s to have some time to spare if he wants to enjoy
beaches and ocean breezes; so do Tidewater residents with a penchant for
mountain trout fishing.

Nevertheless the Basin holds a great deal for almost all tastes, and
most of what it holds is of excellent quality. The main recreational
needs are fairly clear: to protect and restore the Potomac outdoors from
the deterioration noted in this and earlier chapters, to spread the
chance at different kinds of pleasure around as much as possible, to
guard against clashes between different kinds of use and against the
destruction of the quality of quiet and natural places that occurs when
too many people are jammed together in them, to make the Basin's
pleasant corners and shores and byways easier to get at, and--not least
important--to encourage uses that contribute to appreciation and
preservation, helping to make sure that in the long run outdoor
recreation in this region will be possible.

People's need for outdoor activity in their spare time varies a good
deal. An oysterman-crabber working out of the Yeocomico through the
progression of seasons and weathers, a Shenandoah plowman turning earth
his great-great-grandfather turned at the foot of the blue-green
mountains, a timber cruiser in the high forests--such individuals are
not as likely to need to go looking for added outdoor satisfactions as
most other kinds of people, for whom ordinary life tends to be more
separate from pleasure in the open air. Maybe if the cities can be
brought back to health and their growth shaped to fit in better with
human needs, this will change. But with more and more people coming on,
more and more leisurely and affluent as technology cuts down on work,
more and more urban, outdoor recreation as a specific goal is going to
be an ever more important consideration in planning. It is already
important--and already, as we are reminded with statistics, big
business.

City recreational needs

Recreation in and around the central city of Washington has to be a
primary aim. The most people are in this area, many of them through
poverty or habits of life not given to farflung pleasures but
constrained to seek them where they live, or near at hand. The worst
environmental threats are here as well, despite the foresight and pride
that have saved much more open space and pleasant park land than most
other American cities can show.

The metropolitan river has to be cleaned up and made attractive. I