Future Metropolitan Growth and Planning

Abstract

United States metropolitan areas are growing rapidly and are ab sorbing ever-increasing quantities of rural land. By 1975, two thirds of the United States population will live in metropolitan areas. Growth is rapid, sprawling, disorganized; it is creating a need for metropolitan planning still unmet. Planning concepts propose that new metropolitan growth be shaped into communities of healthful size separated by "green belts" which can also provide recreational settings in natural open space. Standards call for 20 acres of re gional public open space per 1,000 ultimate metropolitan population; this space should be reserved now, but suitable lands are being engulfed. The challenge is urgent.