Doug Tompkins, the founder of the clothing company Esprit, once said that “If anything can save the world, I’d put my money on beauty.” I concur. Tompkins wasn’t talking about L’Oreal’s #beautyforall branding. He was talking about the beauty of our landscapes, towns and cities.
I believe people flourish in beautiful surroundings and that all Americans have a right to live, work and play in beautiful places. Beauty is an essential part of the good life, a natural aspect of the “pursuit of happiness,” and, according to psychologist Abraham Maslow, a universal human need.
Evidence shows that all Americans appreciate beauty, regardless of their political views, origin, or creed, and that working to restore beautiful landscapes and create beautiful places can bring us together and build community in polarizing times.
No matter who we are, we are inspired by the majesty of our national parks and the beauty of well-tended landscapes, clear lakes and streams, graceful buildings and inviting public spaces. We are uninspired and unhappy among denuded landscapes, polluted waters, scarred mountainsides, littered streets, strip malls and commercial clutter, derelict buildings and cold uniform living spaces like the bland gray apartments of the Soviet era or the failed grim housing projects in our own cities.
We honor those who have democratized our grandest natural wonders and passed on to us a legacy of attractive buildings, parks and green spaces to work and play in. We should also recognize the inequalities still inherent in our access to beauty and seek to extend opportunities to experience beauty to all who share this country.
Yet in the quest for wealth and growth we have overlooked the human need for beauty. We’ve allowed the mountaintops of Appalachia to be turned into ugly strip mines, and justified their desecration in the name of energy and jobs. We have allowed our best soils to drift, with the chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides let loose on them by corporate agribusiness, down the Mississippi, creating a vast “dead zone’ at its outlet in the Gulf of Mexico. We’ve done this for a long time, but we tried to stop it once.
Half a century ago, during the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, America made a national commitment to natural beauty and conservation. From a series of task forces to a cabinet-level bureau and White House conferences on Natural Beauty and Conservation, we set forth to reduce pollution, banish litter, beautify our cities and countryside and restore broken landscapes. “Those who would not live without beauty must join in a tireless effort to bring it into being,” President Johnson declared.
Led by the president’s wife, Lady Bird Johnson, we pledged to beautify America. We established
AND BEAUTY FOR ALL
by John de Graaf
Restoring America’s landscape and
revitalizing its communities