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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 103
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 104
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 105
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 106
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 107
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 108
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 109
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Page 110
Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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Suggested Citation:"PROPOSALS FOR ACTION." National Academy of Engineering. 1969. Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18468.
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REORDERING OUR PRIORITIES TO MEET THE URBAN CRISIS Walter P. Reuthei I want to congratulate you for having chosen as your subject "The Engineer and the City," because I believe that the future of the American city is in grave doubt. I think we in America need to act in the realization that we cannot save America except as we act to save the American city. And we cannot save the American city unless we bring about a more rational and more responsible allocation of our national resources. I share the view of other Americans that the future of our cities is inseparably tied to the central question that confronts the human family: To what purpose are we going to commit the power and the potential of the twentieth- century technological revolution? Will we continue to commit that power and that unlimited potential to the madness of the escalation of the nuclear-arms race and man's ultimate, total self-destruction? Or can we work to bring about a rational world community? Can we harness the rising stars of science and technology for man's peaceful purposes, so we can extend the frontiers of human progress and human betterment and open up new and exciting opportunities for human growth and human fulfillment? For the first time in the history of man, we have the physical capability of mastering our environment. For the first time, the tools of economic production are adequate to solve mankind's basic economic and material needs. Therefore, this is the first opportunity to build a just social order. Having satisfied man's material needs, we can begin to devote our time and our energy and our resources to facilitate man's growth as a social and cultural and spiritual being. This is the true meaning of a civilized society. We have not yet fully understood the dimensions of the technological revolution that is changing our world at an accelerated rate, changing our cities and creating new problems that, to date, we have not responded to adequately. It is very difficult to comprehend the simple fact that 90 percent of all the scientists who have lived in the history of the world are alive today. Their creative and productive minds are unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and we will make more scientific and technological progress in the next 25 years than we made in the last 2,500. To what purpose shall we commit this fantastic technological progress? How do we go about relating it to basic human needs? How do we begin to direct it more effectively to meeting the problems of the cities? The trouble in the world is not caused by science, and it is not caused by technology. Science and technology are neutral in the affairs of man. They have no ideology, and they have no morality. We must give them a sense of purpose, and a sense of social direction. The basic dilemma of the human community is that science and technology have expanded man's wealth, but not his wisdom. Science and technology have multiplied man's power, but not his understanding, his compassion, not his sense of human solidarity and b/otherhood: all essential ingredients around which the survival of cities and the survival of the human community must be built. We continue to make progress in the physical sciences, but we lag farther and farther behind in the human and social sciences. It is this growing gap between technical know-how and human and social "know-why" that creates the dilemma of the American city today. Some years ago I was asked by the State Department to meet with Mr. Khrushchev when he visited our country at the invitation of President Eisenhower. We had a rough evening together, a bare-knuckled discussion. When it was over, he said that I was the chief lackey of American capitalism. ... I want to tell you that I haven't persuaded the General Motors Corporation of that as yet. Mr. Khrushchev was cockey; and he said, "We will bury your system in time, because history is on our side." I have tried to understand why he and other doctrinaire, dogmatic Communists feel that way. 1 have come to the conclusion that they think our free society is composed of conflicting and competing, irreconcilable, economic pres- sure groups. In their judgment, we are incapable of achieving a sense of common national purpose in the absence of the threat of war. I believe we can prove them wrong, because I believe the genius of a free society is its capability of achieving 99

unity in diversity. We can build that unity around positive qualities-common hopes and common aspirations, a common faith and belief, and a common set of values. But we must begin to work now as though we realize that time is getting short, and the solution to the crisis we face in the American city cannot be postponed. Like millions of other Americans and millions of people all over the world, I was thrilled when Neil Armstrong left man's footprints on the face of the moon. We in the UAW were doubly proud because UAW members built the major space vehicle and many of the major components for every aspect of the space program. But to me, the significance of that successful moon flight does not lie in America's great scientific and technological capability. The real significance lies in the fact that America has the capability of doing great and wonderful things when it makes a national commitment and is prepared to allocate the resources necessary to achieve that purpose. We went to the moon because we made a commitment to go to the moon; and we will solve the problem of our cities only when we make a comparable commitment and are prepared to allocate sufficient resources to translate that commitment into programs of practical performance. Our values have been out of focus. We have been more concerned with the quantity of our goods than the quality of our goals. We desperately need to reorder our national priorities and put first things first, so we can get on with the job. I should like to suggest some of the priorities that I would place high on America's agenda of unfinished business. In almost every city in America, there is a deepening crisis in the school system. The local tax structure is wholly inadequate to deal with the new dimensions of educational need. A massive injection of federal resources is needed. This is the only level of our governmental structure where we have access to resources even remotely adequate to the task. I asked myself, "Why is it that when our federal policy makers are called upon to appropriate billions to train young Americans to die in the negative pursuits of war, hardly anyone says we can't afford that?" Now I believe it is time for us to provide adequate federal resources for a system capable of educating our young people in the rewarding purposes of peace. We have a crisis in health care. We are the richest nation in the world-yet we have second-rate health care. We are spending $60 billion a year, an expenditure second only to military expenditures, and yet we rate eighteenth among the nations of the world in life expectancy for the male, twelfth for the female, and fourteenth in infant mortality. Last year, Sweden had the lowest infant mortality rate. If our rate had been the same, 40,000 fewer babies would have died in America. Obviously, we must reorganize our health care system. We are the only industrial nation in the world that relies upon the marketplace to provide health care. The market- place has demonstrated a tremendous capability of pro- viding gadgets, but it lacks the capability to provide essential human services, such as education and health care. We face a dangerous crisis on the housing front. I would put this high on the agenda, because we cannot save America's cities unless we can afford to rebuild them, unless we can afford to wipe out the slums and the social cesspools that breed crime and delinquency, and unless we can build communities in which the living environment will be worthy of people in a free society. The Congress has set a goal of 26 million new housing units in the next ten years; but we will not achieve that goal unless we being to deal with the new realisms-unless we begin to apply the most advanced technology and design capability and use new materials and marketing techniques. I am privileged to serve as the chief executive officer of what is called the Metropolitan Detroit Citizens Develop- ment Authority. It is a six-county, nonprofit, nongovern- mental housing authority fortunate in having as leader a cross section of the top people in the greater Detroit community. Henry Ford is a vice chairman. Jim Roche, Chairman of the Board of the General Motors Corporation, is a vice chairman. We have taken upon ourselves the task of providing leadership and resources to deal with the housing crisis in the greater-Detroit area. We are told that we are the third largest builder of housing in America. But we don't pretend to be doing a good job; we are only piddling on the outer fringe. We look good only because other people are doing worse. We have orders for 1,000 industrialized housing units with some significant reductions in cost; but the technology used was still very primitive. We will not solve our problem until we apply the most advanced technology through mass production of housing units. Many people think that only low-income families are being priced out of the housing market; but more and more moderate- and middle-income families are finding that they, too, are feeling the squeeze. We are the only democratic country in the world where housing needs are subjected to the fluctuation of the money market. When the economy is going in high gear, we are told we can't allocate federal money for housing because it will heat up the economy; and when the economy is in low gear, we are told that we can't afford it. So housing gets victimized in both direc- tions. We need a new approach that breaks completely with the past-one that can bring to bear upon the housing crisis the full leverage of our highest technological capability. We 100

