June 9, 1969
Page 15114
THE 1969 NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, throughout the country increasing attention is being given to the role which State governments should play as the Nation endeavors to cope with the deepening crisis in our great cities. This question is much discussed, but all too often is glossed over with generalities. It was refreshing, therefore, to read two candid statements on this issue from two men uniquely qualified to discuss it.
These papers were presented at the 1969 National Conference on Public Administration of the American Society for Public Administration, Miami Beach, Fla., on May 21, 1969. Philip H. Hoff, who served with distinction as a three-term Governor of Vermont, took the position that the States can and must move in this area. He believes they are beginning to do so in encouraging numbers. On the other hand, John J. Gunther, who has served for the last several years as an articulate and knowledgeable executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, held that State performance is still discouraging.
As a part of this discussion at the ASPA meeting, Mr. Nicholas Thomas, Acting Director of the Division of Planning Assistance of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, pointed out that the real problem here is one of commitment by all levels of government and by the Nation as a whole to help stem the tide of economic and social deterioration that characterizes so many of our large central cities. Hill Healan, the director of the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia, pointed out that county government can play an increasing part in many sections of the country.
Mr. President, I think that the American Society for Public Administration is to be commended for its examination of this issue. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the RECORD the texts of the papers by Governor Hoff and Mr. Gunther.
There being no objection, the speeches were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
DARWIN OR DEBACLE: THE STATES AND THE URBAN CRISIS
(Speech by Philip H. Hoff)
Two traditions with deep roots in our Anglo-American heritage bear close scrutiny in the complex society we live in. The first of these is the adversary process; the second is the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest. The adversary process may still have considerable validity in our judicial system, but its usefulness in the society as a whole is increasingly open to question. The degree to which it already figures in our lives – the extent to which we tend to regard the majority of our important social problems as disputes between opponents – can be criticized, and sharply.
By the same token, the concept of the survival of the fittest is no longer an appropriate one. It is particularly questionable when we apply it to our cities, for it is becoming clearer and clearer that if the cities fail to survive, our whole society will fail. In fact, one of the most serious mistakes we can make is to treat our urban crisis as though it were strictly an urban problem, when, realistically speaking, it is very definitely an American problem: one of our own creation, and thus the responsibility of us all.
At the outset, then, I think that when dealing with the cities we must reject the artificiality of the adversary process and of the theory that the fittest will survive. There are no "fittests" in this day and age; in the final analysis no "side" can win. All of us stand to lose if the grave problems of our cities go unsolved. And in order to solve these problems it will be necessary to mobilize on their behalf all the forces available in our society. When I say all, I mean all the government forces – federal, state, and local – and private resources as well. The public sector and the private sector are not opponents: we must face the fact that unless they work together in the crisis of the cities neither will remain viable entities for very long. Fortunately, the private sector is beginning to wake up to this fact. States and cities are not opponents either. They are mutually dependent. And unless this is recognized, we will be categorically unable to find the solutions that the crisis demands.
It must also be recognized, of course, that the cities are the vital core of the nation today. One has only to look at the routes of the major airlines to realize that the greatest economic and social activity of our nation takes place in and between the country's largest cities. In short, this is where the people are, this is where the action is, and inevitably, this is where the greater part of all political activity will take place.
In honesty, I think we have to acknowledge that in the past the states have not done all they could or should have about the urban problems in our country. It is clear beyond dispute that, prior to reappointment, the cities got the short end of the stick. State legislatures were dominated by the rural areas and tended, more often than not, to ignore the problems of the cities entirely. In addition, until relatively recently state government went through a period of doldrums; consequently, it failed to meet not only the needs of the urban areas but other pressing needs within its boundaries. This, of course, brought about increasing involvement of the Federal government. Where states were either unable or unwilling to act, they created a vacuum into which the Federal government necessarily had to move. Thus, new federal programs directly affecting the cities came into being, and this, in turn, built a power base for Senators and Congressmen in Washington.
So it would be naive at this point to think that from now on all federal programs will be channeled through the states. To the extent that the State governments continue to be unable or unwilling to help in the problems of our cities, I think there will be no choice but for the Federal government to bypass them. I would like to make it clear, however, that to the extent that they do take meaningful action with respect to the cities, there are good arguments for channeling a number of programs through the state governments.
