services approach is more flexible, as it only predetermines some elements. However, Professor Turner stressed that by making the basic elements of shelter accessible to self-organized and managed community groups the inhabitants were given the final authority over their own programme of action.

Each community group would there- fore be able to choose the components appropriate to its particular needs. For example, a group may choose between leasing land, purchasing land or renting land. It may choose between a number of locations. It may choose between self-financed or institutionally-financed types of loans. The combination of choices is great and the flexibility of community choice will be enhanced if public bodies attempt to make more choices available to community groups. This is something only government can do through new legislation, appropriate training and programmes to make more resources available to the poor.

Madras projects

Michael Slingsby of the Development Planning Unit, University College, London, described at some length the site and services project in Madras, funded by the World Bank and designed by Professor Christopher Benninger in 1973. He noted that this project housed more than 10000 families in several different sites, and was linked to a slum improvement programme. If the same funds had been invested in a traditional packaged scheme only about 700 finished houses could have been built. Slingsby pointed out that the project left most of the decisions to the people who would be the users and allowed them to invest as their ability to pay allowed. He noted that poor families which had never had tenure before invested faster and at a greater rate than expected because they felt that their investment would remain in their control. He also noted that the cost overheads on this project were lower than on traditional schemes because: (1) the cost was less; (2) the construction time was shorter; and (3) the proportion of loan per unit of shelter was less.

William Cousins of the United Nations Children’s Fund emphasized

CITIES November 1983

that habitat covers a wide range of basic needs, of which shelter is one. Child care, women’s development, functional education, basic health and skill development should be considered as part of the whole habitat. Cousins called for a convergence of these basic services and their integration in planning.

Professor Benninger, Director of the Centre for Development Studies and Activities at Poona, noted that existing housing for the poor was, on the whole, built by the users themselves. The practices and processes of these ‘city builders’ should be understood and our policies for urban planning should support and sponsor such popular action.

Conference reviews

Professor Berminger defined development as a ‘process of transfer of power into the hands of institutions which are controlled by the people’. He further stated that: ‘If, in the name of increasing production or increasing consumption, a programme takes the decision making power away from local institutions, or creates dependencies on interests external to the context and the beneficiaries, it becomes a mechanism which impoverishes and lowers the level of development of that context and the beneficiaries’.

Sasi Nair

Centfe for Development Studies and Activities

Poona, India

Privatizing the US rescue operation

Anglo-American Colloquium, Cleveland, OH, April 1983

Cleveland, Ohio, capital of the North Coast and once the butt of every American comedian, is showing signs of recovery. On the brink of financial disaster until a few short years ago, City Hall was rescued by a powerful urban coalition comprising local banks, corporations and enterprising elites. In the van was the one time Chamber of Commerce (transformed into the Growth Association of Greater Cleveland) together with a host of other private bodies - ie University Circle Incorporated, Cleveland Tomorrow, Cleveland Round Table and the incomparable Cleveland Foundation.

Cleveland’s dynamic Mayor, George Voinevich, is determined to turn the city around. Cleveland State University’s College of Urban Affairs is playing an important role in focusing community concern on the economic and social problems of the city and provides a bridge between the bureau- crats in the many public agencies and the private wealth; that must be harnessed to urban revitalization and economic regeneration.

Such public-private cooperation was the theme of a first Anglo-American Colloquium on innovations in urban policy held earlier this year at Cleveland

State University (CSU). At a reception for the UK guests held in Cleveland City Hall, one could be forgiven for thinking, if only for an instant, that one was back in Birmingham’s Council House or in some English municipal monument to public enterprise and private wealth, former mayors of the city gazed down unseeingly from the gilt-framed canvases, even the cucumber sandwiches and the tea belonged to the old country. Perhaps only in older US industrial manufactur- ing cities is it possible to experience such similarities - cultural affinities and linkages which have endured and become stronger with time.

Comparison

There are, of course, significant differences between US and UK approaches to contemporary urban problems, yet these differences only serve to heighten similarities in responses to structural change, infor- mation technology impacts, and the scientific and technological revolution. In papers prepared for the colloquium attention was drawn to these differ- ences, especially in respect of scale cleavages and the sheer diversity of the US experience. Nevertheless, north-

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Conference reviews

east Ohio is worth comparing with the West Midlands.’

Professor Paul Porter’s paper emphasized the need for cities to make themselves more self-reliant. The local dimension was seen to be central and critical; not least because financial and other institutions, public and private, tend to be locally based and, in the case of the USA, regulated by state rather than federal law. The role of the Growth Association of Greater Cleveland, for example, typifies the growing role of corporations in social realms. The increasing exercise of corporate power in the USA, combin- ing a degree of social responsibility and enlightened self-interest, deserves close scrutiny. It may become of greater relevance in UK cities, where, as Professor Urlan Warmup pointed out, Glasgow’s East End Area Renewal was spearheaded by the Scottish Develop- ment Agency - a public body in search of major private investment.

