Sunday Forum; Health, Housing And The Environment

Our subject today. Housing health and environment is a blend of the shared concerns of both the League of Women Voters and the manse Medical Society. What we will examine are. The facets of the real world. The unfortunate reality of. Overcrowded housing for Sun poor physical and mental health for son. And for all an environment where we are cautioned not to drink the water and not to breathe the air. What we will seek from this reality are techniques. Skills means possibilities readjustments of priorities and values tradeoffs. Whatever is needed to make this real more ideal you know the words. A society where people are healthier more adequately housed and living in a better environment to serve as the conference moderator for this morning session.

It is my pleasure to introduce to you Dr. George Wilkins Dr Wilkins is a graduate of Harvard Medical School. At the present time. He is serving as a consultant in Occupational Medicine at the Mass. General Hospital and associate professor of occupational medicine. At the Harvard Medical School. He is an honorary board member of the Medical Foundation. And of course on the Environment Health Committee of the man's medical society. Yes as a director of the New England telephone company as their medical director and has been president and board member of society committee in 1964 the American Association of occupational medicine. And in one won. The coveted award for industrial medical medicine. It is a great pleasure and a joy to introduce Dr. George Wilkins. Our first speaker this morning is the commissioner of children's

affairs in Massachusetts as well as urban consultant the Harvard Medical School a post he has held since 1969. He represented Malden and Melrose in the state legislature and he authored the major housing legislation during the 1969 70 and 1970 71 legislative sessions. He has served on many boards and commissions involved with social needs. Among them special legislative commission on elderly needs and problems. The tri city area board for mental health and mental retardation and the citizens housing and planning association of metropolitan Boston to mention just a few. It's a pleasure to welcome this morning and to introduce Mr. David Lederman. Thank you very much. I think the topic this morning is is an interesting one from a number of viewpoints. I want to try to come

at it in a way that probably isn't isn't that new to some of you but might be to some and it might generate some stimulate some discussion later on as I'm going around the state and I've really been busy the last few months traveling around Massachusetts meeting with a lot of people who are interested in children and who come at the problems of children for it from a number of different vantage points. But as I've gone around talking to people in the development of our councils for children. Which will be developed in every substate area of the state. I met with a number of parents whose concern for their children is really closely related related to their concern for the environment. But the environmental priorities of a mother who lives in a rat infested apartment. In Boston. Are very different from the environmental. Priorities of a wealthy businessman whose wife.

Who lives in conservation minded Lincoln. Parents in the core city see the environmental problems of their neighborhoods and ask why the parks. In the cities are allowed to become deserted trash filled wastelands urban parents ask why state money is spent on acquiring distant suburban conservation land to which they have no access in which they can use for recreation. Many of them question the conservation crusade and ask why in the glutted bogs in the suburbs suddenly become precious natural resources. When a proposal for a low income housing comes in a family struggling to make ends meet asked why their electric bill indicates a $10 increase labeled their Shia for clean air and a mother with several children on welfare asked how can she be expected to get a job to

support her family. When if she begins to earn a reasonable income. Her children would be excluded. From low cost daycare because she would be over income. When I talk with these people and encourage them to participate in the councils of the children I really have to wonder why these problems exist. In one of the most progressive states in America the wealthiest country in the world. Probably the wealthiest country in the history of the world. There is really no greater pollution. In human life. Than the grinding atmosphere of poverty. And I think we really have to start there. And really share that kind of an understanding before we can move on to other areas. What do parents want their children's environment to be like. They want an environment that will guarantee their children adequate food health care decent housing. Jobs paying

career wages a chance to get ahead and access to education. These parents expect to work with things. But they also expect that their government will back up their claims to a decent life. Any environmental proposals which threaten these legitimate claims to a decent life. Will be challenged. And should be challenged. Such proposals should be examined very critically by both legislators and by the people and governmental agencies responsible for environmental policy decisions. Among the issues raised by environmentalists questions about present patterns relate related to population increases urban growth personal and industrial uses of of natural resources recycling land use rights. Some of these issues really have to be dealt with on the national level but certainly some can be dealt with by state local government. Whatever the

policies whatever solutions are developed. They certainly will have implications for people in Massachusetts in considering these problems I think we really need to ask critical questions about what affects some of the proposed solutions will have on working people. Or minorities. On old people and women and children. The urban growth controversy is really a national issue. And the hostility that. Two of the cities and city people which ran through the political speeches of the prairie populists in the 1880s is now echoed in political speeches in governmental decisions today. I question the reasoning of the president's ninety nine thousand seventy two Report national urban growth. When Congress mandated this report in 1970 it asked the policy recommendations on urban growth. The report offers no policy recommendations and even cops out

on the urban focus suggesting that the title might better be national growth. Rather than national urban growth. The new federal policy of giving preference to home loans in rural areas to keep people down on the farm. Just won't work. Like it or not America today is an urban society. Sixty five percent of our population live in urban areas. We can't return to the good old days of rural America. And we must take action to deal. With urban problems in the people who live in urban areas. The federal government recently. Has shown an. In in a very specific example that I'm going to use that it really wears blinders when it comes to dealing with urban suburban rural priorities. In this case it's going to cost Massachusetts a lot of money. In

maternal and infant care programs under a new funding policy recently recently announced play GW 2 programs will be funded by grants based on formulas from the 1935 Social Security amendments which was specifically designed to aid rural areas. The programs of the maternal and child health services in the maternity and infant Kier Children and Youth Services. These programs in Massachusetts cost more than four million dollars largely federal money until this year and were administered by the State Department of Public Health. Part of these plans were in the form of project grants while the rest came through a a formula grant. Now the project grants have been cut. And the state must rely on small of formula based grants to support all the programs. So instead of getting 4 million dollars Massachusetts will receive 2.3 million dollars a cut of 1.7 million. And because of the way they are they're using the formulas Maine in New Hampshire

will receive more maternal and child health clinic than Massachusetts. The new policy represents a 58 percent funding cut and affects about 30000 children. Ironically these cuts in health and other services hit hardest. At the children living in the urban environment. Where the need is the greatest injustice morning. If you had a chance to read the Globe or the Herald American you know that the Senate failed to override the veto of the president's veto of the of the handicapped bill and that that's absolutely a new woman that the president could veto that bill if the Senate couldn't muster the support to override that veto. We're talking about here Andy Capp people talk about retarded kids. We're talking about people who need services

in the who aren't getting services. And over the past two or three months we've seen many examples. The social service cuts in for a in for a while the proposed cuts in for a regs of the proposed new regulations and 4A that were handed down by SRS an 80 w about six weeks ago. Which when when you look at those and I am sure some of you have corresponded to SRS and interestingly enough. Social rehabilitation services as we see more male on the on the social service cuts than anything since the Vietnam War. They've been bombed with letters of people objecting to the cuts because we're talking about day care programs. We're talking about foster care. We're talking about child welfare and Protective Services. We're talking about a whole variety of programs that are aimed at

some of the most abused deprived kids that we have in this state and across the country. Think it's interesting and I just want to spend a moment because I think we all out of nowhere were asked in in our efforts to deal with about 10000 children in Massachusetts who get services out of the Department of Public Welfare. Most people by law not aware. That child welfare services foster care adoption services child abuse services a whole variety of services for low income children are delivered by the Department of Public Welfare in Massachusetts. And in fact because welfare is a dirty word for a lot of people and because politicians have a field day. Kicking the crap out of welfare recipients. When it comes time when it comes time to get monies

for children's services for social workers to cover the fifteen hundred uncovered cases in the Division of Children and Family Services in the department can't get the money can't get the money because the politicians and my former colleagues and I don't limit it to the legislative branch because I think the executive branch has been equally as guilty response to the anti welfare kind of sentiment that exists in this day. And across the country and the president has given leadership to that anti-welfare subtle sentiment with his pronouncements of getting people off the wealthier rolls and on to the work rolls. Which is absolute nonsense. Because there are jobs during the training programs the number of people we're talking about is in significantly small anyway. But that kind of thrust and in concert in the consequent

