Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks Upon Meeting With Officers of the National Association of Counties.

July 29, 1968

I AM GLAD to be able to commend you upon the theme of your conference, for addressing yourself to the need for balanced development of America's cities, her suburbs, and her rural areas.

Today, a geographic inequality is weakening the fabric of our Nation. We see this imbalance when we see great numbers of Americans leave their homes in the country to move to the city, and leave the city to move to the suburbs.

Always the reason is the same: "to give our children a better chance." This is wrong. An American's opportunity should be equal everywhere in America.

We must erase the inequalities that exist when a child in one district gets a better education than in another, when a baby born in one neighborhood has a better chance of survival than in another, when the smoke from one county poisons the air above another, when the crowded highways of one city slow the commerce in another.

An historian may easily conclude that many of the social ills that plague America today had their roots in the desertion of the rural areas and the migration to the cities that gained force at the end of World War II.

He might say that the outstanding domestic failure of the 1950's was the national lack of attention to that migration. Millions of Americans pulled up stakes and left the country, especially the South and Appalachia. The wave of migration struck our cities and found them unprepared to provide the housing, the education, the welfare, and social services that a decent life required.

This massive migration pushed the city-dweller to the suburbs. It produced suburban sprawl, and spawned a whole new set of problems as potato fields were transformed almost overnight into cities.

And perhaps worst of all, the departure of the more affluent city-dweller stripped the city of its tax base just at a time when the need for revenue was greatest. Unable to grow, the cities began to decay.

Only in the 1960's have we faced the urban crisis. We would be a better nation today if, instead, we had faced the rural crisis in the 1950's. Now we must face both-and that is the job of responsible government.

This kind of responsible government is our shared ideal. So we meet today, not as partisans, not as Democrats and Republicans, we are partners in the central business between us--the well-being of the American people.

The problems we face are national problems because they affect every American; they are local because they can be resolved only within our communities. So they raise questions not of politics, but of government; not of States rights, but of people's rights; not of our separate responsibilities, but of our shared responsibilities.

Five years ago, before I was President, I said--and it is still true today:

"The concern of the central government must not be to destroy local government, but to strengthen it and help it to succeed .... Local government is not a fragile and hollow shell. It is a strong and growing force and we must direct our best national efforts to the task of assuring its success. A mature America must not be beguiled by immature fears of governments working together."

We have worked together. We have, in the past few years, involved the Federal Government more than ever in the problems of the local community.

We have shaped a partnership. Your Association is to be warmly congratulated for your part in it. For only through such a partnership can the promise of an America of balanced opportunity be realized.

Note: The President spoke at 12:25 p.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White House.

The 2,500 members of the National Association of Counties held their annual conference in Washington, July 28-31, 1968.

As printed above, this item follows the text released by the White House Press Office.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks Upon Meeting With Officers of the National Association of Counties. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237803

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