THE CONSERVATION OF OUR CITIES, Statement of Senator Nelson on the Constructive Work Act of 1964

Transcription

1 THE CONSERVATION OF OUR CITIES, Statement of Senator Nelson on the Constructive Work Act of 1964 Introductory Segment: Earlier this year I introduced Conservation Act of ~s aimed at meeting ~~wo of the., domestic crises which America faces today: the was ~ of natural resources, and the,vas of human resources tlitough massive unemployment. Today I introduce a complementary bill, the Constructive ~.." ~ Work Act of 1964, aimed at meeting a third/gnml8~ crisis: the c~":v~~ ~ ple3e af!s!8~.~bl8 UMqb g,rjps our nt!~ cities. cj).. \~ 921r QikU,Qs" problems ~e ~" There is large-scale unemployment, frequently concentrated in particular areas of the city. There is a great problem of deficient and deteriorating environmental conditions--also concentrated in particular areas, and often in the same areas as those with heavy unemployment. In many cases, these same areas are faced with an intensified probl em because they are inhabited largely by Negroes, Puerto Ricans, or other groups which are subjected to racial discrimination. The result of these problems, and of their interaction with each other, is that an enormous tension is built up in certain areas of our cities. This tension can be seen in the high rates of family break-ups, of crime, and of other indices of instability

2 -2- which occur in these areas. Sometimes, as has happened several times this summer, the tension becomes dramatically apparent in a flare-up of violence, a riot. The Constructive Work Act is aimed at relieving this tension, and its symptoms, by alleviating the underlying problems which are its cause. This is something we must do, not just because we fear continued violence on our city streets, but because it is simply intolerable, in a rich country like ours, that men should be forced to live in the circumstances of utter misery to which some are subjected today.

3 II Need for work segment: The tragic irony of our present high ~"~PTef unemployment is that there is a huge amount of work which needs to be done. The Area Redevelopment Administration has a backlog of $740 million in applications for projects which it has not yet, <t., {; been able to meet. ' <-. I -{, ~~t l(.a,$ ( ~~ ~~ f\ ~1(V -.UNi. f~"" /( ~ ",CJ The Census Bureau estimates that there will be 300 million at-oj on'-' people in the United States by the year 2000, and that nearly all of them will live in towns. Yet, in the face of this spectacular impending urban growth, we are allowing the facilities of our cities to deteriorate. Many have called this Congress a "Conservation Congress"; I, for one, am very proud of that ti tie. - But I se.;,r i;g YSI:l now chat we must conserve our urban resources as well as our natural resourcesj we cannot let a situation continue in which millions of our fellow citizens do not have a suitable egvironment in which to live and raise their families. There are thirty-six million Americans living in unsound housing today. Many of the unsound structures are being re- Ll moved by urban renewal; bu,\> f"~ public housing.. :wh:i'ch of last year We are falling behind in the fight to conserve our cities.

4 r -2- (,. ""4:...- In Boston,.-~ example, 22,000 dwellings fell into the "substandard" category in the decade from 1950 to fully three times as much as the quantity of poor housing that was eliminated by urban renewal during that same period. The National Planning Association estimates that a total of $2 trillion, both public and private, is needed to,..- bring our urban facilities up to par. ~ recommend that current annual public and private expenditure of $48 billion be raised to $100 billion a year. These figures are staggering. ~~~ Professor Leland Hazard of the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company points out, cost caviling is out of place in what amounts to an all-out war against "urban rot, delirquency, crime, gangsterism, filth, disease, and degradation"-- the consequences of 0 o conserve the resources of our cities. Professor~_. when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor down, did we ask what the cost of fighting back would be? When the late General MacArthur, escaping from Bataan, declared, "I shall return," did we ask, "What will the return trip cost?" Did we in a crisis like Pearl Harbor go mentally shopping around to discover the marginal utility of protecting our West Coast against Japanese invasion? No! Rather we tooled up to fight back; no one asked the cost. Why? Because we were protecting our freedom, our society, our form of government, our living space, against we knew not fully what threats. How do we explain the apparent incongruity? The Japanese gave our society a chance to die. We rejected the offer. Now urban rot, delinquency,

5 ." -3- crime, gangsterism, filth, disease, and degradation give our society a chance to die. We entertain the prospect. -t:jt.. At Professor HazarddWg :5 this is J;;ae-~~ a "deathwish" on the part of our society. IH I do not believe~ such a "death-wish" really exists I I am confident that we can meet this problem head-on, and that we can overcome it. But we must act now, before it is too late, if we are to do so.