must change old methods and old habits and old attitudes, and come to grips with the housing problem, or the American city will not survive. The choice is simple and clear. We must build, or the cities will burn, because the human frustration that builds up in the center-cities will explode and destroy them. As one privileged to have been identified with the American labor movement for 30 years, I feel that labor cannot meet its historic responsibilities unless it rises above the status of a narrow, economic pressure group, and acts instead as an effective instrument for creative and construc- tive social change. Now, I am aware that the building-trades unions have been conditioned by their bad experiences of the past- unemployment, seasonal work, and all of that. But I believe we must have a massive rebuilding of our cities by the application of the most advanced technology-the only way we can afford to rebufld America. And from that total rebuilding and the economics of abundance, the building trades would get more work and more job security than they could get from the economics of scarcity. Consider the Apollo-11 main space vehicle that lifted three astronauts off the pad at Cape Kennedy and put them into orbit. UAW members built it in the North American Rockwell plant in Los Angeles. What was the labor mix that went into the most sophisticated thing ever assembled by man? It was 85 percent nonskilled labor and 15 percent skilled. Next, take a primitive little box called a house; and we find a mix that is 90 percent skilled labor and 10 percent unskilled. Nothing could be more irrational from a produc- tive point of view. Consider materials. We are still using some materials handed down from the pyramids for housing; but not for the Apollo vehicle. Its heat-shielded underbelly, laminated 5-in. thick with new materials, develops temperatures up to 5000 degrees as it comes through the atmosphere to land. Yet the temperature inside the capsule goes up only a couple of degrees. These are the new materials. Until we use them and the new technology and design capability for housing, we are only pretending to deal with the problem. The housing industry is a cottage industry in the space age. Last year the largest single producer had less than 1 percent of the total market. The industry is fragmented by a system of antiquated, obsolete, local building codes. We need to assemble a national housing market. The Urban Coalition Task Force on Housing, of which I am privileged to serve as co-chairman with David Rockefeller and Joseph Kienan, is working toward such a market built around a set of national performance standards. And if we can establish one, it will facilitate the application of advanced technology to satisfying national housing needs. We also have a land problem. We must build regional land banks and end the scandalous speculation and profiteering in land. We need to provide adequate long-term resources at a reasonable rate. We have to deal with the problems of traffic in our great cities; because unless we do, we are going to be paralyzed. The automotive industry should make a con- structive and creative contribution to helping America develop a modern mass-transportation system with private cars being used to supplement that system. We must realize that we cannot have one without the other. We need a massive effort to deal with the deterioration of our living environment: air and water pollution, and other related problems. We need a total massive effort to create an environment in which we can begin to reassert the sovereignty of man over things. And these are only some of the most urgent priorities that we need to be working on if we are going to deal with our problems. One will ask, "Where do we get the money? How are we going to pay for these things?" This is where the allocation of resources comes in. We are spending $80 billion a year in the arms race. The nations of the world are spending more than $200 billion each year searching for security, and yet every new generation of nuclear weapons makes us all more insecure. Somehow, because we are the strongest of the free nations of the world, we have got to provide new initiative and new leadership in trying to deescalate this insanity. Unfortunately, you can't get a moratorium on the world power struggle; but we can try to shift it from the negative contest of the nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest between our two competing social systems. Let us see which system can best harness man's creative genius and relate it to the basic needs of the human community. In that contest, I am confident that our system of freedom will prove equal to the challenge. But we must get rid of some of the economic myths of the past. We ought to recognize that both Karl Marx and Adam Smith are museum pieces; and we ought to put them in the museums. A free society that relies primarily upon the marketplace for motivation is not incompatible with public planning for people. In 1946 the Congress enacted what is called the Employment Act of that year. It committed us to goals of full employment, maximum production, and maximum purchasing power. We have never achieved those purposes. In the 22 years since the act was passed, we have wasted 53 million man-years of potential economic production. I have said many times to the members of my union that an hour of human labor is the most perishable 101

economic value. You can produce a ton of steel in the Gary steel mills; and if you don't use it this year, you can store it properly and use it next year. You can raise a bushel of corn in Iowa; and if you don't consume it, you can store it properly and use it next year. But you can't store even one hour of human labor. If you don't use it, it is a total, irretrievable economic loss. And we have wasted 53 million man-years of labor that are irretrievable because we simply did not use them. When the economists translate that loss into potential gross national product, they tell us that it could have equaled S 1,815 billion. In those 22 years, we could have expanded our GNP $42,000 for every family of four in the country. The answer then to the question of resources to meet our needs will be found in reducing the level of armaments and through full mobilization of our economy. We must have these resources to let us deal with our problems. But we also have a problem that is not economic in character: how do we go about trying to make America whole-one nation, one people? Each of us, I believe, must work with greater courage and greater compassion to hasten that day when every American will be judged by the quality of his character and not by the color of his skin. We must reject the voices of extremism, whether they are white or black, because there are no separate answers in America. There are no white answers, and there are no black answers. There are only common answers that we must find together. But if we are to find those answers together, then we must facilitate the process of peaceful social change. As John F. Kennedy warned, "Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable." We must act in the knowledge that it will take new ideas and new concepts and new methods and new social investion to solve the new problems in the American cities. The tools of yesterday will not solve the problems of tomorrow. Abraham Lincoln, whom I consider one of the great political philosophers of America, said at another time of testing in the history of our nation, "The quiet dogmas of the past are not adequate to the problems of the stormy present." He said, "Our task is new. We must think anew. We must act anew." In the stormy present in which we search for answers to the problems of the city, we, too, must recognize that our cause is new; and we, too, must think anew and act anew. We have to develop the intellectual integrity and honesty to evaluate every new idea by its substance, and not by its source. I have unlimited faith in the capability of free men in a free society. I believe America is equal to the call to greatness. I believe we can find answers to the urgent problems of our cities. But to do so we must get our values in sharper focus. We must reorder our national priorities and put first things first. We must allocate our resources more responsibly. We need a clearer sense of national direction. We need a stronger sense of national unity. And we need a deeper sense of national purpose. As one American, I believe that we can save the cities. I believe that we can build a just social order. And I believe that we can transform the twentieth-century technological revolution into the twentieth-century revolution of human fulfillment. DISCUSSION QUESTION: We have made great strides in working toward a model building code. We also have new materials and new methods of production of materials that will lead to better and lower-cost housing. But we obviously have a problem with local building codes, with labor unions, with the design and the acceptance of these. I wonder if you have any specific suggestion that you might make for getting these various forces together to actually move ahead in this area. ANSWER: As I indicated, I am working with the task force committee on the National Urban Coalition and we are trying to assemble a national housing market. One of the ideas we have been working around is the concept of federal legislation providing for a set of national per- formance standards. All federal financing would be based upon those performance standards, the standards being accepted by any community in lieu of their local building codes as a condition for federal financing. If there was a local community that wanted to continue to be wedded u> antiquated local building codes, that would be a matter of local self-determination, but then they would be denied access to federal financing. We believe that is the only realistic way to break through, because if you try to change every local building code, it will take another hundred years, and we haven't got that much time. Now, about the general problem. If I were the leader of a building-trade union, I would be out in front fighting to bring about the basic reorganization of that industry so that we could begin to make high-quality housing available to millions of American people who could afford that 102

