{or insttutionalizing the process wes pr anted. But, in 1969, while many people ‘Mebeptad the proposition Design With Ne- ture there was no legislation empowering ‘or requiring ecological planning. Undoubt Guay the book contributed to the develop: Trent of a myriad of enactments. Now the ‘Huston is vastly diferent and it isthe new legislation which provides this book with an tnlarged purpose. It has contributed to our ‘xpanded ecological sensibility; many of ts hopes end dreams have been realized. But the power to employ ecological planning tom national to local scales has sccumy: lated slowly. Serious omissions remain, no- tably the fragmentation of environmental Sciences and the plethora of responsible in Stitutions, but there are now innumerable ‘ppertunties to employ the method. And so the reissue of Design With Nature has oc: curred at a most propitious moment, when, atlas, it can be widely employed, and with ‘widespread and beneficent consequences. ‘This opportunity is undoubtedly favorable, for the recognition ofthe challenge has been synchronized with expanded opportunities to achiove a remedy. Certainly the diminu- tion of nuclear war end nuclear winter hos primacy: next, the escalation of the global ‘envionment in the world's agenda, and f hay, the armory of prostheses, developed for nuclear war, eatlites, sensors, com puters and modela, are now capable of ad Sressing glabal end regional environments! problems. A dream in 1969, it is now 2 practical possibilty “The task of writing @ new Design With Na- ture involved a reappraisal. Which quotation best expressed the intont of the work? In ‘my opinion, the prayer, which, after 20 ‘years, I can complete ‘Matter, ofthis isthe cosmas, sun, earth and life made ‘sun, shine thet we may lve Earth—home Oceans—anciont home ‘Atmosphere, protect and sustain us Clouds, rain, rivers and streams, replenish ‘us from the sea Plants—lve and breathe that we may breathe, eat and live Animals, kin Decomposers, reconstitute the wastes of life and death so that life may endure. Man, seek the path of benign planetary en ‘zyme, aspire tobe the werld's physician. Heal the earth nd thysel In September 1990, President Bush ‘awarded me the National Medal of Art, at (which time he stated "I hope that in the 2Yet century the largest accomplishment of ‘art wil be to restore the earth.” Let us not only hope but resolve to do 80. Let us green the earth, restore the earth, heal the earth. ‘May Design With Nature be a primer fr this contorprise 80, | commend Design With Nature to your Sympathetic consideration. The tile con- taine a gradiont of meaning. It can be inte preted #8 simply descriptive of a planning frethod, deferential to places and peoples, tt can invoke the Grand Design, it can ery pasize the conjunction with and, finaly it tan be read a8 an imperative. DESIGN WITH NATURE! JAN L. McHARG September 1997 Introduction “There is stil only a small shelf of books that deals with man’s relation to his environ ment as a whole: not only with the so-called physical universe of the planets and the Stars, the rocks and the soil and the seas, but with the creatures that inhabit the farth-all the forces. and animate beings thet have helped to make man himself what his: This part of man's knowledge of him tif was slow to develo; forthe early Greek thinkers tonded either to examine man in isolation, orto examine nature without not ing the presence of man: as if any part of it Could be understood except through the in Struments and symbols that the humsn ind provided, for purposes thet in one way Gr another furthered man’s own existence Design With Nature is @ notable addition to the handful of important texts that besin, fat least in Western tradition, with Hippoc fates’ famous medical work on Airs, Waters land Places: the first public recognition that man's life, in sickness and in health, is hound up withthe forces of nature, and that ature, so far from being opposed and con- ‘quored, must rather be treated as an ally Stood, and whose counsel must be re Spocted. Parts of this tradition were kept Alive later by the madieal profession it only because ignorant voletions of nature ae so uickly penalized by physical disorders; but though efforts to overcome infectious and z= contagious diseases somatimes resulted in ‘small environmental improvements, these countermeasures di little 9 establish 9 healthy workin relationship between man and his environment, which aid justice t all the latent possiblities for maintaining and fenhancing ‘human fe. Despite nature's ‘many earlier warnings, the pollution and de- Struction of the natural environment. has {gone on. intensively and extensively fr the fast tee hundred years, without awaken ing a sufficient reaction: and while indus taization and urbanization have trans- formed the human habitat, it is only during the last half century that any systematic ef {ort has been made to detormine what con- stitutes a balanced and selfrenewing envi fonment, containing al the ingredients necessary for man's biological prosperity, Social cooperation and spivitual stimulation. ‘The name of this effort, insofar asi da ‘upon science, is. “etelogy,"” 9 body of knowledge that brings together so many as pects of nature tha it necessarily came late tipon the scene, lan McHarg, while trainec professionally as a town planner an a land {3s an inopired ecologist: his is @ rind that fot merely looks at all nature end human ‘etivity from the external vantage point of cology, but who likewise sees this world from within, 38a participant and an actor, bringing to the cold, dry, coloress world of science the special contribution that difer fentiates the higher mammals, above al hu man beings, from all other animate things: Vivid color and passion, emotions, feelings. sensitivities, erotic and esthetic delights ‘ll that makes the human mind at its fullest ‘50 immensely superior to a computer, oF 12 tinder dimensioned minds that have adapted ‘themselves toa computer's limitations. Not the least mart of thi book, for llts wealth bf relevant scientific information is that "he ‘who touches it touches aman.” And as an old friend and admiring colleague, | may feven add: What a man! ‘As a competent ecologies! planner, MeHarg isnot only aware ofthe destructive role that rman has often played—from the moment Peking man leerned to use fre—in changing the face of the earth: he is equally awar ‘as many people are at last becoming aware, Of the way in which modern technology, ‘through its hasty and unthinking applica tions of scientific knowledge or of tachnicat feclity, has been defacing the environment and lowering its habitabiity. Necessarily he recaptulates, atone point or another, every fart ofthis dreadful story: the murky torrent Of pesticides, herbicides, detergents and thor chemical pollutants, and radioactive ‘wastes that now insidiously undermines not only man’s life directly, but that of all the Cooperating species with whose well-being Fis own existence is involved. If this bookonly recapitulated this information, MeHaro's inimitable way, it would bo val ble: but it would be only reanforcing whet 2 reat many other contemporaries have been bringing out, both in individual books like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, and co! lective symposia, like Future Environments of North America, to which McHorg hime! contibuted. Fortunately, since his is a planner’s con struetive mind, McHarg goes mach farther: he demonstrates, by taking dificult con crete examples, how this new knowledge may and must be applied to actual environ ments, 10 caring for natural areas, lke ‘swamps, lakes and vers, to choosing site for further urban settioments, to reestab: lishing human norms and fe-urthering ob- Jectives in metropolitan conurbations tke the Philadelphia area ho by now knows so Wl tis in this mixture of scientific insight {and constructive environmental design, that this book makes its unique contribution In establishing the necessity for conscious intention, for ethical evaluation, for orderiy ‘organization, for deliberate esthetic expres: ‘sion in handing every part of the environ ‘ment, McHara's emphasis is not on either design or nature by itself, but upon the preposition with, which implies human co- ‘operation and biological partnership. He Seeks, not arbitrary to impose design, but ‘0 use tothe fullest the potentialities —and ‘nit them, necessarily, the restrictive con ditions that nature offers. So, too, in