For one important aspect of federal involvement has become abundantly clear in recent years. Simply from a bureaucratic or organizational standpoint it is impossible to run most of the federal aid programs from Washington or purely through federal agencies. Each city has its own idiosyncrasies as does each particular region; and a federal program administered solely from Washington with criteria that apply nation-wide very soon becomes inelastic, over-bureaucratic, and unworkable. It is on this premise that I firmly believe that the states have a major role to play in urban affairs, working not separately from but rather in conjunction with the Federal government and with the urban areas themselves.
Municipal or local governments, of course, are the creatures of the state; and it is in this area that the states presumably could make the greatest contribution. And yet, it is interesting to note that it is here that the states have done the least. One sees this most strikingly when one looks at suburbia. The people living in the suburbs owe their very existence and being to the cities. They get up in the morning, cross an artificial political barrier, earn their living in the city and then retreat beyond that artificial barrier to their suburb at night, leaving the cities to deal alone with their problems of housing, jobs, minorities and all the rest. In short, the suburbs are really a part of the cities but they do not make the kind of contributions that are required for our cities to meet their challenges. In addition, again as a result of artificial political barriers, the cities today are often not viable economic entities. In fact, they are not total communities any more than Scarsdale, New York, is a total community. Conceivably, the states could re-draw municipal boundaries to include suburbia as part of the cities. I think most of us here would recognize that that is a political impossibility. There are, however, actions the states can take which fall short of this step, and which would be extremely effective nonetheless.
The first of these is in the area of planning. It makes little sense for planning to take place for a city alone, without taking its suburbs into account.
I personally believe that states today should insist that planning be done on a regional basis. There are federal funds available for this purpose, funds which pay two-thirds of the cost. Some states have moved forward in this area by paying the balance and then making sure that the planning is regional in nature. In the end, planning seems to me to be the most important ingredient in any potential solution of our urban problems. In addition to city and regional planning, there should be comprehensive planning at the state level as well.
The second practicable course of action for the states could be – and should be – for them to make individual contributions in the areas where the cities are so sorely beleaguered: education, housing, job-training and so forth. These contributions could take the form of money or of other resources, but they must be substantial – few people would quarrel with that.
By using their taxing powers, the states can make still another contribution to the urban dilemma: they can attempt to bring about a reallocation of resources so that the cities will be in a better position to meet the financial burdens placed upon them. If one assumes, for example, that the problem of educating the youngsters is the problem of everyone, then it seems to me that one thing all states could do would be to impose a statewide tax for school purposes, funneling the revenues into a central fund, and then disbursing them locally according to the number – and the particular needs – of the students involved in each case. Additional amounts should certainly be made available to the city areas where the educational problems are so acute. This kind of approach would not necessarily be limited to property taxes, but could be extended to other tax monies – primarily sales and income-tax monies – with equal impact. And while the schools would be the easiest area to take on, it is my judgment that the device could be applied to areas such as housing, transportation, and various community services.
The states could be of further help in the area of long-term financing. Most cities today are faced with very high interest rates on their bonds; the states, on the other hand, are able to sell their bonds at generally favorable rates. Thus if the states, through a variety of approaches, were willing to lend their credit ratings to the cities, it would improve enormously the financial capacity of the cities to handle the problem of housing construction, roads, and other physical improvements.
But at this particular point in time, perhaps the greatest need in terms of the problems of the cities is for the establishment of a nation-wide urbanization policy within which the states can formulate policies of their own. If I am right in saying that the urban crisis is an American problem rather than simply a problem of the cities, then it seems to me terribly important that such a federal policy be devised. In fact, I find it difficult to believe that we can be truly effective until it exists. This is not to say that the states should not already be attempting to make independent progress in this area; without a national framework, however, it becomes very difficult, and could well be an exercise in futility. So much of what the states can and should do is necessarily on a partnership basis with the Federal government.
Of course, new techniques for independent state involvement are springing up rapidly, and many of these have the potential for use in a joint federal-state effort to combat the problems of the cities. Many states today have offices of local affairs or community development. In other states responsibility for local government problems lies with members of the governor's staff, planning agencies or state offices of economic opportunity. It is increasingly clear that every state should have such a department, whatever its structure.
There is much talk these days about the Federal government taking over the welfare system for the entire country, and there is little question that this would be tremendously beneficial. Pending change in this area, some of the states have in the interval already assumed from the cities the crushing financial burden imposed by welfare programs, freeing city funds for other uses.
Still another promising area of state activity is the possibility of establishing state land development agencies, both for reconstruction of the urban cores and for the creation of new communities outside them, designed to relieve some of the pressures on the central cities. The New York State Urban Development Corporation is the first example of such an institution. It is generally conceded that the strictly private development of new communities like Columbia, Maryland will occur less and less frequently, because of the difficulty of acquiring sufficiently large tracts of land and because the dynamics of growth required to afford a timely return on private investment occur in only a few places in the country.