housing. I think that in the long run this is the way the budding-trades workers will get greater security and greater protection, because only if we can afford to rebuild America will we have that opportunity. But if they drag their feet, if the industry drags its feet, then I think America has to move ahead, because no economic group in our society has a right to veto our capability of solving this kind of urgent problem. QUESTION: I think a majority of the people in the nation agree with you that our national priorities should be reordered. The question is, how? How can the public get a better understanding of the mechanisms through which national priorities are being determined today? How can we explore effectively how these could be changed? ANSWER: The point you raise is a very serious central problem. In a very complex society in which the average person is so busy living his own life that he doesn't really feel that he can influence the democratic process in a meaningful way at the decision-making level, how do you get people actively involved in that process? I know of no other way than multiple meetings of this kind at every level of our society, in every community, to constantly raise the level of understanding of the average citizen. If they have the ultimate power of selection of leadership, and the leadership ultimately determines the priorities and the allocation of resources, then the only hope in a democratic society resides in raising the level of public understanding so that millions of Americans can translate that greater understanding into political action, into legislative action, influencing the whole democratic process as it goes about allocating resources. QUESTION: I am a general contractor. I know you are well aware of the problems with the Building Trades Council when it refuses to permit contractors to utilize factory-fabricated units in order to cut costs. Do you think that attitude of unions will change to permit the most economic production of such units? ANSWER: Well, I think that unless it changes, the American labor movement is going to be in very deep trouble, as it ought to be. I have said on other occasions that only an economic moron thinks you can get more out of producing less, that the only way you can raise your living standards is to have access to more productive tools so that one hour of human labor applied to more productive tools can create more economic wealth. This is why in our contracts in the automotive industry we have spelled out very clearly that we join with the company. We want the best tools that science and technology can provide. We want to use those tools, and using them, we want to create more economic wealth. Then we want to share in that greater economic wealth. It seemst to me that a labor movement that thinks it can get more out of the economics of scarcity is a labor movement that is looking backward and not forward. 103

URBAN PROGRESS: THE FORCES OF GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY Bernard A. Schriever We have arrived at the threshold of an era where, for the first time since man's existence on earth, it can rationally be envisioned that not only is it man's destiny to explore his universe, it is also mankind's responsibility to control and exploit the resources that exist for the benefit of the present generation as well as generations yet to come. We live in an age where within a span of a decade, a national commitment was made to release man from the shackles of the earth, and as a consequence, man's footprint is on the moon. We have penetrated millions of miles of space to send unmanned satellites to the vicinity of Mars and Venus and, on a basis of a radio-command request initiated at Pasadena, our knowledge of the environment and origin or our sister planets is suddenly increased many hundredfold. Television and communications relay satellites enable us to scan the globe on a real-time basis from the comfort of our living room. We have augmented our memory and problem-solving capability by the develop- ment of extremely powerful computers. Within one genera- tion, mankind has spanned the gap from an earthbound existence to the era of supersonic and space flight. We have achieved so much in such a short time span and, yet, there are still slums in our cities. Poverty exists in our nation, and we see violence and unrest in an age of affluence. We have conquered distance, time, and speed, but have not yet provided minimal living standards for all our people. We must ask: "Why cannot our technological and management capabilities be oriented to solve our very pressing urban problems?" Indeed, in some cases, technological advance- ment has proved to be a detriment to living standards by an increase in the level of pollution. This apparent incon- sistency in observing sophisticated technological develop- ments on the one hand, and viewing a degradation in the quality of life in our urban centers on the other, has resulted in the concerted attempt to apply modern tech- nology and management towards the solution of key urban problems. A number of industrial firms have made com- mitments to enter the urban and regional sciences area with the intent of using aerospace technology, planning, and management techniques to improve the quality of urban life. As of now, this has resulted in little success when looking at the big picture. Of course, we have begun to look to industry and modern technology for solving specific problems-pollution, air and water, waste disposal, trans- portation, education, health, etc. This is good and progress is being made. Project breakthrough is a breakthrough in one sense already-HUD is becoming a customer of in- dustry, with more than 500 proposals. I am not saying that industry should build houses for HUD but if industry is ever to become effective in urban matters-as in defense and space-the federal government must be a considerably more vigorous customer. It may be that we are doing all our system will allow. An assessment as to the reasons for this apparent lack of success in the overall is vital if we desire to improve our environment to the point where life standards are compatible with our technological capability and our ability to plan and manage. What is wrong? Why can't we solve our urban problems if at the same time we can put a man on the moon? The oversimplified answer is always more dollars. The truth is that more dollars is not the answer. The engineer too often finds all the answers in technology and the systems approach. This too will help but alone won't do it. In fact, I've heard it said that the city and technology are in conflict and the city got in the first punch. I'm inclined to agree. Then, of course, the social scientist tends to look down his nose at any outside help to his socially oriented solutions. We are a long way from solving our problems and many, including me, believe that we are not making very much real progress. In fact, I doubt if we are even holding our own. Certainly we need a national urban policy-the subject of Dr. Moynihan's paper. We will also need more dollars. We will need technology and the systems approach. We will need the social scientists and we will need the politicians. The $64 question is how can all of these elements be harnessed to permit meaningful planning- particularly long term, disassociated from political tenure- and a management system that will allow reasonably efficient execution. NASA and DOD have learned how to 104

