GSA's Space Management Proposals for the National Capital Region and for the Nation's Cities

The General Services Administration (GSA) has proposed a policy to reduce Federal office space in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area by 10 percent and to develop a long-range plan to implement the policy. The proposal is one element of a space management matrix which affects, or is affected by, implementation of the President's national urban policy announced in March 1978.

GSA has a nationwide policy of relocating Federal facilities to the central business areas of cities, regardless of whether the cities have been identified as distressed. In implementing the national urban policy, GSA is competing with private industry to acquire expensive and scarce space in the central city areas. GSA also has two counterproductive policies affecting the Washington, D.C., area. One encourages decentralization from Washington, while the other encourages relocating Federal activities from suburban areas to downtown business areas.