358 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW June ~ ~ ~ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ~ ~ _ _ _ _ ~

Books in Review . Jewel Bellush, Editor

Urban Development and Renewal

THE CITY Is THE FRONTIER. By Charles Abrams. Harper and Row, 49 East 33rd Street, New York 10016, 1965. xii, 394 pp. $6.50.

Charles Abrams brings to this book over 30 years of experience as practi- tioner and researcher. Consequently, what he has to say is of immediate im- portance to those interested in preserving and vitalizing America’s central cities. This study, made possible by a Ford Foundation grant, deals essentially with the impact of public programs and poli- cies-particularly housing and urban re- newal-on cities.

Dr. Abrams has always been frank and outspoken, not one to shy away from controversy. Public housing, he claims, was meant to fail. Due to the parsimonious approach of Congress over the years, it was not permitted to be attractive or ex- perimental. Cost limitations geared to the minimal needs of people reflected the attitude that the poor deserve no more.

One of the surprising features of his discussion, however, is his suggestion that the poor yearn for home ownership and that this desire should be satisfied. While one cannot disagree with the fact that the federal government has poured billions into housing credits and subsidies for the middle and upper estates, why extend these devices to the poor in the form of individual home ownership? In another study conducted by the author in 1946 (The Future of Housing), he wrote of the federal program for home ownership, “Wittingly or unwittingly, it has be- come identified with home ownership ballyhoo more persuasive than the voice of the most gifted home hawker. . . . It is not always wise to own. . . . No propa- ganda emanates from the F H A advising

when not to own, or explaining in clear and unmistakable language the responsi- bilities and risks assumed by the buyer.” Dr. Abrams himself admits that, while it is generally advisable that people spend no more than twice their annual income for a home, many have paid more than triple their incomes, an amount which is, in fact, impossible for the poverty-stricken to raise or save.

The author joins those critics of urban renewal who feel that the housing pro- gram’s underlying assumptions were based on the theory that, by expanding opportunity for private enterprise, we would somehow achieve the good society. Despite the rhetoric, the author contends that what we have is a system of “residual welfare.” People reap the remainder, what is left after the direct beneficiaries have had their share of the loot. Attack- ing the direction of public policy as “socialism from the right,” Dr. Abrams criticizes government for removing the risks from business enterprise through such devices as tax-exempt bonds and the creation of special authorities.

Another target is state government. Un- fortunately, this arena of decision-making has not responded to the growing needs and demands of the cities: ‘‘Many prob- lems of an intercity or regional nature might be resolved if the state assumed the planning function. But state planning laws today are mostly dead letters-prom- king in preamble, but palsied in power and poor in purse.” Consequently, the partner- ship between the federal and city govern- ments will undoubtedly be enlarged and strengthened.

Perhaps at the heart of the urban re- newal controversy is the problem of values; i.e., are we, in the age of affluence, prepared to limit the freedom of the property owner in the name of the more collective interest? Will the well-planned

19661 BOOKS IN REVIEW 359

city ever come into existence as long as preference goes to individual freedom over public welfare ?

Social Welfare THE MONDAY VOICES. By Joanne Green-

berg. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 383 Madison Avenue, New York City, 1%5.

The characters for this novel may be found in the files of any social welfare agency. With sensitivity and drama the author describes the complex and burden- some cases of a vocational rehabilitation counselor. Underlying each case is the question: Who is to blame? Is adjust- ment the responsibility of the individual or is society to be made accountable for all individual handicaps? Or, to put it somewhat differently, to what extent are the handicaps caused by some failing in the society itself?

If one thinks the problem is clear cut, consider the case of Ramirez-an illiter- ate cripple, father of seven, whose fam- ily is crowded in a miserable shack and living on an inadequate diet. To compli- cate matters, the welfare worker ex- plains: “But you see-you see, he’s taken all this month’s check, every penny of it and he’s gone and bought a car I” Fearful that the press and public will soon open fire on herself and her agency, she pleads for the assistance of the rehabilitation counselor.

The assumption of all those handling the case is that Ramirez has done some- thing terribly wrong until, quite acciden- tally, it is discovered that the car has helped him develop a great skill in auto mechanics. Mislabelled illiterate because of language difficulties in testing, he ad- ditionally exhibits such fine qualities of community leadership when he is moved into a public housing project that social workers lament the fact that, with the prospect of employment, the Ramirez family would be ejected. They complain

286 pp. $4.95.

that, “Projects tend to get stripped of successful people.”

0. Henry in his story-telling could not have done better than Mrs. Greenberg. The book provides some stimulating ques- tions for private thought and the develop- ment of public policy.

Conservation THE DESTRUCTION OF CALIFORNIA. By

Raymond F. Dasmann. The Macmillan Company, 60 Fifth Avenue, New York 10011, 1965. viii, 247 pp. $5.95.

The subject is California but it could be Anywhere, U S A . This is a tragic book, a loud and angry denunciation of the stupidity, greed and carelessness of the American people in preserving their land’s natural assets.

The author’s theme is hardly new. We’ve been told all these things for scores of years (after all, John Muir founded California’s conservationist group, the Sierra Club, in the late nineteenth cen- tury) but still the destruction goes on. One need not go to California to see this -New Yorkers are fighting to save the Hudson Valley, New Jerseyites can look up and see high-rise apartment houses ruining the Palisades, Atlantans can drive out into their beautiful countryside and watch bulldozers destroy the area’s greatest asset, its magnificent vegetation, and anyone in the midwest need only step to the nearest big river and take a deep breath. Angry books are still much needed.

Raymond Dasmann gives a more thorough report than most in that he goes back to Indian times and proceeds to tell the story of the rape of the land which has continued ever since. His final chapter is entitled “Once There Was a Place Called California.” I t begins, “Once I thought I lived there. Now I know it no longer exists and suspect that it was always a dream. Perhaps it re- sulted from staring too long at the waves breaking on the coast and thinking back,