EPILOGUE

241 a dramatically better result for those whose poverty leaves them with an intense need for additional market goods. It would also be better for the ecofreak. Even the safety-freak may possibly be made to feel more secure with reform than with stoppage of growth; any change has risks, including a shift to a mix of output with more environmental quality, but would these be greater than those associated with the loss of productive capacity and the risks of exacerbated distributional conflict and political warfare in a nogrowth society? There are, after all, no utterly risk-free options for any individual or society.

The all-out sociofreaks and the psychofreaks, it is true, should not be expected to agree, and must not be ignored just because they are outnumbered. But true or properly reformed growth can, at least potentially, promise something for them as well. With the sweeter fruits of true growth, with more of what is wanted by the many, it is possible to compensate the losers yet leave the gainers better off than they would have been without growth; the majority who enjoy the fruits of reformed growth can afford to make some policy concessions to those for whom growth is unpleasant, and still have something extra left for themselves. If this isn't possible, there hasn't been true growth or progress. To be sure, the winners may not, in practice, compensate the losers, but simply exploit their own numerical stength to get what they want for themselves. Yet the point is important, for the fruits of policies that lead to growth are frequently shared, albeit often quite unequally, and the opportunity to let the losers share in them is always there. In a society without growth or progress, by contrast, what the winners in fights over policy won, the losers, inevitably, would lose. So the fights, presumably, would be mighty rough.

THE WASHINGTON CENTER FOR METROPOLITAN STUDIES

1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington DC 20036202/462-4868

March 18, 1976

Senator John Glenn

Room 204 RSOB

Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Glenn:

Thank you for your letter of March 3 and the very helpful summary of the judgments submitted in your Committee's Symposium on "Our Third Century: Directions".

The most useful response we can make to your request for comments on the three basic questions set forth in your letter is the attached summary report on Regional Productivity issued last summer by the Metropolitan Affairs Nonprofit Corporations. This summary reflects the judgment of 300 experienced practitioners and analysts of regional programs in this country addressed directly to the questions your letter presents. The answers as summarized here deal specifically with regional program; but these, as you know, directly affect about two thirds of the Nation's population.

The pertinent conclusions in this report are as follows:

1) The basic initiative for raising public issues must be sought in the private sector; and this requires broad citizen understanding of community issues (the community being the urban region in this case) and of the options in combined public and private programs to deal with them; and

2) the basic responsibility for resolving these issues lies with the public sector; and in the case of urban regions, the basic need is for a policy body capable of adopting and monitoring programs for the community as a whole.

As set forth on page 40-41 of the summary, the report recommends a major national conference in the Spring of 1977

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to adopt and initiate a ten-year program of combined public and private actions aimed at achieving these regional arrangements by the time of the Nation's Constitutional Bicentennial.

If your Committee would like more information on this basic approach to the questions your letter raises, we would be pleased to provide it in writing or in testimony.

Thank you again for giving us the opportunity to comment on your letter.

PS/ec

Coronally,

Peter Schauffle

I am immensely impressed with your letter of March 3, and I
thank you for sending it to me. Its implications are stagger-
ing in light of the contrasts which are easily drawn between
what is being considered by your Committee and what seems to have
been the pattern heretofore. Good luck in your pursuit of "Our
Third Century: Directions".

Being respectful of your time, I'll attempt brief answers to the
splendid questions you've put, in specific context of deep con-
cern for the 'built environment' and 'life quality' inextricably
joined and all-embracing though they are:

However, first allow me to suggest blanket substitution in word and concept of "civilization" for "society". For me at any rate, there's more of a note of urgency in our concern over civilization than in our striving to preserve some system which has become known as "society". I believe it's come to that; civilization embraces societal factors and, of course, lots more.

Question 1: I endorse a stronger role for government in coordinating studies and long-range planning and in conducting the correlative economic impact evaluations which are essential to the process of weighing alternatives. And I feel so strongly in favor of the generalized suggestions of the third paragraph of Question 1 that I wish some of them could be implemented tomorrow. In your letter of invitation to the symposia participants, you imply that interaction with the private sector can bring otherwise obscure talent to the fore; my emphasis toward that same point is that the government, by adapting an overview role, can conserve the vast effort going into sometimes overlapping studies.

PRESIDENT William G. Swain, FASLA

VICE PRESIDENTS. Ralph E. Griswold, FASLA, Margaret Winters, FASLA

SECY-TREAS William D Mullin, ASLA

ASSOCIATES W. Thomas Borellis, ASLA, Leland H. Bull, Jr., ASLA: Walter M Gladkowski, ASLA

STAFF Daniel S. DiMucci, Assoc ASLA, Gerard J. Golofski; Domenick J. Monaco, Assoc. ASLA; David L. Morrow, Assoc. ASLA, Dean J Peterson, Assoc. ASLA

The Honorable John Glenn
March 18, 1976
Page Two

Question 2: There ought to be a body within government constituted for the sole purpose of asking the right long-range questions isolated from the immediacy of "band-aid" problem solving. Question 3: There ought to be other bodies constituted within government to answer those questions and to watch over the activities of those institutions and agencies, public and private, who, of necessity, are tackling the day-to-day functioning of this nation's affairs. Certainly one key objective should aim at the rational avoidance of committments beyond immediate needs except as they fit emerging solutions to long-range goals.

In summary, I feel there must be "A National Foundation for the Purposes of Civilization" and a host of other institutions/programs tied directly with it, some of which are governmental and some private.

We face a growth imperative, yet the old patterns can no longer be justified. The dream must be reconditioned, but the ideal of a life of peaceful prosperity and physical well-being of the individual must not be diluted in the process.

You have inspired confidence that such aims are not beyond us.
With sincere best wishes and appreciation,

P. S. I am quite well aware of the existence of one body which grew out of P. L. 93-426, the "Federal Advisory Committee on National Growth Policy Processes", chaired by Mr. Arnold A. Saltzman. In the private sector, originated by the American Institute of Architects joined then by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), there is the "National Forum on Growth Policy". Time doesn't allow a full explanation of the make-up of this organization, but I enclose a copy of a memorandum issued quite recently announcing an important meeting of the Forum on Monday, April 12, 1976 followed by another, broader meeting on April 13. I am confident the leadership of the Forum would welcome your attendance. By copy of this letter to Mr. Lane Marshall of the ASLA, I'm suggesting that he contact you in this regard.