inability to deal with the problems of the kids who need the services the most. That's the that's that's the kind of pollution that's the kind of inability to deal with poverty that I am much more concerned about frankly is as a person today in 1973 than some environmental issues. And at the same time that that the president vetoes the handicapper Bill we're spending tons of money. Developing all kinds of skin planting things in everything around the environment. God you know come over to 100 Cambridge Street and I'll bring you up to the mine floor and show you all the people that sit around pushing a pencil all day long doing doing plating kinds of things right because the money is just flowing. The money is just flowing out of the federal government for environmental and I'm not

you know and I and I like trees and I like grass and I like clean air and I like all that stuff. But I think we need to we need to have some kind of a perspective in that area and not get carried away to the point where we start dumping all kinds of money into things which are totally irrelevant to 65 percent of the population in this country. What makes the city environment so bad. Why are cities in such a terrible financial situation. Why industry. Why does industry leave the city. Why does suburbs own people love when the state granted zoning power is based on protecting the health safety and welfare of all the people. Many of many people in this room worked hard with us four years ago to pass the snob zoning act Orianthi the pending appeal where you live. And and it and it's taken us that loan it's taken us that long to get a ruling from the court.

As you know those who have followed it that the court clearly did rule in favor of the housing. Think about 3 weeks ago and I think it will be interesting now to see whether or not we can begin to use japa 774 in its thrust to get more housing built in in suburban areas in Greater Boston. Why can developers make enormous profits of housing in many of them do without taking any responsibility for schools. Any responsibility for sewers. Any responsibility for some of the basic things that are necessary to support the people who live in the house. To involve our government state or national in solving these problems really requires more than just setting up new refereeing agencies or a new set of guidelines and reports to present governmental agencies solving these problems will really require new governmental policy legal definitions which account for the environmental impact

of development of people and communities. Different methods of charging environmental cause more powerful land use laws. I think we're really going to have to have to deal with the whole question of land use. We need a state land use policy in Massachusetts we don't have one. We don't have a state land use policy in Massachusetts. We need a state development capacity we don't have a state development capacity. We worked hard on it. It's complicated. It has it's difficult because a lot of the legislators that represent people in this room would not vote for certain kinds of development powers for the state because they think you don't want them to vote to give the states certain kinds of powers to develop in certain areas. Im proposing that an expanded state government role in environmental decisions I think we must be sensitive to the effects such decisions will have on all Massachusetts citizens especially urban working people the poor and the children. The effects of environmental decisions on

such groups really may may not be immediately obvious. These effects show up later. Like the utility companies clever and deceptive billing of a rate increase as the custom is sheer the clean air. I think we really need to ask who pays the price of environmental policies which make sure that the big businesses and the utility companies and the landlords don't have to pay the price and then they even turn it around and and use it is a wedge to get more money. By saying that because they go to do certain things that are related to the environment. You know because the apartment house guy has to use certain kinds of fuel. That means he has to raise the rents because he's being a good citizen and he's and he's and he's cleaning the environment and it ends up that the affluent sector of our society and the people who have been

riding the backs of the poor are the working class for a long time. Turn the thing to a room and use that as a wedge to make even more money. I don't think that the environment can be left to the technicians. I don't think the environment can be left to the bureaucrats and include myself in that to the blue ribbon panels. But the big business I think in every area in the environment no less than any other area. All the citizens of Massachusetts must have a shot at participation and that includes young people that includes minorities. That includes women. I think we really have to get to the business of developing ways for people to participate and we must recognize that a healthy environment includes by definition. And I was glad to hear. This is Lynch talk about

this in her in her remarks because I think that this is the thrust of this of today. And I think it should be the thrust of today and it should be the thrust of your actions in the next few months in the next years to come. That by definition a healthy environment includes adequate housing food health care education and employment opportunities. And we must recognize that the clear paying for such an environment is more than a trend. But should be an ongoing effort with a definite political and economic impact. And you know in this room that Massachusetts stands out in this country we are the one and only. And I think that that the that the League of Women Voters in Massachusetts really has an opportunity to give leadership. And I think many times I I would often say to my friends in the league that I think you minimize some of the

power you have and I think you minimize you know people tend to minimize it. So some of their some of this strength in in their ability to to change things in not the things change that quickly because everybody knows that it takes a lot of work to make things happen. But I think you have enormous power and I think if you could if you could give leadership in this day and in this country to begin talking about the environment in the way that I've tried to talk about it this morning to not just limit questions about the environment to just clear and clean water and clearance of ation and that kind of thing but to talk about the environment in the in the way that we that I've tried to address it this morning and give leadership to that kind of an approach. And I think we would have done everybody a service. And I think in fact we will create a better environment here in Massachusetts and across the country. Thank you very much.

Thank you Mr Lederman. Our second speaker this morning. Is a physician and he is professor and chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina born in Johannesburg South Africa. Dr. Cassell was educated at the University of Whitmore signed and the University of North Carolina. He presently is consultant to the United States Public Health Service the National Institute for Mental Health. The division of environmental scientists is a sciences. It's where my thoughts run. The National Environmental Health Sciences Center and a member of the Advisory Board Institute for Environmental Health Studies at the University of North Carolina.

He has written extensively and he is done much work in fact he's a very experienced expert on the relationship of poor housing to the help St. of our citizens it's a pleasure to now present Dr. John Charles Cassell. Dr Wilkins ladies and gentleman. First of all let me tell you how delighted I am to have been invited to speak today. I always enjoy visits to. Massachusetts and Boston particularly. In the past. I never failed to return from such visits feeling quite stimulated and once more with some faith in the future of mankind I hope to be to again today. Most to lead a man has very eloquently and succinctly pointed

out some of the discrepancies between governmental decision making and the needs of our people. He's indicated some of the gaps that exist between self-interest and the common good. It's my purpose today to divest myself to a different sort of a shoe and ask the question. In the fullness of time we one small get a humane and rational government. What sorts of changes should we envisage. What should be done to improve the health and well-being of substantial segments of our population. And I'm particularly concentrating on the things that need to be done insofar as housing is concerned. Now there is a well-established folklore in our society and most Western societies that poor housing causes poor health. We know

indeed that people who live in bad housing are less healthy than those who live in good houses. And the question is the assumption usually is that the reason they have poor health is because of the poor housing. And if we built better houses we would improve their health. Let me make clear that I'm not questioning this just far as a sort of self evident. Relationships are concerned if people live in houses infested by rats and other rodents they get a good rep bites. If people live in houses and which is inadequate ventilation. Or inadequate heating over their stagnant water they are going to suffer from the consequences. No question I'm not even doubting that I'm not even sadistic Of course I'm not suggesting those sort of things shouldn't be improved. What I'm am questioning however is to what extent once we get beyond those gross deficiencies and housing. Does the improvement in the bricks and mortar alone lead to any marked improvement in the health of the people

involved. And the reason I'm asking this question is because being can being puzzled by the experience we've had over the last. 15 or 20 years. Where. Presumably intelligent decisions have been made to develop urban renewal schemes to improve housing to put people into quote sanitary and decent dwellings and yet there has been no evidence that under the circumstances the people have been moved have improved their health status considered and to any considerable extent. In fact some of these housing developments develop 20 or 30 years ago. As quote the planners green have now turned out to be the planners nightmare. And we find the same sort of appalling conditions existing in the new housing schemes 10 of the 15 years off the development that existed before. And this is led me to question. If people live and. Who

live in poor houses have poor health States. How come what can account for that. Now if you think about it. One of the curious notions in all of medical. Folklore. Is that overcrowding leads to poor health. By increasing the chance of passage of germs from one to the other and increasingly chances of race baiters disease. Well there is no good evidence to support that. For every study one and signs suggesting that rates of infectious diseases such as to be Occulus or a risky diseases or even guest understand diseases are higher in crowded conditions. We can find other studies saying that they are not. In fact there are some studies that show that people who live under crowded conditions and may indeed have better health than people live under unguarded conditions there are islands for example in the Pacific. Where the bay where people are so

crowded together on small parts of land one island that I know quite well. Whether five or 600 people on a few acres a land packed so tightly together that it's hard to get in and isolate between them and yet there is no evidence whatsoever of poor health amongst its people. No permits immortality no excess of disease. Holland has the highest density of population in all of Western Europe. And yet has some of the very best health statistics. So the question is not just. The physical fact of density of population that but the DMV does not account for some of the poor health states that we observe under crowded conditions. What is it then. What. Environmental factors could be in business as being important under the circumstances. And if the crowding is not related in any consistent fashion to infectious diseases how could it be related to those other sorts of diseases that occurred under the similar conditions.

