HUD and Model Cities
It started in the spring of 1964 when LBJ selected Dr Robert C. Wood (Chapter 14’s conflicted suburbanite) to head a series of task forces intended to generate ideas and programs for federal involvement in urban affairs. Their recommendations produced much of the legislation discussed in the remainder of the chapter. The influence of these task force members is further enhanced by the subsequent appointment of several, including Wood, to HUD leadership.
By 1966, with riots increasing, the Vietnam War polarizing the nation, civil rights picking up steam and obvious disruption triggered by the War on Poverty, LBJ was reluctant to jump headlong into some bold, expensive, hard-to-digest initiative. Rather, he was inclined toward the Task Force on Urban Problems’ suggestion that HUD test a number of ideas, experiment with lots of approaches, by funding each in a “demonstration city.” Given the large number of “demonstrations” evident in most urban areas, the legislation that followed this suggestion was renamed “Model Cities.” Unique to Great Society legislation was the “core strategy concept” (Olken, 1971). Each city by plan had to identify its specific problems, set goals/objectives and develop its own strategy to achieve these goals. As described, its eligible objectives, following Gray City comprehensiveness, were sufficiently broad to encompass a wide variety of policy areas that could be included within a local economic development strategy. Model Cities defined the low-income neighborhood as the level of its investment, so a municipalwide strategy was not eligible.
The Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Redevelopment Act of 1966, was, from our perspective, a consolidation of War on Poverty innovations moderated by the widespread criticism and outright opposition it had engendered. It authorized for five years, but weakened, the OEO’s low-income, community-action approach; instead there was a decided movement toward bricks and mortar. Perloff’s earlier idea, to combine the social and physical, best described its approach. Model Cities required its own organizational form: the City Demonstration Agency (CDA), composed of elected officials, representatives of major agencies and business leaders. CDA actions could be nullified by mayor or city council. Model Cities thus tempered the OEO’s MFP community action nexus—and strengthened oversight and mayoral “direction” over program initiatives. CAAs had to make their peace with local government. Many disappeared; others adjusted.
Model Cities cemented Gray Areas comprehensiveness into Great Society/HUD-style community development. Title I outlined that:
an adequate program for a model neighborhood should … expand housing, increase job and income opportunities, reduce dependence on welfare, improve educational facilities and programs, combat disease and ill health, reduce the incidence of crime and delinquency, enhance recreational and cultural opportunities, establish better access between home and jobs, and in general improve living conditions. (Scott, 1969, p. 622)
Not surprisingly, critics complained that it “gilded the ghetto”—it encouraged separateness and discouraged assimilation and integration. HUD’s first cabinet secretary, Robert C. Weaver, argued to the contrary, that through Model City programs ghettos will be the stepping stone to assimilation: “Physical, social and economic planning will be combined to fit the residents of blighted districts to participate more effectively in urban life, and someday to live wherever they can afford the housing costs” (Scott, 1969, pp. 632–3). That was not the last word on the subject.
The second policy thrust of Model Cities was something called “metropolitan development.” In a simple way, metropolitan development brings us back to the ultimate causes of nearly all the slum/blight clearance, public housing, CBD-urban renewal, Big City economic development and the Great Society programs—how to counter suburbanization. HUD’s answer in Model Cities was “area-wide planning,” redefined into now-required metropolitan plans (Section 204) complete with input from a metropolitan entity (council of government, metropolitan planning group or area-wide government). If cities (now meaning metro areas) didn’t create these entities, no federal money. It worked while it worked—but when Model Cities went away so did many of these entities.
The legislation authorized for cities of all sizes grants to plan and implement comprehensive city demonstration programs to rebuild or restore entire sections or neighborhoods of slum and blighted areas by the concentrated and coordinated use of all available federal aids together with local, private and governmental resources. The number of demonstration cities was increased from 75 to 150 (without any increase in funding), testifying again to the almost inevitable “spreading” in economic development; 193 cities submitted applications. Almost immediately urban riots intensified—71 cities had major riots that year. Responding to pressure, HUD in November awarded its first round of grants to 63 cities and towns (a Big City bias in funding was evident). Identical phenomena occurred in 1968: lots more riots followed by a second round of funding (Goldfield, 2007, p. 485).
