aspo 1313 East Sixtieth Street Chicago Illinois 60637 Phone 312. 947.2560 American Society of Planning Officials March 11, 1976 The Honorable John Glenn Dear Senator Glenn: Thank you for telling me of the February symposium on the government's role in setting long-term goals and strategies. And thank you for soliciting my views on the subject. My organization has been immersed in planning for the more than four decades of its existence. Our work has been overwhelmingly in the service of people responsible for local community planning--typically done by the city planning commissions of the country. States and metropolitan areas have now become more active in planning for their development. We have worked with many departments of the government, with private foundations and with other associations, particularly on research into land-use planning and other aspects of public planning. I agree with the assessment of our national situation in your symposium letter of invitation. It is very well put. I agree also with the consensus that you report on Questions 1 and 2. I think it more important to stress such basic agreement than to report any differences on details. Your third question addresses specific alternative remedies in changing or creating institutions. I agree that something new is needed; that it should be permanent and not a shortterm commission; and that it should cut across all governmental programs in the way OMB does. It should not be an agency paralleling other advisory boards or councils, They are either specialized or short-range. The planning body should be general and long-range. It should not be an expansion of an existing agency, such as the Council of Economic Advisors, or it will be at least flavored, at most captured, by a special mission. A more appropriate marriage would be the Council of Economic Advisors with the proposed Economic Planning Board. It should not be located as a detached-from-political-responsibility unit. The Smithsonian suggestion strikes me as an example of too much detachment. It should be directly responsible to elected people. This need for responsibility would suggest also avoiding a joint creation of two, or all three, branches of government. The recent history of federal budgeting is relevant. For the President, a planning agency paralleling OMB, but much smaller, an Office of Planning, would discharge this function. His other advisory offices--OMB, National Security Domestic Council--are occupied with the shorter-run. While they are broader than the administrative departments, each still is more specialized in mission than a planning agency must be. The same considerations that led Congress to establish a Congressional Budget Office would lead to a Congressional Planning Office. I am not suggesting an alternative instrument but the simultaneous establishment of both an Office of Planning in the White House and a Congressional Planning Office. The central objective of civic understanding and public participation will be better served if the planning views of the executive and legislative branches are separately formulated and harmonized in public. Each of these basic responsibilities--of these two branches--requires the aid of a planning arm. I envision both the Executive Office of Planning and the Congressional Planning Office as lean operations with no private funding. They should not undertake to duplicate the studies and research performed by others. There is not a shortage of public and private contributors to what we must know. Associations, foundations, universities, consultants, institutes, laboratories and academies abound to supplement what research is done within government. The planning offices would do better to monitor the quality of research needed to support their functions and to stimulate others in filling whatever gaps are perceived. This view is not based upon a formal study of ours nor upon systematic discussion of our members. I would be delighted to participate in any testing of it or of the many other good alternatives that may come to you. I have two more general comments to offer and two invitations to make. One comment has to do with opposition to the notion of planning--more accurately, to the word "planning." Such opposition has been apparent in debate on federal assistance to state land-use planning. It is also apparent in responses to the Humphrey-Javits initiative on economic planning. Opponents articulate a fear of that kind of centralized planning that extinguishes decisions made by individuals, by localities, by private enterprises, by families and groups. I do not favor that kind of planning either. But planning, like government itself, can be cast in the image of our choosing. The planning is being done in any case. I believe many opponents of the word are not really objecting to the activity but to a reform of the activity. They like the results of planning as now done. The second comment is that we attend the lessons of other planning experiences we have had. The National Resources Planning Board of the 1930's and up to 1942 left us a great deal that is still worth study. The Muskingum Conservancy District, as you know, is a valuable example. The two invitations. Our national planning conference, together with AIP's, happens in a few days in Washington. A copy of the preliminary program is enclosed. If you or any of your staff would find it useful, our staff will be prepared to receive you. (In the Conference Speaker's Reception Room: The Vinson Room of the Sheraton-Park Hotel.) The second. We have just published a book on urban policy designed to stimulate discussion. A copy is enclosed for your interest. (The information referred to may be found in the files of the committee.) Box 349 Bridgehampton, N.Y. 11932 12 March, 1976 Hon. John Glenn United States Senator Committee on Government Operations Washington, D.C. 20501 Dear Senator Glenn: Thank you very much for including me on your mailing list for comments on the symposium, Our Third Century-Directions. . One of the major difficulties we face as a society in trying to introduce concepts of planning and efficient decision making is that many of the really serious issues remain taboos because of political reality. The assumption that underlies most of the planning symposiums now being carried on is that the private sector in fact dominates the economy and that we will always have a free economy. I tend to support the view that a dynamic private sector is vital to the survival of human freedom and technological innovation, but I think that we would be on much healthier ground if our leadership faced up to the ultimate necessities of major nationalizations at home and accommodations with revolutionary goverments abroad. As of the moment, there is no leadership attempting to define these realities to the American people, who are falling prey to a bad kind of leadership which is misleading them and creating serious problems at home and abroad. In short, someone with stature must break the ice in a responsible way, not blaming big business or the labor unione, or the environmentalists, or any interest group, but calling attention to the fact that the government will increase its role in our economy in the years ahead to such an extent that our differences with other social systems will substantially decrease. I also think that a much greater effort should be made to include citizens on the local level with planning efforts. Because this is not the case, there is a great deal of suspicion that planning is just another way of eroding democracy further. I would like to see many mini-symposiums all over the country that involved community leaders from all walks of life as a prelude to the introduction of more sophisticated planning by the government. With all best wishes. Sincerely, Richard Richard Cummings Thank you very much for your communication of March 8, 1976, inviting me to submit my views on questions concerned with national economic planning in the United States. The subject of national economic planning is of deep interest to me, and it would be my pleasure to address myself to the questions raised in your letter. Since it will take some time to send you my comments on these questions, in the interim I am sending two papers that I have prepared on the subject. With regards. SCJ:10 69-838 0-76-28 Yours sincerely, BulGashfain Subhash C. Jain Associate Professor |