One Urban Policy?

What the country needs today is a unified federal urban policy, many people say. Without it, they argue, present attacks on urban problems are piecemeal, fragmented, inconsistent, and uncoordinated.

But can the bits and pieces of policy that exist in the various programs sponsored by the federal government—for urban renewal, transportation, education, poverty, public housing, among others—really be pulled together in one policy package?

In the concluding chapter of a new RFF book, Issues in Urban Economics, Alan K. Campbell and Jesse Burkhead doubt that they can. "The American decision process," they say, "simply does not work that way. Policy changes are incremental not sweeping. New directions are tried, but with caution."

Of the three sets of forces that bear on urban policy—the private market, the metropolitan governmental structure, and political patterns—the first, often influenced by government policies, "has unleashed forces contributing to the deterioration of the central city and the dispersal of population across the adjoining countryside." Fragmentation of metropolitan government has reinforced the effects of the market; so also has the fiscal bind in which state and local governments find themselves.

Campbell and Burkhead think it possible that, through incremental action of the federal government, a new package of programs can evolve which will move policy in a new direction. As one effort, they point to the metropolitan planning provisions in the 1966 Housing Act whereby any local government jurisdiction seeking federal aid for physical improvement must submit its application for aid to an established regional planning agency for review.

The agencies must, of course, have representation on their governing boards from the elected officials within the area; and these officials are not likely to approve any drastic revision in present patterns of urban development. Nevertheless, to a degree, the federal requirement of metropolitan-wide regional planning will influence governmental structure at the local level.

The third force affecting urban policy is also political. It is embodied in the politics surrounding the various functional areas relevant to city building. "Highways are politically strong. They will continue to be built and, in many instances, will be the principal influence deter-mining urban form. Education has its political strength and will undoubtedly continue to receive more funds, but whether education aid will be pointed in the direction of solving central city ills is by no means clear. Welfare and anti-poverty are weak politically. Urban renewal has changed its political support from the liberal to the chamber of commerce community. Whether this weakens or strengthens the program is not clear, but it does mean that it will be directed to saving downtown rather than providing housing to low-income families."

Because of the fiscal bind in which state and local governments find themselves, "state and local politics tend to be tax politics, while federal politics are more nearly program politics. Further, a local office-holder and, to a somewhat lesser extent, a state office-holder must constantly fear the creation of a 'pocket of opposition.' A President, because of the size of his constituency, can balance off opposing groups with favoring groups. This is not easy at the state and local levels. "These political facts of life make it inevitable that within the present structure of metropolitan governing institutions urban policy leadership will have to come from the federal level. Such leadership will not create a unified single urban policy for America. It may move, however, in the direction of coordinating present programs, modifying conflicting ones, and perhaps even grasping a new idea like New Towns—both in-and out-of-town—and perhaps even new cities.

"In many cases these programs will be designed by the bureaucracy, as was the case with the poverty program. But in every case there must be strong political support, existing or emergent, to overcome the conflicting and anarchic influences that now make every urban policy exclusively incremental."