terms of revenue sharing, and our other new programs on the ground that it shortchanges the cities in favor of rural America.

I want to meet the criticism head on. It does not short-change the cities. As George Romney, who is the head of the Department of Urban Development, will tell you, our new programs for revenue-sharing provide as much for any city or county as presently is being provided and more for most, and that over all this country it is approximately over a 20 percent increase.

However, what is novel and what is new in our approach this year is that for really the first time we are putting emphasis on an area which has really been too much at the short end of the stick; the forgotten area of the American economy, rural America.

Let's look at rural America for a moment. Again, we look at the facts and the figures and what do we find? Over half of the substandard housing in America is in rural America. Approximately half of the unemployment and underemployment is in rural America and approximately half of those below the poverty level live in rural America.

And when one tries to set the city against the county, or the city against the country, this is of course a self-defeating operation, because what really ends up is simply this: that the problems of rural America today, the problems of lack of opportunity, the problems of poverty, the problems of underemployment or unemployment, the problems of substandard housing, the problems of rural America today will become the problems of urban America tomorrow unless we change the climate in rural America.

And so that brings me to the reason why in the new revenue-sharing proposals at my insistence we put additional funds in the area of rural problems. Those funds will be described to you by Mr. Harper and by others who will be briefing you.

I pointed out in my address to the legislature that the total that will go specifically for rural development is $1,100,000,000. However, rural America will share in funds which are in other packages, funds for education in special revenue sharing, funds for housing and other areas.

But insofar as rural development specifically is concerned, there is an amount of $1,100,000,000. What is important to note about this is that this is a 25 percent increase over the funds that all of existing categorical programs specifically directed toward rural America would produce.

Now, why this emphasis? The why I've already, I think, indicated. It is essential that this part of America, which has not received the fair treatment and the equal treatment that it should receive, get that treatment. Because what happens is that two-thirds of the counties of this country, rural counties, are emptying out of people and emptying out of promise. And where do they go? They move into the great cities and they create there enormous problems.

Approximately 40 percent of the people of this country, as we look toward the end of the century, and perhaps over 50 percent, will be living in three great complexes in the Boston to Washington complex, in the Chicago to Pittsburgh complex, and in the Pacific Coast complex, running from San Diego to San Francisco.

What needs to be done is for us to recognize that if this is the kind of America we want, then let's face up to what the problems will be.

There are varying estimates on how much the population of the United States will increase between now and the end of the century. Some say 100 million: some say 60 million.

Well, let's take 70 million. Where are those 70 million people going to go? Well, I can assure you if they go to Los Angeles, if they go to Chicago, if they go to Cleveland, if they go to New York, it's going to create enormous problems on an already overburdened structure of urban life.

It is essential-and I use those cities only as examples, others could be named-it is essential that there be developed in urban America not only a sound farm economy, and we here must recognize that the basis of a sound farm economy, as Cliff Hardin so often emphasized, is a family farm adequately financed and adequate in size to be a viable enterprise.

But not only do we need a sound farm economy, but we need to develop in rural America the opportunities, the opportunities for employment, the opportunities for different kinds of activities, some related to farming, some not related to farming, which will reverse this trend or at least stop this trend of people moving from rural America into the already overcrowded industrial

Now, that is a big order. How can it be done?

We don't have any simple answer to that. No one can sit here and tell you what an individual is going to do, what's going to motivate him, whether he's going to want to move to the city, a big city, or whether he's going to stay in a small town or move to a slightly larger town or whatever the case might be. But at the present time, we want to remove those disincentives for living in rural America.

I remember an interesting conversation I had at the airport in Fargo, North Dakota, when we had a similar meeting of this type just a few months ago. I talked to, as I was going down the line at the airport, with a couple who said they were from California. They had lived there for approximately 10 years and they said, "We moved back to North Dakota." And I said, "Why did you leave in the first place?" They said there was nothing to do here. I said, "Why did you move back?" He says, "Because the company we were with, they had a branch plant here. We wanted to live here. We liked to live here. We would prefer to live here if there was something to do."

Now, some would prefer to live perhaps in California; some in some other city, or however the case might be. But what we must at least provide is the opportunity in rural America for a person to make a decent living, to have adequate education, to have adequate health facilities, to have the infrastructure which will allow the attraction of business opportunities and so forth; what we need to do is to have that kind of program or we are going to continue to have this growing problem of urban America becoming less and less governable, and rural America emptying, as I've already indicated, without having any of the hope that it should have and without all of what it could thereby contribute to the country.

I would just close on one personal note. I speak with some feeling on this subject, because I believe that out here in what is called the heartland of the country there is something more than simply the richest agricultural land in the world or at least the most productive. I think there are certain values, values that we also see in our great cities, but values that are particularly evident here, that are worth preserving.

I somewhat come from the heartland, my mother from Indiana, my father from Ohio. And I remember after their family was raised that both my mother and father decided to go back to a farm. And they went to Pennsylvania and lived there during many of their last years while I was serving in the House and Senate and later as Vice President.

