ustxtxb_obs_1966_11_11_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

1110B1 UM GM l_ciElIPOBIRE r Planning Needed It’s good to get home… after a day of hard work or hard play. And it’s pleasant to relax with cool, refreshing beer. In fact, 65 % of all the beer produced in this country is enjoyed at home. It cheers your taste as it renews your zest. So, make yourself at home .. . with beer. UNITED STATES BREWERS ASSOCIATION, INC. 905 International Life Bldg., Austin 1, Texas The “Observations” column in the July 5 Observer asking for a “Forum on Reform” represents just the disciplined ap proach that can accomplish much. It is also a stimulant to the specialist who wants to push his own concerns to the front. I want to suggest a sphere of activity which could benefit greatly by a reformed attitude: urbanization and the population explosion in general, physical planning at the state and municipal levels in particular. Master planning, or comprehensive planning as we now call it, was suspect by many in the ’20’s and ’30’s as a radical totalitarian idea because it involves “private” property. This attitude has fairly well disappeared today, mainly because of the examples of large-scale physical planning in World War II and subsequently in the complex growth of large corn 10 The Texas Observer panies and industrial complexes. Still, the concept for planning physical development at the municipal, regional and state levels has not been accepted and carried out with equal enthusiasm or success in all parts of the . country. Some states, such as California, because of enormous pressures on available resources have had to make detailed studies of many problems. They have produced not only many brilliant solutions but also a highly sophisticated method of approaching any complex problem involving more than one discipline or interest group. Texas, perhaps because of its own particular personality, is one of the least sophisticated states when it comes to physical planning, although it is one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas in the country. Most major cities have seen that the only way to avoid costly mistakes and retain some semblance of sanity in a world increasingly polluted by noise and filth and daily less human and more rigid ly synthetic is to organize the expenditure of public monies by defining public needs and establishing a set of priorities for essential physical development. This process has been fostered by legislative requirements at the federal level when federal money is involved. But even a requirement that a municipality have a comprehensive plan in order to receive urban renewal funds has not succeeded in spreading an attitude of farsightedness in Texas. Requirements to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the problems besetting cities and states are now found in almost all legislation providing federal funds to aid in solving problems of urbanization. Funds for development of recreation areas as well as for urban highways now require comprehensive planning at the metropolitan or state level, no longer merely the city level. These programs can, of course, be made use of in Texas when proper enabling legislation has been passed, but there may not have been enough planning experience in Texas to ensure that goals dominate the programs and are not dominated by them. Neither will success come by importing people from outside with pat solutions. We need accurate analyses of our own problems and imaginative and practical solutions. The following points illustrate how unprepared Texas is to participate in any activity relating to urban problems: 1.There is no state planning agency or department. 2.Federal grants for comprehensive planning to small cities under 50,000 population provided through Section 701 of the Housing and Urban Development Act are administered by the State Department of Health without a budget from the state. 3.There are 21 standard metropolitan areas in Texas listed by the U.S. Census Bureau, but not one metropolitan planning agency. 4.There is not one program for professional planners at the college level anywhere in the state which is accredited by the American Institute of Planners, which has accredited 36 different institutions of higher education throughout the country offering adegree in planning. Speaker Ben Barnes recently proposed a state-level department or bureau of urban .affairs. Something of this sort is absolutely necessary if we are to meet the problems great numbers of population bring and still protect the natural beauty for all Texans. It should be organized in a way to benefit from professional advice \( which means, in a word, money, since professionals in this field are in very short tract, produce, or train the people who will be needed to carry out its aims. Mrs. Catherine H. Powell, 528 King William St., San Antonio, Tex. \(Mrs. Powell is an Associate in the American Institute of Planners. She has a master’s of social planning degree from