Recreation for metropolitan America - Chapter 10

Parks & Recreation, Sept, 2002

As long as people have clustered together in built-up communities, local governments--city and county--have been concerned with the provision of outdoor recreation for their citizens. In the U.S., it dates back to the village green of colonial New England, which has remained a landmark in cities like Boston, Hartford, Providence and New Haven.

Throughout the country, as the population density has increased, so has concern for outdoor recreation. Rural communities faced few difficulties since fishing streams, swimming holes, open fields for games and woods for hunting were not far from Main Street. But as the open fields were replaced by houses, factories and stores, and the swimming holes became polluted, problems mounted. Opportunities previously taken for granted as a part of the natural environment had to be consciously planned for--or lost. And as population centers grew in size and number, there was a corresponding increase in the demand for outdoor recreation.

Massive urbanization is a very recent phenomenon. In the 1880s, there were only four cities in the world with a population of over 1 million. In 1960, there were 6 cities and 16 other metropolitan areas in the U.S. alone with populations exceeding 1 million. Only 14 states were more than 50 percent urban in 1910; in 1960, there were 40. By the year 2000, approximately 73 percent of the country's inhabitants, or 250 million people, will live in metropolitan areas compared with 63 percent, or 113 million people, in 1960, and 35 percent, or only 43 million people, in 1930. In 1960, the Los Angeles-Long Beach standard metropolitan statistical area had a population of 6.7 million. It is expected almost to triple to 17 million by 2000, (1) a startling contrast to 1900, when only 102,500 lived in the city of Los Angeles. (2)

As cities spill out into suburbs and metropolitan areas are formed, they blend together into a "megalopolis." This interlocking will produce chains of heavily populated, built-up regions, each radiating from a central urban core. Across the country, large belts of populated areas will emerge. In the East, there will be a single urbanized tract extending from Portland, Maine, to Norfolk, Va. A Midwestern urban complex stretching from Detroit to Cleveland may extend eastward through a chain from Lake Erie along the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys and intersect the Atlantic population belt. (3)

It is not the growth itself that is the problem, but the pattern of growth. Even with the great expansion to come, there will still be a certain amount of open space within the urban areas. Because the pattern of development has been left largely to the speculative builder, it has been scattered all over the countryside--an unguided sprawl in which 10 acres have sometimes been used to do the work of one, or one acre to do the work of 10. In this leapfrogging process, open space may be left behind, but it is not effective open space; often, it is an agglomeration of bits and pieces too small or too poorly sited to use well--the residue of expired choices. What is done about shaping urban growth, then, will very largely determine the kind of outdoor recreation that will be provided for the bulk of the people.

RESPONSIBILITY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Local government has an important responsibility for providing adequate outdoor recreation opportunities. Almost every community has suitable resources: small parks; places where nature is not disturbed and where grass, trees and bushes grow, and people can walk, play or picnic; a marsh with cattails, small mammals and waterfowl; a clear river, stream or pond where people can swim, fish or boat. But many of these features are giving way to the housing subdivision, the industrial plant, the highway, the airport or the shopping center.

The loss of natural assets narrows the opportunities for physical exercise or escape from the tensions of urban living. But thoughtful and effective local land-use planning, zoning and programming can often restore to a community, regardless of its size or location, the natural features that contribute so much to making an urban environment a better and healthier place.

Recommendation 10-1: Outdoor recreation should be an integral element in local land-use planning.

Planning for public recreation must be as systematic as planning for schools, roads and municipal water. This objective can be met by giving full recognition to outdoor recreation in local comprehensive land-use plans. Through long-term planning, schedules of priorities and of investment requirements can be prepared.

In order to be effective, planning must have active community support. The public must be convinced of the need for both taking full advantage of existing public areas and facilities, and acquiring new ones.

There are some highly encouraging signs. There has been a marked acceleration of local planning efforts; in almost every urbanized state, planning is becoming a more important function. Many of the people involved in these efforts, furthermore, are beginning to give recreation a higher priority than in the past. In their eyes, the areas assigned to recreation are not only valuable in themselves; they are equally valuable as a basic framework for shaping and channeling the area's growth. These areas can often serve several purposes in addition to recreation. A marsh can serve as a sponge for flood protection, as a wildlife sanctuary, as a place for nature study and for hunting, and as a visual contrast to congested areas. Preservation of stream valleys can provide a region with a series of recreation areas as has been possible in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area under the Capper-Cramton Act, which provides federal assistance to communities in and around the capital for stream valley acquisition.