I do not mean to suggest by that that everybody should return to the farm when he gets older. I do not mean to suggest by that that life in the city is necessarily corrupt and less admirable than life in the country.

But I do know this: That there is a quality of life, a quality out through this great heartland of the Nation, that is worth preserving, if we are to have a balanced, strong, healthy country.

I do not want to see America lose that quality of life. I think we can do something about it. I think we have got to start, first of all, with the farmer. Without a healthy, strong agricultural economy, we cannot have any rural program that will stand up.

But, then, we have to supplement that with some new initiatives, as I have indicated, initiatives that you will now hear, initiatives that are truly new, new in the sense that for the first time we focus on the problem of rural America, we put more money on those problems, and we focus in a way that this area of the country gets at least equal attention, and, because in the past it has been somewhat behind, somewhat more attention than even urban America.

This is good for urban America. We trust it will be good for rural America. But you will have to be the judges.

And I will now have my panel of experts try to convince you that what I have said has some element of truth in it.

Thank you.

[From the President's Remarks Upon Signing His Message to the Congress on Special Revenue Sharing for Rural Community Development, Mar. 10, 1971]

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We want to welcome you all to the Roosevelt Room for this signing ceremony.

members of the press will be interested to know that perhaps there has never been gathered in one room in the White House a group of people more representative of one of the great sources of power in this country, economic power, than is gathered here now. Because we have here representatives of the agricultural community, those who are the most productive of all of America's economy, those who represent the rural heartland of this country.

And it's, therefore very appropriate that this signing ceremony of the Rural Development Special Revenue Sharing Program occur in their presence. Because for the first time a national administration now takes an initiative in an area which has been forgotten, too often forgotten, forgotten in the sense that as we look at rural America, as we recognize the productivity of American agriculture, we realize that this is one area where we are first in the world and will remain first in the world because every year our farmers become more and more productive.

As they become more and more productive, however, rural America, where our farmers live, has become less and less a place that attracts people, people who will create the kind of life which will be meaningful for the years ahead in that part of the Nation.

And these new initiatives in which we will add approximately 35 percent to the funds previously granted to this part of the country will mean that the people who live in rural America out through the great heartland of this country now will have those programs, those programs that will attract the industry, the infrastructure and everything else that is essential to provide the quality of life that the rural America, the farmers of America, agriculture of America really deserves.

This new initiative I consider to be one of the most important. It is not the largest program. It is not the largest, but in terms of the amount of increase, it is the largest increase of any of the special revenue sharing programs.

That does not mean that we are putting less stress on the problems of cities, less stress on the problems of transportation, or the other areas. But it does mean that this is an area that is behind. This is an area in which we need to catch up and that is why we are putting more money, a greater portion of money, into rural America than we have previously.

And in signing this particular message, we certainly hope that we will have the backing of the agricultural community in getting its passage by the Congress of the United States.

NOTE: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. For the text of the message, see the following item.

SPECIAL REVENUE SHARING FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

To the Congress of the United States:

I am today proposing a new program of Rural Community Development through revenue sharing-the fourth of my six Special Revenue Sharing proposals. I have spoken of revenue sharing as a new partnership between the Federal Government and the State and local governments within our Federal system. The proposal I am advancing today would use that essential government partnership to strengthen an equally essential social and economic partnership between rural America, where the farms that feed us and the great open spaces that renew our spirit are found, and urban America, where the majority of our people and the greater share of our wealth are concentrated. Rural Americans deserve a full share in the Nation's prosperity and growth, just as urban Americans deserve cities that are livable and alive. Both objectives are attainable and rural development revenue sharing, linked to urban development revenue sharing by the comprehensive planning proposal also put forward in this message, could be a giant step toward them.

RURAL AMERICA IN TRANSITION

Rural America begins with farm America. Agriculture was America's first industry, and it remains one of the keystones of our national economy today. It has made Americans the best-fed people in history, and now exports the produce of one-fourth of its acreage to help feed the world. American farmers have led all sectors of the economy in annual increases in productivity for most

of the years in this century. This Nation's farms are among our most efficient producers, and they are of central importance to a strong future for rural America.

Yet, there is sharp irony in this success. Ever more fruitful, American agriculture has required fewer people every year to produce food and fibers for our people, and to supply the expanding export market for our commodities abroad.

Hence the departure of people from the farms began to swell as farming grew more mechanized, efficient, and large-scale. Americans living on farms numbered more than 30,000,000 in 1940; today that figure is only about 10,000,000. Once the farm people had left their homes-often the homes of generations in their families the opportunities often did not exist in rural America to keep them close to those roots. While some jobs began to open up in agricultural service, supply, and processing enterprises, usually known as "agri-business," the number of openings was not nearly enough to match the number of people cast adrift by technological progress.

Migration began toward where people thought opportunities existed-the cities. Not only were there more jobs in the cities, but they paid more. For most decades in this century, the gap between median income in the cities and that in non-metropolitan areas has been wide. Even though income gains outside the metropolis have been almost half again as great as those in the cities during the last decade, medium family income in nonmetropolitan areas is still 22 percent below that in metropolitan areas.