em- bracing nature, he knows that man’s own mind, which I part of nature, has some thing precious to add that isnot to be found fat uch a high point of development in raw ature, untouched by man. ‘One cannot predict the fate of such a book fs this, But on its intrinsic merits ! would put tan the same shelf that contains as yet fnly a handful of works in ® similar vein, beginning with Hippocrates, and including ‘uch essential clasics as those of Henry Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh, Patrick Goddes, Cort Sauer, Benton MacKaye, and Rachel Carson. This is not abook tobe hast ily read and dropped: its rather a book to live with, to absorb slowly, and to return to, ‘a8 one’s own experience and knowledge in {reases, Though it isa call to action, itis rat for those who believe in “crash pro- frame” or instant solutions: rather, i lays 8 fresh course of stones on 9 ground plan ‘ready in being. Here are the foundations for 9 civiization that will replace the pol luted, bulldozed, machine-dominated, do- humanized, explosion threstened world that is even now disintegrating and disappearing before our eyes. In presenting us with a vie sion of organic exuberance and human do: light, which ecology and ecological design promise to open up for us, McHarg revives the hope for a better world. Without the permission and courage and confident skill ff people like McHarg that hope might fede and disappear forever. Lewis MUMFORD Contents Preface Introduction . City and Countryside Sea and Survival The Plight... is [A Stop Forward 5 ‘The Cast and the Capsule Natur in the Metropolis On Values | Response of Values ‘The World is @ Capsule... Processes as Values P ‘The Naturalists ‘The River Basin he Metropolitan Region Process and Form ‘The Clty: Process and Form he City: Health and PathologyThe world i # glorious bounty. There ie more food than can be eaten if we would cherished, there are more beautiful girls than fan bo dreamed of, more children then we fan love, more laughter than can be endured, ‘more wisdom than can be absorbed. Canves land pigments lie in wait, stone, wood and etal are ready for sculpture, random noise tities, institutions lie in the solve our most intractable problems, para bles of moving power remain unformulated and yet, the word sfinally unknowable, How can we reap this bounty? This book is 2 modest inquiry into this subject, It ie my imple plan for man in nature t submits the est evidence that | have been able to let, but since evidence tends to be too beak first of those adventures which have loft their mark and instigated this search | spent my childhood and adolescence squarely between two diametrically dierent environments, the poles of man and nature [Almost ten miles fom my home lay the city Of Glasgow, one ofthe mast implacable test. aments to the city of toll in all of Christen its pall on the eastern horizon was it by the flames of the blast furnaces, 2 Turmer fantasy made real To the west the lovely Firth of Clyde widen: ed down its estuary to the Atlantic Ocean and the distant Paps of Jura. Due south lay the nearest town, Clydebank, birthplace of the Cunarders, Empress of Britain and ‘Queen Mary, the giants of the British Navy, Hood end King George V. It could be seen a5 4 distant forest of derricks, the raled hullsof ships in the making, the separate plumes fof factory chimneys silhouetted against the Renfrew Hil. In the other direction, to the north, farm- lands folded upward to the Old Kilpatrick Hills and beyond to the purple distance of the Campses. During all of my childhood and youth there were two clear paths from my home, the one penetrating further and further to the city and ending in Glasgow, the ether moving deeper into the countryside to the final wi domes of the Western Highlands andisiands. ‘The 108d to Glasgow lay downtill, soon reaching the shipyards and the factories of ‘the Clyde where men built their dreams and pride into ships. The road was an endless secession of four. and six-story tenements, ‘once red, now black sandstone. From thei roofs rose the gray green sulfur smoke of coal fires, litle shops and corner pubs front ed the street for the full ten miles. Neither sunlight nor sociability ever redeemed this path. There was courepe and. kindlines ‘enough but they were barely visible. What ‘ever pleasure might wait at the terminus, the route to Glasgow and much of the ety was a rnoplace, despondent, dreary beyond des ciption, grimy, gritty, squalid, enduringly ‘ugly and dspiriting. ‘The other route was alo lesned incremen- tally; ech year 1 walked out 9 few miles more. But the first adventures were near the doorstep. Heavy, fetlacked Clydesdale brindled Ayrshire cows, wheat and barley field which fist flowered with erimson pop. pes or mustard, stables and byres, hawthorn hedges with brambles and wild roses. The next realm was the Black Woods, not ‘more than a mile away. Clay drumlins and small forests, meadows and marshee—the bum, never more than 2 foot deep, ten times 1 wide. Further yet was Craigalion Loch land the firepot where hikers and climbers tet, the Devil's Pulpit and the Pots of Gar. ‘ess where the salmon leat, as far from my home as Glasgow was. Beyond lay Balmaha and Loch Lomond and then, much later in ‘aoleconce, Glencoe and Loch Rannoch, Lismore and Mul, Staffa and lona, the Western Isles My experience of the city during this period was colored by the fact tht the Depression Of the thirties hed made poverty pervasive and strippad the pride of many 3 man, But ‘even in these sad times there were some splendid events, the circus in the Kelvin Hall, & procession of pipe bands, cheering Scottish soccer vitory with over a hundred thousand at Hampden and the great launches: the most memorable being the 534 that becane the Queen Mary, AS the ship slid down the stocks, the great chains raid 8 cloud of rust red smoke, became taut and Whipped the anchoring tugs clear from the water and the leviathan slid into the Clyde. There wer also theatres and dances, choir concerts, momings spent drawing the sculp- ture in the Art Galleries ity light reflected in wet pavements, departures from the reat railway stations. But these, a¢ | remember ‘them, were interludes ina ray impresion of ‘loom and dreary ugliness. In contrast the other path was always exil rating and joy could be found in quite small events, the certainty of e still trout seen in the shadow of a bridge, the salmon leaping or a stag glimpsed fleetingly, the lambing, climbing through the clouds to the sunlight above, 2 cap ful of wild strawberries or blae- berries, me back from the Spanish Civil War at the firesot oF a lift from an American tourist in a Packard! convertible, Now in spite of the excoriation of Glasgow this memoir is not the catalogue of an evolv Ing prejudice in fevor of the country and ‘against cities | knew Edinburgh well and ‘was moved by both its medieval and 18th century. neighborhoods. No, this is a re sponse to a simple choice between the env fonment of industrial toil which Glasgow represented and a beautiful countryside, both equally accessible. There ae cities that produce more stimulus and delight than ean be borne, but it is are when they are prod lets of the industrial revolution or its after ‘math. | wish to bring alive the experiences which have nurtured my attitudes and bred my quest. Is certain that given my choices, opted for the countryside, f ‘more delight and challenge, meaning wards than | could elsewhere. Yet, the city as my place of work, my profes sional challenge. If we can’ create the humane ety, rather than the ety of bondage 1 toil, then the choice of city oF country- side will be between two excellences, each indispensable, each different, both comple. mentary, beth lifeenhancing, Man in Nature. When atthe age of sixteen | found that there might be a possibility of spending 2 life siving to others the benison which nature {gave to me, and that this was called land: scape architecture, | accepted the opportun- ity with enthusiasm. Nobody needed this ‘more than the inhabitants of the city of bondage tothe mechine. But the practic of this profession proved to be 3. thwarting experince. There wore few who believed in the benison, few who believed in the impor. tance of nature in man's worl, few who would design with nature 1 have found that it has beon my instincts that have directed my paths and that my reason is employed after the fect, to explain where | find myself. Hindsight