A Study of the Park and Recreation Problem of the United States

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Supplemental Foreword

Introduction

Recreational Habits and Needs

Aspects of Recreational Planning

Present Public Outdoor Recreational Facilities

Administration

Financing

Legislation

A Park and Recreational Land Plan

A Study of the Park and Recreation Problem of the United States

INTER-AGENCY COORDINATION AND COOPERATION

The time is not so very long past when recreation was the step-child of government, finding a place at table only after struggle and then largely subsisting on odds and ends. Today it is the fair-haired child, subsisting on a more abundant, though often ill-balanced diet.

As has been indicated elsewhere, nearly every agency of government charged with administration of lands or waters is engaged, in greater or less degree, in supplying recreation. To a serious extent, the process is marked by lack of coordination either of development or of operation policy even among agencies at the same level of government. The Work Projects Administration, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, by clearance of recreational development projects through the National Park Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation, through a cooperative relationship now well established, have set up precedents in the way of inter-bureau coordination which tend to relate each proposal to the whole public need and to curb extravagant duplication and competition of areas and facilities.

At the Federal level there is no policy regarding recreation, in designation of areas, in development, or in operation. Each bureau or other agency establishes its own body of policy; many undertake developments with little or no concern for their possible effects on those of other agencies—Federal, State, or local—frequently without regard to the relationship between public cost and public gain, and sometimes without apparent thought as to who will handle the administrative task or what the cost of operation and maintenance may be.

While many individual States have arrived at a fair degree of coordination—chiefly those in which the land-administering agencies are grouped together into a single department—others have still fallen short of it. In general the same may be said of local units of government. Because of the tendency of Federal agencies to deal in all matters more or less directly with analogous State agencies, disparities in policy among the Federal agencies tend to reappear at the State level.

There is today urgent need for a Federal policy on recreation. Such a policy appears to be attainable only if a single agency is charged with both responsibility and authority for coordination of recreational activities. Such coordination would require, with respect to proposed developments, a showing of public need, and a balancing of cost of both development and operation against probable public benefit. And it would require also the finding of common bases for fees and charges which would remove at least some of the absurd and prejudicial differences that exist today.

The National Park Service, through the Park, Parkway, and Recreation Study Act of 1936, has already been designated by Congress as the agency to study and appraise the programs of Federal agencies, and to examine the areas and facilities administered by them, except those under control of the Department of Agriculture; likewise, in cooperation with the states, to determine both the present and the needed extent of their facilities and those of their political subdivisions. It would appear, therefore, that if any existing agency is to be charged with coordination of all Federal activities in this field, the National Park Service is the logical choice for the task. A logical extension of the responsibility laid upon the Service by the Act of 1936 would be to make it the clearing house for all recreational undertakings in which Federal and State agencies are in any degree joint parties at interest, directly or indirectly.

For exactly the same reasons, it is desirable that at each other level of government, some single agency be designated as a recreational coordinator. Because of the close relationship between recreational undertakings at the several levels of government, emphasized by developments during the present Federal administration, there is real need for close, harmonious, and frank cooperation in which the responsibilities of each shall be defined, recognized, and accepted.

It must be assumed that the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Soil Conservation Service, the War Department, the Office of Indian Affairs, and any other agencies of the Federal Government active in the field of recreation have a common desire to play a fair part in meeting the needs of the people whose servants they are, as economically and as effectively as possible. Only by a kind and degree of coordinated action that is honestly based upon that aspiration and that purpose can they, and the many other public agencies engaged in meeting the recreational needs of the American people, play their proper parts in attainment of their common goal.

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Last Modified: Mon, Aug 9 2004 10:00:00 pm PDT
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