interest unmistakably clear: 1. He directed Federal agencies to coordinate their boundaries for federally assisted planning and development districts with existing State planning boundaries, to eliminate confusion and overlap. 2. He directed the Secretary of Agriculture and the Director, Bureau of the Budget, to review all existing programs with Cabinet and other Federal officials to insure that rural areas receive an equitable share of existing Federal program benefits, and to submit proposals for administrative or legislative changes needed to obtain such equity. 3. And he gave the Secretary of Agriculture responsi bility within the Federal establishment for identifying agricultural and rural development problems which require the cooperation of various Federal departments, so that these programs may be better coordinated, and duplication eliminated. These are a few of the recent Federal actions that bear directly on the problems of rural America. But this is a big, diverse country and Federal actions alone won't solve rural America's problems. This is a point which cannot be stated too strongly. Nobody in Washington can prepackage a cure for the ills of rural America, ship it out to the country, and expect it to work. The Federal Government has literally hundreds of programs which can work, but making them effective takes local initiative, local leadership, and local planning. We have learned that where this local leadership exists, a pipeline through which to channel our development efforts also exists. Without it, development efforts are ineffective. We have also learned the lesson of planning on a multicounty basis. It is difficult for every single rural community to offer a full set of community services of the calibre needed for sustained growth. But a group of counties, usually with a small- or medium-sized city at its center within easy commuting range, can provide the framework needed to make Federal and State programs effective. When united for planning purposes, the people and governments of such a functional community can assess the area's needs and determine the combinations of internal and outside resources essential to spark growth. The multicounty approach is being taken by a number of States, including Kentucky, Iowa and Georgia, among others. The Appalachian Regional Commission and other regional groups are exploring this approach. Its effectiveness is becoming increasingly apparent. Achievement of our development objectives will take planning, dedication, hard work, and some basic re thinking of long-cherished folkways. Planning is paramount. Building bigger and more sprawling strip cities can proceed without real planning; but upgrading the communities we have now-and building new communities-demands it. Finally, of course, we have learned that we need to know a great deal more about rural America and its problems than we do now. To find answers to these questions, and to come up with effective solutions, President Johnson has established a Committee on Rural Poverty, which I am privileged to chair, and a National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty, chaired by Governor Breathitt of Kentucky. And while the Commission and Committee are seeking answers, the Department, in cooperation with other Federal Departments, the States, local government, and volunteer groups, will be pushing its own rural development programs at an ever-increasing tempo. In 1967, among other actions, we will: 1. Provide $33 million in Economic Opportunity loans to help 13,000 low-income families and some 390 cooperatives composed of low-income families. 2. Provide $435 million in rural housing loans for 48,000 families. 3. Help finance about 200 community recreation centers in rural areas. 4. Finance $304 million in loans and grants for construction or improvement of some 1,700 central water and waste disposal systems in rural areas. 5. Assist 10 additional local groups with Resource Conservation and Development projects. 6. Approve construction of another 63 multiple purpose small watershed projects with 45 reservoirs. 7. Help 8,500 additional rural landowners with income-producing recreational developments involving 150,000 acres of land. 8. Supervise harvest of another 12 billion board feet of National Forest timber, providing 700,000 manyears of employment, sharing $40 million of revenue with local governments for roads and schools. 9. Reforest 280,000 acres of timber lands, improve timber stands on another 440,000 acres, and build another 295 recreation sites in the National Forests. The Matter Of Choice What we in rural development are all fundamentally concerned with, it seems to me, is the matter of choiceof offering alternatives to ever larger cities in the future. President Johnson put it this way: History records a long hard struggle to establish man's right to go where he pleases and live where he chooses. It took many centuries-and many bloody revolutions-to break the chains that bound him to a particular plot of land, or confined him within the walls of a particular community. We lose that freedom when our children are obliged to live someplace else... if they want a job or if they want a decent education. Not just sentiment demands that we do more to help our jarms and rural communities . . . the welfare of this Nation demands it. I believe that we can choose what kind of an America our children will inherit 33 years from now, for we are not the blind pawns of Fate, but rather the shapers of our own destiny. I believe that we as a Nation should grasp this chance to shape our destiny-grasp it here and now, without further delay-before the chance for choice eludes us. Address at Conference on Rural Poverty, sponsored by National Association for Community Development, Arlington, Va., January 30. 1967. • • RESOURCES IN ACTION My message today, "Agriculture/2000-Resources in Action," is the third in a series exploring what rural America will be like at the turn of the century, just 33 years from today. Our subject is the resource and conservation challenge of the remainder of this century and the next. It is fitting that we examine this subject together. No organization has done more to enhance the resource base of this country than the National Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts. The whole thrust of NASCD's efforts these past 23 years has been a better future for all America through conservation and development practices. This year, 1967, is a good year to take a long-range look at "Resources/2000" for we are at a point in time equidistant from 1934, which marked the first full year of operation of what is now the Soil Conservation Service, and the dawn of the 21st century. It has been said that we view the future "through a glass, darkly." Yet we can predict with some accuracy the major outlines of the Year 2000: By the dawn of the next century, we shall have become a Nation of 300 million Americans, having added to our present population the equivalent of the total populations of 10 New York Cities or 54 Washington, D.C.'s. In the Year 2000 these Americans will exist on the same number of square miles-some 3.4 million—as today. The same amount of fresh water will fall from the skies then as now, but we shall need twice as much water. We shall be fed from the same thin layer of topsoil that feeds us today, but need one-third more food. It will be a richer America, in dollars, than today. With the gross national product rising an average of $250 per person every year, the industrial and commercial output alone will top 1 trillion dollars in 2000. • Americans will be earning more- • Land use will be more intensive than today. Housing for three times the number of automobiles as today will have been built; space to dispose of another million tons of solid waste every year will have been found. The Quality of Our Environment This face of the future we can predict with some certainty because quantity is always easier to measure than quality. But what of the quality of American life in the next century? Here the glass darkens, and split-images appear. One image reflects an almost completely urbanized America, with 240 million people crowded into 9 percent of the continental land mass in huge, sprawling, anthill cities. Prophets of this America see five giant strip cities housing three out of every five people in urban areas more densely populated than present-day Japan. Water will be dirtier, they say, air more full of smog, and for most Americans the solitude of open spaces will have vanished beneath the blades of the conquering bulldozer. This particular view of the future has wide currency. And it will happen, if nothing is done to alter present pollution trends, migration trends, resource inputs, and land use policies. But this is not the only image in the mirror. Other spokesmen-not many so far, but a steadily growing number-envision an entirely different America. Nothing is fixed about the future, they say. Rather the future is what we make it for we are not the blind pawns of fate, but rather the masters of our own destiny. These prophets share the belief of that perceptive French visitor to our shores, Alexis de Tocqueville, who in 1830 observed: “. . . in the [American's] eyes what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do." What kind of an America do these more optimistic • A countryside USA, dotted by new towns and grow. • Urban centers free of smog and blight, with ample A land free from devastating floods, clear rivers. scrubbed of pollution and silt, and sparkling air. • And new industry and factories dotting rural America, providing the necessary economic underpinnings for the good life in the country. This is the kind of America/2000 I believe in. It is the |