discerns 2 common theme, astonishingly consistent. {spent the autumn and winter of 1943 ond the following spring as an officer with the 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade Group in Italy. The episode began badly with the sinking of the Abdiel, vanguard of the in ‘asion at Taranto; this was followed by a period behind the lines as protector and ropairerinchief of the great Acquedotto Pugliese and then declined into more norm patterns in the winter battle of the Fiume Sengco which culminated in the bloody bat te of Cassin, “The heart ofthis grim episode was spent in the great valley which runs from the Monte Maiella and the Gran Sasso dtalia to the Adriatic 1 was here thatthe allied offensive was halted by snow and mud and the batle settled into a pattern of patrols and Skirishes. The vilages of Lama del Pelign, Posgiotiorite, Crechio, Avelt were progres: sively reduced to rubble by bombardmer from the towering German positions in Guerdiagrele and Orsogna, perched on the ‘commanding escarpment. “The days were hideous with shelling, bomb: Jing. and nebelwerfers, patrolling was con: ducted by right in the desperate flares of Verey pistols in the pervasive smell of dead ules, chioride of lime and high explosives. Life was an incessant succesion of smal en- ‘ements, dead and wounded, shells, mines, barbed wire and shrapnel, machine gun and mortar, rifle, carbine and grenades. Through it all ran the manic stuttering of the mg34 fand 42 and the conservative hammering of the British Bren. The few Italian civilians Ccowered in rubble basements, the combat fants were barely distinguishable in muddy (Featcosts; heroism wae commonplace, the (rentst virtue was the ability to endure Day after week after month it continued, no sleep by day, engagements by night, col, wet and muddy, living in one and then tion became serious, “bomb happy" was a normal malaise, the ranks thinned, the time would surely come, 1 was ridiculous to expect to survive. But, Uunimaginably came the reprieve of two weeks! leave. | chose to spend this, not in the established eave centers of Naples, Bari ‘OF Brindisi, but at the Albergo Palumbo in Ravello, high on the Sorrento Penisula Here was peace absolute, the only noises were the sound of footsteps on the stone floors, the whispering of servants, the ringing fof church bells, the calls of the Vendor. The smells were of baked t sitic and pasta, Near to the piazza ‘arden. From this, perched on cliff ‘could be szen the alittaring bay and the road snaking down the mountain coast, Amalfi and Positano, the © Esmeralda, | sailed the bay in a Mon long days tacking in the silence of Lntheeatening noises, win in the sails, fon the hl, ‘This vas the rural shires of Dunbarto Argyll in. Mediterranean guise. Her ‘equanimity and health After the war | spent four years at H where | received assurances that | was fessional landscape architect and city fer. Immediately 1 returned 10 Sc Setermined to practice my faith upo fenvironment of drudgery that isthe Side. I returned to my home for th ‘unhurried, nostalgic rediscovery of thi in over 2 decade. Nearest were the Woods, only 2 few square miles in a fof greet richnese-2ome low hills cove forest, the burn, marshes with 3 ‘orchid, fields of buttercups, rock out some gorse, broom and heather, Sco ‘and larch, copses of beech edged with and ich, thorns and laburnur, cl bracken, The burn had familiar stones, overhangs where small trout af breasted minnows lived, shaded by cosiers and willows, Whitewashed str houses sat squarely with their out and old trees marking the ridges. Larks nested in the meadow, curl plough, weasels, stoats and badgers I the hedgerows. there’ were red fox squirrels and hedgehogs, grouse fle heather underfoot. It was a myriod p for most of the shadowed and silent, but in Springere the salmon lespt, 2s fr from my S Glasgow wes. Beyond lay Balmsha eh Lomond and then, much later in Glencoe and Loch Rannoch, ‘nd Mall, Staffa and lone, the ses. erence of the city during this period bred by the fact that the Depression thirties had made poverty pervasive ppd the pride of many @ man. But these sad times there were some J events, the crcusin the Kelvin Hall, sion of pipe bands, cheering a soccer victory with over 3 hundred nd at Hampden and the grest the mast memorable being the 524 pame the Queen Mary. As the ship the stocks, the great chains raised ‘of rust red smoke, became taut and 1 the anchoring tugs clear from the nd the leviathan slid into the Clyde vere also theatres and dances, choi , mornings spent drawing the sculp he Art Galleries, city lights reflect avernents, departures from the great stations. Gut these, as | remember ore interludesin a gray impression of nd dreary ugliness ast the other path was ahways exh nd joy could be found in quite small the certainty of a still vout seen in Jow of a bridge, the simon leaping a glimpsed fletingly, the lambing, | through tho clouds to the sunlight cap fal of wild strawberries or bloe- men back from the Spanish Civil Wer irepot or a lift from an American na Packard convertible, Spite ofthe excoriation of Glasgow noir fs not the catalogue ofan evo udice in favor of the country and cities. 1 knew Edinburgh well anc red by both its medieval and 18th neighborhoods. No, this is @ te o.a simple choice between the env: of industrial toi! which Glasgow ted end a bewutiful courtrysie, both equally acessible. Thare ae cites that produce more stimulus and delight than can be borne, but i is rere when they are prod ucts of the industrial revolution or its after rath. | wish to bring alive the experiences Which have nurtured my attitudes and bred my quest tis certain that given my choices, opted for the countryside, finding there ‘more delight and challenge, meaning an re ‘wards thon | could elsewhere, Yet, I chose the city as my place of work, my profes: sional chollenge, If we can create the humane city, rather than the ety of bondage 1 tol, then the choige of ety oF country- side will be between two excelencrs, each Indispensable, each different, both comple. mentary, both lifeeahancing. Manin Nature \When at tho ago of sitoon I found that there ight be a possibility of spending « life ving to others the benizon which nature gave to me, and that this was ealled land- scape architecture, | accepted the opportun- ity’ with enthusiasm. Nobody needed this ‘more than the inhabitants of the city of bondage to the machine. But the practice of this profession proved 0 be 2 tharting ‘experience. There were few who believed in ‘the benison, few who believed the impor. tance of nature in man’s word, few who would design with nature | have found that it has been my instinets that have directed my paths and that my reason is employed aftor the fact, to exp where I find myself, Hindsight discerns @ common theme, astonishingly consistent. | spent the autumn and winter of 1943 and the following spring as an officer with the 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade Group in Hay, The episode bogan badly with the sinking ‘of the Abdel, vanguard of the in- vasion at Taranto; this was fellowed by 2 period ‘behind the lines as protector and Tepsire.inchiet of the great Acquedotto Pugliese and then declined into more normal patterns in the winter battle of the Fiume Sengro which culminated in the bloody bot te of Cassino, “The heart of this grim episode was spent in the great valley which runs from the Monte Maicla and the Gran Sasso c'Italia to the Aadtiatic. It was here thatthe allied offensive was halted by snow and mud and the battle settled into 2 pattern of patrols and skirmishes. The villages of Lara del Peli, Posiifiorito, Crechio, Ariel were progres sively reduced t0 rubble by bombardment from the towering German positions in Gusrdiagrele ond Orsogna, perched on the ‘commanding escarpment. The days were hideous with shelling, bom’ Ing and nebelwerfers, patrolling was con ducted by night in the desperate flares of Verey pistols, in the pervasive smell of dead mules, chiride of lime and high explosives. Life was an incessant succession of small en gegerents, dead and wounded, shells, mines, barbed wire and shrapnel, machine gun and mortar, rifle, carbine and grenades. Through it all ran the manic stuttering of the ma24 and 42 and the consewative hammering of the British Bren. The few Italian civilians cowered in rubble basements, the combat ants vere barely distinguishable in muddy ‘reatcoais; heroism was commonplace, the (greatest virtue was the ability to endure. ay after week after month it continued, no Sleep by day, engagements by night, cold, wet end_muddy, living in one and then nother hole; the attrition became serious, “bomb happy” was. @ normal malaise, the ranks thinned, the time would surely come, it was ridiculous to expect to survive. But, Lunimaginably came the reprieve of two weeks’ leave, | chose to spend this, not in ‘the established lave centers of Naples, Bari fr Brindisi, but at the Albergo Palumbo in Fvello, high on the Sorrento Penisula, Here was pesce absolute, the only noises were the sound of footsteps on the stone floors, the whispering of servants, te ringing fof church bells, the calls of the street vendor. The smells were of baked bread, gic and pasta. Near to the piazza was @ arden. From this, perched on cliff edge, could be seen the glittering bay and Capri, the rad snaking down the mountain to the ‘coast, Amalfi and Positano, the Grotto Esmeralda. | sailed the bay in a Monotip, long days tacking in the silence of sm: Lnthretening noises, wind inthe sail, waves fon the hull This was the rural shires of Dunbarton and Argyll in. Mediterranean guise, Here. wos equanimity and health, After the war I spent four years at Hervard where | received assurances that! was a pro- fessional landscape architoct and city plan net. Immediately | returned to. Scotland determined to practice my Toth upon that environment of drudgery that isthe Clyde side. | returned to my home for the first Lunhurried, nostalgi rediscovery of this land in over a decade. Nearest were the Black Woods, only « few square miles in areo but lof great richnes-rome low hills covered by forest, the burn, marshes with a native orchid, fields of buttercup, rock outerops, some gorse, broom and heather, Seots Pine and larch, copses of beach edged with rowan and birch, thorns and leburnum, chest high bracken. The burn had familiar stepping stones, overhangs where small trout and red breasted minnows lived, shaded by reeds, Csiers and willows. Whitewashed stone farm houses sit squarely with their outbuildings and old trees marking the ridges. Larks nested in the meadow, curl in the plough, weasels, stoats and badgers lived in the hedgerows; there were red foxes, red squirels and hedgehogs, grouse flew from heather underfoot. It wasa myriad place. Is gm was Peel Glen, for most of the year an unremarkable woodland, mainly beech, deep shadowed and silent, but in Spring f wos transformed. As you entered its shade there 12s no quick surprise—only slowly did the radiance of light from the carpet of bluebell enter and suffuse the consciousness, Cyclists from Glasgow gathered armfuls of these, strapped them to their carriers and left 8 trail of wilting beauty back tothe city | came expecting to see it shrunken, for this is the lot of the place revisited, but not to find it obliterated. Yet the City of Glasgow had annexed ths land and made tits own, Each hill had been bulldozed to fill valley, the buen was buried in culverts, tees had been felled, farmhouses and smithy were demolished, every tre, shrub, marsh, rock, fem and orchid, every single vestige of that which had been, was gone. In their stead were uniform four story walkup apartments, seventy feet face to face, seventy feet eck to back, fifteen feet from gabe to gable. The fronts were divided by an asphalt street lined with gaunt sodium lamps, the backs were stamped soil defined by drunken chestnut paling: drying green poles supported the sodden laundry The smear of Glasgow had moved out— taking much and destroying everything, i had given nothing. This wae public invest ‘ment for a perfectly necessry public pur ose, accomplished in the name of architec ture and planning. The reasons for living in this placo wore manifest. It held much, of fered variety and delight. It could well ave bbeen marvelous but the results were other Lark and curlew, grouse ond thrush had gone, the coged canary snd the budgerigar their mere replacements No more fox and bane, squirrel and stot, weasel and hedge hog but now only eat and dog, rats and ni fess. The trout and minnow, newts and tadpoles, caddis and dragonfly are replaced by the goldfish alone; the glory of beech, pine, and larch, the rowan and tabu ‘um, the fields of poppies and buttercups, the ‘uffusion of the bluebell woods are irreplaceable-in the gardens are someesultory loblia and alyssum and sad, brave Drivet shoots. The burn is buried and water ‘how isthe gutter trickle and spit Now housing was urgently required and this was 2 fine place to build some small percep: tion, 2 minimal inoligance, a leavening of art could have made it enchanting, The ploce was complex, but it was made uniform, It had contained many delights, but these were obliterated. It has represented much that people had come for to seek, but this satis faction to the sitt was denied to those who needed it most. | was too late. Memory thet had been pleas ‘ure was now a goed. | returned to Scotland with some dreams, ‘some parchments, 2 wife, son, and pulmon. ‘ry tuberculosis. The Southfield Colony for ‘Consumptives on the outskirts of Edinburgh became my hospital. This had once been 3 private house; the ward where | spent six ‘sweating months must have been the living oom, It had seven windows in front of Which were as many beds. These windows were always open even when this produced snow for pillows on the beds. Frosh air, no ‘matter how cold oF wet, was basic to'the cre. The windows were filthy. Dirty words fof earlier times had been overaid with layers of newer blasphemies. Cellngs are important toa prostrate patient: ‘these were of Italian plaster work, deeply configured, and in thelr recesses were dark Spider webs with collections of ties. The entertainment of the place was to watch the blue tits fly into the room and gorge on these insects. Each morning a jlly fet slut came into the ward, threw handfuls of wet tea leaves upon the floor and brushed the ‘dust into the sir. There was no heat, patients fave their hot water bottles to their brave Visitors who wore threatened not enly with tuberculosis but with chillains. “The spirit of the place was scrd the doctors lived in mutual dislike under @ despotic chief, the staff were sad emblems of the fursing profession, filled with sullen animor ‘ty, There were enough patients in the place who had been there for @ decade or more to Infuse the sick with a quit resignation. The sun never shone, the food was tepid and tasteless, there was litle laughter and less hope. ‘At the end of six months in this pitiful Colony, | nasa miserable, thin, sweating 0p, ressed in discarded iliting pajamas of unlikely hues, my bottom punctured to 2 colander. | sistained a small pocket of sir suppressing the lung siling it to heal but this was not enough. While | was no longer infectious, elaborate and crippling surgery was thought necessary to provide a “cure” Purely by accident | learned that beds in a Swiss sanatorium were meintsined for British Potchutiss. | enquired and found ‘that | was eligible. Ie was possible to escape, and this I must, if only to survive and have the Southfeld Colony for Consumptives gut ted, its staff expelled and a new Institution created, less demeaning to the human spit. “The day of my escape finally arrived and for the first tme in six monthe | washed and shaved myself, stood eect, desed with fare, and when this was Finished | scrtin ined myself to see whether the stigma of consumption was visible, | could not see it bout wondered if others could. 