Recreation for metropolitan America. (Chapter 10).

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.

A careful inventory of potential outdoor recreation sites should be undertaken by every community. Although not every city can boast of outstanding natural assets within its boundaries, most communities have nearby natural features which can be adapted to outdoor recreation--open fields, marshes and streams, or rocky slopes.

TOOLS FOR THE JOB

Recommendation 10-2: Local governments should utilize all available techniques in making available for public use the land and water resources needed for outdoor recreation purposes.

Local governments need to be both resourceful and imaginative. No one answer will suffice. The problem demands the use of all available tools, including relatively new techniques as well as the more traditional means. The tools fall into four groups: (1) Acquisition of full rights, (2) acquisition of rights less than full ownership, (3) regulatory devices and (4) assessment and tax policies.

Acquisition of Full Rights

EMINENT DOMAIN 

In many cases, outright acquisition may be the only effective means of acquiring essential areas and key tracts. This may require exercise of the power of eminent domain. Eminent domain for public park acquisitions has been recognized in the U.S. since the middle of the 19th century. In 1874, the court of St. Louis County, Mo., declared that "... private property is taken for a public use when it is appropriated for the common use of the public at large. A stronger instance cannot be given than that of the property converted into a public park." (4)

The mere existence of the power of eminent domain, even without its actual use, frequently facilitates negotiated purchase. It also increases the effectiveness of other relatively new devices discussed below. And it is often employed not to "take" land but to clear clouded titles.

NEGOTIATED PURCHASE

No legal problem is involved in acquiring lands for public use by negotiated purchase, for the courts have long affirmed outdoor recreation as a valid purpose for which public funds may be expended. However, negotiated purchase often presents a financial problem, since it is not always possible to obtain needed lands at reasonable cost.

A reserve fund for land acquisition often enables an agency to take advantage of favorable changes in the offering prices of particular tracts. Economical acquisition through negotiated purchase is more likely if agencies inform themselves about the local real estate market. The high rate of property transfers in and near many metropolitan areas indicates that recreation developers might be able to consider for purchase each year a sizable portion of lands having recreation potential. In one Connecticut county near New York City, 80 percent of 38 such tracts analyzed had been sold at least once since 1940, and almost 40 percent of them more than once. (5)

Acquisition of Rights Less Than Full Ownership

Although the traditional method--acquiring land in fee simple and retaining it in public ownership for public use--will probably remain the basic method for public agencies, the acquisition of less-than-fee title can provide many supplementary outdoor recreation opportunities. There are several of these arrangements, each with particular features to recommend it, and they should be considered by every community.

EASEMENTS 

By the ancient device of the easement, the public does not have to buy the full bundle of property rights to land. It can acquire only the right that it needs--the right that the land be kept in its natural state or be open to the public for certain purposes like hiking. In highly congested areas, where the speculative value of land for subdivision is very high, easements might cost virtually as much as the land itself; in relatively open land, however, they can be both reasonable and useful.

Easements provide open space and buffer zones for parks. They can preserve a natural countryside to protect the flanks of highways, as with scenic easements bordering the New York Thruway and the Great River Road in Wisconsin. Although public entry may not always be possible on land obtained through these easements, they do produce conservation values as well as recreation value for pleasure driving.

Easements can effectively provide "greenways" within and near metropolitan areas on open space now underused. Rights-of-way for high-tension transmission lines, for example, are too often considered a necessary "eyesore," and the swath they cut through an area is frequently a no-man's land littered with refuse. They can be put to work. Given public action, at very small cost, the land could be used for recreation--and the very fact that the rights-of-way are a network furnishes a ready-made means of tying different recreation areas together with walkways.

There are several advantages--mostly economic--for a community in the use of these less-than-fee rights. For one thing, the land obtained through easements--as with other less-than-fee rights--is left in private ownership, usually continuing its present productive use. Moreover, the land is productive from the local government point of view since it remains on the local tax rolls, although perhaps at a reduced valuation. Finally, the acquisition of less than full rights is usually less expensive than acquisition in fee. The easements along the Great River Road in Wisconsin cost $15 per acre--one-fourth the cost of fee title.

OTHER DEVICES

Other legal devices involving less than full title to land are rights, leases, licenses, salebacks and leasebacks. Public entry is possible with some of these less-than-fee arrangements, such as fishing rights, which have been widely used in this country. Others like leasebacks and salebacks offer an unusual opportunity for public agencies to acquire control of property and also derive an income from it.

Wherever possible, an easement or other less than full title arrangement should be made perpetual. When an arrangement is not perpetual, the right of public use is lost at the termination of the contract. The property is then open for private development and use, and the cost of regaining the right of public use may be prohibitive.