Mental disorders drug addiction. Increased levels of blood pressure increased rates. Of diabetes increased amount of alcohol consumption crime and violence. How could we envisage this. The structure of the house itself. Increasing the SOTA rates. I think we get start getting some clues when we begin to realize that our notions of the nature of disease and its causes are changing. Even for infectious diseases that we have all been brought up to in an era when we believe that we get a new disease and infectious disease by virtue of that contact with a new market organism a new germ. This is the formulation developed at the turn of the century and was probably an adequate formulation then when most of the diseases of concern where the acute epidemic virulent diseases like cholera smallpox or plague. But there is considerable evidence today to suggest that most of the agents capable of producing disease

particularly microbe biological agents are ubiquitous that most of us harbor most of them all the time. If I were to culture the spirits of people in this audience today I'd find a large proportion of you harboring viruses and bacteria capable of producing disease but few if any of you are sick at this moment. And so the question of concern then is not happy people come in contact with a new organism. But what changes the balance between the host the person and the organisms they harbor. To allow previously an oculus relationship to become pathogenic and produce disease. What environmental factors could change that. And one of the more intriguing notions that's been developing recently is that that aspect of the environment that might be important which has only recently been studied is the presence of other members of the same species. Namely the relationships that exist between

different people. The evidence for this is somewhat scanty but nevertheless quite intriguing and that some of some perhaps some of the best evidence that it often enough comes from animal studies. It has been found for example. That if the social mill you exchanged in rec colonies. And everything else kept constant. The way in which the socially used to sleeping changes other being to increase the number of animals housed together or in some way interfere with that ability to maintain territorial control. As a number of animals held together increases and all other things get constant such as the dot Act and the sanitation and the light and humidity. Under those circumstances I wasa number of health changes daughter caring. Infant mortality rates runs long devotee decreases. There is an increased rate of various types of cancers of heart disease among these animals

and a great increase in susceptibility to a wide variety of insults whatever these insults might be. X-rays just talks and loud noises whatever that may be. Increases the CIP ability of the animals and produce a disease. The same thing happens when territorial control it interfered with. These studies are being done by taking mice for example and putting them in boxes both out any crowding and linking these boxes to other boxes of mice with tunnels and linking the whole system to a common feeding place. So there's a constant circulation of mice in the system. Under those circumstances all the mice developed persistent high blood pressure increased death rates for all my specifically for the young and for the females and an increased rate of infectious disease occurs in these mice. Everything else I think it constant. And these are not modest the things that quite made it affects. For example if a rat is exposed to a given dose of x rays in isolation his long GMAT is shortened by

some number of days. If the same Rx exposed the same dose of X-rays but in a crowded condition there long divot is shortened by twice that number of days. The crowding tends to double the effect of the X-rays. These phenomena have been well documented in animal with and we've got some biological explanations for them as well. But the question of concern is are the analogs in human life. Most people who've studied this have said rather simple mindedly if it's crowding in animals it produces easy ill health effects. It will therefore be crowding in humans and as operate really told you it doesn't seem to be any good evidence that crowding is necessarily harmful though there are a lot of people who live under better conditions are sicker than those who do not. But is this due to the crowding. When one then begins to examine more carefully these animal experiments one finds some of the clues that might apply to human life which do not mislead a function

just of the physical density. Because one of the things that happened in animal colonies as a number of the population increases is a very bizarre change in the nature of the relationships between the animals. This change while it's manifested in various different ways has one thing in common that actions on the part of one animal. Do not really to cause it to do it too. And dissipated consequences on the part of the respondent. For example in the wild state in all social animals. Each animal that defines a zone around the nation that is said is big home territory if an invading animal of the same species comes into that zone the defending animal starts a series of ritualized aggressive movements which are responded to by an equally brittle state of a list of responses. This is being called a ritual dance. In a video later leads to blood seated in a different species of the same species that go through this back and forth

movement which is so ritualized that if one knows how far the initial accounted takes place on the home from the nascent one can predict how long this dance will continue until other Wonder cleats or the other gives in. Now under crowded conditions an invading enemy might come into the zone. The defending animal starts its ritual dance and the invading animal does something quite bizarre. Instead of responding he may lie lay down go to sleep start eating walking away do anything except respond. And this lack of response to certain behaviors takes place in every phase of the animals lives. Under those circumstances it seems that the animals have one of three options open to them. The most common of which is to repeat these behaviors quite fruitlessly. Now recognize that these behaviors are built into all of us. The notion of a certain set of behaviors which will accompanies a certain set of objectives or behaviors are accompanied by vast

changes in our home and system and our nervous system all of which are important in maintaining our ability to withstand disease. So the most common of these often just repeat the behaviors repeat them and repeat them without accomplishing the objectives without getting any evidence that anything has been accomplished. And it would seem that under those circumstances that constant repetition of these behaviors do lead to an increase susceptibility to a wide variety of diseases. However there are other options that the animals. One of the less common but quite not infrequent options for some of the animals too. In a sense to treat from the field to the cop out. One finds mice for example just. Crouching motionless on the razor thin edge of a partition dividing the cage for 18 hours a day behaving as if there were no other master around them under these gotta conditions. They don't participate in the sexual life of the others. They done only three by themselves and every else has gone and I don't have any interaction with any other sort of mice they just stay there

in a passive state removed from all the rest of the society. Those mice don't participate in the excess pathology. They live as long as anyone else but they don't but they don't reproduce at Denver for many function in that society. And the third alternative open to animals is for bands of particularly young males to gang together and form their own deviant subsegments of that society. So it's not an infrequent to find gangs of young male rats invading the neighbor's cannibalizing the attacking female rats and behaving in what we would consider to be quite anti-social a social ways. Where there's there's gangs or rats also participate in the just pathology or not. There's no data to speak not. So I'm suggesting to you. That one of the analogues that may occur in humans is that disease and diseases likely to high rates of various two sorts of diseases.

Where people are put in a situation where there are unable to receive any evidence any feedback that their behaviors are achieving any sort of and to supply the consequences and that is precisely what we have done when we have gone in and made a decision that we were in to introduce new housing or new urban parents without any sort of cooperation of any sort of joint decision making on the part of the people involved. Their actions their behavior their wishes are ignored. They are told where they should go and what they should do and whatever they do does not lead to any important consequences. Is little question in my mind that the majority of residents of inner cities as well as other places particularly in the cities have no way of knowing how to modify the circumstances in which they are living. What do you do if there is gross injustice cress unfairness. What do you do if your

roof is leaking or the rents are too high. How do you get protection on the streets. What do you who do you talk to to get anything done. And what consequences what. Results. Accrue from those sort of actions. Sometimes you get something sometimes you get nothing. Sometimes no matter how hard you work can be funny sometimes if you don't work you'll be rewarded. It's those sorts of flavors that seem to me to be extraordinary important as the determinants of a whole wide variety of diseases and disorders. But now there's something else as well. Indicated rather briefly and sort of breathlessly because of the time the flavor went to the captain about the nature of these relationships that may be disastrous but there are also a set of relationships between individual same species that may be protective. There is some evidence. That the presence of strong social supports. May indeed protect people against the health consequences of the first sit effect as I talked about.