1 felt a small movement in that shriveled prune that was ry spirit My loggage was packed, loaded on to 0 eab, not least a file of X-rays and a most dismal diagnosis and prognosis. | was very ‘weak indeed The journey to London was without inc dent except that it was @ wonder of free ‘dom, From London to Dover the un shone, it was May and the pple orchards were luminous with blossom. The Channel ferry was French | had a lunch that wakened 2 dormant pelate. A man can walk the deck of a steamer holding the handrail without being ‘too conspicuous, and ths I did, marveling at the women, [As soon ae the tain lett Calais dinner was served, and | decid ta invest the lager part (of that sum which British travelers were then permitted t0 take abroad in a sumptuous neal. It was magnificent and | exulted over very single course and slept thereafter a | had not for six months. At Lousonne the train egoin added » restau Fant ea, and to this | went in the morning for breakfast to expend the rest of my subs stance. I ate leisurely, savoring the coffe, ‘one cup and another and yet one more as we pasa Lake Liman, Chinon, the Dents du Midi, white houses inthe sun, geranium in flower boxes, and there was Alig, my station. But my wellbeing was too recent and precious to be dissipated in 2 seramble for luggage so | stayed watching the plat form recede asthe tain moved through the vineyard landscape of the Rhdne Valley. The return journey to Aigle was short but it offered the possibility to test a returning Confidence in some tentative conversations ‘The funicular awaited at Aigle, ready to limb back trom Spring back up to Winter. We left the vivid flower boxes, moved into ‘the young leaves of the terraced vineyards, higher into the spring it meadows and fields of flowers—soon the scant patches of sow began to coalesce and the distant peaks were brilliant white against ® winter sky beyond the dreams of Seatana, ‘At the summit was Leysin and the Hotel Belvedere commanding the vilage below, steep alpine meadows, Yvorne and the folded hills containing Lac Leman. The Dents du Midi shone, their peaks supported fon cloud. | was examined immediately temperature, pulse, blood sedimentation rate, the sad lung peered at through the fuoroscope. But now the record was differ ent! Ina short time | was advised that no surgery was contemplated; there were no rat offusions, blood and temperature Bete normaly abendoned pneumethorex Wend be restated, no confinement to fed was necessary. And 20 for sx lovely Menthe 1 walked and cimbed, the Petite Moon ta Grande Crovese, the Tour GA, tthe naling cow tthe summit, ving Em abelves watching the cages sail below, finding genion ond estos, equanimity eatin ‘This is strong stuff-such an experience et (aves the belief that un and sea, orchards fh bloom, mountains and snow, fields of flowers, speak to the spirit as woll as the flesh, or at lsst they do to me. The instincts that had chosen’ the countryside over Glasgow and its entrails were only confirmed by this experience. Every city hos some testimony to percep ‘tion, intelligence and ert, there are cases of foncern and creation. But that example which | cull from my experience is note worthy because so much is sczomplished by soit. In Scotland when the temperature isos above 75 degrees there i talk of heat waves land the newspapers publish photographs of DPanting polar bear and disheveled penguins Being of this lineage | found the American 1Was on the hottest and most humid of days in 1949 that | found myself in New York examining at first hand those few emblems fof a modern architecture which were ‘thought in Cambridge st that time to be symbols ofthe salvation of the world My companions and | scrutinized the Museum of Modeen Art garden, the United Nations and Lever House as well as other Drojects which almost acquired distinction fand, by the end of the day we were footsore, fired, sweaty, grubby, crumpled and thirsty. We came to the lst project, a brownstone ‘omversion by Philip Johnson. We through the bland facede into @ small ble and immediately left both hes share behind. We moved into a lar handsome living room, the end wall 0 subtending a small court defined by a wing. This was dominated by a poo three stepping stones, « small fount single oralla eee and on the white p brick walls, 2 tondeil of ivy. We stoo narrow terrace beside the pool, savor Silence, then discovering below it th noises of the trickling fountain, dri spleshes, the rustle of the dlicate leaves, seping the reticulated patterns pool, the dappled light. Here. were felfsame precious things, but cons selected and arrayed, sun and shade and water, the small sounds under s ‘What enormous power was exerted by few elemonts in this tiny space. The rot antagonistic to the city or to m indispensable ingredients of ah environment. Equanimity, health and spection could ive here. “These experiences ae personal but fa ‘unique. There are many people wo | nature for meaning and order, pea tranquility, introspection and. st Many more look to nature and acti the outdoors ae the road to restrat health, The best symbol of peace] better be the garden than the dow ‘here are multitudes alive today for the cherished scene of thir forefat their childhood has been dafild or ated in the name of progress. The smaller contingent who have see redeemed by conscience and art ‘We need nature as much inthe city 3 countryside, In order to endure maintain the bounty of that great Copia which is our inhoritance. It that we must Look deep to the val Wwe hold, These must be transformee = rit of the place was acrid; the doctors 1 mutual dislike under a despotic he staff were sad emblems of the profession, filled with sullen animos re were enough patients inthe place been there for a decade oF more to he sick with @ quiet resignation, The Jer shone, the food was tepid and there vas litle laughter and less end of six months in this pitiful ‘was 2 miserable, thin, sweating ag, in discarded ilk fitting psjamas of hues, my bottom punctured to a r | sustained a small pocket of ait ing the lung, sting it to hesl but | not enough: While | was no longer 1s, elaborate and crippling surgery ught necessary to provide a “cure” ay accident I learned that beds in 2 Sanatorium were maintained for Parachutists | enquired and found ble. was possible to escape, | must, if only to survive and have field Colony for Consumptives gut staf expelled and a new institution loss demeaning to the human spe ‘of my escape finally arrived and for time in six months | washed and myself, stood erect, dressed with d when this vas finished 1 scrutin self to ste whether the stigma of tion was visible. | could not se i dered if others could | fet a smal nt in that shriveled prune thet was . My luggage was packed, losded on not least file of Xrays and 2 most iagnosis and prognosis, | was very ce. mey to London was without inc apt that it was a wonder of free- om Londen to Dover the sun shone, May and the apple orchards were swith blossom. The Channel ferry ich; | had a lunch that wakened & palate. A man can walk the deck of Re 2 steamer holding the handrail without being too conspicuous, and ths I did, marveling at the women, AAs toon as the train left Calais dinner was ‘served, and | decided to invest the large port (ofthat sum which British travelers were then permitted 10 take abroad in 2 sumptuous Imaal, It was magnificent and | exulted over every single course and slept thereafter as | had not for six months. 'At Lausanne the tran again seed a restau ‘ant ear, and t0 this | went in the morning for breakfast to expend the rst of my sub stance. | ate leisurely, savoring the coffee, ‘one cup and another ard yet one more as we passed Lake Laman, Chinon, the Dents du Mii, white houses in the sun, geranium in flower boxes, and there wie Aigle, my station. But my wollbeing was too recent and precious to be dissipated n a scramble for luggage so | stayed watching the pat form recede asthe train movee through the vineyard landscape of the Rhéne Valley “The return journey to Aigle wes short but it offered tho possibility to test 9 returning confidence in some tentative conversations. The funicular awaited ot Aige, ready to climb back from Spring back up to Winter. We left the vivid flower boxes: moved into the young leaves of the terraced vineyards, higher into the spring tit meadows and fields of flowers~soon the scant patches of snow began to coalesce and the distart peaks were brillant white against 2 winter sky beyond the dreams of Seotiand. At the summit was Leysin and the Hotel Belvidere commanding the vilage below, steep alpine meadows, Yvorne and the folded hills containing Lac Leman, The Dents du Midi shone, thei peats supported fon cloud. | was examined immediatly — temperature, pulse, blood sedimentation rate, the sad lung peered at through the fluoroscope. But now the record wes differ: lent! In a short time | was advsed that no surgery was contemplated; there were no Prat fists, ood and twnpartrs ete normal my abandoned pemstorax Wet be resnsis, no confnevent 0 Tele recur. And for 3x oly Pept I waked and nbn, tho Pate Tom Ls Grance Crvese, te Tour A pening cove te innit, ng Bets watching te ele sal aon, ase entan ond eel, equity nto “Tis is strong stutf-such an experience en graves the belief that sun and sea, orchards in bloom, mountains and snow, fields of flowers, speak to the spirit as well as the