-65.
Columbia Basin Report, 116.
Comey, Arthur C., 27, 34.
Conference Resolution, 168.
Connell, William H., 166.
Conservation, 97.
County Planning, 53, 54, 59-77.
County Planning, Iowa, 54-58.
Crane, Jacob L., 105.
Dana, Marshall N., 53.
Darling, J. N., 100.
Day, Willard, 95.
DeBoer, S. R., 44.
Delano, Frederic A., v, 25, 154, 162, 163,

165.

Dimock, Marshall E., 105, 111.
Drainage Basin Districts, 142-144.
Dust Storms, 151.
East Georgia Planning Council, 72.
Ebert, Mrs. M. M., 91.
Education, 96.
Eliot, Charles W., 2d., 116.
El wood, P. H., 54.
Emerson, Merton L., 141.
Farny, Major George W., 24.
Federal Emergency Relief Administration,

92.
Federal Employment Stabilization Board,

132, 135.
Federated Societies on Planning and Parks,

154.

Fesler, James W., 112.
Floods, 151.
Florida, 91-94.

Florida State Planning Board, 72, 91, 92.
Fowler, Frederick H., 141.
Freeman, Dr. Douglas S., 95.
Gabrielson, Ira N., 145.
Gaus, John M., 105, 107.
Gimre, Gerald, 75.
Grand Coulee Dam, 37.
Great Plains Region, 109-111, 119.
Grover, N. C., 145.
Hall, Sidney B., 96.

Hall, Wilbur C., 97.

Ham, Clifford W., 35.

Herlihy, Elisabeth M., 81.

Heydecker, Wayne D., 25.

Hodges, Colonel Leroy, 95.

Home Economics, Bureau of, 128, 131.

Hoover, Herbert, 88.

Hopkins, Harry L., 65.

Housing, 13-26.

Hyatt, Edward, 145.

Ickes, Harold L., 138, 154.

Ihlder, John, 22.

Industrial Resources, 126-131.

Inter-County Planning, 72-77.

James, Harlean, v.

Labor Statistics, Bureau of, 128, 131.

Legislative Planning, 101, 102.

Lohmann, Karl, 111.

Lorimer, Frank, 123.

Markham, Major General Edward M., 145.

Mason City, 37.

Massachusetts, 81-87.

Massachusetts State Planning Board, 81,
82.

Maverick, Maury, 149.

McCormick, J. Rossa, 24.

McFarland, J. Horace, 165.

Mclntosh, Henry T., 72.

McNary, Charles L., 65.

Means, Gardiner C., 126.

Menhinick, Howard K., v.

Merriam, Dr. Charles E., 7, 154.

Messick, Charles P., 94.

Milwaukee Planning Commission, 40, 42,
43.

Mitchell, Wesley C., 154.

Moses, Robert, 34.

National Capital Park and Planning Com-
mission, 163.

National Conference on City Planning, 165.

National Plan, 153.

National Planning, 123-145.

National Recovery Administration, 107.

National Resources Board. See National
Resources Committee.

National Resources Committee, 2, 7, 35, 38,
73, 83, 86, 98, 100, 105, 112, 113, 115,
116, 117, 125, 126, 127, 130, 138, 139,
149, 153, 154, 163.

New England Regional Planning Commis-
sion, 83, 117.

New Jersey, 94-95.

New Jersey State Planning Board, 94, 95.

Nolen, John, 24.

Northeast Tennessee Regional Planning
Commission, 76.

Odum, Howard W., 108, 111.

Ohio Valley Regional Planning Commis-
sion, 119.

Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Com-
mission, 53.

Page, John C., 145.

Peery, George C., Governor of Va., 157.

Philadelphia Tri-State District, 164.

Planning. See City, State, Regional and
National Planning.

Population, 121-125.

169

170

PLANNING PROCEEDINGS

Public Roads, Bureau of, 92.

Public Works, 132-138.

Public Works Administration, 118, 132, 134.

Reclamation Service, 38, 65.

Regional Planning, 105-119.

Renner, George T., 105.

Resettlement Administration, 38, 42, 90,

125.

Ronald, W. R., 87.
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 87, 151.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 151, 153.
Saville, Thorndike, 145.
Schnepfe, Fred E., 132.
Segoe, L., 7, 22, 25.
Shands, William R., 101.
Social Science Research Council, 128.
South Dakota State Planning Board, 87.
Stanbery, V. B., 59.
State Planning, 81-101.
State Planning, South Dakota, 87-90.
Stoll, L. C., 59.
Supreme Court, 70, 113.
Swan, Herbert S., 23.
Tarbett, R. E., 145.
Tate, Thomas R., 145.
Tennessee Counties, 75-77.
Tennessee Valley Authority, 113, 152.
Tilton, L. Deming, 3.
Tolley, H. R., 68.
Treadway, C. B., 91.

Unwin, Sir Raymond, 162.

Urbanism, 7-11.

Urbanism, Research Committee on, 7.

Virginia, 95-102.

Virginia Commission on Conservation and

Development, 97, 101.
Virginia State Planning Board, 95, 97, 101,

161.

Wagner, Robert F., 132.
Wallace, Henry A., 68.
Wallerstein, Morton L., 95, 149.
Water Pollution, 114, 115.
Water Resources, 138, 139, 141.
Water Resources Committee, District Field

Staffs, 141-145.
Water Resources Committee, Personnel,

145.

Wells, Oris V., 69.
Wetherill, Samuel P., Jr., 64.
Williams, Frank B., 31.
Wilson, M. L., 68.
Wolman, Abel, 138, 145.
Woodward, Sherman M., 145.
Works Progress Administration, 65, 84, 86,

93, 128, 141.
Zoning, 27-36, 48.
Zoning Appeals, Board of, 49.
Zoning Ordinances, 27-31.
Zoning, Table of Bulk Restrictions, 32.
Zoning, Table of Density Restrictions, 33.