Driver, B. L. 1984. Public responses to user fees. Paper presented at Conference on Fees for Outdoor Recreation on Lands Open to the Public. Durham, NH, January 1, 2, and 3. Dustin, D. L., McAvoy, L. H. and Schultz, J. H. 1982. Stewards of Access, Custodians of Choice. Publishing Co. Minneapolis, MN: Burgess Ellis, M. J. 1973. Why People Play. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Federal Register. Vol. 49. No. 32. Proposed Changes in the U.S. Flickinger, T. and Waterson, M. F. 1979. How to tighten the belt without pinching yourself. Parks and Recreation, March 1979, Gibson, P. J. 1979. Therapeutic aspects of wilderness programs. Therapeutic Recreation Journal 13(3):21-33. Kelly, J. R. 1982. Leisure. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Kleiber, D. A. 1979. Fate control and leisure attitudes. Leisure Sciences 2(3/4):239-248. Manning, R. E. and Baker, S. C. 1981. Discrimination through user fees: fact or fiction? Parks and Recreation 16(9):70-74. McDonald, C. D., Hammitt, W. E. and Dottavio, F. D. 1985. An individual's willingness to pay for a river visit. Paper Presented at the National River Recreation Symposium. Baton Rouge, LA, Louisiana State University, October 30-Nov 3, 1984. Musgrave, R. A. 1959. The Theory of Public Finance: A Study in New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Public Economy. 17 Neulinger, J. 1974. Psychology of Leisure. Charles C. Thomas. Springfield, IL: Rodney, L. S. 1964. Administration of Public Recreation. New York: The Ronald Press. Roper, L. W. 1973. ELO: A Biography of Frederick Law Olmsted. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. Sax, J. L. 1980. Mountains Without Handrails. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Scott, N. R. 1974. Toward a psychology of wilderness experience. Natural Resources Journal 14:231-237. Stebbins, R. O. 1979. Amateurs: On the Margin between Work and Leisure. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Young, Robert A. 1983. Toward an understanding of wilderness participation. Leisure Sciences, 5(4):339-357. Wilkinson, K. P. 1979. Social well-being and community. Journal of the Community Development Society 19(1):5-16. 18 Introduction by Ray Murray The public park and recreation movement has come a long way from the village commons, settlement houses, and showpiece parks of earlier American times. Today, our public park systems include vast wilderness areas and vest pocket parks, mansions and museums, bandshells and historic homes, swimming pools and soccer fields, zoos and golf courses. In them Americans can play tennis, learn tai-chi, camp in the backcountry, attend folklife festivals, do aerobic dancing, go beachcombing or canoeing, ride bike trails, raft rivers, or make pottery, just to name a few of the possibilities. Never have so many had so much accessible and affordable recreation to choose from. Our society has come to regard this wealth of recreation resources and choice of opportunities as an inalienable right for all citizens. It is a means to the "pursuit of happiness" cited in our Declaration of Independence. To make this possible, the people of this country have established, and supported with their tax dollars, a host of public park and recreation agencies. These agencies are charged with acquiring, protecting, developing and managing park and recreation lands for us all. Operating our public park systems and continuing to provide an array of quality leisure experiences to the citizenry is an increasingly complex, difficult task for most public park and recreation professionals. Conflicting priorities for limited tax dollars usually result in appropriations at all levels of government which are not keeping pace with the costs of operat ing public park and recreation systems. Public agencies are working hard at improving the cost effectiveness of their operations and generating supplemental sources of support including fees and charges. So the User Fees and Charges topic for this issue of Trends is timely. Since the taxpayer revolt which surfaced with California's Proposition 13 in June 1978, pressures on the public managers to generate a higher percentage of income from park users have intensified. This pressure is in marked contrast to the preceding two decades in which large infusions of tax dollars resulted in the rapid expansion of park systems around the country and a relaxation of generating revenues from visitors. During those two decades, government endeavored to serve everyone at little or no direct cost to the park user. As evidenced by public opinion polls, the taxpayer's revolt was calling for less taxes and more "pay as you go" financing of public services under which users bear more of the cost of specialized services they enjoy and the taxpayers pay less. The revolt spurred governing bodies and administrators nationwide to ask public managers to charge users more for the services they enjoy. Most public park and recreation agencies have become more aggressive revenue managers. Many recreation programs are required to be selfsupporting. Revenue producing facilities are given higher priority for construction. High revenue generating services such as golf, tennis, recreation classes, and exercise classes are set up as self sup porting cost centers separate from appropriations. The pattern that has emerged in the public sector looks something like this: 1) Basic services continue to 5) There has been some use If the lines appear to be blurring between government and private enterprise park and recreation operations, it is because there is more similarity. But there continue to be distinct differences. Many |