Again this evidence comes from both animal and human studies. I told you about the studies with which pivoted mice were developing territorial control and under those conditions must develop high blood pressure. The NASS experiment is repeated in exactly the same way. But now instead of populating the system with strange mice. And all the mice there are little makes no elevated blood pressure or for example if a baby goat is exposed for long hours it in to them monotonous ticking of the mitten he develops a condition called experiment on your relatives. If in the next room the twin brother that baby goat is exposed to the same ticking of the same it tonight but now in the company of his mother. No experimental neurosis. And human work to do it has been shown that many people. Who are outcasts who are marginal people in society who for a variety of

reasons have now the family no friends kids no kin neighbors or groups with whom they can interact with whom they can form close relationships are it. It's exceedingly high risk of a variety of diseases. These include diseases such as the mental disorders but they also include things like tuberculosis ALSA. People that attempts suicide have multiple accidents and have a alcoholism and a wide variety of diseases. And those people who are at the fringes of society not integrated in any important social groups. Here again this is exactly what we do when we sort of mindlessly think that by changing the bricks and mortar alone we get to improve the health of people when we enter into urban renewal schemes. We destroy many of these fragile bombs that have occurred between people particularly elderly people who have developed a type of enclave that developed a set of relationships with others.

Whether these relationships are at the corner grocery store or a door in the delicatessen away that may be and we put them into sterile isolated situations where they are unable to establish relationships with important others. It is under those circumstances that apparently some of the highest disease rates including high death rates and including such things as alcohol and drug abuse. Now let me just tell you the end of ones. One among many studies which would tend to give some flavor to the importance of these relationships. Let's take a quick question like drug abuse. One of the major problems that we face today and I haven't done any studies in the inner city but one of my students has just recently conducted a study to teach the importance of these the importance of these interpersonal relationships in producing such disorders. He was interested in the question of drug abuse in teenagers and he took it as a pilot study. And I just gave you this as a

palace study by small groups some 30 or 60 high school students. And by promising them anonymity he thinks that what he got what it leaves me valid answers to questions about whether they were taking marijuana and how much alcohol they were drinking. And he also got some information about their illness patterns over the previous year and the town did visit a doctor and things like that. And he was interested in finding out how much of these behaviors and disorders could be accounted for by the relationships that occurred within the family. How strong and how supportive were these relationships. So you gave them a to say the question is that have been quite well-developed now which can measure the perception any one person has a vision of relationships with another person. In this instance he was interested in the students the ception of their relationships with their parents. These questions can be scored in a fashion to tell you how the respondent views the three things. The extent to which he is controlled by his parents from

tight to loose control. The extent to which he believes that he has any degree of autonomy from locks to little autonomy and autonomy and control are somewhat different. You can have a person under tight control for example who says his parents say you have a curfew at 10:30 at night and God help if you come home later than that. But autonomy would say that up to ten thirty whatever you do is OK you master. And the third dimension was the psychological methods he saw his parents using to enforce it which is from withdrawal of love on one hand to inculcate in a shaman the other hand. Well it turned out that the students responses these questionnaires in the schools they got was the single most important factor in determining whether they were taking drugs. How much alcohol they took and what sort of sicknesses that had. In brief those students who saw their parents were giving them relatively tight control. But plenty of autonomy within their control and who were

using methods that did not employ the withdrawal of love were the least likely to be on marijuana least likely to taking alcohol and had the fewest illness rates. I'm not suggesting that this is a truth. I'm just saying that this is a clue that maybe one of the things that we should be concerned about is not only improving the physical quality of the houses of improving the ventilation and reducing the animals and rats and the stagnant water all of which must be done. But when we talk about improving the environment we must be talking about improving the social the human environment as well as a physical environment. We must be prepared to invest a considerable amount of time and effort in trying to integrate people once more into the major stream of society to allow them to have the recognise that their decisions and their actions are leading to and to anticipated consequences that they are the abilities to maintain adequate

social support and if the supports didn't exist I would suspect that it would not be too far fetched to think that human services should be designed in such a way that we can help strengthen such supports. In fact there is little evidence that if you do stay in from the supports no matter how cruelly it is done important consequence is going to flow not only this one and it did it and then quit. This is a study done at the University of Rochester. Nothing to do with housing but to do with social supports. In which to the major departments and psychiatry had been addressing themselves for the previous two years to the problems created by in families by having a chronic handicapped child. These children and their siblings it was found tested very poorly on the back of psychological tests. Not only that the handicapped but their siblings as well and they were doing poorly at school suitable underachievement despite all the efforts of these

two prestigious departments in Pediatrics they were unable to improve the psychological psychological performance of these children over a period of one or two years. By standard medical methods. Then one of the young pediatricians hit upon the black notion of enrolling a number of. Ladies from the community as community count as the family counselors for these families and I asked him to do was to visit these families regularly and routinely once or twice a month throughout the year providing what support and help they could to the problems those families had. He did this on one random half of the families with the handicapped children and left the others as a control group. And then remitted the psychological scores of the children and their siblings at the end of the year. And those children those families that had the counsellors showed an absolutely startling improvement in the psychological schools compared to those who had not. Now we don't know exactly what those

women did in those homes. There were warm bodies present about a special warm bodies perhaps but I'm not sure at this point what exactly what they did or what sort of supports I strengthened but never listed something more that had been accomplished by this professional skills available in the past. So it seemed to me. That if we are ever capable of doing in a rational and intelligent developing rational intelligent programs particularly in the area of housing we're going to have to consider the not only the consequences of the architecture. And the structure of the houses we gain have to consider ways in which seas can be changed in conjunction in cooperation with the people involved and which by intelligent community development and intelligent approaches to the people involved. We can begin to identify the types of social supports that need to be strengthened and the mechanisms by which we can do so. Thank you very much.

It'll. Thank you doc. KASELL. We have now heard from a legislator a government official who by his own definition is a bureaucrat. And we have heard. From a physician. Our last speaker of the morning. Is an architect. Always a Louis cert was born and educated in Spain and came to America in 1939 and is now a senior partner in the Boston pharmacy where Jackson and associates he has honorary degrees from numerous universities and has lectured in the United States extensively and in South America and Europe. Mr. Sherrill was dean of the faculty of design and professor of architecture in The Graduate School of Design

at Harvard University. From 1953 to 1969. Some of his principal architectural commissions are the Joyce community housing for the elderly in Brighton. Community development shops and housing in Lincoln. And urban renewal plan for the central business district of Westar. And many buildings both at Boston University and at Harvard. He has had a number of publications he along has been interested in building design which would not handicap the handicapped and getting in and out and around in these buildings. It is now a pleasure for me to present below Mr. Serry. I would like to talk to you I can only thought to do it to you today about generalities. This is a modest as a subject and the physical environment that the

architects and planners are concerned with. I know that many of you are going to send with many Nvidia important local issue and I would also mention some of those but I prefer than have to learn to rather deal with the bigger issues because I think that you get something large from this morning planning and in the zine and not seeing it by the reverse room. So I like to bust a few slides to begin already talking about seeing physical things that have columns and measure. This is a beautiful picture you're all familiar with it is a piece of unspoiled land in this part of the world. Before architects planners or developers get anywhere near it. Now I like to have a sequence of slides here past. And then in the next slide. Please and in this slide you see what begins to happen when a lot of people live on the land when a

lot of roads have too and a lot of cars had to move through it and this kind of of sprawl suburban development low density development whatever you want to call it in the land is very common is occupying vaster and vaster areas as the automobile and the improved system of transportation and expressways makes a distance short that in terms of time and the living conditions possible at greater distances. I can see that this is this baton and the next one which is the crowded conditions in the centers of the old cities who are extremes of physical development that are the prevailing was in this country. We find the conditions of very high land values in the centers of our cities which according to financial studies of course call for high density is called for the crowding of a great number of cars in very small spaces