Regulatory Devices

The normal regulatory powers of local governments can also be used effectively.

ZONING

Zoning is the major tool in land-use control. Although zoning cannot always withstand the pressures for development, and does not necessarily produce land for public outdoor recreation as does purchase, it can help preserve existing land features. Agricultural zoning, for instance, has been a means of preserving excellent agricultural land and preventing its loss to urban development in Santa Clara County, Calif. Flood-plain zoning can protect valleys from unsafe developments and preserve natural areas. Even within built-up areas, zoning regulations can provide for more outdoor recreation if greater flexibility in set-back requirements permits the clustering of dwelling units, with increased open space in between the clusters.

Subdivision regulations, another form of zoning, can expand opportunities for a community by requiring developers to reserve a certain percent of subdivision land for recreation purposes or, in lieu of land contribution, to pay a fee to a local park fund.

CLUSTER DEVELOPMENT 

This is a form of zoning and is, in effect, a change in the pattern of development itself. Until recently, communities thought big lot sizes would guarantee open space, but, in the typical subdivision, this hope proved to be an illusion; big enough to have to mow, too small to use, and a perfect amplifier of sound. Instead of forcing subdividers to chew up all of an area with rigid lot sizes, some communities have suggested that they group the houses in a tighter, more cohesive pattern. This saves money for the developer, for he does not have to provide as much asphalt and service facilities. It may pay him to leave anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of the land open and, as part of the bargain, this is deeded for common use of the residents. Instead of a miscellany of back lots, there can be bridle paths, playgrounds, wooded areas and--that most desirable of community assets--a stream, flowing in the open and not buried in a concrete culvert.

The potential of a series of open spaces is great. The open space of each cluster development can be planned so that it can connect with others; by wise siting of publicly purchased land for parks and schools, there can be a unified network of open space in which each element contributes to the others.

Assessment Policies

Closely related to zoning are assessment devices. By assessing open land--such as farms and golf courses--at the value of its current use rather than at its subdivision value, this policy seeks to stem the spiral by which rising land assessment stimulates owners to sell to subdividers, thus further raising the assessment on the remaining open land. The principal defect is one of equity. The landowners are asking that their land be taxed only on its open space value rather than on the full market value. Yet there is no assurance that they will not sell out when it suits their self-interest. Despite this, urban voters have sometimes been in favor of constitutional amendments for such special treatment, for they feel that it will help preserve the countryside about them. These devices will be a source of much debate during the next few years, but the fact that urban voters see such a stake in farmland preservation is very promising for a more comprehensive approach.

THREAT OF ENCROACHMENT 

Recommendation 10-3: Local outdoor recreation areas should not be appropriated for incompatible purposes.

Public outdoor recreation areas face continual threat from encroachment by other public and private uses--freeways, hospitals, armories, schools, museums, memorials and business enterprises. Throughout the country, highways have been one of the most frequent invaders. Louisville, Ky., will lose one park and parts of two others for highways, and Wilmington, Del., will gain a new expressway at the expense of 40 acres of parkland. In Toledo, Ohio, parklands have been turned over to a naval armory, a YMCA building, a police pistol range, a private yacht club, a sewage disposal plant and factory parking lots.

Where it is necessary to build essential facilities on parklands, there should be a requirement that lands lost for park purposes be replaced with other lands of equivalent size, usability and quality that would serve the same population.

MEETING REGIONAL NEEDS

Recommendation 10-4: Large-scale outdoor recreation areas and facilities must be provided on a metropolitan or regional basis.

In addition to the need for recreation within the urban environment--local parks, parkways, developed riverbanks, stream valleys and marshes--there is need to use overall regional resources in metropolitan areas. The regional or metropolitan day-use area--such as Jones Beach in New York, the Cook County Forest Preserve near Chicago and Strawberry Lane in Cleveland--is quite different from the local site. Local areas cannot be expected to meet all the demands of the masses of people who live in the urban core of metropolitan areas. Urban dwellers and suburbanites are increasingly seeking recreation opportunities beyond community boundaries.

The metropolitan or regional outdoor recreation area is larger and can have a wider variety of natural features and man-made facilities than local areas. Regional sites within a two-hour drive from the metropolitan center can provide a broad variety of day-use activities, as well as some overnight facilities.

The size of these areas and of their facilities makes them too large an undertaking for most local governments. They may be provided by a county, as in Essex County, N.J.; by a special purpose authority, like the Cleveland Metropolitan Park District; by a regional agency, like the East Bay Regional Park District in California; by a state, as in the case of Huntington Beach State Park, Calif.; or by an interstate agency like the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in New Jersey and New York.

