 8. Conditions of Life in the Racial Ghetto The conditions of life in the racial ghetto are strikingly different from those to which most Americans are accustomed, especially white middle class Americans. We believe it important to describe these conditions and their effect on the lives of people who cannot escape from the ghetto. 9. Crime and Insecurity Nothing is more fundamental to the quality of life in any area than the sense of personal security of its residents, and nothing affects this more than crime. In general, crime rates in large cities are much higher than in other areas of our country. Within such cities, crime rates are higher in disadvantaged Negro areas than anywhere else. The most widely used measure of crime is the number of index crimes—homicide, forcible rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, grand larceny, and autothaught—in relation to the population. In 1966, 1,754 such crimes were reported to police for every 100,000 Americans. In cities over 250,000, the rate was 3,153, and in cities over 1 million it was 3,630, or more than double the national average. In suburban areas alone, including suburban cities, the rate was only 1,300, or just over one-third the rate in the largest cities. Within larger cities, personal and property insecurity has consistently been highest in the older neighborhoods encircling the downtown business district. In most cities, crime rates for many decades have been higher in these inner areas than anywhere, except in downtown areas themselves where they are inflated by the small number of residents. High crime rates have persisted in these inner areas even though the ethnic character of their residents continually changed. Poor immigrants used these areas as entry ports, then usually moved on to more desirable neighborhoods as soon as they acquired enough resources. Many entry port areas have now become racial ghettos. The difference between crime rates in these disadvantaged neighborhoods and in other parts of the city is usually startling as a comparison of crime rates in five police districts in Chicago for 1965 illustrates. These five include one high-income, all-white district at the periphery of the city, two very low-income virtually all-negro districts near the city core with numerous public housing projects, and two predominantly white districts, one with mainly lower-income families, and the other containing a mixture of very high-income and relatively low-income households. The table shows crime rates against persons and against property in these five districts, plus the number of patrolmen assigned to them per 100,000 residents as follows. In the high-income white district, income crimes against persons ranked 80 per 100,000. Index crimes against property were 1,038 out of 100,000. Patrolmen assigned are 93 for 100,000 residents. In low and middle-income white district, there are 440 index crimes per 100,000 residents. There are 1,750 index crimes against property, and there are 133 patrolmen assigned per 100,000 residents. In the mixed high and low-income white district, there were 338 crimes against persons per 100,000 residents. There were 2,080 crimes against property, and 115 patrolmen assigned per 100,000 residents. In very low-income negro district one, crimes against persons rose to 1,615 per 100,000 residents. Index crimes against property rose to 2,508 per 100,000, and patrolmen assigned were 243 per 100,000 residents. Very low-income negro district number two, index crimes against persons were 2,820 per 100,000. Index crimes against property were 2,630 per 100,000, and patrolmen assigned were 291 for every 100,000 residents. These data indicate that variations in the crime rate against persons within the city are extremely large. One very low-income negro district had 35 times as many serious crimes against persons per 100,000 residents as did the high-income white district. Variations in the crime rate against property are much smaller. The highest rate was only 2.5 times larger than the lowest. The lower the income in an area, the higher the crime rate there. Yet low-income negro areas have significantly higher crime rates than low-income white area. This reflects the high degree of social disorganization in negro areas described in the previous chapter, as well as the fact that poor negroes as a group have lower incomes than poor whites as a group. The presence of more police patrolmen per 100,000 residents does not necessarily offset high crime in certain parts of the city. Although the Chicago Police Department had assigned over three times as many patrolmen per 100,000 residents to the highest crime areas shown as to the lowest, crime rates in the highest crime areas for offenses against both persons and property combined were 4.9 times as high as the lowest crime areas. Because most middle-class Americans live in neighborhoods similar to the more crime-free district described above, they have little comprehension of the sense of insecurity that characterizes the ghetto residents. However, official statistics normally greatly understate actual crime rates because the vast majority of crimes are not reported to the police. For example, studies conducted for the President's Crime Commission in Washington