America the Beautiful is disappearing. Our magnificent scenic heritage, our shorelines, plains, mountains, communities and countryside is under siege from commercial promotion and haphazard development.

Prime farmland and forests give way to subdivisions and office parks while our downtowns decay. New highways rip through pristine landscapes, and "improvements" to older highways often destroy canopy trees and historic structures. Gigantic billboards, look-alike fast-food franchises, towering on-premise signs, unscreened junk yards, power lines, and cellular towers destroy the intrinsic character of towns and neighborhoods.

When we degrade our surroundings we also degrade our sense of who we are, where we came from, and the values we hold in common. The overall appearance of a place has a profound influence on behavior toward that place: Ugliness breeds contempt; beauty promotes respect. Growth may be inevitable but ugliness is not.

Scenic beauty has been a powerful force shaping our history, culture, philosophical and spiritual traditions and policies governing natural resources and public lands. Today, however, serious discussion of beauty and aesthetics is nearly absent from public dialogue about the environment.

Official declarations on environmental sustainability rarely cite conservation of scenic beauty, quality of life, or community appearance either as primary goals, or as means to other goals. Yet, recent research on visual preferences indicates that there is remarkable agreement among most Americans, regardless of race or economic status, on what is attractive and desirable and on what is unattractive and undesirable.

We believe that America's scenic heritage is fundamentally important to the continuation of our individual and collective well-being, to economic prosperity, to a healthy and sustainable environment, and to the quality of everyday life. We resist the notion that scenic beauty is a luxury, available only to those with the means to travel to protected enclaves or to live in exclusive communities. Beauty should be part of the everyday life of all Americans, regardless of their economic circumstances.