Urban Confrontation; 18; Does City Hall have the Answer?

The views and opinions expressed on the following program do not necessarily represent those of the program host. Joseph R. Bader Northeastern University or the station. Urban confrontation and analysis of the continuing crises facing 20th century man in the American city. I would say the environment the day to day living of rights and police protection inadequate refuse collection and John Lindsay would say snow removal. They are the words the the the frustration that I think cause the neighborhood of racial conflict. And I would like to have enough money to really get into the housing problem but I'd like to have enough money to do things that with great jobs that I would like to have the power they have our education. And I think the priorities that deal with the root causes of some of our problems of social disorganization I'm speaking about education crime

delinquency the alienation between the races and those things that by the way I was Cities have never been structured really to deal with. Today's recorded guests are Mayor Sam Yorkey of Los Angeles Kevin White of Boston and former mayor Jerome Kavanagh of Detroit. Today's program why your cabinet does City Hall have the answers. Here is your host Mr. TAYLOR. In an effort to analyze the problems of America's cities. The Northeastern University distinguished speaker series recently presented on the northeastern campus an urban symposium in the next 30 minutes you will hear the excerpts from this symposium. A rather frank discussion of city ills by Mehr Samuel already of Los Angeles. Kevin White of Boston and Jerome Cavanaugh former mayor of Detroit Urban America at the beginning of the 1970s an

uneasy calm seems to have settled over this country since the major riots during the spring of 1968. Some see this time of racial trun quality as an optimistic turning point. Others view it as a dangerous Lall between storms of racial hate that will eventually destroy this society. Detroit's mayor Cavanaugh first commented on the urban racial and economic gap. We are robbed you know the privileged in this country and there are many of us the vast majority of people are. From a material standpoint there are a lot is certainly better today than I was 10 years ago but nonetheless the gap is still a very sharply defined and as a matter of fact has probably been brought up between those that are privileged and those that are not. And I do think that's exactly what happens when these things should be faced very forthrightly and directly. But I don't think you can defer the inevitable it's been deferred now for such a long period of time that we've reached this crisis standpoint. And when the national administration is

willing to continue the same on the strategy of placing first priorities on questionable military hardware systems on the war in Vietnam and Ali other things that have dominated our society in the last 25 years we're going to have I think even more despair than we've seen already. Boston's mayor white predicted that time is running out for our cities. I don't think that we have the latitude to luck through time either to judge the administration or offer them to ack. I think it is critical and we use that word I hope that we are now sells plenty of rhetoric that I listed Jerry's response and I'm remind of the fact that I remember quite vividly when we faced a crisis after the assassination of Martin Luther King and I remember the reflex response that we received from the community. One of my assistants are referred to one businessman who was outside my office saying he. He looks like a quivering mass of money.

I didn't know what I want to do next to buy to placate to respond. The response that we all in the American city and what we're talking about here is not out of fear or out of charity but out of it seems to me a simple obedience to a sense of American justice. And I feel that the greatest. Danger that lies ahead for us now in this period of relative tranquility is that we are not utilizing this time that OB whupped in fact is being call and that we have asked what time I have a feeling. That we have been given it. And we're not utilizing. And that the next time. That we ask. Our request may not be met. Mary's white and Yorkie offer a contrast in explanations of this period of urban calm. While I don't think that you can point to any positive leadership that says we will stop at this juncture and reassess all we will give the opposition all the Habs a chance to win

and to produce. I think that it's more of a a reaction. Than from the traumatic experiences that we witnessed over a three year period that in some cases it's almost involuntary. But no matter what it is it's here for us to capitalize upon. And dad my real fear is that the would doing. Nothing about it. I don't think that you can say that any real reason to stop it. There's no certainly no agreement of secession of hostilities between the Have-Nots black and white and what's referred to as the establishment near you already however was more optimistic about the racial strife. I can only speak for Los Angles of course but I I think people in the areas where they had the rioting certainly don't want any more of it. And I think they're doing more to prevent that that type of outbreak than anybody else we are learning to involve people no matter how bad.