do this in their areas of responsibility. They have brought together the elements of government-industry and science-to accomplish their goals in carrying out their responsibilities to the nation. Military-industrial complex has become a sinister term. But what is the alternative in achieving national security or our national space goals-to joint participation of government-industry and science? This we have not yet achieved in any organized way in grappling with our urban problems. Barbara Wood stated it perhaps as well as anyone in the July 8,1967 Economist: There are new insights into urban planning. There are new technologies available to give the plans a solid base in fact and extrapolation. There are myriad inventions-in power, in traffic control, in automation-waiting to be applied to urban problems. And there are the resources which will in any case be spent. What is lacking so far is the unifying vision of the whole urban order as a proper field of coordinated inquiry and action. Since retiring in 1966,1 have explored this area with a number of industrial firms, individual scientists, and the government at all levels, with no tangible success. Though the need for a systematic approach to urban development exists, unfortunately, its application today is extremely difficult. The key problem is that social and psychological phenomena cannot be rigorously posed in mathematical terms as can physical phenomena. It is not feasible to define on an analytic basis the consequence of urban development strategies. It is also unfortunate that empirical approaches cannot be used due to the lack of a meaningful data base. However, since urban systems are orders of magnitude more complex than weapon and space systems, the ultimate approach toward urban development must be a systematic one, wherein the interactions of the physical, economic, social, and psychological are com- pletely assessed and understood. Our urban posture to date has been to meet crisis conditions as they arise with emergency and patchwork solutions, rather than to con- sider urban development as an integrated entity. We must begin to develop the necessary data base and we must develop urban laboratories to understand the interacting effects if we are to intelligently and efficiently use our technological capacity for urban development. In this the federal government must take the lead-the Urban Institute is a step in that direction. Now let me tell you briefly of my experience with Urban Systems Associates, Inc.-USAl-ten or twelve com- panies participated at one time or another in this two-year- plus effort, now on the shelf. Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon, Emerson Electric, Control Data, Ralph M. Parsons, American Cement, to name some. The types of programs encompassed by USAI's charter involved systems management, systems analysis, and long- range development planning as the first steps. USAI's experience in summary was that the establishment of a customer was more difficult than the derivation of specific programs. The nature of the programs involved local, state, and regional development, which would be conducted in a cost-efficient manner using systems management and engi- neering techniques previously developed by the private sector. The first phase in programs of this type included the conduct of cost analysis and trade-off studies leading to the definition of an implementation program plan. USAI proposed in several instances to conduct this phase jointly with appropriate government organizations. It was determined in the course of several of these efforts that government was not structured nor motivated to accept a program of this type. The reasons for this were generally due to: (1) The nature of government itself, its organiza- tional structure, and its implementation ap- proach. (2) The traditional procedures used by civil servant- implementator and politician-decision maker. (3) The general policy of government to respond to crises as opposed to the establishment of a leadership position and recommending innovative or new concepts for preventing problem solving. The experience of USAI in its attempt to develop meaningful systems management programs with govern- ment indicates that at the present time the government is not constituted to effectively participate in these programs. In summary, the reasons for this are as follows: (1) The absence of an authoritive governmental body (client) with jurisdictional responsiblity coin- ciding with problem areas. Government is frag- mented-at all levels. (2) The lack of a responsive management structure within government. Mayors do not control many city departments or special-purpose districts. Governors do not control mayors. (3) Most local governments have not defined their needs. There is no common agreement on what has to be done to improve conditions. (4) Many implementors in government either do not agree with or do not understand a systematic approach to problem solution. Governments traditionally respond to crisis; planned efforts to prevent crises are rare. The present call is to provide jobs, housing, and education and, more important, to provide them now. (5) The lack of money. Central cities are broke; they want unattached block grants from the federal government to spend as they see fit. 105

(6) The characteristic of the governmental employee. To generalize, the employee does not have the concern and interest in involving the private sector in his affairs. (7) The participation of elected governmental officials. Often these officials do not in fact support many urban programs because of possible repercussions from critical opposition, from antagonizing self-interest groups, and lack of perceiving problems beyond tenure of office. The client with money, authority, defined needs, and proper scope, and agreement with a systematic or otherwise changed approach to improvement of urban conditions is seemingly nonexistent at this time. However, it is the belief of much of the private sector that government needs additional assistance in planning, designing, implementing, and managing the growth of the city. Greater utilization of systems management techniques would contribute to better future growth rather than an excess of the unsatisfactory growth that we have experi- enced in most of the cities in the past. Possible future courses of action for industry in making a contribution to the improvement of the urban environment include the following: 1. Continue previous civil-related activities that are most compatible with current products, business opera- tions, or minimum capital risk and investment, such as: • Supporting the independent sector efforts in the local communities. • Conducting job training for hard-core unem- ployed under the manpower act programs. • Providing consulting services to government agencies, at no charge, as deemed appropriate for each request received. 2. Continue to diversify company business into consumer breakthrough areas in need of attention. One example is to invest in the development of lower cost housing, which could be achieved through application of current technology and factory production techniques. The risk here is high and the possible return is long term. 3. Establish a formal, separate, nonprofit activity to achieve improvements in the local community. In this case a percentage of profits would be expended yearly, with no expected dollar return. 4. Express the industry viewpoint to government at all levels with respect to government inefficiencies, and with respect to the need for minimizing "political ex- pediency" in government management of urban develop- ment and redevelopment. 5. Maintain an in-depth knowledge of urban activities by nominal market analysis expenditures over the years, and prepare to become committed to this market as government becomes more receptive to joint programs and when investment risk can be better defined and controlled. ORGANIZATION Urban affairs activities must be made a full-time corporate activity if the corporation is to generate an image of significance in the civil sector. Functional and/or product orientation must be subordinant to a more pervasive overview of the role the corporation seeks to assume. Once the corporate role is defined, it can then be implemented along functional and product lines. Since urban affairs is a people-oriented activity, it is imperative that the most current information concerning the environ- ment and prevailing views of all individuals involved in a given situation be acquired. It is, therefore, quite likely that political consulting services will be required. APPLICATION OF NEW SKILLS A new science and technology is emerging that is an interdisciplinary integration of the social, physical, and management sciences. It is directed toward a comprehensive understanding of man and his institutions in light of his total environment. If new markets created by public edict in the civil sector are to be serviced, considerable attention must be given to this new science and technology. Many believe that to develop an effective, profitable, "urban- oriented" business, capable in this new science and tech- nology, will require considerable time and a sizable invest- ment. That constitutes quite a list of suggestions for in- dustry. However, to really succeed, the government must find ways to interact much more effectively with industry than it does today; let us say, as a government-industry complex in its most constructive sense for urban programs. And, of course, I include in this, participation by the scientific community. Project breakthrough could well be a step in creating an effective communication link. I have the following rather obvious suggestions as to what might be done at the federal level. They all have precedent in either defense or space-oriented activities. 1. Improved coordination There is a need to provide a structure for coordinating the responsibility for housing and urban activities that is splintered throughout government. At minimum, it seems to me, the secretary needs a commission composed of not lower than undersecretary-level persons (no alternates!) from all the agencies involved in the urban problem (HEW, DOT, DOD, Commerce, etc.). This group would convene under the chairmanship of the Secretary of HUD at intervals deemed necessary to work out interagency coordination. 106