D.C., Boston, and Chicago showed that 3 to 6 times as many crimes were actually committed against persons in homes as were reported to the police. Two facts were crucial to an understanding of the effects of high crime rates in racial ghettos. Most of these crimes were committed by a small minority of the residents, and the principal victims are the residents themselves. Throughout the United States, the great majority of crimes committed by Negroes involve other Negroes as victims. A special tabulation made by the Chicago Police Department for the President's Crime Commission indicated that over 85% of the crimes committed against persons by Negroes between September 1965 and March 1966 involved Negro victims. As a result, the majority of law-abiding citizens who live in disadvantaged Negro areas face much higher probabilities of being victimized than residents of most higher income areas, including all suburbs. For non-whites, the probability of suffering from any index crime, except larceny, is 78% higher than for whites. The probability of being raped is 3.7 times higher among non-white women, and the probability of being robbed is 3.5 times higher for non-whites in general. The problems associated with high crime rates generate widespread hostility toward the police in these neighborhoods for reasons described elsewhere in this report. Thus, crime not only creates an atmosphere of insecurity and fear throughout Negro neighborhoods, but also causes continuing attrition of the relationship between Negro residents and the police. This bears a direct relationship to civil disorder. There are reasons to expect the crime situation in these areas to become worse in the future. First, crime rates throughout the United States have been rising rapidly in recent years. The rate of index crimes against persons rose 37% from 1960 to 1966, and the rate of index crimes against property rose 50%. In the first nine months of 1967, the number of index crimes was up 16% over the same period in 1966, whereas the US population rose about 1%. In the cities of 250,000 to 1 million, index crime rose by over 20%, whereas it increased 4% in cities of over 1 million. Second, the number of police available to combat crime is rising much more slowly than the amount of crime. In 1966, there were about 20% more police employees in the United States than in 1960, and per capita expenditures for police rose from $15.29 in 1960 to $20.99 in 1966, a gain of 37%. But over the six-year period, the number of reported index crimes had jumped 62%. In spite of significant improvements in police efficiency, it is clear that police will be unable to cope with their expanding workload unless there is a dramatic increase in the resources allocated by society to this task. Third, in the next decade, the number of young Negroes aged 14 to 24 will increase rapidly, particularly in central cities. This group is responsible for a disproportionately high share of crimes in all parts of the nation. In 1966, persons under 25 years of age comprised the following proportions of those arrested for various major crimes. Murder, 37%. Forcible rape, 64%. Robbery, 71%. Burglary, 81%. Larsening, 77%. An auto theft, 89%. For all index crimes together, the arrest rate for Negroes is about four times higher than that for whites. Yet the number of young Negroes aged 14 to 24 in central cities will rise about 63% from 1966 to 1975, as compared to only 32% for the total Negro population of central cities. Health and sanitation conditions. The residents of the racial guttural are significantly less healthy than most Americans. They suffer from higher mortality rates, higher incidence of major diseases, and lower availability and utilization of medical services. They also experience higher admission rates to mental hospitals. These conditions result from a number of factors. Poverty. From the standpoint of health, poverty means deficient diets, lack of medical care, inadequate shelter and clothing, and often lack of awareness of potential health needs. As a result, almost 30% of all persons with family incomes less than $2,000 per year suffer from chronic health conditions that adversely affect their employment, as compared with less than 8% of families with income of $7,000 or more. Poor families have the greatest need for financial assistance in meeting medical expenses. Only about 34% of families with incomes of less than $2,000 per year use health insurance benefits, as compared to nearly 90% of those with incomes of $7,000 or more. These factors are aggravated for Negroes when compared to whites for the simple reason that the proportion of persons in the United States who are poor is 3.5 times as high among Negroes, 41% in 1966, as among whites, 12% in 1966. Maternal Mortality. Mortality rates for non-white mothers are four times as high as those for white mothers. There has been a sharp decline in such rates since 1940 when 774 non-white and 320 white mothers died for each 100,000 live births. In 1965, only 84 non-white and 21 white mothers died for 100,000 live births, but the gap between non-whites and whites actually increased. Infant Mortality. Mortality rates among non-white babies are 58% higher than among whites for those under one month old, and