A thing is some good comes out of it. And while the rioting in Los Angeles was very bad in one case it actually helped me get a program through that I've been trying to get to the city council and couldn't tell the rioting scared them of that I got through in the mid 1960s. Most city halls around the country were occupied by young aggressive liberal mayors. Today the trend is possibly shifting and some commentators feel that the liberal politician is being eclipsed by the so-called hard liner in America's cities. Maira Kalman all of Detroit offered this explanation to charges that liberalism has failed. I think the traditional liberalism that oh we came to know in this country during the 40s the 50s really hadn't changed sufficiently to make it whatever it believed in relevant to the conditions that exist today in the mid to late 1960s. It's the same sort of

period in which we I think if you conduct much of our foreign policy that we're applying the conditions as they existed in the late 40s and early 50s to the world as we know it today. So if you measure it in that sense maybe that kind of liberalism probably has failed it hasn't responded to the needs of the country I think is adequately is a must. Mayor White predicted a return of the Liberal to the American political scene. Well I think there's a period in which the national media in particular political right is really questioning whether or not. The liberal American mayor is on the wane. Whether his political life is in jeopardy I don't think that that's the case. I do think that liberalism has lost its way on a number of roads and in American history in recent American history. But I think that played a leading part. In the very slow and almost minuscule progress that we had made in the American city.

And I'm not apprehensive that we can't lead again in just two years ago. I remember when people said that liberalism was on the move. Callisto much in hatchet for myself or others. Now I see in less than 12 months a deep seeded pessimism setting in for the liberal cause. I don't share it here. I don't think that the work is more difficult. The road more I do it. But I'm sure they get it. If the imprints of the present ministration on national level doesn't improve that liberalism will come back momentarily or otherwise. Los Angeles's mayor you already commented in defense of the past political record of liberalism. We throw terms around as if everybody understood the same thing by the same word. You have to define what a liberal is before you that answer is liberalism failed. Some of our policies have

failed some succeeded. I have been Christ a Democrat all my life but I don't always agree with my party and I don't consider them always liberal. I don't consider the Republicans always conservative. Some people test liberalism by your attitude toward very narrow problems if you think that everyone should obey the law the matter where they are on campus are off and you're conservative. These are some of the tests that they apply. But the failure is I don't think of liberalism or conservatism or maybe it is a failure of human ingenuity and know how to tackle problems when a person verus to get in and do it. Are the majority of white Americans tired of demonstrations and black demands. Social unrest in America has apparently precipitated a growth of conservatism. American women are analyzed of the American Discontent and alienation while accusing politicians of skirting the important issues. I don't think it's a too simple an explanation to say that the majority of people

even those that are materially the best off are frightened and tired of the discontent that's frequently been manifested in the last several years. It's interesting that everyone seemingly is unhappy not only the poor but both white and black that have the most legitimate reason to be unhappy to the material standpoint at least. But even the extremely advantageous people from a material standpoint that live in the suburbs and happy as well. I think it's hopefully it's just a cyclical thing that. Because of blandness and politics today seems to be the order of the day. And I think the political candidates die reflecting what they perceive to be the view of the majority of their constituents. And I don't think there are a sufficient number of political people that are really talking about the real issues. The facts of the matter does remain in the least my view that there are two major problems that undergird practically every other problem that we

can talk about up here today. One is the alienation that exists in this country seemingly growing between black and white. The other the alienation between the young and the old. You could add probably a third between the rich and the poor but I think the first two basically understood every problem even though this is where I take exception to those that then apply themselves as the traditional liberal is that I don't think too many of them at least are really addressing directly and forthrightly this sort of issue when you're talking a lot of code words all over the country and subtly sort of pandering I think to what. Some people's emotions and prejudices and feelings are today. The job of a political leader as I see it is is we want to educate he more so than anything else. And of course it's difficult I know today to always to be safely re-elected by

attempting to discuss the unpopular at least what you consider to be those issues of some consequence each year. Large cities sacrifice billions of dollars to the tax free status of universities parochial schools churches and hospitals. How long can the city afford to admit these institutions from the tax rolls. Boston's Mayor White described this problem and suggested a possible alternative to taxation. I could say that I had a feeling as I sat here tonight and I looked out of the audience that maybe you have you have you're getting tonight is a sense of the frustration that to deal with on a daily basis. Is a tremendous amount of talent and resources in this room. That this city could do with. In a hundred ways. And I couldn't be happier to see all of you at city hall in the morning. Without thinking. The point is that there is no

way to tax property constitutionally as you know in Massachusetts. There are some academic institutions that make contributions to the city very few. I'd like to see it increased but I have a committee working now to see what ways the academic community can help out the city we live in. One hundred twenty five thousand students prone in this city every single September. And you're a part of. You're part of its path. But the point is. Participating in it. And if any one of you. Groups or collectively can think of ways that you can contribute your own skills. And this is one institution that I know does it on the cooperative basis. But I mean beyond that. Then maybe I could suffer with that tax free status for the utilization of the talent that's in institutions such as this better than 50 percent of Boston is tax free. We were a