and then we tried to get the expressways tighter and tighter around corners of the existing buildings and existing valuable parcels of land. By using this multi-level solution which is expensive aspirating and finally doesn't function very well. So now we have the two extremes in the country the two extremes are. The people living in the suburban developments in their own little shrinking cottage and shrinking piece of land. The only thing the doesn't shrink are the cars. And those that are living in apartments in the cities in overcrowded conditions or in working in offices in overcrowded conditions going up to tremendous heights with nothing around them to make the whole thing properly funky. This is an example of a Victorian house and an early automobile and the type of house you see around the suburbs today and the car as of today. In the next slide. We see

the what happens with zeal. With the occupation of space. Everybody naturally aspires to have a two car garage because several members of the cabinet at least the man and woman drive and when their own independence which is natural so the cars become bigger than ours has become bigger. Their living rooms naturally become smaller because the houses are more expensive and we get more equipment into them which is very nice to have but of course we have to pay for that also. So when we are still paying with the equipment modern equipment that we need in the house and we have two with a garage we have no space left for the living will. That means of course that some other kind of form of living has to be and actually I think is in the making what happens again is that when the people move from the suburbs to the city they generally use one of their biggest cars and and the

very few people travel in those cars the average is about one and one third person by cup per car moving at these distances from suburb to city in San Francisco I heard they had done an intelligent thing Lisa and Lee. They put all the cars with five or six people in them in a row then in a row under bridges that the bridges they do speed those cars and had all the cars that were practically empty waiting in a long line so that the people who learned what they were trying to do were still fully totally foolish. And it seemed to work practically to a certain extent. Of course the answer really to the to the transportation of a considerable amount of people is using vehicles that are designed for that. Here's the example of what a bus can take and its equivalent in cars the equivalent number of people in automobiles. I've shown there as compared to the same number of people in GA. Now besides that you have to consider those cars. For hours in the

in the middle of the city or in the most congested spaces occupying parts of Steve's large regional parking lots while the bus is constantly moving and that's and it doesn't need that constant occupation of space. So we are now really dealing with problems that have become so so very obvious that I think that sort of common sense problems the children and anybody can understand them you needn't be taken legally prepared those specially prepared to deal with those problems are still there sort of every time one tries to argue about these things. The answer is Well you are not prepared you are not a plan now you have and you don't know about these so that I don't think that the people in general. Should should be have an inferiority complex all these things they should feel that this is an obvious thing. I mean you cannot possibly defend their physical environment like the one we have. When the results are so obviously around we have

blood. We have pollution. We have slums and we have. Over extended utilities of course a lot of money we have it remain this really costly system of highways that are not properly used because you know the highways are crowded in peak hours and absolutely deserted in other hours when people are not moving from house to office the other thing is that the suburban development as is planned today and I'm not critical of the various suburbs you know all the best old towns in this part of the world which were quite beautiful and I'm not critical of Lincoln I'm not critical of Concorde or anything like that but those remember are exceptions. And you people who are living there are rather lucky people who live in privileged places where the majority of suburban developments are more like the ones I showed in my second slide to the ones that you are now thinking of. So that. What. Is necessary today is. If people have to be active men and women everybody in the

family have to live an active and useful life. If they have to have community life if they have to get together to meet to discuss matters to really be able to participate in the shaping of their lives their health and their environment is really to live closer together. I'm not predicating the higher densities of the city. Density is the result. Not from the use of land but from the abuse of land and the land is really today not used in terms of livability but it is always valued in use in terms of rent ability which is an entirely different thing. There went the ability of the land and the possible benefit in operating and selling and buying land is the real cause of the why we have these overcrowding in our cities and totally irrational overcrowding. So the reaction today is to design some communities where people could live

together. They would have up until recent getting together and they would be a certain density that will be certainly much higher than the one we have in the in the ordinary sprawling suburbs that are very common today. But that would give them a facility to move around to do their shopping without necessarily having to take every time they go anywhere to be able to get their children to daycare centers which could be then afforded because the people who live closer together and hold community facilities which they cannot afford in the big sprawling suburbs. And that would mean that a new pattern of life a more balanced kind of pattern of life and community living could develop. These will both respect the needs of the individual and the community we have to respect both and and then there needs to be a need to exchange views and to have houses that are not

housing but houses that are related to community spaces that have extensions outside the house. There is not that a sidewalk is a place where people can meet the place where people can discuss their own affairs their interests their midlife. Can have the necessary amenities and can have childcare centers the schools the elementary schools especially training centers place where they can you know indulge in whatever hobbies they like to do participate in and make use of what we have coming through that really is going to revolutionize the shapes of our environment and our city. That is an entirely new division of the cycle of 24 hours the solar cycle of the day which really governs our life. No matter how much technology is introduced into our communities or how many advanced means of transport patients are brought into our communities or how many TV screens are brought into our houses we

still our lives are still and will still be governed by the 24 hour cycle of the day. And that means that within the four hour cycle we develop a certain amount of activity leisure. Family life etc. and rest and the adaptation today of the number of hours of work and especially the number of hours lost in transportation at long distances on congested roads. And that cuts down on the number of hours we can spend doing other things being active in more creative activities participating in community life living with the rest of the family and friends. So there is no doubt that things will move even if they seem unlikely today many people are looking for two jobs instead of one and we have many people that are unemployed and we know all about all of that but the answer is not really.

Having people work more hours but rather less hours being able to make a living and besides. Lead a decent kind of life that will allow them to partake in all these activities that we all care about. And there are many things that architecture today and planning can do but of course as I say the main barriers preventing the changes in our city today are the legal and economic barriers the exploitation of the of the land the the abuse of the land and this imposed high densities or the imposed low densities which are really nonsensical and and and both not an exaggeration each in its own kind. And in as usually life in the medium sort of balance kind of community we would find the advantages that we can find the in either of those two and vitamines the overcrowded one or the sprawl of the suburbs that these that

doesn't lead into community living. Where in this few minutes I only said a few things I would very much like to say that I think you can play a very important role in planning it looks like a very forbidding kind of subject and when you talk to groups of planets that there are whether this is a very technical matter and this is very difficult to solve and you don't know about it well I think you should be courageous and really question all these things. It's only by questioning the basic matters that have given birth to these monstrosities that we have around us today. That and trying to avoid this kind of repetition of errors that we can develop a better and more livable environment. Thank you. We. Three.

People. One. Pediatrician and another. To. Address. The problems of the. Engine. Dr. Robi a graduate of Harvard Medical School teaches Clinia. Clinical pediatrics at Harvard has done research in child development in the United States. And. Among the Mayan Indian groups. He has worked with North American Indians while in the United States Public Health Service. For the past two years been part of the. Band. Sponsoring.

The troubled waters to reach street people with drug problems. Dr. Robi currently. On the Massachusetts Medical Association's Committee on environmental health. And also the Child Development section of the American Academy of Pediatrics. I know you. Joy Dr. Robi very much. Wow. That you know the SoCal theoreticians its funny thing was so practical and so eloquent. That I. They really took a good deal of what I wanted to say from the theoretical side of things. I think I could add a little bit and I would like to add perhaps I shall be practical as Margaret said and give you some shall we call them clinical examples of. What. Was talked about this morning particularly what Dr. Cassell. Talked about. And I want to speak a little bit then about some groups of people that I've had quite intimate

experience with the kind that illustrate two aspects of this problem that we're talking about. The first group is the group of Mayan Indians in southern Mexico called it and it can take polls that we have spent four summers with. Our purpose was to go down and see what their patterns of childrearing did to child development. This is an empty suburban middle class. A series of things that they do to their children they're one of the things that they do. This group of Indians does is that they swaddle the children for the first year and don't allow them any practice any exploration of their environment any opportunity to babble any opportunity for face to face contact with parents. We want to see what this did to their development. Everyone now wants to stimulate their child to go faster and further at perhaps a peril here in North America. But I don't want to really report on the results of that study the study in brief I could tell you that there was no retardation

and development at all. They are just as far along as our children are here at age 5 without any practice. Experience. So at. Such as we know is a good thing and all expensive toys that you can buy to get your kid there faster. I don't believe it. Now this group of Indians has simply appalling health. Just two. I wish I could. Jose Luis sorts screen I wish I could show you their houses they live as they did. Hundreds of years ago. They live it. Ten people to a house that might be 15 feet on a side. They sleep on the ground there's a fire in the middle of the room. Pigs and turkeys and dogs all in the same house and also. Your reporter also would sleep on the floor. With all these other people. Children. 20 percent of them would die by the age of two. Once they made it past two and three years of age they really had an inkling quite remarkably good health record.