I also believe there would be value if the Secretary established an advisory council composed of leading persons from those sectors of the society who are involved in urban affairs (labor, industry, universities, the Congress, etc.)- Properly tasked and led, such a group could go far to provide the entrepreneurial, innovative approach so difficult to achieve in government but so vital to adequate solutions for the problem. 2. Planning HUD'S task is so complex that it can never really get a leg up on the solution without an adequate advanced planning and systems analysis group. Starting from scratch to create such an in-house capability is difficult. It appears to me that the most effective way to achieve this capability would be by creating a contractual obligation with a nonprofit group (see DOD's Institute for Defense Analyses). 3. Formulate a 5- to 10-year get-well action program This is not intended to eliminate the immediate programs. Everyone admits the instant solutions are not possible; then why not add action items that take longer but that have promise to eventually get us on the right side of the power curve? I suggest that HUD initiate an in-depth survey for the purpose of identifying all inhibitions and obstructions-including sacred cows that stand in the way of more efficient planning-to management and imple- mentation of sensible urban programs. The objective of the survey should be a specific action program to be carried out over a number of years: involving policy-legislation- organization-funds-management. This would provide an excellent platform for the planning and analysis group that was my previous suggestion. DISCUSSION QUESTION: I would like to commend the first speech that I have heard that says in fact that we are not committed to a policy in this country of helping the cities. I think we have heard too much of a feeling of consensus, but no one has really said we are willing to spend additional money to help the cities. In connection with this, have you thought of how industry and the universities as well as governmental agencies could produce what amounts to a consensus for the real goal? And the real goal must be, I think, increasing the tax base for the purpose of helping the cities. ANSWER: I think this is true, but I think my last comment inhibits me from saying that all we need is more money. There is no question that more monies will have to be provided through the governmental structure. But I think the highest priority should be in creating the management capabilities within government and then that interacting with private enterprise to enable us to ef- ficiently carry out programs so that we can utilize those monies effectively. Today the organizational structure and management structure simply don't exist. Even when we offered to provide our services free, we weren't welcome in some communities because a lot of the local bureaucrats do not want high-quality people looking over their shoulders. In every community, there is the usual, "Scratch my back and I will scratch yours." How are we going to get rid of that? We know what the problems are. Everybody has a whole set of problems that exist, and they say, "Well, just another study." I am speaking about a survey in depth that comes up with a program directed into the Housing and Urban Development Secretary's level and the President's level. This will require legislation. It will require identification of programs. And I certainly agree with what Mr. Reuther said; you have got to have leverage with money. And if you come up with programs that are rational and logical, then, if you can't get local levels to go along, just shut off the purse. It is the only solution. It is the only leverage. I don't think the federal government should go down to the local level and try to do the job that has to be done at the local level. But it has to get some leverage. QUESTION: About two years ago a symposium was sponsored by the Civil Service Commission. One of the speakers in that symposium was former Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina. He mentioned that he thought it was of assistance to the states and the governors to have federal programs with strings attached to the money. He thought the programs were good, and politically the states didn't have a chance of carrying out many of these program without strings. I am inclined to feel a little pessimistic myself about the New Federalism. Would you care to comment about that? ANSWER: It all depends on what definition you give "strings attached to federal support." Having had experience in the Defense Department, from the Pentagon level down to the working level, I would say that I don't mind having strings attached to monies provided me at the working level when I ran programs at the working level, as long as I didn't get help from the 107

bureaucrats in the Pentagon in actually conducting the program. So I think it depends entirely on the level of detail that is involved. I certainly would agree with you. I don't think that we are really ready at the local levels for the federal govern- ment to turn over large sums of money without some monitoring-or at least providing guidelines, possibly broad guidelines-on how the monies should be used, and then monitoring to see that it is used along those lines. But to try to have people looking over your shoulder at every detail, I think, would be a mistake. There are levels of detail at which the federal government can supervise. And I think it should maintain at least some monitorship. Get a good management information system and get the kind of information you need to see that those guidelines are being followed. That sort of thing has to be done, and I don't know how you could really hope to accomplish very much, right now at any rate, unless you did that. QUESTION: Throughout your remarks seemed to be a theme of greater centralization of governmental at all levels. But at the same time you say, quite rightly, of course, that urban affairs is essentially a people-oriented concern. Isn't there a danger of centralization on the one hand and certainly our need and wish to keep diversity at the human level? ANSWER: There is, and I think the answer lies in the procedures that are established to allow participation in the conduct of large programs. And you can have participation at various levels in major programs, particularly the kind of national programs that Mr. Reuther was talking about, which I think would avoid the very narrow interpretation of centralized control. I have seen it happen within the Department of Defense, even though a lot of people think we are monolithic, now that we are not from where you sat, so I think this can be done also in the civil sector. 108