C proud community. You go from chalice down a navy to the airport to the enemy face. And we're almost as landlocked Miss Watson. The tax rate in this city is one hundred twenty four dollars per Crouse. Going up to about 65 percent. A valuation translated in practical terms higher by a substantial margin than any city in the country. And the only cure for it is running a state giving us latitude to devise our own tax structure which they rent out to the federal government. Hence the reason for a cry at the outset Mehra Kavanagh endorsed a policy of taxing segments of these institutions urging universities to share the responsibility for the solution of urban ills. There is sister the serious study being given in various places in the country at least as a point of beginning taking universities and other tax exempt

institutions and separating the land that they do not use for that. For their purposes let's say an educational purpose or medical purpose of it's a hospital. And there are old churches and institutions such as universities and schools that as you know do own vast amounts of land that they don't use for the purpose for which they're established and they indeed I think is the first that should be put back on the tax rolls. I think two payments in lieu of taxes in certain institutions should be very seriously considered and traditionally in this country the universities and other tax free institutions have a sort of assumed unto them sours cloister like existence and they haven't even been feeding back into the community their own internal resources pursuant to what Mayor White suggest. But what the academic community can do are not supporting government by taxes and they're not supporting it by talent in the main either.

Mary you already reconciled the university's tax free status with other contributions made by the academic community. I wouldn't agree that the course that the institutions even though they may be nonprofit and don't pay taxes I would agree that they don't contribute something because our students buy clothing. So don't tell me that they can set a brand and they they pay the sales tax when they buy things. Solar they do bring a lot of money into the community that does help support it irrespective of the fact that the land on which the university is built is tax free. I think myself if a parent. Senses this child to an institution where he has to pay tuition I would think that some minimal amount of that ought to be tax deductible. I think it's unfair on many people. Maybe they want their children to have a religious education and I think that's one of the rights of that's what they want and they have to support that religious institution they also have.

Half to spite the other institutions which do not benefit them directly. So far as I'm concerned the Los Angles I would want to tax like the University of Southern California which is a nonprofit University. I certainly want would want to tax our procmail girls if they dumped all those kids on our public school system. We would have a problem. Big business in America has long been accused of ignoring its responsibility to urban problems. However with the new training programs and job incentives many people detect a new commitment coming from the corporate sector. Maira Kalman off felt that the concern and new commitment offered by business was far too inadequate. I think since the riots of 67 and 68 the private business leaders have publicly at least expressing more concern I say expressing more concern because some of them have seen that there they have a very vital self-interest stake

in this whole question. But I also see increasingly the sort of Community Chest syndrome that I gave at the office. On the part of the private business that in fact. We just sort of never linger at the periphery of the whole problem they haven't really grappled with that significantly in Detroit after the riots. We set up a committee called who then Governor Romney and myself committee called the new Detroit Committee. The idea behind it was to for the first time really try to engage the spectrum of ah political social and economic thought and the power in the community. We had people that certainly you would have to be characterized as the most militant of blacks sitting with the president of General Motors and Ford and so on. And for a period of time I think through this committee did do some things there's no question about it. But right now for example it's being factored out and put through the United Foundation that's the latest recommendation that it be funded like any of the other

traditional agencies in the community like the United Community Services or something of that kind. So you see there was some slight acknowledgement in performance but in fact as Mayor White says there just is not the commitment accompanied by the resources. But I think there's a grand total of about four or five private business firms in this country that have directly participated in that housing act. Only one utility that I know of in the United States the other four are utilitarian. Mayor White laments American apathy toward the big cities only speak for myself but my feeling is that whether it's business whether it's a national government whether see American public. There isn't enough commitment or acknowledgement to the problem the American city big or small in contrast with Mayor White Los Angeles has merit you already cited promising signs of private industry involvement in his city's problems.

