428 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW [July

Boob in Review . . . Jewel Bcllwh, Editor

Community Development

MENT: Experiments in Self-Help. By Marshall B. Clinard. The Free Press, A Division of The Macmillan Company, 866 Third Avenue, New York 10022, 1966.

The dedication of academicians to test their hypotheses at times involves physi- cal discomfort and a haunting frustra- tion. Obviously, the author experienced both sensations, and perhaps more, in his three-year field work in India, where he tried to prove the value of self-help in urban community development. While the city is everywhere, we are only on the frontiers of knowledge as to how to prepare the city for man and his en- joyment. In fact, the horror and inten- sity of slum life in many parts of the world-the disease, isolation, conges- tion-makes one wonder if any improve- ment is possible in the coming decades.

Clinard represents that group of scholars who refuse to give up the battle and, through his field work, he reveals a healthy optimism and abiding faith. H e belongs to the contingent of Aliskys, Frank Riessmans, Haggstroms, et al., who believe that through such mechanisms as “vikas mandals”-peo- ples’ councils-the slum can be converted into a laboratory for self-improvement. The author cautiously claims that com- munity development in Delhi proved reasonably successful but admits to serious weaknesses: Not all vikas mandals were effective; some workers did not perform as anticipated; lack of cooperation, if not open hostility, existed among government agencies ; difficulties arose in keeping up the momentum of the citizen self-help spirit.

If one accepts the overwhelming quality of helplessness in the undeveloped

SLUMS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOP-

world, then any attempt, however small, to improve the quality of existence, is to be encouraged. Pilot projects and dem- onstration grants-experiments all-have a built-in bias: The designer has the will and determination that something good must happen. If only more of us would become designers I

Conservation

FORNIA LANDSCAPE. By Samuel E. Wood and Daryl Lembke. California Tomorrow, Forum Building, Sacramento 95814, 1967. 66 pp. $2.00.

THE FEDERAL THREATS TO THE CALI-

This is an angry book. I t is a worthy sequel to two earlier, equally angry pub- lications, California Gokg, Going . . . and The Phantom Cities of California, published by the same organization.

California Tomorrow has assumed the near hopeless task of telling the people of the Golden State that they had better wake up to the fact that one of the nation’s largest, richest and most beautiful states is being prostituted, and that something had better be done soon.

It is ironic, or tragic, that the western states have been unable to learn from the mistakes of the east. All the errors com- mitted by New York and New Jersey 30 years ago are being repeated, with a vengeance, in California today. If the state ever becomes as densely populated as New Jersey, it would have 128 million people-a fourth again larger than Japan, the world‘s fifth most populous nation.

As an angry book, this one does tend, on occasion, to get a little carried away. What might be considered the occasional polemic is easily forgiven, however, as the mass of factual data mounts in the case against Uncle Sam. The failure to con- sider the full impact of many federal

19671 BOOKS IN REVIEW 429

programs has contributed immeasurably to the destruction of the California land- scape. (The Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Bureau of Reclamation take some particularly hard, and probably deserved, knocks.)

While one can be in complete agree- ment with the authors' complaints that federal agencies are not doing more to encourage (or force) the development of regional governments within the states, the political repercussions of such action are rather too easily ignored. The state itself has the major responsibility in this regard and, ultimately, the public itself is the biggest culprit. California Tomor- row can take great pride, however, in the fact that it is trying mightily to awaken that public.

While dealing with just California, the publication is of value to the inhabitant of any state. Uncle Sam may not own as much of New Jersey as he does of California or Alaska, but federal programs have equal impact on all of us.

W.J.D.B.

Additional Books and Pamphlets

(See also Researcher's Digest and other deuartmemt.)

Aged PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH ANNUAL

GOVERNOR'S CONFERENCE ON AGING. Edited by James J. O'Malley. New York State Office for the Aging, 11 North Pearl Street, Albany 12207, May 1%7. 84 pp. Illus.

Air Pollution ECONOMIC COSTS OF AIR POLLUTION:

Studies in Meanrremertt. By Ronald G. Ridker. Frederick A. Praeger, 111 Fourth Avenue, New York 10003, 1967. xiii, 214 pp. Maps, charts and tables.

American Government GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES.

By Webb S. Fiser, Stuart Gerry Brown and John S. Gibson. The Ronald Press Company, 15 East 26th Street, New York 10010, 1967. x, 803 pp. Charts, tables.

The city ENVIRONMENT FOR MAN: The Next

Fifty Years. Edited by William R. Ewald, Jr. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1967. ix, 308 pp. Illus. $6.95.

City Council8 How CITY COUNCILMEN ARE ELECTED

IN FIVE COUNCIL-MANAGER CITIES. Pre- s m t a t i m made before the City of Phoenix Charter Review Committee, April 8, 1967. The City of Phoenix, Arizona, 1967. 50 PP.

$8.50.

Civil Service THE PRESIDENCY AND THE CIVIL SER-

VICE. Good Gwrmmmt, National Civil Service League, 1346 Connecticut Ave- nue, N. W., Washington, D. C. 20036, March 1967. 24 pp. $2.00,

SURVEY OF CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION RESPONSIBILITIES. By Carl B. Barnes. Public Personnel Association, 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago 60637, 1967. 12 pp. Tables. $2.00.

WHAT SHOULD A CIVIL SERVICE C m - MISSION EXPECT FROM ITS STAFF. By John L. McLaughlin. Public Personnel Association, 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago 60637, 1967. 12 pp. $2.00.

Conrtitutbnr 1967 CONVENTION ISSUES : Introductory

Report, December 1966, 78 pp.; TOWARD AN EFFECTIVE CONS~TUTION: Legislative md Other Recommendatiom, January 1%7, 72 pp.; LOCAL FINANCE, January 1967, 168 pp.; THE RIGHT TO VOTE, February 1967, 83 pp.; FOR EFFECMVE CONSTITUTIONAL REV~EW : Convestion Or- ganization and Rules, March 1967, 48 pp. ; EDUCATION, March 1%7, 90 pp.; INDI- VIDUAL LIBERTIES : The Administration of