almost three times as high among those from one month to one year old. This is true in spite of a large drop in infant mortality rates in both groups since 1940. Life Expectancy. To some extent, because of infant mortality rates, life expectancy at birth was 6.9 years longer for whites 71 years than for non-whites 64.1 years in 1965. Even in the prime working ages, life expectancy is significantly lower among non-whites than among whites. In 1965, white persons 25 years old could expect to live an average of 48.6 more years whereas non-whites 25 years old could expect to live another 43.3 years or 11% less. Similar but smaller discrepancies existed at all ages from 25 through 55. Some actually increased slightly between 1960 and 1965. Lower Utilization of Health Services. A fact that also contributes to poorer health conditions in the ghetto is that Negro families with incomes similar to those of whites spend less on medical services and visit medical specialists less often. Since the lowest income group contains a much larger proportion of non-white families than white families, the overall discrepancy in medical care spending between these two groups is very significant as shown by the following table. Health expenses per person per year for the period from July to December 1962. For the income group under $2,000. For whites, total medical expenses averaged $130, breaking down by hospital $33, doctor $41, dental $11, medicine $32 and other $13. For non-whites in the same income category, total medical costs averaged $63, $15 for hospital $23 for doctor, $5 for dental, $16 for medicine and $5 for other. In the income group $10,000 or more per family among whites, the average costs were $179, breaking down by hospital $34, doctor $61, dental $37, medicine $31, other $16. For non-whites in the same income group, average costs were $133, $34 for hospital, $50 for doctor, $19 for dental, $23 for medicine and $8 for other. These data indicate that non-white families in the lower income group spend less than half as much per person on medical services as white families with similar income. This discrepancy sharply declines but is still significant in the higher income group, where total non-white medical expenses per person equal on average 74.3% of white expenditures. Negroes spend less on medical care for several reasons. Negro households generally are larger, requiring greater non-medical expenses for each household and leaving less money for meeting medical expenses. Thus, lower expenditures per person would result even if expenditures per household were the same. Negroes also often pay more for other basic necessities, such as food and consumer durables, as discussed in the next part of this chapter. In addition, fewer doctors, dentists, and medical facilities are conveniently available to Negroes than most white. The result both of geographic concentration of doctors in higher income areas in large cities and of discrimination against Negroes by doctors in hospitals. A survey in Cleveland indicated that there were 0.45 physicians per 1,000 people in poor neighborhoods, compared to 1.13 per 1,000 in non-poverty areas. The result nationally is fewer visits to physicians and dentists. Although widespread use of health insurance has led many hospitals to adopt non-discriminatory policies, some private hospitals still refuse to admit Negro patients or to accept doctors with Negro patients, and many individual doctors still discriminate against Negro patients. As a result, Negroes are more likely to be treated in hospital clinics than whites, and they are less likely to receive personalized service. This conclusion is confirmed by the following data. The table showing percent of all visits to physicians from July 1963 to June 1964 made in indicated ways. For the income group $2,000 to $3,000, for whites, 68% of the visits were in physician's offices, 17% in hospital or clinic, and 15% other. For non-whites in the same group, 56% were in physician's offices, 35% in a hospital or clinic, or 9% other. For family with incomes of $7,000 to $10,000, among whites, 73% of the contact was in the physician's office, 7% in a hospital or clinic, and 20% other. For the same income group among non-whites, 66% of the contact was in a physician's office, 16% in a hospital or clinic, or 18% other. Environmental factors. Environmental conditions in the disadvantaged Negro neighborhoods created further reasons for poor health conditions there. The level of sanitation is strikingly below that which is prevalent in most higher income areas. One simple reason is that residents often lack proper storage facilities for food, adequate refrigerators, freezers, even garbage cans, which are sometimes stolen as fast as landlords can replace them. In areas where garbage collection and other sanitation services are grossly and adequately, commonly in the poorer parts of our large city, rats proliferate. It is estimated that in 1965 there were over 14,000 cases of rat bite in the United States, mostly in such neighborhoods. The importance of these conditions was outlined for the commission as follows. Sanitation commissioners of New York City and Chicago both feel this sanitation to be an important community problem and report