flesh oF st lest they do to me. The instnets that had chosen’ the countryside over Glasgow and is entrails were only confirmed by this experience vary city hos some testimony to percep ‘tion, intlligonce and art, there are cases of feoncern and creation. ut that example Which | cull from my experience Is note ‘worthy because so much is accomplished by rolitte, In Scotland when the temperature rises hove 75 degrees there is talk of heat waves ‘and the nevspapers publish photographs of panting polar bear ond disheveled penguins. Being of this lineage | found the American Simmer to be absolutely intoleableyet it \Was on the hottest and most humid of dave Jn 1949 that | found myself in New York ‘examining at fist hand those few emblems Of a2 modern architecture which were ‘thought in. Cambridge at thot time to be symbols ofthe saWation of the world My companions and 1 scrutinized the ‘Museum of Modern Art garden, the United Nations and Lever House as wel 3s other Brojects which almost acquired distinction land, by the end of the day we were foatsore, tired, sweaty, grubby, crumpled and thirsty We came to the lst project, » brownstone conversion by Philip Johnson, We passed through the bland facade into a small vest boule and immediately left both est and ‘are behind. We moved into a large and handsome living room, the end wall of glass subtending a small court defined by a guest wing. This was dominsted by 8 pool with ‘three stepping stones, 2 small fountain, 2 single arlia tree and on the white painted brick walls, @ tendil of iy. We stood on a narrow terrace beside the pool, svoring the silenes, then discovering below it the small noises of the trickling fountain, drips and slashes, the rustle of the delicate aalia. leaves, seeing the reticulated patterns in the pool, the dappled light. Here were these Selfsome precious things, but consciously Selected and arrayed, sun and shade, trees fand water, the small sounds under silence. What enormous power was exerted by these fow elements in tis tiny space. They were rot antagonistic to the ety or to man but indispensable ingredients of a humane environment. Equanimity, heath and intro spection ould live here. ‘These experiences are personal but far from Lnique, There are many people who look to ature for meaning and order, peace and tranquility, introspection and_ stimulus Many more look to nature and activity in the outdoors as the road to restoration and health. The best symbol of peace might better be the garden than the dove. But there ate multitudes alive today for whom ‘the cherished scene of thei forefathers or their childhood has been defiled or obliter ated in the name of progress. There is 2 smaller contingent who have seen areas roxiomed by conscience and at. ‘We need nature as much in the ety as in the countryside. In order to endure we must maintain the bounty of that great. coro: copia which is our inheritance. It is clear that we must look deep to the values which ‘we hold. These must be transformed if we fare to reap the bounty and ereate that fine ‘isoge for the home of the brove and the land of the fee. We need, not only a better view of man and nature, but a. working method by which the least of us can ensure that the product of his works is not more despoliation, It is not 9 choiee of either the city or the countryside: both are essential, but today it is nature, beleaguered in the country, too ‘scarce in the city which has become proc ious. | ait at home overlooking the lovely Cresheim Valley, the beart of the city only ‘wenty minutes auay, alert to see 2 deer, familiar with the red-talled hawk who rules ‘the scene, enamored ofthe red squirrels, the titmouse and chickadees, the purple finches, ruthatohes and cardinals. Yet each year, responding 10 8 deeper need, | leave this Urban idl for the remoter lands of lake ond forest to be found in northern Canada or the other wilderness of the sea, rocks and beaches where the osprey patrols. ‘This book is a personal testament to the ower and importance of sun, moon, and Stars, the changing seasons, stedtime and harvest, clouds, rain and rivers, the oceans and the forests, the creatures and the herbs ‘They are with us now, corenants of the jphonomenal universe, participating in that timeless yearning that is evolution, vivid &x pression of time pas, essential partners in survival and with us now involved inthe creation ofthe future Our eyes do not divide us from the world, bout unite uswith it, Let this be known to be true. Let us then abandon the simplicity of separation and give unity its due. Let us abandon the seit mutilation whieh has been four way and give expression tothe potential harmony of man-nature. The world is abun. dant, we require only a deference born of Understanding to fulfill man’s promise. Man is that uniquely conscious ereature who can peresive and express. He must become the steward of the biosphere. To do this he must design with nature,The Plight ‘Thirty years ago the wilderness of Scotland looked ‘inviolate to me and | would have bbeen content to give my life to the ereation ‘of oases of delight in the heart of Glagow or dream of @ marriage of man and nature in few cities and towns. My boyhood sense of the rest of the world suggested that it was ven wilder than Scotland. There were sil explorers In those days and. missionaries enough to build a stamp collection from their solicitations. The plight that moved me then was little enough compared to today. ‘Then there was no threat of an atomie holo aust and no fear of radiation hazard. The Population problem was one of decining Birthrates and Mussolini exhorted and co teed Italian mothers to greater efforts while Presidents of France deplored an effete (Generation. DDT and Dieldrin were not yet Aestering thoughts; penicillin and strepto Inyein were not yet hopes. Man's inhuman: Hty to man war commonplace in distant Tands but had not achieved the pinnacle of Wepravity which st Belsen and. Dachau a Eiulized nation wos to achieve, Povarty and ‘Oppression were real and pervasive, and war H¥2s imminent enough so that | could con: ‘Elude at saventeen that | had better be ready Wetisned solder by 1939, Yet while the city was grim indeed, the Duntryside could be reached by foot, by for even for the few pennies that led to 2 tram terminus and the gateway to wild lands where no law of trespass constrained, The county is not a remedy for the indus ‘ial city, but it does offer surcease and some balm to’ the spirit. Indeed, during the De- pression there were many young men who ‘would not submit to the indignity of the dole or its queues and who chose 10 live off the land, selling their strength where they could for food and poaching when they ‘could not, sleeping inthe bracken or a shep hera's bothy in good weather, living in hostels and public libraries in winter. They found independence, came to know the land and lve from it, and sustained their si. So, when first | encountered the problem of the place of nature in mans world was not a beleaguered nature, but merely the local deprivation that wes the industrial ety Scotland wes wild enough, protected by ‘those great conservators, poverty and inac cessibility. But this hat changed dramatically in the intervening decades, so that today in Europe and the United States a great erosion hhas been accomplished which has diminished nature—not only in the countryside at large, ‘but within the enlarging etis and, not leat fn man os a natura beng, ‘There ore large numbers of urban poor for whom the countrysige is known only as the backdkop to westerns or television adver tisemants, Paul Goodman specks of poor children who would not eat carrots pulled from the ground because they were dirty, terrorstricken at the sight of a cow, who sereamed in feer during thunderstorm. The ‘Army regularly absorbs young men’ who hive not the faintest conception of living off the land, who know nothing of nature and its processes. In elastics times the barbarians in falds and forest could only say “bar bar” like sheep; today their barbaric, sheepish escondants are asphalt men. Clearly the problem of man and nature is rot ane of providing @ decorative back (ground for the human play, or even amel locating the grim city: it is the necessity of ‘usteining nature a source of Ife, miley, teacher, sanctum, challenge and, most of al of rediscovering nature's corollary of ‘the unknown in the self, the source of meaning Thore are stil great realms of empty