Here the land condemnation powers of the state governments would be extremely helpful. These land development agencies in time would recover their original investment and in this way would provide a vehicle for the Federal government to make advances in terms either of long-term loans with postponement or forgiveness of interest, or of outright incentive grants.
The foregoing, then, constitute a catalogue of avenues by which the states can gain entry to the urban problem. All of these approaches have been tried in one or more states, and it seems likely that there will be further movement by the states in these areas.
But they beg the overriding question that the states must answer as they consider their role in urban affairs: should the states seek means of directly intruding into urban affairs, becoming important actors on their own or, conversely, should they seek roles in which they are, for the most part, supportive of local government? The example of the New York State Urban Development Corporation illustrates the direct role. For here the state has created an agency which can override the powers already granted by the states to its political subdivisions. The emerging departments of community affairs represent the supporting role: the states have chosen to provide financial and technical assistance to local governments but without asserting a separate, substantive state position. The direct role, in effect, amounts to the pursuit of state objectives which may or may not coincide with those of local governments, the supportive role puts the states in the position of accepting the goals of local government.
In keeping with my opening remarks concerning the essential indivisibility of the urban problems we are dealing with, I don't really come down on one side or the other. Moreover, I think it is in the best American tradition to fashion an instrument which can combine the various factors in the best possible way. But I do favor an expansion of the direct state role based on the following principle: that states should develop mechanisms and institutions to deal with those local situations that individual cities themselves can not be empowered to deal with through enabling legislation.
Essentially, this all comes down to the dilemma of contemporary democracy: on the one hand we sense a strong desire on the part of people everywhere to participate in the operation of their governments so they can feel that they have some influence over the things those governments do and the ways in which they operate. And on the other hand, there is a sense of urgency about the nature of these problems, a feeling that they demand a scale of operation and efficiency of conduct which is gained by centralized power and strong initial commitment. I honestly don't know how the issue will be resolved in America, but it must be carefully considered by those who have some ability to influence the course which state government chooses to pursue in the immediate future.
One final note. Though I, for one, obviously feel strongly that in matters of intelligent planning, coordination and other areas it is important for all states to be heavily involved, I also believe that if they fail to act or to come up with meaningful programs, it should be possible for the cities and regions to circumvent them altogether, setting up their own operations to deal with a constellation of problems which can no longer be deferred.
THE ROLE OF THE STATES IN THE URBAN CRISIS
(Statement of John J. Gunther, Executive Director, U.S. Conference of Mayors)
Three years and one month ago I appeared before the American Society of Planning Officials in Philadelphia to argue the negative of the proposition that: All Federal aid to local communities should be channeled through the state. Arguing the affirmative at that time was the distinguished Missouri State Senator Albert M. Spradling, who was then serving as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Council of State Governments.
When I accepted the assignment here this afternoon I thought I might simply change the date on my 1966 speech and substitute the name of Governor Hoff for that of Senator Spradling as the banner carrier for the states. After all there has been very little movement toward constructive involvement by the states in helping cities meet the challenges of the urban crisis. However. I resisted the easy way out. First, because Phil Hoff is not Al Spradling and second, we are here today not to decry the past and indeed the present condition of state government inadequacy but to seek out a constructive role for state action.
To this end let me state what seems to be the uncontroverted givens in the present state of intergovernmental relations:
Cities are the creatures of the states and as such they can do no more and can be no stronger than permitted by the states;
States have a revenue base and taxing power lesser than the Federal Government but far superior to those of their cities;
Historically, the conventional wisdom, prior to the 1950's dictated a three-level structure– Federal-state-local – with relationships between levels one and three passing through or being blocked by level two;
And I believe that we agree that all states and all Governors are not alike.
Based on these givens, then I would suggest that if we had fully creative federalism, devoted to all the needs of all the people, we would have strong and responsive Federal Government, strong and responsive State government, and strong and responsive local government.
There would be full understanding, full responsibility, full collaboration, full cooperation at all levels in common undertakings for the common good.
But we don't have all of these things yet. And until we do, cities and the Mayors elected to serve the more than 70 percent of the nation's population in urban centers cannot afford to depend on the weakest element in the federal system for sympathy and support in programs they must have to survive.
It is a virtually universal judgment that the weakest element is the state governments which have not been responsive to the demands of the 20th Century.