Need for Planning

A thorough understanding of areawide needs is essential to planning the location of metropolitan facilities. Adjoining metropolitan areas should also be taken into account. There are a number of outstanding examples of such planning. In Detroit and its four surrounding counties, outdoor recreation is provided on a regional basis through the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority. The Metropolitan District Commission has been supplying outdoor recreation in the Boston area since the end of the last century.

A key objective in planning metropolitan outdoor recreation areas is assuring their accessibility to population centers. Accessibility, rather than physical availability of land, is the serious problem. It is particularly important that recreation sites be accessible by public as well as private transportation. Access to many existing recreation areas is now largely limited to private automobiles. In the New York metropolitan area, for instance, at parks like Harriman State Park, with more than 500,000 annual visits, Bethpage State Park, with more than 400,000, and Captree State Park with more than 1 million annual visits, at least 95 percent of their visitors come by car, and approximately 5 percent by common carrier. This reliance on private automobile transportation seriously limits access to these areas for urban residents in the lower income brackets and, of course, creates parking problems.

Need for Acquisition

Land-acquisition programs for metropolitan areas must include a broad range of land types to provide a choice of outdoor recreation opportunities. Metropolitan recreation should not be limited solely to high-density areas (Class I), although they should have high priority.

Public agencies acquiring large-scale metropolitan recreation areas will probably rely heavily on purchasing full rights to the land--either through negotiated purchase, use of the power of eminent domain, or outright gifts. Other tools and devices must be explored, however. Easements, for instance, cannot produce a beach which could be used for swimming and picnicking on a weekend day by 200,000 people, but they can provide for scenic outdoor recreation pleasures, especially along highways.

A device which may prove helpful is the land bank, public or private. Allegheny County, Pa., which includes Pittsburgh, has been able to profit from a private park-acquisition revolving fund, which has already purchased 3,600 acres of land that it will sell at cost to the county for the development of regional parks. Public funds were not available when needed to purchase the entire tract. This private acquisition is saving the county from buying land at higher prices later on. Similar arrangements have been made elsewhere in the country.

A number of experiments have been started on the basis of a private effort by landowners, particularly in stream valleys. In the end, public action may be necessary, but private initiative is valuable in stimulating the local government to act. A notable example is the "Scenic Reserve" plan pushed by residents of the Monterey Peninsula in California, an imaginative plan that dovetails park purchase with open space conservation of the prime areas in private hands. Another is the efforts of residents of the Neshaminy River watershed in Bucks County, Pa.--by pledging gifts, citizens are trying to get joint county and state action for the protection of the whole valley's water and scenic resources.

The acquisition of large tracts by regional park systems within a brief period of time can present serious short-term problems to the tax base of the local communities. When large parks are acquired, which remove a major part of a township from the local tax rolls, it may be necessary to consider in-lieu tax arrangements.

PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT

Recommendation 10-6. All publicly owned recreation land should be developed to maximize its recreation potential yet maintain the quality characteristics of the area.

In many cases--both in the local community and in the metropolitan area-intensive development can substantially increase opportunities for outdoor recreation. In metropolitan areas where land is difficult to acquire, further development of existing facilities may be the best answer to the problem. Tasteful development is not necessarily cheap and may require almost as much investment as acquisition of new areas, but expert management can increase the carrying capacity of existing areas.

In the course of intensive development, discretion must be used not to damage the resource. Too much asphalt for parking lots and play areas can destroy the natural setting. There should be a balance between intensive use and retention of natural features. Development may require heavy investment, but in areas of dense population, it may produce the greatest number of recreation opportunities at the lowest cost.

(1.) Economic Projections by States for the Years 1976 and 2000, Part II, Statistical Appendix, table 20, "Selected Standard Metropolitan Areas in 1976 and 2000," National Planning Association, May 1961, included in ORRRC Study Report 23.

(2.) Except where previously noted, statistics are from U.S. Census of Population: 1960, U.S. Summary, Number of Inhabitants, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, tables G, 5, 8, 29, 36.

(3.) The Future of Outdoor Recreation in Metropolitan Regions of the United States, ORRRC Study Report 21, describes the general characteristics of outdoor recreation activities and particular problems of metropolitan residents, including the problem of access. It contains separate studies of five selected metropolitan regions: New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago and Los Angeles.

(4.) County Court of St. Louis, County v. Griswold, 58 No. 175, 196 (1874).

(5.) Potential New Sites for Outdoor Recreation in the Northeast, Economic Research Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, ORRRC Study Report 8, table 51.