ocean, deserts reaching to the curvature of the earth, silent, ancient forests and rocky Coast, glaciers and voleanoes, but what will ‘we do with them? There are rich contented farms, and idyllic villaes, strong barns and whitestepled churches, wee lined streets and covered bridges, but these are residues fof another time. There ate, t00, the sit houettes of all the Manhattan, great and2 smal, the gleaming golden windows of cor porate imapes~expresioniess prisms sudden Supersonic transport whose sonic boom may fedluce this image to a sea of shattered glass But what do we say now, with our acts in city and countryside? While | frst addressed this question to. Seotland in my youth today the world direct the same question 10 the United States. What is our performance ‘and example? What are the visible testa mont to the American mercantile creed—the Fremburger stand, gas station, diner, the Ubiquitous billboards, sagging wires, the parking lot, car cemetery and that most complete conjunetion of land rapacity and fhuman dlillusion, the subdivision. It is all but impossible to avoid the highway out of own, for here, araved inal ts gory, Is zhe quintessence of vulgarity, bedecked to ove the meximur® visibility to the least of our sccomplishments ‘And what of the cities? Think ofthe impris fonng gray areas that encircle the center. From here the sad suburb is an unreaizable feem. Call them no-place although they have many names. Race and hate, disease poverty, rancor and despair, urine and spit Tis here in the shadows. United in poverty and ugliness, theie symbol isthe abendoned carcasses of automobiles, broken alas, lleys ff rubbish and garbage. Crime consorts with disease, group fights group, the only emanc What of the heart of the city, where the teaming towers rise from the dirty skirts of foverty? Is it ike midtown Manhattan tahere twenty per cent of the population was ound to be indistinguishable from the patients in mental hosptals?® Both stimulus find stress lve here with the bitch goddess fuecess. As you look at the faceless prisms do you recognize the home of anomie? can you find the river that first made the ty? Look behind the unkempt industry, ffm he goss aroad wacks and you vl rotting piers and there isthe great fiver, scummy an brown. wastes and sewage Dobbing easly up and down with the tide, endlessly renewed. Tyo ty to te city by dey you wil seit ist asa smudge of smoke on the horizon AY prone otis of owes Wl be reveaed os soft snovetes in the Dazudous hare. Newer you wil erste Ketplious plumes ich, you ln be Nt the proudest mares in industry: Our Bods are houserld word tear Bur industries oe not yt housebroken Drive from the airport through the gas storage tanks and the itermin tries. Consider how dangerous th their eynical sume, observe ther] Refine they may, but refined they You will drive on an expressway, conerete form, untouched by ithe ity oF art, testament to the sd il there can be @ solution for the automobile. It is ironic that this public investment in cities has als thelr conquest. Soe the scars of te the remorseless carving, the dis neighborhoods, the despoiled park facturers are producing automonolte conjunction of land raat and Manaus, the subse. It ll imposible to avd the hay out of tor bee aye iv all glory, the Imesonce of vii, bedecked fave een vty fof fst Of our compuisment sé what ofthe ces? Think ofthe impr ing ry eres that anile the cane, om rete sod uur sn uel sam Cal hrm pice tou ey te ran nares. Rave and hate eae rare inthe Sone United in poverty vanes ei yo she abandoned carcasses of automobiles, broken glass, alleys ff rubbish and garbage. Crime consorts with Csease, group fights group, the only emenci pation isthe parked car What of the heart of the city, where the ‘looming towers rea from the dirty skirts of Poverty? Is. it Tike midtown Manhattan finere twenty percent ofthe population was found. to. be. indistinguishable from the pationts in mental Hospitals?* Both stimulus fnd stress live here with the bitch goddess fuccess. As you Took at the faceless prisms tdo you recognize the home of anomie? Can you find the river that fist made the a TERY? Look behind the unkempt industry, IOS the grassy railroad tracks and you will Hind the rotting piers and there fs the great fiver, scummy and brown, wastes and sewage Bobbing easily up and down with the tide, fendlesly renewed, Ht you tly tothe ety by day you wil se it Hist as smudge of smoke on the horizon You approsc, the outlines of ts towers Wil be revesied as soft shovettes in the us haze. Nearer you wil perceive Hepes lames ich, yu ttn tw ota to the proudest nares in incistry, Our UBiiesore nouold words bt i cleo ur industries are not yet hovsabroken Drive from the airport through the banks of ‘928 storage tanks and the interminable retin ‘ris. Consider how dangerous they are, see their cynical spume, observe their uglines Refine they may, but refined they are not You wil drive on an exaresevay, a chimsy concrete form, untouched by either human lity or art, testament to the sa illusion thet there can be @ solution for the unbridled automobile. It is ironic that this greatest public investment in cities has also financed their conquest. See the scars ofthe battle in the remorseless carving, the dismembered ‘neighborhoods, the despolled parks. Manu: facturers are producing automobiles faster ‘than babies are being born, Think of the depredations yet to be sccomplished by ‘myopic highway builders to accommodate these toxic vehicles. You have plenty of time to consider in the long peak hour pauses of spasmodic driving in the blve gas corridors. You leave the city and turn towards the countryside. But can you find if? To do 30 you will follow the paths of those who tried before you. Many stayed to build. But those who did so first sre now deeply embedded in the fabrie of the city. So a8 you go you ‘transect the rings of the thwarted and dis ilysioned who are encapsulated in the city as nature endlesly eludes pursuit aYou can tell when you have reached the edge of the countryside for there are many temblems-the cadavers of old tees piled in Uintidy heaps at the edge of the razed deserts, the magnificent machines for and espoliation, for fell forests, filling marshes, culverting streams, and sterilizing farrniand, making thick brown sediments of the creeks Is this the countryside, the groen belt—or rather the greed belt, where the farmer sells land rather than erops, where the developer takes the public exource o the city's hintor land and sublvides to create a private profit and 8 public cost? Certainly here isthe ares ‘where. public powers are weakest—either lbsent oF elasti—where the future costs of streets, sidevalks and sewers, schools, police and fire protection are urspoken. Here are the meek muleted, the refugees thwarted, Rural land persists around the metropolis, ot because we have mansged the land more ‘wisely but because i i lerger, more resistant to man's smear, more resent, Nature regen trates fastor in the country than in the city Mire the marks of ana weigh re ‘man’s toil, DDT sin the artic ice, in the ‘ocean deeps, in the rivers and on the land ftomic wastes rest on the Continental Shelf, many creatures are forever extinguished, the primeval forests have all but gone and only the uninitsted imagine that these third and fourth growth stands are more than shadows of their forebears. Althaugh we can stil see great fat farms, thele once deep soil, 2 ge0- Togical resource, are thimer now, and we right well know that farming is another Kind of mining, csspating the substance of faeons. of ‘summers and multitudes of life ‘The Mississippi is engorged with five cubic miles of sil each yaar, 2 mammoth prodi ‘ality ino starving worl, Lake Ere ison the ‘erge of becoming septic, New York City suffers from water shertages while the Hudson flows foully past, salt water ert roaches in the Delaware, floods alternate with drought, the feuis of two centuries of land mismanagement. Forest fires, mudslides and smog become a way of life in Los Angeles, and the San Andreas Fault rises in temperature to menace San Franciscans Te maps all show the continent to be green wild landscapes sve for the sepia cities huddled on lakes and seaboards, but look from a plane as it cross the continent and makes an idiocy of distance, soe the wild green sectioned as rigorously es the city. In the greet plains nature persists only in the meandering stream and the flood plain forest, a meaningful