themselves as being under substantial pressure to improve condition. It must be concluded that slum sanitation is a serious problem in the minds of the urban poor and well merits, at least on that ground, the attention of the commission. A related problem, according to one sanitation commissioner, is the fact that residents of the areas bordering on slums feel that sanitation and neighborhood cleanliness is a crucial issue relating to the stability of their blocks and constituting an important psychological index of how far gone their area is. There is no known study comparing sanitation services between slum and non-slum areas. The experts agree, however, that there are more services in the slums on a quantitative basis, although perhaps not on a per capita basis. In New York, for example, garbage pickups are supposedly scheduled for about six times a week in slums compared to three times a week in other areas of the city. The comparable figures in Chicago are two to three times a week versus once a week. The point, therefore, is not the relative quantitative level of services, but the peculiarly intense needs of ghetto areas for sanitation services. This high demand is the product of numerous factors, including one, high population density, two, lack of well managed buildings and adequate garbage services provided by landlords, number of receptacles carrying to curbside, number of electric garbage disposals, three, high relocation rates of tenants in businesses, producing heavy volume of bulk refuse left on streets and in buildings, four, different uses of the streets as outdoor living rooms in summer, recreation areas, producing high visibility and sensitivity to garbage problems, five, large numbers of abandoned cars, six, severe rodent and pest problems, seven, traffic congestion blocking garbage collection, and eight, obstructed street cleaning and snow removal on crowded car-choked streets. Each of these elements adds to the problem and suggests a different possible line of attack. Exploitation of Disadvantaged Consumers by Retail Merchants Much of the violence in recent civil disorders has been directed at stores and other commercial establishments in disadvantaged negro areas. In some cases, rioters focused on stores operated by white merchants who, they apparently believed, had been charging exorbitant prices or selling inferior goods. Not all the violence against these stores can be attributed to revenge for such practices, yet it is clear that many residents of disadvantaged negro neighborhoods believe they suffer constant abuses by local merchants. Significant grievances concerning unfair commercial practices affecting negro consumers are found in eleven of the twenty cities studied by the commission. The fact that most of the merchants who operate stores and negro areas are white undoubtedly contributes to the conclusion among negroes that they are exploited by white society. It is difficult to assess the precise degree and extent of exploitation. No systemic and reliable survey comparing consumer pricing and credit practices in all negro and other neighborhoods has ever been conducted on a nationwide basis. Differences in prices and credit practices between white middle income areas and negro low income areas to some extent reflect differences in the real costs of serving these two markets, such as the differential losses from pill fridges and supermarkets. But the exact extents of these cost differences has never been estimated accurately. Finally, an examination of exploitative consumer prices must consider the particular structure and functions of the low income consumer durables market. Installment buying This complex situation can best be understood by first considering certain basic facts. 1. Various cultural factors generate constant pressure on low income families to buy many relatively expensive durable goods and display them in their homes. This pressure comes in part from continuous exposure to commercial advertising, especially on television. In January 1967 over 88% of all negro households had TV sets. A 1961 study of 464 low income families in New York City showed that 95% of these relatively poor families had TV sets. Many poor families have extremely low incomes, bad previous credit records, unstable sources of income, or other attributes which make it virtually impossible for them to buy merchandise from established large national or local retail firms. These families lack enough savings to pay cash and they cannot meet the standard credit requirements of established general merchants because they are too likely to fall behind in their payments. Poor families in urban areas are far less mobile than others. A 1967 Chicago study of low income negro households indicated their low automobile ownership compelled them to patronize neighborhood merchants. These merchants typically provided smaller selection, poorer services, and higher prices than big national outlets. The 1961 New York study also indicated that families who shopped outside their own neighborhoods were far less likely to pay exorbitant prices. Most low income families are uneducated concerning the nature of credit purchase contracts, the legal rights and obligation of both buyers and sellers, sources of advice