Broad picture

Papers provided a broad picture of public and private initiatives, a range of new policy instruments and a remark- able change in organizational behaviour and public attitudes. It would be easy to underestimate the extent of these changes - in both countries. There were papers from the UK on the enter- prise zone concept, the urban develop- ment corporation, and the science park idea, and the Birmingham (now UK) programme of ‘enveloping’ (improve- ments and repairs to the exteriors of areas of housing, roofs, walls, gardens, fences, pavements, whether public or private, at public expense).

Tom Caulcot, Birmingham’s Chief Executive, presented a graphic account of the innovative activities of one of the largest UK urban authorities. In particular he presented a powerful case for central government recognition of the importance of maintaining adequate levels of local cupitni expenditure, especially where in~ast~cture is worn out and economic efficiency impeded by the state of the city’s services. Anyone who drives on Cleveland’s streets or who has seen traffic hold-ups as main sewers are given emergency repairs in central

Manchester will understand. Roger Latham, Director of Dudley’s

Enterprise Zone (EZ), pointed out that EZs are essentiaily an exercise in local positive economic planning for a limited area. The freedom and con- cessions do not appear to significantly alter patterns of development. Zones do not appear to substantially alter the overatl level of demand, which is probably more reliant on the overall level of demand in the national economy. Zones do not appear to have had a significant effect on the national institutional investment market.

The coll~ui~ revested more than once the difficulties of speaking an apparently common language with very different meanings on different sides of the Atlantic. What is an enterprise zone receives very different answers in Bi~ingham and Cleveland. However, what the discussion suggested was that EZs were being overtaken by events. The UK has added another eight to the initial 11 established in 1981 although there remains some scepticism as to whether they are relevant to the needs of cities in the form originally envis- aged. The response to Urban Develop- ment Grants pioneered as Urban Development Action Grants (UDAG) in the USA, and recently adopted in the UK has received a more favourable reception, and great interest was shown in the workings of the US Urban Development Action Grant Scheme, a federal programme to stimulate private investment in distressed urban areas administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Major source

It is axiomatic that the private sector is the major source of funding for urban revitalization and environmental up- grading; it is the principal source of contirming employment and it is the principal source of initiatives directed towards job creation. It is especially true that its performance can be enhanced in the inner city through the highly selective use of public financial incentives.

The public sector’s role of catalyst is critical. The methods by which projects are selected, financed, managed and implemented require study with the

object of monitoring the process and improving the workings of the policy in action.

One of the most importance differ- ences between Birmingham and Cleveland is the role accorded to foundations and philanthropic insti- tutions in the cultural (and larger) life of the city. In 1981, the Cleveland Foundation made grants of $19.1 million, virtually all of them within the Greater Cleveland area. According to Dennis Dooley, editor of Ohio Live, the well-organized Foundation (the third largest in the USA, after those of San Francisco and New York) has assets approaching a staggering quarter of a billion dollars: ‘each year now brings another $8 to $lOm in new gifts and bequests and the final word on how the prodigious income derived from all of the Foundation’s many inves~ents is spent belongs . . _ to the dist~bution committee’.* The relevance of the Foundation may be readily appreciated when one learns of its role in relation to urban revitalization and the refurbish- ment of Playhouse Square and the Ohio theatre, or its grants for research into the greater Cleveland economy.

Partnerships

Kenneth W. McGovern, Vice President for Community Develop- ment, University Circle Incorporated (UCI), underlined the unique import- ance of private wealth and leadership in his paper ‘The story of UCI: a private initiative model’. He pointed out that long before the term ‘public-p~vate partnerships’ was coined, Cleveland was ‘applying the principles of such partnerships in order to enhance, protect and expand the environment of the institutions that they cherished’. The participants were able to see University Circle for themselves. Its 38 institutions cover 500 acres, represent- ing the majority of Cleveland’s private health, educational, cultural and service sectors. Within the immediate area there are an additional 27 such institutions. Five are of national, if not international, standing, notably the Cleveland Museum, famous for its Far East Collection and 19th century European Paintings, and of course the renowned Cleveland Orchestra whose

204 CITIES November 1983

winter home is in Severance Hall. UCI’s agenda of the late 1950s was to

coordinate planning and establish a land bank. Nearly $7 million were raised from philanthropic sources. What in other cities, and certainly in countries like the UK, would be con- sidered public services were provided privately in the USA. UC1 was effectively a private urban develop- ment corporation. Its role embraced joint parking, a free bus service in the area, a fully commissioned police department and landscaping of common areas. The land banking strategy subsequently required the formation of a properly managed function. Today UC1 has an annual operating budget in excess of $6 million and assets of $10 million in land, income property, and improved park- ing facilities. UC1 owns and manages 7ooO parking spaces, 450 residential and commercial units, and has a 33 member police force. Its buses shuttle more than 650000 passengers within the area every year.