geometry in the Mon Arian patterns of unknowing men, It mattors not if you choose to proceed 10 the next city or return to the fist. You ean confirm an urban destination from the in creased stillness of the neon hile, the diminished horizon, the loss of nature's com panions until you ae alone, with men, in the heart of the city, Goo's Junkyard~or should it be called Bedlam, for cacophony lives here. It is the expression of the inalienable right to create ugliness and disorder for pri vate. greed, the maximum expression of man's inhumanity to man. And £0 our ets of megalopotes, dead oray tissue encircling the nation Surely the indictment is too severe-there ‘must be redeeming buildings, spaces, places, landscapes. Of ‘couree. there are—random chance alone would have ensured. some Successul accidents. But there are also positive affirmations, yet itis important to recognize that many of these ore bequest from earlier tires. Independence, Carpenter and. Faneuil Hall symbolize the small but precious heritage of the 18th cantury: the reat State Houses, city halls, museums, concert halls, city universities and churches, the great urban park systems, were products of the last century. Herein these older areas you will find humane, generous suburbs where spacious man built their concern into houses and spaces so that dignity and peace, safety and quiet live there, shaded by old ‘wees, warmed by neighborlines. You may also see hints ofa new vitality and rrew forms in the cities, promising resur ‘gence. You may even have found, although | have not, an expressway that gives structure 10 a city, of, 9¢| have, 2 parkway that both reveals and enhances the landscape, There fare farmlands in good heart; there ere landowners-few it is true-who hae de cided that growth Is inevitable, but that it ed not lead to despoliation but to enlarge ment. New towns are being constructed and concepts of regionsl planning are beginning ‘0 emerge. There is an increased awareness {or the need to manage resources and even @ title for this eoncern—The New Conser vation. There sa widening certainty that the Gross National Product does not measure health or happiness, dignity, compassion, beauty or delight, and that these are, if not all inalienable rights, at least most worthy ‘But these are rare among the countless city slums and scabrous towns, pathetic sub ivsions, derelict industries, raped land, befouled rivers and filthy ar. At the time of the founding of the re public-and for millenia betore—the city had been considered the inevitable residence for the urbane, civilized and polite. Indeed all of these names say city. It was a widely believed that rich countries and empires were inevitably built upon the wealth ofthe land. The original cities and towne of the American 18th century were admirable Charleston and. Savannsh, Wiliamsburo, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans. The land was rich and beautiful, canons of ‘taste espoused the 180h-century forms of archi tecture and town building, 2 wonder of humanity and elegince How then did our plight come to be and wat can be done about it? I is along story which must be told briefly and, for thet reason, itis necessary to use a broad brush {and paint with coarse strokes. This method 2aa 2 Inevitably offends for it omits qualifying statements, employs broad generalities and often extrapolates from too sionder ev: ‘dence. Yet the base question is 0 broad that one need net be concerned with niceties The United States isthe stage on which great populations have achieved emancipation from oppression, slavery, peonage and serfdom, wheres heterogeneity of peoples has become one and where an Linperlleled wealth has been widely dis: tributed. These ave the jewels of the ‘American diadem Gut the setting, the fenvironmant of this most suecessful social revolution, is » major indictment against the United States and treat to her success and continued evolution Our failure ie that of the Western World and Ties in prevailing values. Shove me 2 man oriented society in which itis belived that realty exists only because man can perceive it, that the cosmos is «structure erected to sxipport man on its pinnacle, that man excl sively is divine and given dominion overall things, indeed that God is made in te image of man, and | will predict the nature ofits cities and their landscapes. I need not look far for we have seen them-the hotdog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, dysgonic city and mined landscapes, This 6 the image of the anthropomorphic, . = seeks not unity anhropocentrie man; he With nature but conquest. finally finds, but only when his arrogance and ignorance are stilled and he lies deac Linder the aeensward, We ned this unity to Among us it Is widely believed that the world consists solely of a dialogue betwoor men, or men and God, while nature is faintly decorative backdrop to the hums play. If nature receives attention, then it anly for the purpose of conquest, or ever otter, explotation-for the latter not oni accomplishes the fist objective, but provies {financial reward for the conqueror. poet one exit ode! of te word Mats but upon eeanomic. The acs ofthe lon of the fren i er tesimony, cron. the Grom atent Predict tre proot of Is com BEDe tne sort terns ts span, and the Gaitay ke te hnamon she moray. we Perhops there isa time and place for every hing, and, with wars and revolutions, with the opening and development of continents, the major purposes of exploration and settle ment override all lesser concerns and) one Toncludes 1 favor of the enterprises while eoretting the wastages and loses which are Incurred in these extreme events But if this fas once acceptable as the inevitable way, ‘that time has passed “The pioneers, the builders of railroads and nals, the great Industraists who built the foundations for future growth were hard ‘riven, single minded men. Like soldiers and Tavolutionaries, they destroyed much in di ain and in ignorance, but there are fruits rom their energies and we share them today. Their successors, the merchants, are 3 Gifferent breed, more obsequious and Insidious The shock ofthe assassination of President stiled for only one day their Wwheedling and coercive blandishmants for ‘Our money. It is ter ethos, with our con Sent, tht sustains the sumord and the land Tapist, the polluters of rivers and atmos Phere in the name of profit they preempt he seeshore and sterilize the landscape, fll he great forests, fll the protective marshes, Build cynically in the flows plcin. 1 the Elsim of convenience for commerceor its HMlusion—tha: crives the expressway through eighborhoads, homes and priceless parks, Taximeter of incitferent greed. Only the me hant’sereed can justify the slum asa sound t oF offer tomato stakes as the Utility forthe priceless and irreplace able redwoods. The economist, with a few exceptions ere Mh merchants’ minions and together they = sk with the most barefaced effo we accommodate our value systen Neither love nor compassion, beauty, dignity nor freedom, delight’ are important nese th priced. If they are non-price benef they are relegated to. inconsequ economic model proceeds inex wards its salFfulfilment of more despolition, uglfiation and ink life, alin the name of progress doxically, the components which excludes are the most importa ambitions and_ accomplishments requirements for survival “The origins of societies and of ex back to an early world when minor inconsequence in the face o wholming nature. He bartered his (of food and hides, cattle, sheep and valued scarcitis, gold and si and frankincense, But the ind elements of life and survival wore b ken and control: they could nota enter his value system save im through religious views. Nor have But in the intervening millenia tions attributed to commodities treased_ in range and. precision understanding of ‘the operation limited sphere of economics has ‘dramatically. This. imperfect vie world as commodity fails to eva incorporate physical and_ biologi esses: we have lost the empirical k of our ancestors. We are now attribute value to. indlepensable Processes, but we hove devo astonishing precision for ephemera. It fs obvious that auch an institu ‘myopic prejudice wil exclude the 1 the biophysical world, Its w canterednes: ensures that those ‘essential to man’s evolution and su be excluded from consideration evaluation. We have no. though interminable dialogues among met sustaining sun, the moon and 4