THE CHAOTIC SOCIETY: WHITHER? Philip M. Hauser In my judgment, certain perspectives are basic to understanding the "why" of the urban crisis that afflicts America. Let me start in a professorial way by pointing out that man, or a close kissing cousin, has been on this earth for 2 million or perhaps 4 million years. In the course of man's occupation of this planet, four developments have had the greatest impact on his attitudes, values, institutions, and behavior: the population explosion, the population implosion, the population displosion, and the accelerated tempo of technological change. I regard all four of these developments as components of what might be thought of as the social morphological revolution, comparable in its far-reaching effects to the industrial revolution. There is a significant difference, however. The impact of the industrial revolution is reasonably well understood. The meaning of the social morphological revolution is not yet even known. Let me briefly identify these developments. Almost everybody today knows what we mean by the population explosion. It refers, of course, to the remarkable acceleration of the rate of world population growth, particularly during the three centuries of the modern era. Population implosion refers to the concentration of the world's people on a relatively small area of the earth's surface-a process better known as urbanization or metro- politanization. Population displosion refers to the in- creasing heterogeneity of peoples who share not only the same geographic locale, but also the same social, economic, and political activities. People sharing the same space today often represent many diverse cultures, languages, religions, value systems, ethnicities, and races. The accelerated tempo of technological change requires no further elaboration. These four developments are interrelated. The popula- tion explosion has fed the population implosion, both have fed the population displosion, and all three have been preceded and followed by accelerated technological change. As it turns out, these four developments probably are exemplified more dramatically in the United States than anywhere else in the world. First, the population explosion in the United States: In 1790, we were a nation of fewer than 4 million souls. By 1960, the census showed our population to be approxi- mately 180 million. When the nineteenth census is taken next April, it will record a U.S. population of approxi- mately 205 million. Despite our decreasing birth rate since 1957, a second postwar baby boom is just around the corner, which almost certainly will increase the population of this nation to more than 300 million by the year 2000. That is, we stand to add another 100 million people to our population in the next 30 years. Second, the population implosion in the United States: In 1790, when our first census was taken, 95 percent of the American people lived in rural areas, on farms, or in towns having fewer than 2,500 people. There were only 24 urban places in the whole country, and only two of them, New York and Philadelphia, had populations in excess of 25,000. In order to understand the current urban crisis we must realize that the United States did not become an urban nation-in the sense that more than half of our people lived in urban places-until as recently as 1920. When the 1970 census is taken, we will have had half a century as an urban nation, and half a century is a short time in the life of a nation. Small wonder, from the temporal perspective alone, that we are afflicted with an urban crisis. In 1960, the U.S. population was 70 percent urban and 63 percent metropolitan. Short of an unpredictable event-with thermonuclear war, all bets are off-it is likely that all of the 100 million people we are almost certain to add to our population by the end of the century will go into our urban areas. It is possible that 80 percent of them will go into our metropolitan areas-places with 50,000 or more inhabitants and the counties in which they are located, as defined by the federal government. I feel free to predict with considerable certainty that this additional 100 million will swamp us before we can even solve our present problems. Third, the population displosion in the United States: We are one of the most polyglot nations on earth. We have 109

drawn our people from every corner of the globe. As recently as 1900, only 51 percent of the American people were native whites of native parentage. The remaining 49 percent were either foreign born, the children of immigrant parents, or members of other races. By 1960, 30 percent of the American people still were either foreign born, the children of immigrant parents, or members of other races-notably of the black race. The population displosion hit hard in the United States. We are in the midst of a black revolution, and certain basic facts help us to understand why. Although blacks have been here for three and a half centuries, they could not enter the mainstream of American civilization- that is, urbanism-until as recently as World War II. As recently as 1910, 89 percent of the blacks in this nation lived in the South. That concentration had come down only two or three percentage points from the census taken before the Civil War in 1860. Only during World War I, when a manpower shortage caused a bottleneck in war production, did the internal migratory movements of blacks begin from the South to the North. This was greatly accelerated during World War II. By 1960, the concentra- tion of blacks in the South had diminished to 60 percent. By now it is somewhere between 50 and 60 percent and certainly will drop to about 50 percent during the course of the coming decade. Two other figures reveal why the black revolution is part of the urban crisis. In 1910, 73 percent of all blacks lived in rural places, on farms or in towns having fewer than 2,500 people. In the course of half a century, less than one lifetime, the blacks in the United States have been transformed from 73 percent rural to 73 percent urban and are now more highly urbanized than the white population. To gain a quick insight into why we have the kinds of problems that confront this nation, consider that as recently as 1960, 23 percent of all black adults in the United States, those 25 years of age and over, were still functionally illiterate. They had not had the opportunity to achieve education beyond the fifth grade and were unable to read a newspaper with ease. This was their part of the American heritage. This was their preparation for life in metropolitan America. This situation cannot be compared to that of white immigrants who came to this country possessing only a strong back and lacking education, skills, or an ability to speak the language. When the major waves of white immigrants arrived on our shores, this nation was in the beginning process of building its physical plant, its rail- roads, and its highways. At that time, with a strong back you could make a living. Blacks migrated to urban America where, with nothing but a strong back-and that was their heritage-you cannot even make a living. Underlying all these developments has been rapid technological change, which also had precipitated the entire range of problems contributing to the urban crisis. These include air pollution and water pollution, inadequate supply of housing, traffic congestion, the profligate use of natural resources, and defective urban design. These problems in turn have spawned a whole set of social problems, including delinquency, crime, drug addic- tion, alcoholism, and the revolt of youth. At one extreme of this revolt are the hippies, who have adopted a form of retreatism. At the other extreme are the activists, who beat their heads futilely against the walls of the Pentagon or, like mad dogs, seek to bring about a revolution in the United States with bicycle chains and clubs, as they attempted to do in the streets of Chicago this summer. The developments I have outlined have also created a series of problems for our federal, state, and local govern- ments. The founding fathers could not have anticipated and did not anticipate urbanism, which is evident in the nonfunctional character of the boundary lines of cities and counties, and even of states. Our form of local government was inherited directly from eighteenth-century England. The British have gotten rid of the worst elements of that particular structure. The United States still is stuck with it. Let me state my fundamental thesis. Man is the only culture-building animal on this globe. He has built a new technological and physical world, a twentieth-century world manifested in the urban and metropolitan plant. Because of the unprecedented physical world he has created-characterized by rapid urbanization-he is ex- periencing unprecedented problems. And he has become paralyzed in his efforts to deal with these problems. At the risk of incurring hostility in some quarters, I must say that I think engineers kid themselves and kid the American people when, in discussing possible remedies for urban ills, they talk about a systems approach and a management approach and the contribution of the engi- neer. They are merely trying to apply Band-Aids to cancerous growths. They fail to understand the national inclination to attempt to solve twentieth-century problems with nineteenth-, eighteenth-, and prior-century institutions and values; with nineteenth- and prior-century ideologies; and with nineteenth- and prior-century governmental struc- tures and processes. Let me try to document these assertions. One of my old professors, William F. Ogburn, wrote a book, Social Change. In it he said that our society changes at differential tempos. Technological change, for example, occurs more rapidly than social change. He introduced the concept of "cultural lag" to the literature. I contend that cultural lag in the United States prevents us from facing up to our twentieth-century problems and that engineers are among 110

