UNDEVELOP! —New Mexico billboard campaign MAINE IS NOT FOR SALE —Bumper sticker "Please come and visit us in Oregon again and again. But for heaven's sake don't come and live here." —Oregon Governor Tom McCall (1971)
"Don't even visit." — McCall (1972)
Until recently such sentiments would have been contrary to the traditional American spirit of boosterism, the antithesis of the goal emblazoned on the WATCH US GROW signs on the outskirts of countless towns and villages. But now they express the mainstream of American opinion, and in communities across the U.S. reflect growing concern about the use, and the misuse, of the land.
Last year an estimated 3,000,000 acres of open land were gobbled up by urbanization, vacation developments, strip mining and highways. The total is equivalent to the land area of Connecticut. Next year another 3,000,000 acres will be built up, paved over or stripped. Most of the change is taking place on the relatively flat farm lands around the most populous cities, near shore lines, or in the most popular resort areas. In these locations particularly, the amount of land is limited —the all too many abuses of land are all too visible.
Citizens have finally rebelled against the growing despoliation of the countryside and the social and economic ills that it creates. They have launched what amounts to an inchoate, national crusade to get better ways of using land no matter what the cost. In state referendums last year, Colorado's voters vetoed a bid to host the 1976 Winter Olympics; Californians restricted development along their entire 3,500-mile shore line; Floridians passed a $240 million bond issue to buy and preserve ecologically valuable land; New Yorkers approved a $1.15 billion environmental bond issue partly for the same purpose. A provocative study of land-use problems by a task force of Government officials and private experts headed by Laurance S. Rockefeller marveled at the movement and called it "America's new mood." Another study, for the Council on Environmental Quality, described it simply as "the quiet revolution."
The message has deeply impressed politicians. Last week President Nixon urged Congress to take quick action on bills to reform the use of land. The Senate has already passed a national land-use policy bill, and Congress is considering some 200 other measures dealing with problems from urban growth to forest management to the location of power plants.