This is endemic diseases that we have now passed to a large extent which is rampant there. So they of course did take their toll. But this group of primitive people had the most incredible cultural strength. I think that we lack. In America today. The very thing that Dr. castle and they believe him and all are talking about the thing that what strengths we don't have we are tending to destroy by our housing plans and present day houses both in the core city and in suburbia. These people have a message from the past. Everybody knows at every stage of the life cycle where he is going he knows what his tasks are in relation to other people in the family to other people in the group. They stay apart from modern Mexico that. Are very fearful and distrustful of modern Mexico. They also know what happens to any one of them that leaves the village. What happens is he looks at the person who leaves loses his

culture. He loses the strength of the. Of his village the strength of his past. He goes to the city and it becomes very much like one of. Lois's children of Sanches an egoless. Futa list person who can only go from day to day. Usually becoming alcoholic and becoming lost he cannot return to his village that he came from. These people almost seem to know that anything that they take up of mine in Mexico if they only do it in a quiet way will weaken them. So here is an example of people with simply terrible health by any North American standards who are a going concern. And I think that they are. The strength of the culture is a lesson that we must listen to. The other group that I would mention. Then in contrast to this was my experience with the Crow Indians. I was sent there as a person recently out of residency

and pediatric training to take care of the Indians and Crow Agency Montana. And I really didn't know what I was seeing at that time I didn't know what to look for and what did I what did one see in general terms. People with a vast amount of land no crowding problems except within their their own dwelling places but seemingly having no cultural strength. Seemed to be unable to plan for tomorrow. Not honoring the wisdom of their past their elders. The very thing that's going on right now voices are raised against and Wounded Knee. And there are two two in twenty two groups there of Indians as well as dead. These people have had their past and move from them systematically over the last hundred years and I witnessed this. My wife and I. Witnessed this by visiting the Indian boarding schools young children would be sent away. Since there were no local school they were so spread out they would be sent away to in a way for the distant boarding

school where systematically all vestige of useful vestiges of the past were taken away from them and then they would return to the town. Without a culture. And the weaker for it. I think we can go on. One could go on an endlessly with examples of the sword and really this is what. Everyone was talking about so eloquently this morning. I see this also in the medical plan if we talk as some medical students and I did one week when we. Interviewed or talked to the youth that came to the van at night about their families about themselves in a way these these kids were also children without culture without in a sense a past in that none of them felt being asked that they could either talk to their parents now or in the recent past. Either because of that the gap between them and the value gap between them was so great the rigidity of the parents was so great or that the parents were

divorced fighting amongst themselves. That there was no return for them and they too were then as they say people. Without a culture and a week of Ford. And they are very sad group of kids indeed. I'd like to just the issue of prematurity was brought up this morning as will be going on to a slightly different. Subject. But. There is a kind of a negative and a positive syllogism in the in the whole problem of prematurity. It is. Probably three times as great in the in the ghetto of course city as it is in suburbia. Dr. McDonough this morning used the figure of 43 percent. Live. I think it was neonatal mortality at the time a but in the in the south end in one sense to strike its 79 deaths per 1000 libel is an incredibly high rate in Dedham. If I my think is a right.

Figures excuse me it is. And I don't have seven. The figure is 7 per 1000 So there is a factor there of over 10. And really one of the reasons for this. There are many reasons for the prematurity problem. And I don't think we can put a finger on all of them. Certainly prenatal care makes a difference. If a mother does or does not get prenatal care and some monitoring of the fact that she may be developing high blood pressure or other illnesses during her pregnancy. Certainly malnutrition plays a role. Exposure to toxins I don't even think we know what they all are but there certainly are many many factors just plain family disruption. Seems to be a factor. Now. So we have premature children. What harm in that. Well there's a great deal of harm in that. A child who is born prematurely is a child who is at great hazard

if he survives and there's a chance that you get a much greater chance that he will not he may survive with it and compromised the central nervous system there are many hazards of breathing problems in the early newborn period. So if a child does survive he may survive at less than his genetic potential would have been if he had been born at full term. Another. Aspect of this problem of prematurity which may not seem too important or maybe it will cause many of your mothers. Is this whole business of maternal bonding with a mother and child are separated for a period of time at this critical time around birth. There's a great deal of difficulty in a mother taking up the test of mothering. Getting feedback from a child again this echoes down throughout the whole. Like. The early childhood for this mother child Diane. This is a part then of those apes synergism of many factors going on here and. Prematurity in itself and contributing can contribute to a perpetuating

of the cycle of poverty. How do you get out of this recurrent cycle of one generation leading to another generation that is not able to break out. Of the course if you will. All There's nothing the matter with living there but there is something the matter with living there with all these burdens. Another intriguing symptom in childhood that is multiply determined is hyperactivity. It might be fun just to look at that for a moment. We all have seen hyperactive kids do they all come from the same genesis as are the same factors involved. No really they aren't it's a it's a multiple a determent symptom complex in childhood which incidentally interferes with learning interferes with adaptation interferes with a normal growing up a normal. Taking of adult roles. One I'm one of the causes certainly is prematurity and the so called minimal

cerebral damage to a dysfunction that can occur with all the problems of prematurity that these one cause. Another recently discovered suggested cause is a chronic lead exposure not to toxic levels or so-called toxic levels but perhaps chronic. Low. Levels. Hyperactive children that given the detox applying agents even though they're not a toxic levels can be shown to have a very high lead burden. Another intriguing. Thought. And cause for hyperactivity. It came out in a paper from New York. It was noticed that many children of somewhat intact first generation Puerto Rican families that moved to the South Bronx. Had an inordinately high proportion of hyperactive children. These children were performing fairly well in school but not as well as everyone thought they could.

Going into sort of the epidemiology of this the big factors seem to be that these parents lived in intact families were frightened of the streets in this area which were indeed dangerous. The children were allowed to go to school but on returning from school were made to stay in their apartments in one room looking at television all afternoon long and the only. Motor release they really had was going to school and at school. And they became hyperactive without any minimal 3PL dysfunction or evident lead or other causes. Again if the environment were made if the houses housing were made more livable. This one cause could be helped. Again the most common cause of all perhaps of hyperactivity is lack of limit setting of any consistent setting. And you can call it a problem with which I ring and that's a difficulty that goes across all. Classes of socioeconomic classes in this country. We

don't have any clear. Message from the past and we don't know when how and when to set limits and we have a lot of hyperactive children. I think I. Read this. At this point I will I will subside and let Tom actions speak and I'd love to take up some of these questions I really want to kind of emphasize too. I think this morning was a beautiful three sets of paper. Thank you very much Dr. roving. Now to really hone in on this problem of. Housing and all income comes and evils. We're very pleased to have Secretary Thomas Atkins. Secretary Atkins is known to most of you. He is a lawyer a governmental official and a specialist in Urban Affairs. At the present time and his cabinet secretary for communities and development. He had

served with the Boston City Council and was a candidate for mayor. He has been on the boards of the Urban League the NAACP Museum of Science the Boston Symphony Boston media committee and numerous advisory committees on Housing and Equal Opportunity. Ms directions was named NAACP man of the year and received the National Association for Afro-American Unity Malcolm X award in 1971. He's also in 1971 one of the United States is an outstanding young man with great pleasure to present secretary Atkins. I've been called many things but rarely anything as nice as a practical person. I would not like to cover the ground that I'm sure

