February 2, 1966
Page 1907
DOWNTOWN PROGRESS AND THE OF WASHINGTON
Mr. MONDALE. Mr. President, the greatest threat to better living opportunity in a metropolitan area is a fragmented, start and stop approach to the needs of the urban community.
That statement, drawn from one of the most perceptive statements I have read on the problems besetting our cities, was made by my distinguished colleague from Maine, Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
Senator MUSKIE's address to the Annual Meeting of Downtown Progress, Inc., on January 21 here in Washington, is unique because it quietly and soberly examines the opportunities open to our cities rather than joining in the litany of urban woes recited by virtually every major national news magazine in recent months.
That is the kind of speech one would expect from Senator MUSKIE. His emphasis on the good which men can work simply by fundamental cooperation in our urban areas is well known in the Senate and across the Nation. That emphasis was enacted into law by the Senate when it passed his Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1965 last August 5. I was honored to join with Senator MUSKIE in cosponsoring that vital first step in the resolute battle to win anew our cities for their citizens.
I am equally pleased today in requesting unanimous consent that Senator MUSKIE's address entitled "Downtown Progress and the Future of Washington" be reprinted in full at this point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
DOWNTOWN PROGRESS AND THE FUTURE OF WASHINGTON
(Remarks by Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE to the annual meeting of Downtown Progress,
Inc., Statler-Hilton Hotel, January 21, 1966)
President Baker, Secretary Weaver, officers, members, and friends of downtown progress, I have some hesitation about today's speech. You have put me -- a small town boy from a rural State -- in the position of speaking about urban development in front of one Of the worlds' leading experts on the subject. But, we have suffered together before, and I think we can once more.
This is my first opportunity to congratulate Secretary Weaver publicly. On Monday I was in Maine tending to a little midwinter fence mending and I missed the good doctor's final examination before the Senate. He had my pledge of support, but he passed easily without me.
The confirmation votes in committee and in the Senate were personal tributes to Dr. Weaver and to his record as Housing and Home Finance Administrator. I hope the ease of his confirmation will not take away from its significance. As I have learned in my career, and as Dr. Weaver knows from his experience, the easy victories are the hardest to come by.
The Secretary and I in our respective offices are deeply involved in the quest for the Great Society. The goal of that society at home is the improvement of the quality of life for all Americans. Outside our boundaries we seek peace, justice, and the opportunity for all men to improve their lives.
In November and December I participated with Senator MANSFIELD and three other Senators in a special global fact-finding mission. On that trip I was impressed once more with the importance and the vitality of the American tradition for the world.
This Capital City -- your city -- is a focal point in world affairs and a symbol of our Nation. It is well that you are concerned with its development. What you do here has a significance going far beyond the physical changes of the city, For many, at home and abroad, your successes and your failures will be a reflection of the successes and failures of our Nation.
In his message on the state of the Union last week, the President said, "working together, private enterprise and Government must press forward with the task of providing homes and shops, parks and hospitals, and all other parts of a flourishing community where our people can come to live the good life." Cooperation in community development is the theme that unites the President's interests, your interests and mine. Your organization was formed and financed by private businessmen, you began your activities in close cooperation with the public agencies concerned with the planning and development of this great and beautiful city; and you have strengthened that cooperative effort.
In community development one of my principal aims as a Member of the Senate is to foster the same kind of cooperative spirit among units of government, especially among the cities, towns, and counties that make up our great metropolitan areas.
I should like to explore with you the ways in which we can help our metropolitan cities to become better places to live, to work, and to enjoy the benefits of a free society in a technologically advanced culture.
By now, we are all conscious of the complex problems of our increasingly urban society. One after another, during the part several months, a number of our major national magazines have devoted entire issues to discussions of the city. More books than ever before are appearing on this subject.
There have been many television programs, singly and in series, about all manner of urban ailments. And the news bulletins and traffic reports I hear on my car radio daily add to the litany of urban woes -- a litany recited at countless lectures, meetings, and congressional hearings.
