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<br />VU~~J <br /> <br />As the quotation above suggests, water is only one of the essential <br />services for urban life, and a relatively inexpensive one. Power is also <br />essential, though more expensive. Wastewater disposal and roads are two <br />other essential urban services which require joint planning, together <br />with water supply, to serve the Denver area efficiently. Such combined <br />operations might begin to implement any regional development nronram <br />which existed. However, combined services planning does not exist. <br />Futhermore, the area does not have an adopted regional development plan <br />and a draft document prepared by DRCOG does not contain a program for <br />staged Uevelopment; if it did present a program for staged growth there <br />would be no means for implementing it, because the Denver Regional <br />Council of Governments has no powers or responsibilities for enforcing <br />a program for staged development. <br /> <br />The single most important lesson learned in recent years about <br />urban planning, in the sense used in the report of positively striving <br />to achieve declared objectives, is that no single measure can success- <br />fully control or direct urban growth. There has to be a concerted use <br />of all available public measures, supported by the main development <br />force -- the private sector. Direct public actions like public works, <br />and indirect measures like zoning regulations, should reinforce each <br />other locationally and at the proper time. <br /> <br />The pervasive forces making for urban sprawl are encouraged by the <br />general preference for single family homes and by corporate decisions <br />on industrial locations. Neither comprehensive land use plans by them- <br />selves, nor the provision or withholding of a public service by itself, <br />can under those circumstances be very effective in redirecting regional <br />development trends. <br /> <br />LDC CONCLUSIO~S <br /> <br />The Summary of Conclusions from the LDC Report is quoted below: <br /> <br />1. The essential finding of the review is that there is little <br />direct relationship between water supply and the form and <br />pattern of growth. The Foothills Project, whether built or <br />not, will have little effect on urban sprawl in the Denver <br />Region and therefore cannot influence ambient air quality in <br />the area. <br /> <br />2. There is an evident connection between water availability and <br />urban activity, but water shortage has not been an inhibiting <br />factor to regional economic development and hence to population <br />growth. Nationally, regionall~ and locally the supply of <br />water Qermits various activities and developments; t~e supply <br />of water by itself cannot create development; nor can water <br />supply by itself encourage one form of development and dis- <br />courage another form and pattern of growth. <br /> <br />4 <br /> <br />