6 III Tension segment: High unemployment, and inade~qate environmental conditions combine to generate enormous tensions in those ~~~Ilkiareas which are hardest hit by poverty. In the many poor areas \vhich are inhabited primarily by Negroes, Puerto Ricans, or other minority ' groups, discrimination adds to the tension. The alienation which 'I ~es~ when a man decent place to live and cannot eeot provide public f'acilities to meet community needs, leads to a ~ ~ttmp~~ ' ook at the situation in the Central Harlem section of' New York City. I have I-a iil8 8j.y." mentioned the high unemployment in this area. There is also a great def'iciency of community f'acilities. Of' the 87,369 housing uni~ in Central Harlem, 11 per cent are of'f'icially classif'ied as "dilapidated"--a term def'ined as 'lfnot providing saf'e and adequate shelter'f--and an additional 38 per cent as "deteriorating", or "needing more repair than would be provided in the course of' regular maintenance. '!;phis KW9DS ly 51 per cent of' the housing in Harlem is bat to 85 per cent in the whole of' New York City. the housin~ acreage in Central Harlem is occupied by dwellings "t built-einee- 1929, when the current "multi-dwelling law" st andards f'or housing became ef'f'ective. Twenty per cent of the housing in Central Harlem is overcrowded, with more than one person for each

7 -2- room. deficient as r'.. ~ 0 y 63 per cent as much o~~... lana devoted t o parks ~ as ~the city as a whole; and a number of these, along the West border of the area, active recreation. in the hi1j;s. unsuitable for any sort of ~~~~~~~ha~,ichildren are forced to play number of deaths caused annually by cars is 6.9 per cent per 100,000 of population, 40 per cent higher than ""tiauee for the whole city. Half a century ago, Harlem had a population of ab0ut 80,000. Today, there are 300,000 people living in this same area--yet there has not been one Congressman who represents t e The are crowded together in the most squalid, rat-infested, unsanitary conditions." The results,.. r' ~tions~&both the health of the inhabitants ef.~~~~~~~ the social health of the community have been tragic. Infant mortality in Central Harlem is almost double that in the whole of New York City, and the crude death rate is 20 per cent higher than in the city as a whole.n Social instability is als:o high capita. as great I~ number of homic~? per "'W" ', ~ '-Ji~J per 1,000 population, 40 per cent higher than the~ate for the whole city. What is true N"'Harlem is true~ Il ~Ulstil. 8th ikss ey.., ~... ~ many sections o~ allover the United States. People '!i

8 ~ are reaching ~point -3- where they no longer feel themselves a part of society, because society does not have anything to offer them-- neither a way of making a decent living, nor a decent place to l ive. In the midst of general feel any obligation to follow the rules of behavior which American society has prescribed.

9 " IV Riots segment: The tension generated by high unemployment, racial dis crimination, and miserable living conditions is not always confined to individual feelings of alienation and rebellion. The result is sometimes open violence. This summer a number of riots have broken out. In most cases they were touched off by single incidents--frequently by real or imagined brutality on the part of city police officers. But the initial incident was, in each case, only the spark which touched off the underlying tension. The first of this summer's riots occurred in the Harlem section of New York. I have described already the many deficiencies of this community in the fields of housing and public facilities, and the high unemployment. These things created a great feeling of dissatisfaction which, after the shooting of 15~year-old James Powell by an off-duty policeman erupted into a five-day series of riots in whcih one man died, 144 were injured, 519 arrested, and 541 stores were looted or damaged. Estimates put~he dollar cost of the riots between one and two million dollars. Whitney M. Young, Jr., the Executive Director of the National Urban League, recently described the situations of five cities where riots have occurred this summer. In Paterson, N.J., 27 per cent of the families live in poverty, with incomes below $3,000 a

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