those prevented by cultural lag from making contributions. Let me give an example of cultural lag. The Constitu- tion of the United States was developed by an agrarian society, many aspects of which are as outmoded as the horse and buggy. The Constitution provided that every citizen had the right to bear arms. This made considerable sense in 1790. Guns were necessary for protecting families from the dangers of a frontier society and for getting a food supply. A gun also was a way to increase your realty holdings, if Indians were in the way. By and large it was a wise founding father who went along with providing the right to every American to bear arms in 1790. But I submit that the right to bear arms in the last part of the twentieth century in urban America is a good example of a cultural survival-an atavism, the dead hand of the past imposing itself on contemporary society. It is why every year we kill people by the thousands with guns. People killed annually with guns by a comparable popula- tion of 200 million in Europe or in Asia can be counted in the tens and the low dozens. Let me present another reasonably concrete example of cultural lag. As recently as 1960, there were 39 states in this Union in which the urban population constituted a majority of the people. There was not a single state in the Union in which the urban population controlled the state legislature. In my judgment, there was never an example of civil disobedience as injurious to the American people as the civil disobedience of the state legislatures when they deliberately defied federal and state constitutional mandates on reapportionment. This rural minority so callously ignored urban problems that they forced the urban population to turn to the federal government for the resolution of their problems. It is rather naive of people to say that the federal government usurps states' rights. They do not know their history. What has happened is that the state legislatures have committed suicide by not joining the twentieth century. It matters little in these United States what the state legislatures do from now on. As for the New Federalism of President Nixon, some aspects of it are fine. But if this Administration follows through on its proposals, it simply will be turning over funds to state governments that for 69 years in this century have demonstrated their complete and utter disregard for urban problems. The federal government will be turning funds over to state governments that, by any standards, are more inept, more corrupt, and more incompetent to do a job than any other branch of government in the United States. If this is the New Federalism, it is one reason the urban crisis will worsen, not diminish, during the rest of our lifetimes. There are other forms of cultural lag reflected in some of the sacred tenets to which many Americans cling. Because engineers are educated in a manner calculated to remove them as far as possible from the humanities and social and economic studies-although this is more true of the past than of the present-I suppose they seldom reexamine these tenets. Among the most sacred is: "That government is best which governs least." Another of these silly shibboleths from the agrarian past is: "Man in pursuing his own interest, as if guided by an invisible hand, automatically acts in the common interest." These tenets had their place in 1790, when 95 percent of the American people lived on farms and in small towns, because what was there for government to do beyond what it was doing? In taking care of his own family in a small town or on a farm in 1790, man was acting in the interests of all. But can any of us envision the United States today without a Social Security Administration, without a Pure Food and Drug Administration, without Federal Com- munications Commission, and so on down the line? Whom are we trying to kid? Or consider this interesting aspect of the same set of shibboleths, these cultural atavisms from the dead past: Caveat emptor. -"Let the buyer beware." Recently, I entered into a debate with a conservative columnist who Jives on top of one of the Blue Ridge Mountains (I suspect that is about as close as he has got to twentieth-century society) and he argued that caveat emptor must continue to be a guiding principle of American life. Consider the small bundle of products available to the American consumer in 1790 when this might have made some sense, and consider the complex products and services available to the American people today. Caveat emptor? That means that every woman in America could have one, two, or three thalidomide children and, after discovering what caused the deformed children, could punish the producer only by not purchasing the product any more. Caveat emptor is a dead shibboleth, inapplicable to contemporary life. Let's take another one: "A tax is something govern- ment takes away from people, and taxes should be held to a minimum." That, too, is a shibboleth from the dead past, when there was nothing for government to do. I submit that the essential question that should be raised by the American people today is: "What basic public services are required to assure that the American society remains a viable society?" The second question is: "How do we raise the revenues to perform those essential public services?" I submit that the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee has the cart before the horse. He may still know 111

how to run a small-town bank in Arkansas-I hope-but when it comes to financing the needs of the American people, he seems not to have entered the twentieth century. Then there is "rugged individualism." We are getting it in a new sense in the inner cities of America. We see evidence of addiction to this relic of the past in our present Administration. Although it is recommending some of the programs that Dr. Daniel P. Moynihan, Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs, is proposing, it is still verbally trying to avoid the "welfare state." I submit that urban and metropolitan America is in large measure a welfare state, and will become more so. If you do not like big government and centralization and a welfare state, let me remind you that for the first time in the history of man we have now developed a way to reverse the population explosion and the population implosion and the population displosion. Up until now, these develop- ments have been irreversible, but at present we have a hope that all of them can be reversed. That hope, of course, is the hydrogen bomb. The bomb can solve all our urban problems. Where should we go from here? I have some sugges- tions. One is that we must first decide that we need an urban policy. Second, we need to revamp the Constitution. I have said that the Constitution of the United States is an outmoded piece of paper in many respects. And it is. It was a wonderful document for eighteenth-century agrarian America and, among other things, it protected us from the despotism of King George III. But as a result of some of its provisions, no city in the United States has the competence to deal with organized crime, because our Constitution makes the rights of the individual more important than the rights of our society. During the past 50 years, all Americans have been affected by organized crime. Our outmoded Constitution-not the Warren Court, which interpreted the Constitution-makes that possible. I offer ten new amendments to the Constitution of the United States-a Bill of Rights adapted to the needs of our metropolitan, urban society rather than to the agrarian United States of 1790: 1. The right to the kind of opportunity, freedom, and security that enables a person to achieve optimum development. This concept does not exist in the Constitution of the United States, nor does it exist in the minds of many of our people and leaders. Those of us who have the privilege of reading the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Newspaper" in Chicago (the editorial page is the best comic strip in the nation) remember that all during the Depression of the 1930's the word "unemployed" was usually not used. The word was "idle." Anyone unemployed was obviously a stupid bum who would not work. His red American blood was not rising to the occasion. 2. A physical, social, and political setting that fosters effective education to enable a person to acquire the basic skills, the salable skills, and the civic skills needed to assume the obligations and responsibilities, as well as the rights, of citizenship. A large proportion of the American population today, particularly in our inner cities, is poor. About 42 percent of the blacks are poor and 11 percent of the whites. But because the proportion of whites in our population is greater than that of the blacks, there are two poor whites for every poor black. These people no longer are getting basic skills, salable skills, or citizenship skills to enable them to stand on their own feet in the United States of America. Our system of education once was responsible for creating unity out of diversity and for promoting an open society. Today, public education is creating a caste society in America, a society stratified by race and by economic status. 3. Opportunity for maximum length of life and good health. 4. An environment-and here is where engineers enter the picture-controlled in the interests of society, free from pollution and from adverse population densities. Nearly half of the freshwater supply of the whole world is in the Great Lakes. I do not have to remind you that Lake Erie is dead and that Lake Michigan is within ten years of being dead. Do you want to continue a value system that permits this kind of destruction? 5. Opportunity for employment commensurate with skill. That would constitute an extension of the Employ- ment Act of 1946, which it was my privilege to help work out during my days as a bureaucrat in Washington. 6. Knowledge and means of limiting family size, in the context of community, national, and world welfare. 7. Impartiality in the administration of justice, in order to protect the interests of society, even while safeguarding those of the individual. 8. Government consistent with the realities of the metropolitan order and majority rule. We do not have majority rule. The one-party system in the South, plus the seniority system in the Congress, has given the South a virtual death grip on natural legislation. Senators Claghorn Thurmond and Claghorn Eastland, and the rest of them, are trying to decide what to do about twentieth-century problems when they have never left the eighteenth century in most fundamental respects. 9. The benefits of the arts, technology, and the sciences for everybody. 10. Opportunity to live in a world where conflicts of 112

