Congress Asked To Help U.S. Cities Plan Ahead

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30724, 13 April 1965, Page 9

Congress Asked To Help U.S. Cities Plan Ahead

(From

FRANK OLIVER,

N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent)

WASHINGTON When President Johnson sent his message to Congress asking for help for American cities most people blinked their eyes in disbelief.

For most of the time since the Second World War Americans have been migrating to the cities because that was where opportunity of prosperity seemed to be. But, it seems, the cities do need help and plenty of it. America has been building extensively but not always wisely and cities have housing and transportation problems. President Kennedy saw the problems and tried hard to persuade Congress to establish another department and a Cabinet post to deal with urban affairs. Congress would have nothing to do with it and he let the matter drop. Mr Johnson's message seems to indicate that he is going after the same objective. but in piecemeal fashion. It may well be the better way. His tactics have provoked high praise and biting critiI cism. The “Washington Post”

said the message demonstrated a clear and quick concern for the character of urban life evolving in America, but the “New York Times” said the stirring strains of the President’s prose served only to introduce a penny-whistle programme. A year ago Mr Johnson sent not a cities bill but a housing bill to Congress, which wanted nothing of it. Then the President was mainly concerned with the problem of getting enough houses built quickly enough to shelter the rapidly expanding population. This year his thinking goes far beyond that.

The President is now reaching far beyond rates of construction and is, in effect, asking where houses are to built, for whom and in what surroundings. It is clear that the American way of life is changing and changing fast. Seventyfive years ago only one person in three lived in communities of 4000 or more. Today two out of three people live in

towns and cities and suburbs. Within a generation four out of five Americans will be living in urban areas. Reckless Building There has been much reckless building in the post-war years, both in poor quality housing and in badly organised communities. Communities built all over the country have been called barracks and cantonments. The President wants, among other things, a commission to examine zoning practices (which are said to have been used for “ruthless economic segregation, and, it might be added, racial segregation and discrimination), and he would like to see financial inducements sufficient for suburban builders to put up whole communities rather than hasty development of subdivisions.

For some years there has been severe criticism in city after city of schemes for urban renewal.

Now the President asks for urban renewal expansion and concentration on building homes—to create neigbourhoods of character and identity rather than mere barracks. Rent Subsidies

Three points in his message have been singled out for particular praise by those who think his programme a good one. One is his proposal for rent subsidies for families with low incomes which, many think, would solve many dilemmas in conventional public housing and urban renewal. The second is an innovation calling for the states to establish land development agencies to acquire land, build public facilities and then sell the land to private builders for the construction of housing according to a firmly established plan. This, it is argued, would control the pattern of Metropolitan growth. The third point is the President’s request for matching grants to help cities build neighbourhood centres. The “New York Times,” thinks that although the President set forth the scope and complexity of urban problems in vivid language his vision is hedged by careful avoidance of anything that would offend the real estate industry or local interests. “The approach is timid, and the magnitude of the effort about the same as usual.” The paper does, however, have praise for the suggested scheme of rent subsidies.

Among the President’s other suggestions are a department of housing and urban development, an institute of urban development to do planning, and a temporary national commission on codes, zoning, taxation and development standards.

Many consider these overdue but whether Congress is now in a better mood to establish a department of housing and urban development remains to be seen. It could reject all these proposals. But the general belief is that a good many will go through and that a new Government department headed by a new Cabinet member would follow naturally later on to co-ordinate nationwide efforts.