for consumers who are having difficulties with merchants, and the operation of the courts concerned with these matters. In contrast, merchants engaged in selling goods to them are very well informed. In most states, the law's governing relations between consumers and merchants, in effect, offer protections only to the informed sophisticated parties with understanding of each other's rights and obligations. Consequently, these laws are little suited to protect the rights of most low income consumers. In this situation, exploitive practices flourish. Ghetto residents who want to buy relatively expensive goods cannot do so from standard retail outlets and are thus restricted to local stores. Forced to use credit, they have little understanding of the pitfalls of credit buying. But because they have unstable incomes and frequently fail to make payments, the cost to the merchants of serving them is significantly above that of serving middle income consumers. Consequently, a special kind of merchant appears to sell them goods on terms designed to cover the high cost of doing business in ghetto neighborhoods. Whether they actually gain higher profits, these merchants charge higher prices than those in other parts of the city to cover the greater credit risks and other higher operating costs inherent in neighborhood outlets. A recent study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. illustrates this conclusion dramatically. The FTC identified a number of stores specializing in selling furniture and appliances to low income households. About 92% of the sales of these stores were credit sales involving installment purchases as compared to 27% of the sales in general retail outlets handling the same merchandise. The median income annually of a sample of 486 customers of these stores was about $4,200, but one-third had annual incomes below $3,600, about 6% were receiving welfare payments, and another 76% were employed in the lowest paying occupations, service workers, operatives, laborers, and domestics as compared to 36% of the total labor force in Washington in these occupations. Definitely catering to a low income group, these stores charge significantly higher prices than general merchandise outlets in the Washington area. According to testimony by Paul Rand Dixon, Chairman of the FTC, an item selling wholesale for $100 would retail on the average for $165 in a general merchandise store and for $250 in a low income specialty store. Thus, the customers of these outlets were paying an average premium of about 52%. While higher prices are not necessarily exploitative in themselves, many merchants in ghetto neighborhoods take advantage of their superior knowledge of credit buying by engaging in various exploitative tactics. High-pressure salesmanship, bait advertising, misrepresentation of prices, substitution of used goods for promised new ones, failure to notify customers of legal actions against them, refusal to repair or replace substandard goods, exorbitant prices or credit charges, and use of shoddy merchandise. Such tactics affect a great many low income consumers. In the New York study, 60% of all households had suffered from consumer problems, some of which were purely their own fault. About 23% had experienced serious exploitation. Another 20%, many of whom were also exploited, had experienced repossession, garnishment, or threat of garnishment. Garnishment. Garnishment practices in many states allow creditors to deprive individuals of their wages through court action without hearing or trial. In about 20 states, the wages of an employee can be diverted to a creditor merely upon the latter's deposition, with no advanced hearing where the employee can defend himself. He often receives no prior notice of such action, and is usually unaware of the law's operation and too poor to hire legal defense. Moreover, consumers may find themselves still owing money on sales contracts even after the creditor has repossessed the goods. The New York study cited earlier in this chapter indicated that 20% of a sample of low income families had been subjected to legal action regarding consumer purchases. And the Federal Trade Commission study in Washington, D.C., showed that, on the average, retailers specializing in credit sales of furniture and appliances to low income consumers, resorted to court action once for every $2,200 of sales, since their average sale was for $207. This amounted to using the courts to collect from one of every 11 customers. In contrast, department stores in the same area use court action against approximately one of every 14,500 customers. Variations in food prices Residents of low income Negro neighborhoods frequently claim that they pay higher prices for food in local markets than wealthier white suburbanites and receive inferior quality meat and produce. Statistically reliable information comparing prices and quality in these two kinds of areas is generally unavailable. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics studying food prices in six cities in 1966 compared prices of a standard list of 18 items in low income areas and higher income areas in each city. In a total of 180 stores, including independent and chain stores, and for items of the same type sold in the same types of stores, there were no significant differences in prices between low and high income areas. However, stores in low income areas were more likely to be small independence, which had somewhat higher prices, to sell low quality produce and meat at any given price, and to be patronized by people who typically bought smaller size packages which are more expensive per unit of measure. In other words, many low income consumers in fact pay higher prices, although the situation varies greatly from place to place. Although these findings must be considered inconclusive, there are significant reasons to believe that poor households generally pay higher prices for the food they buy and receive lower quality food. Low income consumers buy more food at local groceries because they are less mobile. Prices in these small stores are significantly higher than in major supermarkets because they cannot achieve economies of scale and because real operating costs are higher in low income Negro areas than in outlying suburb. For instance, inventory shrinkage from pilfering in other causes is normally under two percent of sales but can run twice as much in high crime areas. Managers seek to make up for these added costs by charging higher prices for food or by substituting lower grade. These practices do not necessarily involve exploitation, but they are often perceived as exploitative and unfair by those who are aware of the price and quality differences involved but unaware of the operating costs. In addition, it is probable that genuinely exploitative pricing practices exist in some areas. In either case, differential food prices constitute another factor convincing urban Negroes in low income neighborhoods that whites discriminate against them. End of section 31. Section 32 of the Kerner Commission Report. This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders Kerner Commission Report. Chapter 9. Comparing the Immigrant and Negro Experience. In the preceding chapters, we have surveyed the historical background of racial discrimination and traced its effects on Negro employment, on the social structure of the ghetto community, and on the conditions of life that surrounds the urban Negro poor. Here we address a fundamental question that many white Americans are asking today. Why has the Negro been unable to escape from poverty and the ghetto, like the European immigrants? The Matureing Economy The changing nature of the American economy is one major reason. When the European immigrants were arriving in large numbers, America was becoming an urban industrial society. To build its major cities and industries, America needed great pools of unskilled labor. The immigrants provided the labor, gained an economic foothold, and thereby enabled their children and grandchildren to move up to skilled white-collar and professional employment. Since World War II especially, America's urban industrial society has matured. Unskilled labor is far less essential than before, and blue-collar jobs of all kinds are decreasing in number and importance as a source of new employment. The Negro, who migrated to the great urban centers, lacked the skills essential to the new economy, and the schools of the ghetto have been unable to provide the education that can qualify them for decent jobs. The Negro migrant, unlike the immigrant, found a little opportunity in the city. He had arrived too late, and the unskilled labor he had to offer was no longer needed. The Disability of Race Racial discrimination is undoubtedly the second major reason why the Negro has been unable to escape from poverty. The structure of discrimination has persistently narrowed his opportunities and restricted his prospects. Well before the high tide of immigration from overseas, Negroes were already relegated to the poorly paid low-status occupations. Had it not been for racial discrimination, the North might well have recruited southern Negroes after the Civil War to provide the labor for building the burgeoning urban industrial economy. Instead, Northern employers looked to Europe for their sources of unskilled labor. Upon the arrival of the immigrants, the Negroes were dislodged from the few urban occupations they had dominated. Not until World War II were Negroes generally hired for industrial jobs, and by that time the decline in the need for unskilled labor had already begun. European immigrants too suffered from discrimination, but never was it so pervasive. The prejudice against color in America has formed a bar to advancement unlike any other. Entry into the political system. Political opportunities also played an important role in enabling the European immigrants to escape from poverty. The immigrants settled for the most part in rapidly growing cities that had powerful and expanding political machines, which gave them economic advantages in exchange for political support. The political machines were decentralized, and ward-level grievance machinery as well as personal representation enabled the immigrant to make his voice heard, and his power felt. Since the local political organizations exercised considerable influence over public building in the cities, they provided employment in construction jobs for the immigrant voters. Ethnic groups