interests are solved by adjudication, not by physical force including war. If you want a more specific blueprint about how to solve America's urban problems, go back and dust off the Kerner Commission Report. It has not been looked at since it was written. It contains a blueprint for doing the things that must be done if we are going to resolve the urban crisis. Go back and support the Urban Coalition's recom- mendation that the government be the employer of last resort. That does not mean another WPA. Finally, to deal with contemporary problems, both the conservative and liberal approaches must be abandoned in favor of a social engineering approach. The conservative turns to the past for an answer to twentieth-century problems. The liberal too often manifests emotion, zeal, and determination to deal with twentieth-century problems. Both approaches are hopelessly outmoded. What is needed is the social engineering approach-the application of knowledge based on research to the resolution of problems. Social engineering is needed to deal with social problems in the same sense that physical engineering is utilized to solve physical problems and biomedical engineering (medicine and surgery), to meet biomedical problems. Our society has come to recognize the role of the physical and biomedical engineer but has yet to recognize and accept the social engineer. It is well to remember that it took roughly the century from 1750 to 1850 for the physical sciences to achieve the respectability and acceptance to enable physical engineers to apply physical knowledge to physical problems. It required approximately the century from 1850 to 1950 for the biomedical sciences to similarly acquire sufficient respectability and acceptance to enable biomedical engi- neers to apply knowledge to the solution of problems of health and life. It apparently may take the century from 1950 to 2050 for the social sciences to gain comparable respectability and acceptance so that the social engineer is permitted to apply knowledge to the solution of social problems. But it is a moot question as to whether we shall survive as a viable society to 2050. It may well be that the chaos with which we are beset will engulf us and drag us down into the drain of history as a nation that achieved the miraculous in technology but could not adapt itself rapidly enough to survive the new world that man created. The United States, as Rome before it, may well collapse and bring down with her most if not all of human society. We have the means to destroy ourselves and perhaps all of mankind; and it is naive to assume that the employment of these means is beyond the realm of possibility. I close, however, with a positive note. I am convinced that we also have the means to deal with our problems in an effective manner to create a world twentieth century in its social, economic, and political aspects as well as in its technological aspects. The means to this lies in man's potential for rational behavior-in man's ability through science to acquire knowledge and in his ability through engineering to apply knowledge for the solution of his problems. 113

FORMULATING AN INITIAL URBAN PROGRAM FOR THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING Eric A. Walker Summary of Remarks Engineers must assume a major responsibility for improving the quality of urban life in this country. While it is a mistake to say that the engineer alone can solve all the problems of the cities, the engineer can play a significant role in arriving at many of the solutions. The National Academy of Engineering is now making a significant contribution to the search for workable means to end some of the problems of the cities. It is clear, however, that the Academy has the resources to do much more. A greater effort is needed. Part of the problems of the city are the result of misguided individuals who, without considering the full effects of their work, through a desire for "progress," abused the technology they had before them. It is a cliche to say that no man is an island, but no creature is independent of its habitat. Changes and decisions can no longer be made in one part of our civilization without effecting others elsewhere. It is this sort of ignoring and ignorance of the consequences of our activities that is at the root of our crisis in the cities. Some of the ills of the cities, however, particularly in the economic, social, or political spheres, simply are not ammenable to solutions arrived at by traditional engineer- ing analyses. An engineer, for example, can propose a system to alleviate urban transportation problems, but after the system is devised, there remains a fundamental question to be answered: Should we go ahead and do it? This question involves several things. It involves the availability of money. It involves the priority of doing one thing instead of another. It involves the question of public support for the decision. This calls for better and greater communication among the engineers and the politicians who usually have to find the money for the project; for better communication among engineers and sociologists who might be capable of measuring public acceptance. And of course, we have to involve those who ultimately benefit from the system and those who pay for it: the taxpayers. It is not easy to surmount the communication barriers between these diverse elements of American society, but unless the gap is bridged, the problems cannot be readily resolved. For its part, the Academy has an obligation to make certain that the issues of the city are clearly understood by all who are or should be deeply concerned. We can make a genuine contribution by placing these issues in their proper perspective and setting priorities for their solution. Engineering deals with people-and people live in the cities. For this, the simplest of reasons, the Academy must make a strong commitment to the betterment of life in the United States through working to improve the cities in which her people live. 114

PARTICIPANTS John A. Buggs Director of Local Coalitions The Urban Coalition Washington, D.C. Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts T. Keith Glennan President Emeritus Case Institute of Technology Cleveland, Ohio Martin Goland President Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, Texas Sherman K. Grinnell Associate Director, Engineering Design Center, and Associate Professor Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio Philip M. Mauser Director, Population Research Center, and Professor of Sociology University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois J. Erik Jonsson Mayor of Dallas Dallas, Texas Thomas C. Kavanagh Partner Praeger-Kavanagh-Waterbury, Engineers-Architects New York, New York Stephen F. Keating President Honeywell, Inc. Minneapolis, Minnesota W. Deming Lewis President Lehigh University Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Daniel P. Moynihan Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs Washington, D.C. Joseph H. Newman Vice President Tishman Research Corporation New York, New York Milton Pikarsky Commissioner of Public Works Chicago, Illinois Gerald J. Remus Superintendent, General Manager, and Chief Engineer Detroit Department of Water Supply Detroit, Michigan James B. Reswick Leonard S. Case, Jr., Professor of Engineering, 'and Director, Engineering Design Center Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio Walter P. Reuther President United Auto Workers Detroit, Michigan Bernard A. Schriever Chairman of the Board Schriever, McKee Associates, Inc. Arlington, Virginia Philip Sporn Consultant New York, New York Peter L. Szanton President New York City-RAND Institute New York, New York Eric A. Walker President, National Academy of Engineering President, The Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania

HT167 .E455 1969 Engineer and the city; a symposium...

Engineer and the City: A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969 Get This Book
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