Earth Movers and Shakers

The future of the nation's land is being shaped by a great number and variety of people. They are thinkers, politicians and planners as well as the developers who actually send out bulldozers and work crews to realize designers' dreams in steel, glass, concrete. Naming all the earth movers and shakers would be impossible, but here are some of the most influential:

LAURANCE S. ROCKEFELLER, 63, often called "America's Mr. Conservation." The third son of John D. Jr., he has given family land outright to the U.S. (33,500 acres to Grand Teton National Park, 5,000 acres to the Virgin Islands National Park); Rockefeller-started resorts in St. John, Puerto Rico and Hawaii pay for maintaining surrounding areas of unspoiled natural beauty. Laurance Rockefeller serves on state and federal commissions, including recent task force on land use and urban growth. His philosophy: "Land-use planning is essential to environmental quality and good urban growth, and to this end, the public good must transcend individual property rights."

IAN L. McHARG, 52, nation's leading "ecological planner." Scots-born, trained as a landscape architect. Believes building profits and environmental protection are compatible -- developers follow nature's own designs.

Has proved the point (with the Philadelphia-based firm of Wallace, McHarg, Roberts & Todd) in plans for projects in exurban Baltimore, Minneapolis and elsewhere.

Example: to provide drainage system for new town of Woodlands, Texas (eventual pop. 150,000), and save the surrounding forests, his firm identified natural drainage patterns of the soils, then used them instead of concrete conduits, saving $16 million.

JAMES W. ROUSE, 59, probably the U.S.'s most innovative developer. Began as a Baltimore mortgage banker, pioneered in building shopping centers. In 1966 began constructing new city of Columbia, Md. (current pop. 32,000), between Washington and Baltimore. Has proposed a new town on Staten Island, and a regional plan for Hartford, Conn. "Development on a large scale is the only way that land use can be rationalized, that the environment can be handled sensitively, and that the social purposes of the community can be fulfilled."

TRAMMELL CROW, 59. Multimillionaire Dallas-based real estate financier whose Trammell Crow Investment Co. has bankrolled dramatic additions to urban skylines in 25 states, Europe and South America. Recent building projects that Crow has helped finance include the $150 million, 131-acre Park Central business and recreation center in North Dallas, Atlanta's $175 million Peachtree Center, San Francisco's Embarcadero Center (the last two with Atlanta Architect John Portman). Conservative and lukewarm toward the environmental movement, he attributes his success to a pragmatic "Sunday-school" philosophy of hard work, learning from mistakes and, above all, correctly anticipating real estate needs.

EMIL HANSLIN, 52. One of the most innovative mass home builders. Pioneered in clustering houses in recreational development of New Seabury, on Cape Cod, Mass. (1962). There, also built "special interest" villages for golfers, sailors, horsemen. Also used special groupings in a year-round planned community at Middletown, Conn. Invented idea of saving open land at Eastman, N.H., vacation-home project; each landowner gives a piece of land back to community. Newest project is farthest out: a religiously oriented, back-to-the-land community on 1,300-acre farm in Grantham, N.H.

BERNARD WEISSBOURD, 51, lawyer turned iconoclastic developer. President of Chicago-based firm, Metropolitan Structures, which has $3.5 billion of work in progress, most of it notable for design quality. Included are new towns near Aurora, Ill., and Montreal, redevelopment in downtown Baltimore and a billion-dollar apartment-office-store complex near Chicago's Loop. Delights in challenging accepted notions. Example: favors replacing homeowners' income tax deductions for mortgage interest payments -- a "regressive subsidy," he says -- with direct subsidies from Washington.

ARTHUR COHEN, 43, boss of the U.S.'s largest publicly held real estate enterprise, Manhattan-based Arlen Realty & Development (holdings: $1.5 billion). Cohen is worth more than $50 million. Began in 1954 by building houses on Long Is land; made his first million speculating in Florida. Went on to construct luxury apartments and small office buildings.

Now concentrating on building suburban shopping centers and revitalizing older centers in the cities, but has also begun work on Aventura, a planned community that will house 55,000 people in North Miami. Agrees that movement to restrict use of land is "valid and proper, so long as it is not carried to the extent that it impedes adequate development."

RICHARD D. LAMM, 38, Colorado state legislator who is in the forefront of brash new band of growth critics. Led successful campaign against locating the 1976 Winter Olympics in Vail and Steamboat Springs, on ground that the Games would cost the taxpayers too much, lead to overdevelopment of trailer parks, second homes and industry and attract huge crowds of people -- some of whom might settle in Colorado.

An ex-dock worker and lumberjack he champions strong Colorado law controlling land use (a weak measure failed to pass Colorado legislature this year). Plans to use issue as his major plank in campaign for governorship in 1974.

ELI BROAD, 40. Head of Kaufman and Broad, which he built into the nation's largest independent home builders (revenues: $340 million in the past year), by offering low-to middle-income tract houses at prices below those of competitors.

His cost-cutting techniques included substituting slab foundations for basements and carports for garages. A former accountant, he now concentrates on his firm's long-range plans while taking local governments to task over obsolete zoning laws and inadequate building ordinances. Complains Broad:

"It is more profitable and much less complicated for a housing producer to destroy the environment than to spend time, money and effort devising a creative land plan over which he must then fight city hall's rules and probably lose."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.