has been covered already this morning. The area of housing. So I might well leave some things out there so your questions will. Put them back into perspective. There are however some rather staggering. Facts. Facing those of us in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We know for instance that during the next decade the population of the state will roll by at least half a million. We have been growing for the last decade at the rate of about 60000 people per year. Which is somewhat like adding a city the size of wall plant every year. We also know that in addition to a rising population. Concern about the willingness and the determination to do

something about the degradation of our environment. Has also been increasing. Also more on the increasing side of the ledger is the tendency on the part of local officials. To zone with ever more imaginative and creative ways but always more restrictively. Not to be outdone. The cost. Of housing development. Are on this side of the ledger. They have been going up almost astronomic to the point. Where whether you are one who wishes to buy a home. Or one who would live in an apartment housing costs. Take an increasingly larger. And disproportionate share of your family's budget. We see on the other side of the ledger that federal support

for Housing and Urban Development. Is coming to an end and it doesn't really matter what the outcome of the great constitutional debate which now rages in Washington is it seems clear that the federal government will never again be the largest. Supplier of. Funds for Housing and Urban Development that it once was. We hear that those funds will be available. They will be coming to states. You know it's a pal of these in the form of revenue sharing block grants. Whether general revenue sharing funds or special revenue sharing funds. But those of us who have been active in urban affairs of one type or another are very fearful of what revenue sharing mean. Under the best of

circumstances revenue sharing funds if they were a dollar per dollar replacement for all of the categorical programs are being discontinued would pose a problem. It would pose a problem because. The purpose of the federal categorical grant programs was precisely to alter. Priorities their precise purpose was to force local and state officials who up to that point had either been incapable or unwilling to address the problems of low income people. The problems of scarcity to force them to do that. In some instances it was done with the stick. Laws that require one or another kind of performance at the local or state level. In other instances it was done. With the care that federal funds dangled at the end of a stick.

Available however only to those applicants municipal the states that were prepared to live within the grant. Guidelines. So the federal government will provide. Or would provide. Two thirds of the financing for an urban renewal project. That meant for every $1 a locality was willing to spend they could get three dollars worth of developer. The federal government would provide funds for construction or assurance of. Construction of housing. That meant that municipalities planned well and they were aggressive and encouraging local developers to get housing built. Which would house people in decent homes. Depending upon the type of housing built. Housing that would pay. Money to the city by way of tax revenue depending upon the need for housing it could either be housing of the luxury

nature or middle income. Middle rent level or moderate income moderate rent level or. Low rent low income housing. These programs provided a range of options for municipalities but all of them carry the same. Assumption. And that was that a person living in a Massachusetts city or town was simultaneously a resident of that municipality and of that state but a citizen of the United States and that where the local government had failed and where the state government failed. The federal government would have to state step in and pick up the slack. There is a broad now a different philosophy philosophy which says. The role of the federal government. Carried Out to the best. And the best way to be least visible in the setting of priorities.

The local and state level. I would welcome that philosophy if I saw. Local and state actions around the country that signal an end to the narrow mindedness and short sightedness that created the original me for the categorical grant program. I see an end to neither. I see the same kind of narrow mindedness and short sidedness. Guide in municipalities across the face of this Commonwealth into a larger lot. Zoning went to restrictive provisions which in some instances purport. To ban apartments to ban multiple units to ban housing of various types. I see the same kind of short sightedness in local planning board and local governing bodies which increasingly seek to buy up vacant land

under the pretext of a concern for the environment. So that land can be tucked away. Not to be preserved but to be a concert. So the nothing else can be built on. We're concerned about these trends. And as a federal role decreases it is very very clear that the state role is going to have to increase. I am operating on the assumption that the state's role in providing support. Financing guidance and where necessary administrative or legal action to prevent the explosion of families from suburban communities are central. That's our role for the next decade. The recent

decision of the Supreme Judicial Court. Validating the so-called anti's mob zoning law will help. But that law makes it possible for the state soley to respond. To a developers initiative where the developer has a persistence to stay in the fight. That law does not help or there either was not a developer. Or there was a developer who was unwilling to stick out. As most developers. Are. Most developers are unwilling. To incur the wrath. Of local governing officials who they suspect they will need next year or the year after. Or some other venture they're interested in whether it's a tax deal or whether support for another project of a different type. You developers have shown a willingness. To stay in the fight

in the press their case and without. That willingness on the part of the private developer. The state is unable to proceed. We have over the course of the past 5 years through the efforts of state legislators like David Letterman. And a hearty band of. State representatives that he will get together with the help of others develop a series of Spector's. Which promise to. Help. The people in this state who are in need of housing. Whether our elderly housing program. Which now has close to 30000 units of housing. That are either occupied or are under development or a rental assistance program which provides funds to supplement the rent that a low income family can pay. Or the scatter site housing program which was created in 1966

which is yet to function or recent legislation as in 1970 in 1971 which positive state and state law that no Tenet in public housing in this state could be required to pay more than 25 percent of the family income for rent and where the cost of operating a unit. Was more than the tenant was able to pay. The state would have to make up the difference. One of those laws was passed in 1971 in 1971 and if we're lucky this year when the deficiency budget is finally acted upon and passed we will have money for the first time and pay our debts going back to 1970. And if we're lucky again in the budget that was submitted by me for fiscal year 74 budget beginning July 1 will have sufficient funds to pay off the prospect the cost for the next year. But

even those laws can't deal adequately with the range of problems that I've described. They don't deal adequately with the magnitude of population growth that we're experiencing. They don't deal adequately with problems of restrictive zoning that we see across the state. They don't do a ladder quickly with the edibility or in some instances on the willingness of local officials to address the problems in their own communities and they don't deal adequately with the problem of a diminishing scarce resource land. We hope over the next several years to address. Some of those problems. We propose for instance in the reorganization plan that was filed to have a statewide. Comprehensive statewide land use policy. Plan regulations and legislation by

1975. We've also indicated that the state should accept the responsibility for ongoing planning of a statewide nature linking up comprehensive state planning with regional and municipal plans so that we have a context within which to evaluate state regional or local decision or decisions that have a broader than local impact. The state cannot. Itself. Simply criticize municipal officials or shortcoming because the state itself has been as guilty if not more so. We have not at the state level planned. Well. And in some instances we haven't planned it out and as a result programs that the state runs and pays for are frequently offset it.

We have found for instance. That efforts that are being made by the Department of Community Affairs to locate land or housing development or to work with housing development sponsors is frequently being offset. By funds from our Department of Natural Resources which are going to local conservation groups to buy up the land so that it can't be developed. We hope. To iron those kinds of. In-house problems out and we hope to do it so. But I see this decade as one in which the key two words are going to be housing and suburbs which ever already want to put. And those of you who come here from. Communities around the state know what I'm talking about middle of the town meetings where any

article that. Remotely resembles one that might in the future perhaps make housing possible is the cause of a virtual land park. Those pipes are going to have to be thought. And what I hope. You will find is that when you start those fights or as you continue those fights will be there with you. I hope you will let us know where your new information or support or assistance of one type or another because we intend to make that by whether or not anybody else makes. We hope you will be there and many of our communities across the state had it not been for the League of Women Voters. Nope I. Would have been mad. Most people would not even have a knowledge that a fight had to be made. Your organization has been an important. Striking it for redressing historic imbalance in the state

between the haves and the have nots. The battle is not over and I hope you're up to it. Thank you. Will be up to it Secretary I can see. Why. You're a great many questions I. Said That's important services. I think you knew the answer to that elsewhere in the field but minutes later there's lots more with that. You know. One of the things that has embraced me is that. When the battles that Mr. Beck and has talked about have been one.