I think one of the most hopeful signs in the country is the fact that private industry is now beginning to see that the survival of the PRI enterprise system will depend in large part on its ability to assimilate people and make them part of the American economy. This is a very great economy as we've all said it's the most productive the world has ever seen. And it's all been done with the free enterprise system in other countries where they don't have it if you go back they aren't Could you immediately see the difference. So the system in the Pentagon many of us is worth preserving. But if you get to the point like back in the Depression of the 30s we had 10 to 12 million people unemployed. So they were no part of the American economy didn't mean anything to them they just assume destroy the free enterprise system they could work for them. Then we gradually got to more of them back into the who were working with a still too many. If one man wants a job and can't have it that's too many. And so I think that the free enterprise is now beginning to

understand that too many people are pushed out of the economy as it functions under free enterprise that the be too many people out there that say it doesn't work for me so I don't care I think about deserving it. And I do find that in my area that private enterprise is helping us now with training projects and taking people that they Parmalee wouldn't take in to employment. And so that to me for the people who are employable the best answer to their problems is to get them into a good productive job because the other things they need they can afford or they just have a good job. A crucial question for urban America is this Given limited funds. What programs should be given highest priority from the merest seed in city hall in his answer. Maira Kalman all aimed at the causes of social discontent. If you had an adequate amount of money I think there are sufficient programs and ideas prevalent today either operational Some of them or others that are in

operational or at least are available to be operated. I would do what most of the money I think in programs dealing with the causes of social disorganization. It's true that the physical plants of many cities are quite obsolete. The capital works of practically all of municipalities is 25 to 30 years behind where it should be. But I think if you had to establish priorities and you could deal with them in a realistic and meaningful way I think those are the first priorities the priorities that deal with the root causes of some of our problems of social disorganization. I'm speaking about education crime delinquency the alienation between the races and those things that by the way most cities have never been structured really to deal with. They've been thrust upon the American city when in fact the American city was formed in the first instance mainly as a housekeeping agency to provide physical

services. But because these problems are at the doorstep of every city hall and because the states and the federal government have not assume their fair share of responsibilities the cities are struggling to deal with them. And in practically every instance deal with the monad. Adequately. That's my priority following America. Mary you already emphasized employment and housing and I would like to have enough money to really get into the housing problem but I'd like to have enough money to create to do things that would prove jobs. That make it possible for people to train for the jobs go into the job. And that I would like to improve the quality of our education. In answer to the question of urban priorities Mayor White directed his attention toward environmental problems. Connie I just disagree a bit. I think Jerry West a key word between limited and

adequate being addressed to those we are limited would look good. If I had to set a priority a medium ones I honestly think that I'd apply them to the physical as distinct from Jerry's response. And the reason is that most of the federal money that comes as I said I sometimes when I go to rest and feel like a patient who goes into the hospital dying of malnutrition and he's off of plastic surgery where I desperately need money for those basic services are referred to better lighting. There's a tremendous fear of working in the streets and police statistics in the good up or down. The feeling is the psychological feeling of fear on the part of men and women and there is a refuse collection. The physical plants in schools in the city Boston I went to a school called the Agassi in Jamaica Plain It was built one hundred and three years ago. It's still standing it's still there.

As I said it's a tribute to the bricklayers Association doesn't say much for the for the school system. I would say the environment the day to day living of rights and police protection inadequate refuse collection is John Lindsay would say snow removal. They are not good it's the the the frustrations that I think cause the world of racial conflict and that's not to dismiss for a moment he the Jerry Parr idea certainly housing but I would shift a little because of the situation with my. Radio programs do not solve urban problems but they do call attention to these problems and this is important for what happens to our cities will in the opinion of many commentators have a great deal to do with determining the quality of American life in this the last third of the 20th century.

Northeastern University has brought you Mayor Sam Yorkey of Los Angeles Kevin White of Boston and former mayor Jerome Cavanaugh of Detroit. Program. Your cabinet does City Hall. Had he answered. Your program host has been Joseph Harbingers Director Department of radio production. Urban confrontation with her do it for the office of educational resources at the communications center of the nation's largest private university. Northeastern University. Comments on this program. Or requests for a recorded copy of any program in this series. May be addressed to. Urban confrontation. Northeastern University Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 1 find. This week's program was produced by Peter Lance directed by Jeffrey Feldman with technical supervision by Mike Riccio executive producer for urban confrontation is Peter learns the music by fire and ice. Your announcer Dave Hammond.

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