Slum's Progress

"Cambridge, the city," wrote John Gunther in Inside U.S.A., "is not what one would expect from photographs of Harvard Yard. Mostly, it's a slum." Today, eight years after Gunther's comment, Cambridge is still mostly a slum. One out of four of the city's homes has no central heating, while an estimated 7500 of the 33,000 dwellings in Cambridge are "seriously deteriorated." The lack of adequate housing and municipal facilities has obviously contributed to the increase of juvenile delinquency in the city. It has also induced many families with young children to move out of Cambridge, and has indirectly caused a number of industries to join the exodus.

In this setting the newly-elected City Council can hardly afford a leisurely approach to the problem of renovating Cambridge. Fortunately, the elements for an effective program of "urban renewal" are already available. Last spring the City Council, by a vote of 6 to 2, approved a plan that would attack the problems of slum clearance and redevelopment by (1) appointing an assistant to the city manager to supervise the entire urban renewal program; (2) establishing a Housing Authority to inspect buildings throughout the city and decide which ones should be demolished or renovated; and (3) creating a Redevelopment Authority to do the actual work of renovating, redesigning, and rebuilding. The Council's plan then went to Washington, where the Government's Housing and Home Finance Agency approved it and agreed to pay two thirds of the cost. The Government stipulated, however, that Cambridge must put the program into operation before October 1, 1956.

Despite the obvious need for haste, the city has as yet implemented only one of the three proposals that it approved last spring. The Council last month officially set up the Redevelopment Authority, but the Urban Renewal Supervisor and the Housing Agency--which logically should have been the first steps in the program--still exist on paper only.

In the municipal election campaign that ended yesterday, every candidate for the City Council promised firm support for the Urban Renewal Plan. But opposing slums and juvenile delinquency in the abstract is like opposing sin; only concrete actions count. Before time runs out on the Federal grant, the new City Councilors should join with City Manager Curry and produce some real progress toward urban renewal. As soon as possible they should appoint a general supervisor and establish a housing authority, so that the embryonic Redevelopment Authority will know where and how to start work. If these steps are taken and the necessary funds appropriated, Cambridge's Urban Renewal Plan can get under way while there is still something left to renew.