ABSTRACT
The Regional Plan was used by the Regional Plan Association both as a compendium source for new projects and as a guide to general regional policy between its completion in 1929 and the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941. By 1932 the Association could report considerable progress in two issue areas: highways and parks. Again, most progress was reported in highway and parkway construction, with some additional park acquisitions made. The acquisition of new park lands slowed considerably, however, even though land prices had plummeted and new parks could be had far less dearly than in the 1920s. Land acquisition created no new jobs and was therefore not part of the federal public works program. In 1933 the Regional Plan Association called for a public works program to get the unemployed back to work. Under the Hoover administration a Reconstruction Finance Administration was established, empowered to make loans to banks, railroads, and insurance companies.