While the people who have been leaving rural America by the millions have often improved their own and their families' situations by leaving, the trend they represent has had several disturbing effects.

First, in rural America itself, the loss in human resources has compounded the problems of diversifying the economy and fostering a vigorous and progressive community life. Those who have chosen to stay have found it harder and harder to pay for and provide services such as good schools, health facilities, transportation systems, and other infrastructure attractive enough to keep people in rural America, or to lure jobs and opportunity to rural America. Many of the small towns which dot the countryside have to struggle for existence; they often have difficulty attracting good school teachers or physicians; many fight stagnation while most of the economy is expanding; they cannot give the older, the disadvantaged, the less educated people needed assistance and care.

THE URBAN STAKE IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT

At the same time the urban effects of migration have been profound. While the explosive growth in the proportion of americans living in cities that has not been fed solely by the influx of people from rural America-immigration from other countries has also been massive-the millions who have moved from the South and the Midwest to the North and the West have been a major factor in making a nation that was 75 percent rural a century ago, 73 percent urban today.

Many of these people pouring into the cities in search of opportunity have experienced difficulties in adapting to urban life and have required supportive services. Some made the transition successfully-but others have remained tax users rather than taxpayers.

Furthermore, the very size and density of many of our largest cities has produced new problems: whereas in the most rural areas it is hard to achieve economies of scale in public activities, the most heavily urban areas have grown far past the size range in which a community can function most economically. It often costs far more per capita to provide essential services, such as police protection, sanitation collection, and public transportation in our dense urban areas than in less congested smaller and medium-sized cities. Many of our cities have, in short, become inefficient and less and less governable. At times, this has led to near-paralysis of public services in our largest cities. Current trends indicate that unless there is a marked shift in public and private attitudes, the increase of population in and around our great metropolitan centers will continue, and the problems of urban management will be further aggravated.

In addition, by even conservative estimates, there will be some 75 million additional Americans by the end of the twentieth century. Whether this growth

is beneficial or burdensome depends on our foresight in planning and preparing for it-a process that must begin now and must take a broader view than merely feeding the expansion of the megalopolis.

As never before, the Nation is beginning to see that urban America has a vital stake in the well-being and progress of rural America. This is one Nation, and for the good of all Americans we need one national policy of balanced growth.

FEDERAL RESOURCES FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

For the sake of balanced growth, therefore, but even more for the sake of the farmer and all his neighbors in rural America-first-class citizens who deserve to live in first class communities-I am proposing that the Federal Government re-think America's rural development needs and rededicate itself to providing the resources and the creative leadership those needs demand.

It takes many different kinds of activities to create rural development-to create opportunity. One must start with the individual-his education, his skill training, and his health. Next the individual needs to be linked to resources and markets through transportation. Public sector infrastructure such as water and sewers is needed to encourage industry to locate in new areas. The environment is also becoming an increasingly important factor in industrial locations. Essentially what I am proposing is to unite the funding for a number of programs operating directly in rural areas and smaller cities into a Rural Community Development Revenue Sharing Program, to add $179 million to that fund, and then to bolster this effort with new initiatives in critically related areas, such as health and welfare reform.

The following chart shows the programs which I propose to combine into the Rural Development Revenue Sharing Program:

PROGRAMS COMBINED UNDER RURAL DEVELOPMENT REVENUE SHARING

General:

New Money $179 Million.

Title V Regional Commissions.

Appalachian Regional Commission.

Economic Development Administration.

Resource Conservation and Development Program.
Education: Cooperative Agricultural Extension Service.
Water and Sewer: Rural Water and Waste Grants.
Environment:

Rural Environmental Assistance Program.
Forestry Assistance Grants.

Great Plains Agricultural Conservation Program.
Water Bank Program.

Tree Planting Grants.

Although, the eleven programs listed above are spending $921 million in Fiscal 1971.

But much more is needed to extend to rural Americans the full share of national prosperity and the full participation in the rich benefits of our society. which they rightly deserve. Much more would be done if the Congress acts to set in motion the broad strategy for accelerated rural development which I have placed before it in recent weeks.

Rural communities throughout the nation would share in the $5 billion of General Revenue Sharing which I have proposed. Rural communities would receive direct assistance in building their human resources, their social services, and their economic base through my Special Revenue sharing proposals for manpower, education, transportation and law enforcement. My proposals for improving our system of health care include Area Health Education Centers to be located in rural areas and financial incentives for doctors and providing medical care in scarcity areas. My welfare reform proposals would have immediate and dramatic effects on rural poverty: in the first year nearly $1 billion in new cash benefits would go into rural areas to add to the incomes of the millions of rural Americans who are poor or underemployed.

To unify and consolidate the rural development effort in each State-I am today proposing that the Federal Government establish a $1.1 billion fund to be shared among all the States for fully discretionary spending to meet their rural needs and accelerate their rural development. This would be accomplished by