Even though they have no government with competent areawide jurisdiction, most metropolitan areas have intricate patterns of interests and associations. Because of the conflict among these galaxies of interests, their momentum normally operates to maintain the status quo. Thus, the first step in bringing about any change in metropolitan affairs must be an awareness of this deep freeze; some melting power must be added to break down the old patterns or, at least, to reconsider their merits de novo.
Currently the only source of such heat is the federal government.
If it is believed that wider urban issues are being neglected, or that areawide considerations are not being taken into account, it is self-defeating to leave our patterns of urbanization to the competing and inconsistent actions of thousands of local government units. A degree of national involvement in local affairs becomes essential if extraterritorial needs are ever to enter the equation.
Yet we must be careful that there be no misunderstanding, for this is a subject that bristles with emotion. Although the initiative for change is national, the substantive framework within which such change must take place should be constructed according to local specifications. The components of metropolitan policy need to be shaped by decision making at the local levels; the role of the national government is properly that of catalyst for change, letting the fresh air into the corridors but not constraining its direction and flow.
Before 1966, federal-aid programs included few requirements for the implementation of metropolitan planning. The 701 program (under the 1965 Housing Act) spearheaded the major thrust. Then Congress began to add conditions, especially to the HUD grant programs, that the aided project conform to a comprehensive plan drawn up for the entire metropolitan area. A series of acts began to assert that once a comprehensive planning scheme has been formulated, the public sector response should move on toward action.
In the reform housing laws of 1966, which launched the Model Cities program, congressional attention was turned toward externalities of local governments through Title II, the Planned Metropolitan Development Act. Two sections should be noted.
The first of the two is Section 204. Under its provisions, all applications for federal loans or grants to assist in projects that have metropolitan impact—for airports, water supply, highways, transportation facilities, law enforcement facilities, regional parks, and open spaces—must be submitted first for review to a designated areawide agency. This agency is then called on to make comments and recommendations. The agency's report, explaining how the project is consistent with comprehensive planning development for the metropolitan area, is sent to the federal agency to which the funding application is submitted.
Section 204 was intended only to assist the funding agency in its decision making; the evaluations were not to be binding; therefore, few interest groups were moved to object to the enactment of this provision. Yet, the provision introduces a lever of potentially great import. The contents of a plan can affect the distribution of monies. For it is an administrative reality, other things being equal, that a national department will be more reluctant to make a grant if there is some statement on record that the proposal runs counter to the sound development of the area as a whole.
In this sense, the federal government is helping to carry out a local authority mission. It gives local units an opportunity, through their metropolitan representatives, to participate in decisions which were previously closed to them. Where formerly there would have been a "private" agreement between a federal agency and a local agency, now the metropolitan representatives of all the local government units can indicate, for instance, how the proposed capital expenditure by one unit can thrust unfair externalities on the others or how a particular plan will fail to further the overall development strategy of the entire area.
The second important feature introduced in 1966 (but not as yet funded) was Section 205. This section provides a 20 percent supplement, by way of an override, to basic federal grants designated for areawide development projects.
These grants would supplement existing federal assistance to programs for transportation facilities (transit, primary and secondary highways, and airports), water and sewer facilities, recreation and other open space areas, historic preservation, libraries, and hospital and medical facilities.
To establish eligibility for supplementary grants in a particular metropolitan area, projects must show that (1) comprehensive planning and programming on a metropolitan scale provide an adequate basis for evaluating the location, financing, and scheduling of public facilities and land development (whether or not federally assisted) of metropolitan wide or interjurisdictional significance; (2) adequate metropolitan wide institutional or other arrangements exist to coordinate local public development policies and activities affecting the development of the area; and (3) public facility projects and other land developments (public or private) which have a major impact on the development of the area are in fact being carried out in accord with metropolitan wide comprehensive planning and programming.
Supplementary grants under Section 205 are intended to go to states and localities that are achieving a high order of efficiency and economy in constructing federal-aided public works. Here again, therefore, there is the potential for carrying out the thrust of the program of federal assistance to metropolitan areas. Its real significance is its leverage power to foster the kind of growth that maximizes and protects capital outlays.
Many weaknesses in Section 205 must be resolved before it becomes a workable means of achieving area-wide cooperation in comprehensive areawide planning. But I still remain a believer. The elaboration of experience becomes essential. Section 205 should not be laid aside simply because it lacks the precision of older and more established operations. The interrelations of activities and their external by-products are coming increasingly to public attention. This we can see in the current public concern over the growing inroads into our environment and over the by-products of transportation and housing as they affect other uses and developments. Comprehensive planning can give us a mechanism for calculating more accurately the costs to the local government. It also gives a social accounting over the whole metropolitan area, so that we can arrange for social compensation for the costs of individual action. Funding under Section 205 can convert the metropolitan development plan from kibitzing to catalyst.
Adapted from "A Federal Role in Metropolitanism," by Charles M. Haar, in Reform of Metropolitan Governments, No. 1 in a new RFF series on The Governance of Metropolitan Regions (ed. Lowdon Wingo).
A version of this article appeared in print in the June 1972 issue of Resources magazine.
