THE BAY AREA, ITS PROSPECTS AND ITS PROBLEMS - 9 - with a built-up community constructed years ago and obsolete by today's standards. On the other hand, because of their slower rate of growth, because they already have made provision for most of the community facilities, and because they have the advantage of an existing high assessed valuation, their fiscal problems are much less serious. Much of their community plant was built at lower prices and is already paid for. Much of it can be kept usable by alterations and additions, rather than starting from scratch. The newer communities have greater flexibility in planning, for they are not so limited by what is already in existence. On the other hand, they are faced with the demands for a tremendous increase in community facilities which must be built at today's costs and financed in today's more difficult bond market. Many do not have the benefit of high assessed valuation that they can rely upon for tax revenues. Most of the local problems can be solved successfully at the local levels, and they are receiving serious attention from the government agencies concerned as well as the citizens of the community. The only real danger is in those communities that are primarily residential in nature but growing at an excessively rapid rate. These communities may run head-on into an inability to borrow the necessary money to provide the needed schools and the community facilities because of an inadequate tax base. While I have expressed considerable confidence in the ability to solve the truly local problems, I have a deep concern over the manner in which we are approaching the problems that face the San Francisco Bay Area as a whole. I suggest to you that no community can safely consider itself an island but must be very much concerned with the manner in which the Bay Area as a whole is guided and developed. The 9 counties that comprise the San Francisco Bay Area are increasingly an economic unit, even though they contain some 76 incorporated areas and over 100 political subdivisions. The prosperity of