often dominated one or more of the municipal services, police and fire protection, sanitation, and even public education. By the time the Negroes arrived, the situation had altered dramatically. The great wave of public building had virtually come to an end. Reform groups were beginning to attack the political machines. The machines were no longer so powerful or so well-equipped to provide jobs and other favors. Although the political machines retained their hold over the areas settled by Negroes, the scarcity of patronage jobs made them unwilling to share with Negroes the political positions they had created in these neighborhoods. For example, Harlem was dominated by white politicians for many years after it had become a Negro ghetto. Even today New York's Lower East Side, which is now predominantly Puerto Rican, is strongly influenced by politicians of the older immigrant groups. This pattern exists in many other American cities. Negroes are still underrepresented in city councils and in most city agencies. Segregation played a role here too. The immigrants and their descendants who felt threatened by the arrival of the Negro prevented a Negro immigrant coalition that might have saved the old political machines. Reform groups, nominally more liberal on the race issue, were often dominated by businessmen and middle-class city residents, who usually opposed coalition with any lower-income groups, white or black. Cultural Factors Cultural factors also made it easier for the immigrants to escape from poverty. They came to America from much poorer societies, with a low standard of living, and they came at a time when job aspirations were low. When most jobs in the American economy were unskilled, they sensed little deprivation in being forced to take the dirty and poorly paid jobs. Moreover, their families were large, and many breadwinners, some of whom never married, contributed to the total family income. As a result, family units managed to live even from the lowest paid jobs and still put some money aside for savings or investment, for example, to purchase a house or tenement, or to open a store or factory. Since the immigrants spoke little English and had their own ethnic culture, they needed stores to supply them with ethnic foods and other services. Since their family structures were patriarchal, men found satisfactions in family life that helped compensate for the bad jobs that they had to take, and the hard work they had to endure. Negroes came to the city under quite different circumstances. Generally relegated to jobs that others would not take, they were paid too little to be able to put money and savings for new enterprises. In addition, Negroes lacked the extended family characteristic of certain European groups. Each household usually had only one or two breadwinners. Moreover, Negro men had fewer cultural incentives to work in a dirty job, for the sake of the family. As a result of slavery and of long periods of male unemployment afterwards, the Negro family structure had become matriarchal. The man played a secondary and marginal role in his family. For many Negro men then, there were few of the cultural and psychological rewards of family life. They often abandoned their homes because they felt themselves useless to their families. Although Negro men worked as hard as the immigrants to support their families, their rewards were less. The jobs did not pay enough to enable them to support their families, for prices and living standards had risen since the immigrants had come, and the entrepreneurial opportunities that had allowed some immigrants to become independent, even rich, had vanished. Above all, Negroes suffered from segregation, which denied them access to the good jobs and the right unions, and which deprived them of the opportunity to buy real estate or obtain business loans, or move out of the ghetto and bring up their children in middle-class neighborhoods. Immigrants were able to leave their ghettos as soon as they had the money. Segregation has denied Negroes the opportunity to live elsewhere. The vital element of time. Finally, nostalgia makes it easy to exaggerate the ease of escape of the white immigrants from the ghettos. When the immigrants were immersed in poverty, they too lived in slums, and those neighborhoods exhibited fearfully high rates of alcoholism, desertion, illegitimacy, and other pathologies associated with poverty. Just as some Negro men desert their families when they are unemployed and their wives can get jobs, so did the men of other ethnic groups even though time and affluence has clouded white memories of the past. Today whites tend to contrast their experience with poverty-stricken Negroes. The fact is, among the southern and eastern Europeans who came to America in the last great wave of immigration, those who came already urbanized were the first to escape from poverty. The others who came to America from rural backgrounds, as Negroes did, are now only, after three generations, in the final stages of escaping from poverty. Until the last ten years or so most of these were employed in blue-collar jobs, and only a small portion of their children were able or willing to attend college. In other words, only the third, and in many cases only the