ABSTRACT
One of the central problems the Park Service faced in the modern era was that of establishing the limits of its responsibilities. The preceding chapters discussed how the agency dealt with this problem with regard to the nation's history, its nature, and its cities. More literal questions of responsibility also arose with regard to the land the agency did not own outright, land which was sometimes far beyond park boundaries. With new private development on the periphery of many of the older parks, the agency was forced to search for ways of ensuring that such development did not harm the parks and to ask itself how far beyond park boundaries its efforts at protecting the parks should go. As new units, Fire Island and Santa Monica among them, came into the Park System with provisions that allowed for large, permanent inholdings of private land, the agency found it necessary to turn to the use of less-than-fee rights to control private land use within the Park System. As regional planning and public control of private land development were placed on the national agenda, the Park Service found itself with an opportunity, and perhaps an obligation, to play an important role in federal land planning policy. Although only a small fraction of the Park Service's energies are absorbed by land it does not own, nevertheless it is a growing fraction. Furthermore, it has forced the agency to ask itself basic questions about its future role in American society.