I am reminded of one English critic who visited Los Angeles, returned and said: "I've seen the future and it doesn't work."
One might conclude, after reading and listening to this outpouring about the perils of urbanism, that our cities are sick unto death. I believe, to paraphrase Mark Twain, one of our famous country boys, that the reports of the death of our cities are greatly exaggerated.
The problems are many and serious. They include the pollution of our air and water, inadequate housing -- especially for middle and lower income groups -- education, poverty and discrimination, transportation and parking, beautification and public facilities. No one can deny their existence or their threat to the future of the metropolitan area.
Instead of rehearsing our problems I should like to discuss our opportunities
Our technology is capable of producing for us the wide range of opportunities for and the choices of living patterns that are the principal virtues of metropolitan life: but our attitudes, and the political machinery which responds to these attitudes, are changing with agonizing slowness, thus hindering the realization of a way of life we now see only on the canvas of our imagination.
Much of my time in the Congress has been devoted to seeking ways of making our governmental structure and processes more responsive to the changing ways of urban life and the opportunities to better that life. More and more we are looking to our local, State, and Federal governments to help provide solutions for the problems arising from growth and urbanization. The basic objective of the "Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations," for example, "is to strengthen the ability of our Federal system to meet the problems of an increasingly complex society in this space age by promoting greater cooperation, understanding, and coordination of activities between the separate levels of government."
My experience with the Advisory Commission has given me a unique privilege of working with people from Government and from private life who are concerned about the role that Government agencies might play in speeding our journey toward the Great Society.
Our metropolitan existence clearly calls for governmental cooperation, responsive to the people, that will produce efficient action uninhibited by city, county, town, and even State boundaries.
We believe that a great deal can be done by means of intergovernmental cooperation among existing forms of government to meet future metro-city needs, without the necessity of creating new governmental entities at the metropolitan level. In fact, the difficulty of defining a metropolitan area for governmental purposes in many instances precludes the formation of an effective political jurisdiction at that level. This is most evident in metropolitan areas such as New York and Philadelphia which cut across State lines. And, in Washington, D.C., the metropolitan structure is complicated even further by the special qualities of the Federal City.
In Washington we have made a major step forward in the creation of the council of governments and the recent coordination of the council with the transportation planning board. I was pleased to be able to contribute to that development with my amendment to the 1965 Housing Act which made COG eligible for Federal planning funds.
I am confident that House passage of the proposed Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1966, which I introduced in the Senate last year, would assist this development, since one of its provisions is designed to strengthen regional bodies like COG.
To sum up, therefore, we are developing mechanisms that will be capable of widening opportunities for new patterns of life for our people.
We are also working to make it possible for all of our people to take advantage of these opportunities, principally through the programs to eliminate poverty and discrimination, and to bring to all the benefits of better education.
And we are evolving new ways to use programs for the physical development of our cities as tools for a better life for all our citizens.
As you have determined here in Washington, and as many other major cities have discovered, urban renewal is an important form of governmental cooperation which can have a beneficial impact on a city and its residents.
The urban renewal program is adapting to changing conditions. And I am sure that it will continue to do so. Originally, it was primarily directed at the elimination of residential blight. Over the years, its benefits have been extended to nonresidential areas as well. This broadening of urban renewal powers was one of the recommendations of our Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. The addition of the District of Columbia to this program was an important step in the direction of meeting this community's needs.
As we have learned in other areas of the country:
The central business districts can continue to be the vital tax base of the city.
Our central business districts play important social and economic roles. They are major employment centers for unskilled and semiskilled workers who must also live nearby, and for whom there may have to be special residential development considerations.
The central business districts also are the places in which the unique retail enterprises and specialized services which contribute to the variety and vitality of city life now exist.
In short, the urban renewal program -- with special provisions for contributing to the revitalization of central business districts -- can be an effective tool to permit present cities to adapt to meet future needs. Used creatively, the procedures and financial assistance available through the urban renewal program will enable cities to strengthen the tax base of their central business districts; this in turn will provide revenues to support programs of housing, education, and social welfare essential to broader opportunity and choice for all citizens.
