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Show Reports Many Cities as in '60 They're Far Behind Nation, According to Survey by Planning Board. WASHINGTON. The land committee com-mittee of the national resources .planning board said, in advocating wider public ownership of land in cities, that most American municipalities munici-palities had failed to keep pace with the economy of the rest of the country, coun-try, and that many cities "are just about today what they were in !l860." fts recommendations, made in a j report on "public land acquisition 'in a national land use program," urged a co-ordination of federal politics poli-tics as they affect cities and the establishment es-tablishment of adequate machinery 'for research into urban problems. I Of National Concern. ! "There exists nowhere in the federal fed-eral government today," the report (stated, "an agency concerned with ', federal aspects of our urban prob- lems per se. "The plight of our cities is a matter mat-ter of national concern. A truly 1 national land-use policy for the 'solution of urban problems does not ! exist. No one agency of government, govern-ment, nor any one level of govern-' govern-' ment, can formulate or carry out such a policy alone." Prosecution of a progressive land policy is not beyond the capacity of a well-run American city, according ac-cording to the committee, which said that cities must come face to face, on an unprecedented scale, with such problems as "the provision pro-vision of cheap livable housing, the rehabilitation of blighted and obsolescent ob-solescent areas, the effective control of land uses in the urban peripheries, peri-pheries, the orderly handling of highway traffic, the financing of local government, and the rationalization ration-alization of governmental units." Efficiency Lacking. "Cities must be equipped for more efficient production of health, safety and welfare," the report continued. "Since land in a city means space and location, and control over space and location is all-important in the urban readjustments of the next few decades, the ability to acquire land and plan its use effectively will become be-come one of the most useful and versatile tools available to government, govern-ment, national and local alike." The report was prepared by Harold Har-old S. Buttenheim, editor of The American City, and Stephen Hel-burn Hel-burn of the national resources planning plan-ning board. |