Caretaker Perhaps the most interesting facet of UCI’s work relates to the Hough neigh- bourhood (a low-income black community to the west of Cleveland) and the public-private partnerships which have taken place there. UC1 helped with the production of more than 1000 subsidized housing units in the area and: ‘from this broader involvement, UC1 emerged from being viewed as simply an all-important care- taker of the institutional environment into being viewed as a visible advocate and activist for community and economic development’.

Land assembly well in advance of requirements is yet again seen as a necessary condition for the exercise of choice. The health industry represents a key growth sector in Cleveland’s economy, and UC1 and its constituent members are being viewed as key actors for leveraging opportunities for health- related private development. Within the immediate area of University Circle there is over $500 million of develop- ment underway, with more than three- quarters health-related.

McGovern pointed out that UC1

CITIES November 1983

leadership is a catalyst in some cases, in others it is being asked to lend its exper- tise; its receptiveness to community needs combined with self-interest has been fundamental to whatever success UC1 has enjoyed. Undoubtedly, the special nature of private institutions in US cities explains the success of such institutions as UCI. Such private tlrms take a longer view of their responsi- bilities, much as the owners of London’s great estates did in the 19th century.

This first successful venture has pre- pared the ground for future activities. Despite the differences between the two countries that Birmingham’s Chief Executive, Tom Caulcot, alluded to in his paper, valuable insights can be gained from such events and the generation of comparative perspectives on urban policies.

Much can be learned from the managerial, organizational and fiscal arrangements in the government of UK cities that would help the urban con- dition in the USA. Similarly, there are lessons in the US experience in the way public money may be used to prime development and in the way urban elites, private organizations, and community activists get things done.

Conference reviews/Recent am’cles

Conditions of growth and affluence in some cities have brought with them an impressive array of building for the arts and planning for culture and leisure has become a growth activity. The confidence, energy, enterprise and imagination of urban USA means that cities are not entirely a lost cause. Cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Cleveland are fighting back. From a UK perspective, urban USA’s problems appear to be those which are increasingly dominating UK industrial cities.

As a direct consequence of a highly successful first encounter Aston University in the UK hopes to return the compliment. In September 1984 a US group will be coming to the West Midlands where they are promised a warm welcome and an exhausting programme.

Edgar Rose Levin Professor of Urban Afhirs

and Public Service Cleveland State University

Cleveland, OH, USA

F&e my own comparison in a fortbooming isue of Cities. ZD. Dooley, ‘The power and the money’, Ohio Live, February 1983, pp 45-i7.

Recent policy articles M. Batty, ‘The crisis in planning education’, The Planner, Vol 69, No 4, July/August 1983.

F.J. Crown, ‘Federal tax regulations and the housing demands of owner occupants’, Land Economics, Vol 59, No 3, August 1983.

J.R. Borchert, ‘Instability in American metropolitan growth’, The Geographical Review, VolJ3, No 2, April 1983.

C.S. Breda, ‘Move back downtown changing our cities’, Current Municipal Pro- blems, Vol9, No 4, Spring 1983.

S. Byrne, ‘Positive control: the Nottingham approach to development’, The Planner, Vol69, No 4, July/August 1983.

M.P. Conzen, ‘American cities in profound transition: the new geography of the 1980’s’, Journal of Geography, Vol 82, No 3. May-June 1983.

J. Christie. ‘The rebirth of Lowell, Mass- achusetts’, Planning and Administration, Vol 10, No 1, Spring 1983.

R. Cowan, K. McDonnel and M. Dempsey, ‘Taking planning out of town hall’, Town and Country Planning, June 1983.

M. Daenaup, ‘A history of planning in the Paris region: from growth to crisis’, Inter- national Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol 7. No 2, June 1983.

R.L. Dennis et al, ‘Integration of technical and value issues in air quality policy formu- lation: Denver a case study’, Socio Econ- omic Planning Sciences, Vol 17, No 3,1983.

F.T. Denton and B.C. Spencer, ‘Population aging and future health costs in Canada’, Canadian Public Policy, Vol9, No 2, June 1983.

K. Finsterbusch and H.C. Greisman, ‘Iden- tifying the quality neighborhood’. Urban Analysis, Vol 7, No 2, 1983.

J.C. Fitzgerald, ‘When cities have to think short-term’, Current Municipal Problems, Vol9, No 4, Spring 1983.

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