Where that has been possible. To introduce. Low income housing into previously. Middle or upper income areas. Even. When there was goodwill a lot of hostility. What happens to the people under those circumstances. Will how they will be integrated into that particular part of the new. Social. Systems. Where they find their friend and their relationships. We really the end of the armistice to those places and we have to have clues that life to settle them is difficult. That. Not any there. Is evidently some evidence of the health suffers. But the children's. Performances through. Their ability to. Live a life that is

satisfactory theirs can be quite severely impaired. Would it be beyond the bounds of human ingenuity. To write that. Once we have changed housing and neighborhood that once we have. Created. A. Mass movement of people in mass movement to be the killer without a creation. That such people be at the end of that we can to provide for them. Arbitrement a person people concerned with helping them find their way around the new strains of the bewildering. Society. The commercial people do this every time as a newcomer to the small town where the head was turned and when it comes to giving people are together by those doors. In the health system in the and the human services system we don't even try to find out who these people are. We don't tell them where to find medical care or even minimal and how to get the children to

deal with the shock of introducing the neighbors what in any way we try and make and part of getting society. This is hardly that is hostility and bitterness but in many instances it is not. We have an example of mud telling Chapel Hill with. Pride myself in the sense of being somewhat liberal. And with a lot of fighting and bleeding. We managed to get a new housing development in what was previously a little high income housing. Many of the folk moving to the new centers situation were black. And they need to leave as good as what. We need to talk to the new black leaders. They having a really difficult time even though the president has a lot of goodwill. There are. Feeling the strains of the feelings of the world and a lot of loneliness. With the difficulties in establishing for there is a lot of games to be

made to do it it takes a long time and maybe an enormously. You'd have to wait a while longer before the situation becomes one to be broken. I'm pleading for a mechanism. To hostility before. This is done. Let us know what you wish to. I think it's going to be possible of me. To come to the flying saucer what it is. At this meeting based upon the so that we can provide so that people can be welcomed into groups that once once. Many of the dollars we spend on the living. Like quality and expenses.

I'd like to turn. A little dialogue going. Imagine that reorganization reorganization of Massachusetts state government will help with the state wide land use plan. And what do you think the goals of a statewide land use plan might be. We start with you. If reorganization passes the responsibility for reducing this day while a new plan will be mine. So I suppose we should start here. Let me take the first part of the question first. If I'm correct. And. Reading the.

Factual material to indicate that. Our population increase was not a slow down to keep pace with the. Land. Degrees. The only way we can accommodate. The increased number of people. That we have and the increasing. Demand. All of us are making for service. And then uses. Is by a better plan. The only other answer and I will mention that. Malak. Is to decrease the population agrees with them figure out how to do that. There is no very wild shared feeling of it here as to the ZPG. Any. Comparable effort to hold our population increases. And I think the figures are rather conservative and estimating the population increase over the next decade five to five thousand.

If that's the case then what we need to have. And what we have never had for. A very very hard headed. Analysis. Of our existing land resources. We need to look at the land from the standpoint of those. Pieces of land. Which should never be developed. Which should be preserved because lightly because it contains things of historical significance. Things are. Pivotal ecological of course. Which we can never replace. Those areas need to be identified. And we need to protect. We need to from the rest of the land that's left. Figure out which parts of it. Are good for one kind of development. Which are good for any other kind of develop. With my presence by my liking of these of land or. Were. Several parcels of land in a given area that would be ideal for

either our board industrial or commercial or recreational use. In that situation the particular use to which the land was put. Depends upon what's going to be happening to the rest of the land. Near and adjacent to there. You don't build or we shouldn't anymore build back. We have passed. In a vacuum and we've been able to get away with it because we've had. A great deal of land to you. We know now that that land is. Shrinking. Can't replace when it's used up. Another piece of land might be usable only where recreational. Residential resorts. To develop. That land very clearly be off limits for industrial development. Point I'm making here is that we need to have a very. Take a very logical sensible approach. To

that which is now ready to. Figure out how best to use. This imply. I was. Working. Very closely with. Local planning board meeting in many instances. Encouraging assisting empower them to develop a plan in the past. Which they never had. Which many of them have never seen as an important thing. Going to mean. Being willing and able to plan for an oil region. Not every community ought to have the same kind. Of challenge. If communities were working in some kind of a joint. Regional power as the case may be. Ever. It might well be possible to plan that in community. You would have housing of one type of community housing of another type and in community housing are still a third time.

With all communities being prepared to entertain people. From each other. At a point in time where every community plans for itself and sees its neighbors as enemies. That kind of coordinated development is not. The result of over the bill that in some instances of the same time. We have. Under. Development. We're finding that increasingly more services take for granted. Can I be supplied I mean as we know that we can't fight air pollution very effectively dirty When I reckon we also know that we can't do very much about water pollution. So there's a. Problem here. We know that transportation rarely feasible planning context. Control

context. Or even in a development context. On a municipal basis. Cars today. At least in a regional context. Frequently interstate and if we're not planning. To figure out where the car goes we leave my town. What would I do about a car that's coming from your town. Then the transportation planning of the municipality is doing. We know the flyways disposal. Is a problem that faces many many municipalities. The problem with most of them and I can deal with it is on the one hand and necessary on the other hand ways. For every single municipality to be planning a completely new solid waste disposal facility. The economies of scale necessary to have this. Solid waste disposal or recovery of these indicates. That

except for the very large community we are virtually going to be forced to have regional. South Wales disposal facilities which imply some kind of a regional collection. Some kind of regional assessment. For the construction and continued operation and maintenance of the system. It's. A land use plan. Put together well with take into account not just warehousing. The poor part. Where they're already looking. To take into account the kind of river resources. And what we need to do to protect. Take into account. The kind of industrial and commercial support services resources that are going to be needed to support the people who might be living. In luxury whilst being able to build factories where no I live. And housing where nobody could work. Is gone.

What we need to do and what a comprehensive land use plan. Would make possible for the first time. Is a coherent approach. To this fixed scarce resource one that all the various services can be linked to in all the various developers. Know about and be governed by. This I hope that. If the legislature. Does pass a reorganization. We will be able to engage in that kind of planning. To carry it out through a network of regional offices are being established across the state. Six initially. Pittsfield Springfield was their Boston alarms. And. That we will have additionally legislation passed which has been introduced. To create a State Development Corporation. I would just say about a State Development Corporation that I personally see it.

As perhaps the single most important. Factor. That would make it possible for us to build what we knew where we needed over the course of the next two decades and the state would have a capacity to generate revenue. By floating islands will be able to make much more effective use of the existing. Public. Financial programs whether federal state or local. Will be able to assist municipalities in carrying out their own programs as well as to initiate development that were too large for any single municipality to undertake. I think is an extraordinarily important. Part of a comprehensive development policy. And it must be linked with and would be guided by the state's land plan some of the news of Tom eloquently described a reasonably sophisticated. And he's miles ahead of anybody in the legislature. And this is this is a

problem and I think we need to talk to because we have only one branches and I think we need to recognize that we have an equal branches. Have the opportunity to be on both sides. The legislature executive branch that has that has the capacity to do so. And to put together something call reorganization. Nowhere does the legislature structure have the capacity to deal with this kinds of stuff that the executive branch liaison. In this is a real problem. What happens when you begin to talk about like in your planning. We've got we've got a land use planning commission in operation. We haven't done. That another commission. Part of the reason it is. Very difficult to develop the

county leadership that you need in the legislature to carry Ah some of the hard time. Just doesn't exist. You can count the number of even of what he wrote about the main thing is the number of people in the legislature who have who have the technical capacity and the interest in the kind of thing that we're talking about. You are going to grow and it's not because there are a lot of good legislators because there are there are some excellent legislators of those abuses but the structure of the legislature in 1973 is music is the structure that we needed to deal with the problems of moving thing together. You know it until they barley became a speaker in cabinet everything became a sitting president.

I don't know what your personal feelings are about these two guys but until they became speaker a sitting president got places Mahasen blanket no on knows you know and here's a way to deal with with the 2.5 billion dollar budget that's trying to deal with the reorganization plan which took the executive branch six months in I don't know how many Indian hours and how many dollars to give out. It gives the legislature. With without a capacity in the ability to deal with those. And I will. And that's the real crux of the problem. That's where that's that's why we can't move in many instances. I think it's crucial it's going to be more crucial the next few years for there to be joint effort by executive legislative branch.