Organization--What Needs to Be Done to Insure That the Necessary Research Is Carried Out

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 100 002 EA 006 621 AUTHOR McAllister, Donald N. TITLE Environment: A New Focus for Land-Use Planning. INSTITUTION National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. RAWN Program, REPORT NO NSF-RA-P-74-001 PUB DATE Oct 73 NOTE 333p. AVAILABLE FROM Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 (Stock No. 3800-00161, $2.95) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.75 HC-$16.20 PLUS POSTAGE DESCRIPTORS City Planning; Ecological Factors; Economic Factors; Environmental Criteria; *Environmental Influences; *Environmental Research; Higher Education; Land Settlement; *Land Use; *Planning; *Research Needs; Social Factors; Universities ABSTRACT A workshop /conference held in Boulder, Colorado, during two weeks of summer 1972 had the goal of bringing together a group of university researchers and planning practitioners to "think through" how the research reguiresents of environmental/land-use planning might be net and to identify the areas of new knowledge needed by practitioners and society at large if they are to do a better job of planning the physical environsent. The conference encompassed two elements: (1) the substantive questions dealing directly with the problems involved in planning physical environments (within a broad societal framework) and (2) research organization--what needs to be done to insure that the necessary research is carried out. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 presents the recommendations of high-priority research for land-use planning and allocation that were developed by the workshop participants. Part 2 contains an introductory chapter and an historical overview of land-use planning in the United States. Part 3 comprises a collection of nine background papers devoted to various topics concerning the social, economic, and natural environmental factors important to environmental/land-use planning. Part 4 contains six committee reports that were prepared during the conference. (Inthor/MLF) NSF/RA/E74.001 BEST COPY PATAABLF Environment: a New Focus for Land-use Planning Edited by Donald M. Mc Allister U E DEPARTMENT DE HEALTH. EDUCATIONS, WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS SEEN REPRO DuCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN MINE. IT POINTS Or yIE W uir 01 miONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY LIEN,LE SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE, OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY' RANK-Research Applied to National Needs 1/44 a!Z National Science Foundation Washington, D.C. 20550 October 1973 BEST COPY AV ARABLE 2/3 Lib of Con Cate! Card Number 73.600354__ For sale by the Superintendent of Doeuments. U.S. Government Printing Office Washington. D.C. 20402 Price $2.05 Stock Number 0800-00181 4 FOREWORD The way in which our physical environmentand particularly the landis planned (or is not planned) greatly influences the quality of the environment and, indeed, the quality of our lives. Yet the practitioners whoare responsible for environmental /land -use planning must function within jurisdictional bound- ary lines that make no environmental sense. They must also face intense conflicts of values among their "client" groups with regard to landuses, and try to find here-and-now local solutions that are reasonably compatible with the powerful national forces (technological, social, economic, and political) that are sweeping over the land. To cope with such overwhelming problemsin a rapidly shifting scene clearly requires a substantial knowledge base andstrong analytical tools, yet today the planning practitioner is receiving onlyminimal research assistance from the established research institutions. Neither the difficulties and problems, nor the less-than-adequateplanning em: product, have gone unnoticed. Increasingly, atevery level of government the a search for effective means for the rational development of the pk -nvironment. Congress has shown intense interest in land policy and it seen'.iikely that substantial Federal legislation concerned with land-use planning will be developed in the near future. The planning of land and related resources is also receiving increased attention at the State, regional, and local level as well as from citizen and public interestgroups. Clearly, both legislation and implementation will gain if basedon sound research, devoted specifically tothemostpressingenvironmental/land-useplanningproblems and potentialities. It is against this background that the Environmental Systems and Resources Division of the National Science Foundation's RANN (Research Appliedto National Needs) suggested bringing together a group of university researchers and planning practitioners to "think through" how the research requirements of environmental/land-use planning might be met, andto identify the areas of new knowledge needed by practitioners and society at large to do a better job of planning our physical environment. Given the far-reaching importance of anticipated legislation,a careful review of what was needed seemed necessary. Herewas an opportunity to promote research in anticipation of a new national effort, rather than after the "bugs" began to appear. The first step was a 2-day meeting of a Steering Committee, made up of scholars and practitioners, to determine how this task should be carried out. It was decided that an intense medium-length workshop/conference with iii practicalminded university researchers and researelvvise planning practitioners would probably be most fruitful to pin down such a complex and elusive subject. The choice of participants with a mixed background of research and practicewould(hopefully)minimizecommunications problems.The workshop/conference was held during 2 weeks of the summer of 1972 in Boulder, Cob. Over 40 participants were involved, about equally divided between university people and practitioners. From the beginning, the enterprise encompassed two elements: (1) the substantive questions, that is, those dealing directly with the problems involved in planning our physical environments (within a broad societal framework); and (2) research organizationwhat needs to be done to insure that the necessary research is carried out. Research priorities were seen as the link between the two environmental/land-use elements; in the first case, as the product of considerations of the substantive problems; in the second, as recommendations to the National Science Foundation. It was evident that even an unusually knowledgeable group of participants could not really come to grips with a subject of such immensity without substantial preparation. For this reason, a series of background papers was solicited long before the workshop. These papers covered many of the key subjects with which we hoped to deal, subjects within the social, economic, institutional, and natural environment realms. In each case, the author was asked to provide an overview of what was known in the particular field that was pertinent to the problems with which landuse practitioners had to cope. As anticipated, the experts who were asked to prepare papers in the various fields produced an extremely valuable series of state-of-the-art summaries. These papers are reproduced in the present volume. We anticipate that they will be of interest to scholars and practitioners concerned with environmental issues. The background papers provided a sturdy foundation for the discussions carried out by the conferees. The greatest part of these discussions were centered in six working committees which, in turn, produced a series of reports outlining needed research. These committee reports covered the topics of "Environmental Sciences," "Settlement Patterns," "Environmental Assess- ment," "Data," "Institutions," and "Organization for Research" the last of these cutting across all the substantive topics. To provide background materials for the anticipated discussion of "Organi- zation for Research," I asked two graduate students in urban planning, Isabel Reiff and David Dubbink, within the UCLA Secretariat (which had been set up to "service" the whole effort), to carry out a survey of practitioner and university-researcher views on the subject, and particularly what were seen as blocks to more effective university research contributions to environmental planning practice. Instead of merely providing the raw materials of the survey, Reiff and Dubbink wrote a thoughtful paper, with a small assist from the senior members of the UCLA Secretariat, which furnished an excellent foundation for the discussion on "Organizationfor Research" at the workshop/conference. This paper is reproduced in the present volume. iv The reports of the working committees focused on what the participants saw as the highest priority research topics within each category; that is, those that were seen as deserving support by the National Science Foundation and other funding agencies potentially interested in promoting environmental research. To arrive at a sense of priorities cutting across all the categories,a Priorities Game, originally suggested by Donald McAllister, was organized, which involved setting down allthe topics which had been mentioned throughout the total effort (i.e., in the report of the Steering Committee, in the background papers, in the reportsofthe Working Groups, and by the UCLA Secretariat) then asking the participants after the conference to voteon the relative importance of the various topics by the allocation of 1,000 "points" among them. On the basis of the "voting," McAllister and I edited and reorganized the materials, dropping those that had received

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