By this point Congress had approved the Housing Act of 1968, which, if one reads its provisions, ought to have been the capstone of the Great Society. That honor, however, probably goes to Model Cities. In a horrendously polarized election year, Congress overwhelmingly approved it—and then refused to fund much of it.
National Historic Preservation Act of 1966
The Historic Sites, Buildings and Antiquities Act of 1935 marked the formal entry of the federal government in historic preservation. Administered by the Park Service, it funneled New Deal funds to combat the Depression through work projects and construction. The effort abated during the war, but in 1947 private citizens through the National Council for Historic Sites and Buildings pressed for a more permanent federal role. Its success resulted in Congress in 1949 chartering the National Trust for Historic Preservation (a nonprofit that linked government, the Park Service and private citizens). The 1966 Historic Preservation Act, however, institutionalized historic preservation by creating the National Registry of Historic Places.
The Act precluded the use of tax incentives to demolish historic structures, buildings and even neighborhoods which could be classified as historic districts (the Fells Point neighborhood in Baltimore qualified as a historic preservation area, and in 1969 stopped I-83 from going through its neighborhood). Tax incentives for rehabilitation were also authorized. One of the more famous uses of this legislation occurred in 1979 with qualification of the Miami Beach Architectural District—the first district entirely composed of twentieth-century buildings—based on its distinctive Art Deco South Beach architecture. Historic Preservation was further expanded by the 1974 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Act (Goldfield, 2007, pp. 331–3).
RIOTS
The riots began in 1964, triggered by any number of specific events and acts that captured the cumulative inequalities, chronic discrimination, and day-to-day frustrations of living in predominantly black, Great Migration, central city ghettos. Harlem, Rochester, Jersey City, Elizabeth and Philadelphia erupted in 1964. Watts rioted with serious loss of life in 1965, becoming the poster child (later shared with Detroit). In 1966 Chicago, Cleveland, Atlanta and San Francisco experienced significant destruction, with the inevitable media exploitation. Tampa, Buffalo, Newark and Detroit blew up in 1967 in what was now an expected and increasingly destructive annual expectation. In 1968 the nation exploded. Fueled by Martin Luther King’s April assassination and Robert Kennedy’s assassination in June, an estimated 120 cities disintegrated into a cascade of urban violence, destruction and death. Riots were especially brutal, long-lasting and heart-breaking in Detroit, Baltimore and Washington DC. Residents still remember them with great emotion. To cap it all, as the Democratic National Convention deliberated, Chicago imploded—and America watched day and night on TV.
Using sociologist Seymour Spilerman’s definition of race riot, 752 riots occurred between 1964 and 1971, with 228 deaths, 12,741 injured, 69,099 arrested and 16,000 arson attacks. The peak year was 1968 (289 riots); 44 percent of the deaths occurred in just three riots—Detroit, Watts and Newark (McDonald, 2008, p. 149). The 1967 federal Kerner Commission reported in March 1968: “Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” It blamed riots specifically on racial discrimination in employment, education, welfare, housing and policing—and concluded that the riots were anomic, unplanned, rapidly escalating disruptions that hurt overwhelmingly African-Americans. Almost totally, the looting, arson and disruption was in black neighborhoods.14 Subsequent research revealed that between 1960 and 1980 these neighborhoods lost one-third of their populations: Cleveland’s declined by 65 percent, but Los Angeles (Watts) lost only 1 percent (McDonald, 2008, p. 153).
The question of how these riots affected the practice and policy of economic development in the following years is an important background element in the chapters that follow. Neighborhoods needed repair; some demolition/rebuilding did follow. In many cities, however, reconstruction was painfully slow—visible reminders of these years persisted for decades. The effect on people, obviously, was often profound and long-lasting. Suburbanization increased dramatically after the riots—and urban investment plummeted. The shock that hit Big City policy systems was transformative; policy agendas shifted dramatically, as did politics and political leadership.
A final, subtle, legacy of the riots was their effect on subsequent policy-making political culture. Economic development policy-making can be deeply affected by “stories” (Stone, 2002, pp. 133–4) each policy actor brings into the policy process. The riots, dramatic and destructive as they were, became essential elements of many stories held by policy actors—not to mention the stories prevalent among residents, voters and taxpayers. Almost certainly these stories continue to affect contemporary sub-state economic development policy.
Ron W. Coan 