In the debates about how a particular piece of land is to be used, the priorities often conflict. What should you do, for example, if you find out that under the fertile fields of a there is a thick bed of coal which can be strip mined 2moons dil? Strip mining rips up top soil and vegetation. But mining may create jobs, bring money to the towns businesses 2moons gold. Those who approve of strip mining say that the coal is needed, and they point out that it is quicker and cheaper to get coal from the surface than to go deep into the earth to get it by standard mining techniques buy 2moons dil. On the other hand, it takes nature 500 years to create an inch of top soil. As the countryside fills up, people are becoming more need for open space cheap 2moons dil. Nearly every proposal for a new power plant, highway, or airport draws fierce opposition. Everyone wants the big, land-eating " uglies " to be in someone else's backyard 2moons dil. Minneapolis and St.Paul, Minnesota, for example, have been debating about the site of a future airport for years. Yet if a new airport is needed, it will have to go somewhere.

How do we find our way out of the land-used problem? One way might be to reexamine our values, to think in new directions. Does everyone have to have a car with its need for highways and parking lots? What about developing mass transit systems that use less land? Do suburbs have to sprawl? Can they be designed so they use less space? Do we have to have more energy? If we do, do we really have to strip-mine coal to provide it?

However difficult they may be to arrive at, choices will have to be made if we want to preserve the beauty and usefulness of the land. For there is at least one point on which all of us can agree: The land does have its limits.