The further prosperity and economic development of these thrusting middle-sized urban regions--and, therefore, the growth of the national economy--is being severely restricted by shortages of stable, trained workers despite a wealth of manpower programs which, although they can produce job skills, are not geared to provide the environmental support, social and physical, needed by the trainees. The fact that unemployment rates in such cities are lower than the national average is evidence of their thrusting qualities. The unemployment rate in Louisville, for example, is usually one full per cent below the national rate. Although migration from rural areas may have lessened in some regions, it still continues in many others, particularly among the unskilled poor and the semi-skilled (at best) young, newly-formed families. And the main flow is still to the inner-city sections of the largest cities where the migrants join the great concentrations of the urban poor already trapped in deprivation. For both the newcomers and the older residents of these slum ghettos jobs are hard to find, living conditions are destructive of motivation and self-respect, and the resulting failure rate is high. ● Although an "income strategy" based on employment is crucial, permanent relief from poverty and escape from dependence on government subsidy require more than a job. Also required is a positive social, cultural and physical environment, backed up by supportive services, to compensate for damaging deprivation which in many cases has continued for generations. It is extremely difficult to bring about needed changes in the entrenched patterns, traditions, institutions and life styles of established urban and rural communities. Such needed changes can be more easily achieved in the all-new environments--social, racial, and economic--of a New Community where all are "pioneers" together. The best and probably only hope for producing low and moderate cost housing, without extensive governmental subsidization, lies in aggregating the need and passing on the economies of scale to the all-but- "forgotten Americans" which in this case would include the poor who migrate to lower-middle income employment in the New Community. Without doubt, New Communities will figure importantly in the evolving national urban growth policy. But unless the system envisioned by the Urban Studies Center or something similar is incorporated into that policy there is danger the new communities will be developed primarily as further extensions of present-day suburbia-primarily for middle and upper-middle income families seeking escape from the physical aspects of urban life. The concept of the New Community System does not ignore efforts now underway to improve conditions both in depressed rural regions and deprived deteriorated inner-city districts. Nor is the system offered as an alternative to these or other efforts to assist the poor. On the contrary, in proposing the concept, the Urban Studies Center argued that prudence, necessity and long-term profitability required that these efforts be continued. It was emphasized that the relocation system now being planned would be aimed not at persuading people to move from rural areas but rather at those already predisposed to migrate. Further, it is obvious that the New Community program can enhance the efforts to improve both urban and rural problem areas, "siphoning off," as it would, some of the problemed people. However, it must be recognized that these efforts -- commendable as they are--have not and cannot produce the necessary improvements, social and economical, fast enough to meet the immediate needs of all those who are in poverty NOW. The New Community System can-and can do it with relatively low investment of public funds that would be more than offset in increased productivity, savings on welfare costs, and new tax revenues. Most of the estimated $400 million cost of one of the proposed New Communities (for 20,000 families) would be financed in the normal, private ways of the marketplace, supported where necessary and possible by government loans. Outright government subsidy would be minimal. Full implementation of the New Community System is expected to require no more than one-time government investment of $7,000 for each family needing assistance to move out of poverty and into the planned New Community. This expenditure would be considerably less than the government will have to invest in such a deprived family if it remains in poverty as much as three more years or, more likely, a lifetime. The $7,000 per family would largely be "invested" in the areas of origin, in human resource development. At $7,000 per family, the incremental government cost to move one million families out of poverty, half of them from rural areas and half from inner-city neighborhoods, would total $7 billion spread over eight years between 1972 and 1980. The greater portion of this total would be invested in (1) training the heads of migrating families for specific jobs and for the modern world of work, (2) in preparing the entire family for life in the New Community, and (3) to a lesser extent, in identifying and channeling private investment in the creation of new employment opportunities for those families needing assistance. It is estimated that this proposed investment of $7 billion could bring about an increase in the Gross National Product (GNP) of as much as $200 billion in the following 15 years and, in the process, increase federal tax revenues $30 billion--which, incidentally, would be approximately the cost of government assistance for one million families left poverty-stricken over the same 15 years. To recapitulate, in the New Community System the unemployed and underemployed will be trained and redeployed to where normal economic growth trends and thrusts have an unmet demand for labor at family-level wages. The dynamic process thus created will: Pave the way for the poor out of destructive deprivation and motivate them into productive, tax-paying, self-supporting security. Reduce the financial and social costs of welfare, releasing tax dollars--local, state, and federal--for more creative investment in other programs. Improve the national economy generally and that of each of the regions particularly, and in the process increase the limited tax resources now available for--among other things--remedial efforts in problem-ridden urban and rural areas. Make possible the development of a supportive social and physical environment in the New Community, thus maximizing the probabilities of successful transfer of the poor out of poverty. Provide, through the New Community System, the testing grounds for innovation in community services, structure and design, innovation that could--once proven--be applied to the problems of existing urban areas. In short, there is built into the system gain for all. universality It is no longer enough to live and live. --President Richard Nixon On the State of the Union Agreement is hard come by on the causes of the complex and ultitudinous problems facing America today. But logical analysis invariably leads to the discovery that all the problems, in one way or another, are affected by two fac tors: The inexorable growth of the nation's population and its urbanization. The continuation of deprivation that holds a substantial portion of the population in poverty amid expanding plenty. The New Community and Family Mobility System being developed by the Urban Studies Center under a contract with the Office of Economic Opportunity seeks to provide responses to both of these basic "facts of life". In so doing it suggests that qualitative considerations be made as important as--if not more important than--the quantitative factors of growth. It is true this project, as funded by OEO, involves the preparation of pre-operational plans for a New Community in the Louisville urban region. But its purpose is far more than merely to produce a new town in Kentucky. The intent is to demonstrate the viability of a system that pragmatically uses the natural forces of the marketplace to help solve the nation's social problems, a system that can be used over and over again throughout much of the nation--and to the advantage of all. The Urban Studies Center seeks to demonstrate that its New Community System can be used in scores of medium-size urban regions--perhaps 100 or more--where there exists an already established urban infrastructure attractive to business and industry and a demonstrated potential for further economic growth. A preliminary listing of such potential urban areas based on the correlation of population size and employment is contained in Appendix C of this report. The listing, which deliberately omits urban areas in the nation's overgrown megalopolitan zones, indicates at least 90 potential locations for the application of the New Community System. New Communities already are a factor in the nation's response to population growth. There is limited provision for them in the Housing Act of 1968. And some 60 to 70 new towns (and large developments that sometimes are referred to euphemistically as new cities) have been completed or put under construction since 1946. These developments and the present New Community legislation by and large are designed to provide a quantitative response to the needs of persons and families who already have choice in where and how they will live. But they offer little for those who perhaps better than any others could benefit most from life in a new environment--that is, the poor, particularly those whose poverty stems from the damaging effects of discrimination and the evil effects of degrading surroundings. The New Community System herein described is designed to correct this omission. With but one possible exception, so far |