Urban renewal also can provide the means for preserving buildings of historic and architectural significance, which are especially important in a city such as Washington, to provide the sense of continuity so essential to the spirit of a great city.
These considerations should be a part of your planning as you help shape the physical future of Washington.
In talking about the city's needs I have concentrated on its physical requirements.
The physical development of the city has much to do with the quality of its people. As Paul and Percival Goodman wrote in their provocative study, "Communitas," "of the manmade things, the works of engineering and architecture and town plan are the heaviest and biggest part of what we experience. . . . A child accepts the manmade background itself as the inevitable nature of things: He does not realize that somebody once drew some lines on a paper who might have drawn otherwise. But now, as engineer and architect once drew, people have to walk and live."
Your work and your achievements in downtown progress will have a great impact on the people of this city for generations. And we must remember that this is not just the city of the visitor and the suburban commuter, it is the city of the people who live here.
The greatest threat to better living opportunities in a metropolitan area is a fragmented, start and stop approach to the needs of the urban community. This is particularly true in Washington, where the absence of home rule is an obstacle to genuine community decisions.
Too often in our metropolitan papers we read of conflicting demands on the city, advanced without regard to the interrelationship of housing, economic development, education, transportation, and public facilities.
Within the downtown area you have made a major contribution to integrated treatment of the various needs of the central business district. You have recognized housing as an essential part of the Mount Vernon Square project. But that is not enough.
A beautiful, vigorous city center is a mockery of the American dream if it is a jewel in a setting of overcrowded and decayed slums. The development of the central city must go hand in hand with the development of more and better housing for middle- and low-income groups. The enhancement of Washington's scenic avenues must be backed up with improved educational and other public facilities for all its citizens.
By the same token, rigorous code enforcement in the crowded slums may satisfy the conscience of a few, but if it is not accompanied by the construction of an adequate supply of middle and lower income housing, in various areas of the city and suburbs, and adequate relocation assistance, it will be a cruel gesture to the many who have no choice.
And unless better housing is accompanied by job opportunities, we will not have a real solution to the needs of the poor.
In this Federal City you must tackle these problems without the benefit of the normal, local political institutions. I hope we can achieve home rule for the District soon: but the city cannot wait for that millennium to begin a massive and coordinated attack on its problems.
Time is our tyrant. Those who have suffered under discrimination -- those who have been denied what you and I enjoy in education, professional satisfactions, income, and housing -- will not wait forever. You who are the leaders of this community must act to make this a whole community.
Your contribution to the central city is important and will be a monument to your energy, foresight, and imagination. I urge you to apply that same energy, foresight, and imagination to the improvement of the city beyond the center, and the expansion of opportunities for those on the outside looking in.
Congress and the administration are searching for and developing new approaches to these needs. New tools are already on the books, in urban renewal, housing, educational facilities, poverty programs, beautification, pollution control, and transportation.
Most of these tools deal with the physical side of the city, but their ultimate objective is the improvement of the quality of life for people -- for the child whose playground is a trash-strewn alley -- for the young boy or girl whose classroom is a rat-infested cellar -- for the parent whose income is uncertain and whose housing choice is an overcrowded slum room or the street -- for the young man who cannot get a job because he lacks training and cannot get training because he lacks income -- for the man or woman who cannot find decent housing because of the color of his or her skin.
The city is not divisible. This is why I disagree with those who take the "either or" approach to the twin problems of downtown renewal and housing.
If planning and urban renewal make sense for downtown, it makes sense in the areas of residential blight.
If Federal assistance makes sense for commercial downtown development, it makes sense in housing.
And so I say to you, community leaders who have made great advances in your 5 years as an organization: broaden your scope of interest and effort to incorporate the entire metropolitan area, in the District and its suburbs, working with public and private groups, public and corporate agencies, to make this city truly a fruition of the American dream.