Recreation and Urban Development: A Policy Perspective

The increasing income and expanding leisure which are proceeding from the continuing growth of produc tivity in our society are generating a deep-seated cultural transition from the values of work and production toward those associated with consumption and leisure. Recreation policy can be a useful instrument in effecting this transition with a minimum of cultural dislocation, but there is a need to develop more effective frameworks for recreation policy-making. Lei sure activity can be viewed as a quasi-market system whose performance results from the interaction of demand and supply factors which are subject to analysis. When costs are measured in terms of both money and time, and when transportation costs are specified as variables, it becomes possible to construct a model of the space economy of recreation activity which should become an important analytical perspective for the recreation planner in the future. Because the "openness" of the system in which he plans is growing, he will need more and more to relate his plans to the larger world, and it is here that the federal recreation policies can play a valuable role in provid ing the context for the planning of local recreation activity.