American Homes and Neighborhoods,City and Country

The future of our country and of the world depends on the quality of our leaders during the next thirty years. Competent leadership cannot develop from children whose experience of life is exposure to upper-middle-class white children like themselves. Increased depth and awareness result if the developing child is given free choice of companions from among a wide variety of kinds of children. The child must live close enough to such other children that they can meet on common grounds and go to each other's homes on their own. At present, this kind of situation is found only in the centers of great cities. The resulting trend for families to return to urban living should be fostered, but its occurrence in such floods as to create upper-middle-class white ghettos should be prevented. A related problem is preservation of nature from inroads of urban population expansion. Fragmenting the countryside in the typical two-acre minimum lots permitted by present zoning laws will, if carried out on a large scale, destroy nature's ecological balance and eliminate the large natural areas close to urban populations which are necessary for recreational purposes. A solution might be maximum-minimum lot-size zoning. Those wishing to possess nature must demonstrate responsibility by purchasing and preserving at least ten acres of land. Those not caring for this responsibility would occupy close-knit smaller properties, size of which would be limited to the minimum area necessary for family functions; they would have easy access to the large natural areas ensured by the ten-acre-minimum provision of the more sparsely settled communities. This plan would ensure effective health-sanitation provisions and a rich social environment for children. Americans need to reorient themselves to space as a precious commodity to be wisely allocated toward a good life for all. Government and social scientists must meet the need for new methods of testing social programs so that information feedback can occur quickly enough for programs to be reformulated while still going on.—Ed.