The Harvard Review

The contributors to this issue--the first Review since last May--attack the problems of "The American City" like so many strangers caught in a revolving door. In their premises, their lines of reasoning, and their conclusions, these experts have little in common except the reflex association of "city" with "problem.

If you are Daniel Bell, a city is "syncretistic" and New York is an exemplary "palimpsest." Shadows of that city's three historic "faces" remain part of its character: the 19th century port city; the "nervously swift" manufacturer at the turn of the century; and the settling place for "glass house" corporations in the 1950's. And with the mushrooming of the "culture hungry" class, Bell sees the "face" of the '60's and '70's forming: New York as the cultural city.

Bell, like Edward Banfield in the article following his, has picked out the problem of the city. The traditional tug-of-war between city and country has been settled for good, and the central question now is "the organization of life within the city itself." Bell's evaluation is concise: the social costs with which New York has paid for each of its new "faces" can only be minimized by central planning. But, as in most cities, master-planning in New York has been a flop, and decisions are still made by "a calculus of individual economic costs." Bell's concluding imperative is strong: "If the city's economy makes sense today only in regional terms, so must policy." But backed by reason alone it has the hollow ring of all academic imperatives which purport to be solutions.

One senses no such academic idealism in Edward Banfield's analysis of the "key problem" of the city--the presence of "huge enclaves of the poor" in the central city and old suburbs. In fact, his presentation leaves little room for even qualified optimism. The spread of "pathological culture" generated in the slums is the primary threat to the city, according to Banfield, and prevention of its growth ought to be the first object of city policy. Although it sounds fearsome, just what this diseased culture consists of, and how it spreads remains unclear.

With this statement of the "key problem" in hand, Banfield attacks government programs from all sides: if they are not trivial, they are ineffective; if by chance they do what they are intended to, they either ignore the central problem of poverty, aggravate it, or, at best, cancel each other out. In any case, (the final stab) effective action against poverty is politically out of the question.

Some of these judgments are, hopefully, a little hasty. Programs which aid only some of the "bottom fifth," and possibilities for improving communication between the unemployed and potential employers need not be categorically rejected.

In contrast to Bell's imperative for regional planning, Banfield's only hope is that extra-political forces--the rising national income, and the growing stock of handme-down housing--will stop the spreading pathological culture. Banfield's conclusion has its own fatalistic ring: Whatever happens "there will always be a "bottom fifth.'"

Bayard Rustin's short, somewhat muddled article is the least interesting in the issue. Admitting that the civil rights movement has won only token victories against social and economic barriers to "genuine freedom"--"a handful of jobs here, a few school pairings there,"--he calls for planning across class lines and state lines. And he doesn't stop there: "I am more and more in favor of abolition of the states altogether."

Edgar and Jean Cahn, in their account of how not to wage war on poverty (based on the New Haven experience), carry the "war" analogy to its logical extreme and come up with some solid insights into deficiencies of the "para-military" approach to poverty. Their thesis is that war on poverty ignores a crucial "civilian perspective." The result of this defect is that programs which in theory are designed to increase self-reliance and independence, in fact tend to "enervate potential leadership," and to prevent criticism and retard innovation in favor of maintaining vested interests and the status quo.

In light of the Cahns' observations, Robert Weaver's summary of the federal government's efforts to "shape" the "Spread City" reads like a General's account of the progress of the war. Stating that the government's goal is to prevent waste and disorder," Weaver enumerates uncritically federal programs to aid cities, and calls for "better organization of urban governments." He is, of course, selling the program which he heads, and he confines his generalization to purposes rather than effects, which is always safer ground.

One more perspective--that of Paul Goodman--completes the circle of experts trapped in the revolving door of uncommunication, and clarifies why they are likely to stay there awhile. Beginning with an exclamation that "just doesn't make sense," Goodman neither accepts the process as inevitable as does Bell, nor resolves to influence its course as does Weaver; instead he sets about looking for ways to reverse it. Living in congested areas, he says, makes people confused. Motivated by a mixture of good intentions, vigorous imagination, and economic ignorance, Goodman hits upon a program of boarding-out slum children to farms, that will alleviate congestion and simultaneously aid the small farmer.

The only trouble with this diverse collection of authorities on "The American City," is that one wonders what they're all doing in The Harvard Review. With only one contributor from Harvard and no articles by undergraduates or grad students (a departure from previous issues), it looks like the Review has decided to find its talent outside the University. More likely, such inconsistencies, as well as the changes in format (the issue is much handsomer under its new printer), are a result of its youth, and can be expected to right themselves with maturity.