This brings me to what seems to be other conditions which are facts even though they are disputed by the National Governors' Conference and the Council of State Governments:
The states have not dealt equitably with their larger cities and their residents;
The states lack the technical competence to assist their larger cities in meeting modern urban problems; and
Individual state politics dictate a state level posture of antagonism toward their largest cities.
It is these conditions, particularly the facts-of-life of state politics which were seemingly ignored by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in its recommendation that federal grants-in-aid for urban development should be channeled through the States.
Some argued that one-man-one-vote reapportionment would change things at the state level. But I suggest that change has not come about as yet and that when it does come it will shift the control of states to the suburbs which are often even more hostile to the central city than rural areas. Even here the states, or two-thirds of them are still calling for the Dirksen Amendment to the Constitution to put an "effective check upon a rampant majority."
Clearly it is still good state politics to run out-state against the city "slicker." Florida vs. Miami, New York vs. New York City, Illinois vs. Chicago, Ohio vs. Cleveland and Columbus, Indiana vs. Indianapolis; Missouri vs. St. Louis and Kansas City.
There is at least one major new element in the discussion of intergovernmental relations. That is the new examination of decentralization and citizen participation. This indicates, not an attempt to abandon national goals, state goals, city goals, or even neighborhood goals, but rather an attempt to focus on the role of the individual. We are asking the individual to participate and this invitation requires a redesign for our governmental system to make such participation possible.
The possibility of participation is very closely linked to the involvement of local government and revitalized local leadership. Citizen responsibility comes more readily when one can see the consequences of his own actions and that happens through participation in a vital local community. States should look to state actions to encourage the vitality of local communities.
But what have the Governors and the states proposed? First off they have increased their presence in Washington – even before the arrival of the Nixon Cabinet. The National Governors' Conference has a competently staffed Washington office. The Vice President of the United States is a Governor and there are Governors in charge of HUD, HEW, DOT, Interior, and the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.
But what constructive proposals do we hear from the states? What are they asking of their friends in high places? There is the continuing call for the Federal Government to vacate certain areas of taxation so that the states might move in. This is based on the supposition that the reason for the low level of state activity is that the Federal Government has claimed all the tax sources. But let me tell you that the states did not move in to claim the revenues when the Tax Act of 1964 produced the greatest reduction in history.
The states have also called for "Block Grants" – seemingly defined as replacing Federal-City program grants with funds to the states for distribution according to a state plan. We in the cities have watched these state plan operations. Highway, water pollution control, anti-crime and health funds from the Federal Government are distributed by the states according to a state plan. Urban transportation is neglected, city sewage treatment plants are underfinanced, safe streets funds go to improve the abilities of state police outside cities, and there have been no noticeable efforts to improve the delivery of health services in the inner city.
Even worse than "block grants" from the point of view of the city is the proposal of some Governors for federal revenue sharing with the states. A system which mis-directs block funds cannot be relied on to properly direct general purpose funds.
Earlier this month a majority of the nation’s governors met in Lexington, Kentucky, and issued another proposal: That the Federal Government "establish a regular policy of notification and consultation with the governors prior to and in conjunction with all policy meetings with officials of our major cities of the states." From press reports this resolution resulted from some discussions that some Nixon Cabinet members have had with Mayors on city problems.
I think it is noteworthy that the resolution expresses concern about direct Federal relationships, not with all the local governments in a state, but those relationships between the Federal Government and major city administrations.
One other proposal presented by a majority of the governors is that all federally financed anti-poverty programs within a state be channeled through a state agency and that the Federal Government consider abolishing its regional offices and rely on the states for the services and functions now performed by Federal regional offices.
The States do have a role – if they would just perform it. It is the role suggested several years ago by the Advisory commission on Intergovernmental Relations that the States demonstrate their willingness to assist in solving city problems (which they haven't) and that the States assume their proper responsibility for financing solutions to these problems (which they haven't).
The States could and should offer broad based revenue sharing to the cities, particularly, those cities which provide the homes and the education to those at the lower end of the economic scale.
The States could and should provide technical assistance, expert help, to the smaller towns which need assistance in planning and program development. Instead we find the States insisting on a "meddling" role in the large cities.
Yes, the States do have a role in urban affairs. We would welcome the support of the States and the Governors in our efforts in Washington to re-direct this Nation's resources, to claim a higher priority on the scale of values for the problems which beset our urban centers.
Instead what do we get? We get a powerful negative force dedicated to a rule or ruin philosophy of running every Federal-aid program through the States or killing the program.
The role of the States ill serves local government and the people.