fourth, generation has been able to achieve the kind of middle-class income and status that allows it to send its children to college. Because of favorable economic and political conditions, these ethnic groups were able to escape from lower-class status to working-class and lower middle-class status, but it has taken them three generations. Negroes have been concentrated in the city for only two generations, and they have been there under much less favorable conditions. Moreover, their escape from poverty has been blocked in part by the resistance of the European ethnic groups. They have been unable to enter some unions and to move in some neighborhoods outside the ghetto, because descendants of the European immigrants who control these unions and neighborhoods have not yet abandoned them for middle-class occupations and areas. Even so, some Negroes have escaped poverty, and they have done so in only two generations. Their success is less visible than that of the immigrants in many cases, for residential segregation has forced them to remain in the ghetto. Still, the proportion of non-whites employed in white collar, technical, and professional jobs has risen from 10.2% in 1950 to 20.8% in 1966, and the proportion attending college has risen an equal amount. Indeed, the development of a small but steadily increasing Negro middle class, while a great part of the Negro population is stagnating economically, is creating a growing gap between Negro hats and have-nots. The awareness of this gap by those left behind undoubtedly adds to the feelings of desperation and anger which breeds civil disorders. Low-income Negroes realize that segregation and lack of job opportunities have made it possible for only a small proportion of all Negroes to escape poverty, and the summer disorders were at least in part a protest against being left behind and left out. The immigrants who labored long hours at hard and often menial work had the hope of a better future, if not for himself than for his children. This was the promise of the American dream. The society offered to all a future that was open-ended. With hard work and perseverance, a man and his family could in time achieve not only material well-being, but position and status. For the Negro family in the urban ghetto, there is a different vision. The future seems to lead only to a dead end. What the American economy in the late 19th and early 20th century was able to do to help the European immigrants escape from poverty is now largely impossible. New methods of escape must be found for the majority of today's poor. Section 33 of the Kerner Commission report. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eric Evans, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Kerner Commission report. Chapter 10. The Community Response. Part 1. Introduction. The racial disorders of last summer in part reflect the failure of all levels of government, federal and state, as well as local, to come to grips with the problems of our cities. The ghetto symbolizes the dilemma, a widening gap between human needs and public resources, and a growing cynicism regarding the commitment of community institutions and leadership to meet these needs. The problem has many dimensions, financial, political and institutional. Almost all cities, and particularly the central cities of the largest metropolitan regions, are simply unable to meet the growing need for public services and facilities with traditional sources of municipal revenue. Many cities are structured politically so that great numbers of citizens, particularly minority groups, have little or no representation in the processes of government. Finally, some cities lack either the will or the capacity to use effectively the resources that are available to them. Instrumentalities of federal and state government often compound the problems. National policy expressed through a very large number of grant programs and institutions rarely exhibits a coherent and consistent perspective when viewed at the local level. State efforts, traditionally focused on rural areas, often fail to tie in effectively with either local or federal programs in urban areas. Meanwhile, the decay of the central city continues. Its revenue base eroded by the retreat of industry and white middle-class families to the suburbs, its budget and tax rate inflated by rising costs and increasing numbers of dependent citizens, and its public plant, schools, hospitals and correctional institutions deteriorated by age and long deferred maintenance. Yet to most citizens, the decay remains largely invisible. Only their tax bills and the headlines about crime or riots suggest that something may be seriously wrong in the city. There are, however, two groups of people that live constantly with the problem of the city, the public officials and the poor, particularly the residents of the racial ghetto. Their relationship is a key factor in the development of conditions underlying civil disorders. Our investigations of the 1967 riot cities establish that. Virtually every major episode of urban violence in the summer of 1967 was foreshadowed by an accumulation of unresolved grievances by ghetto residents against local authorities, often but not always the police. So high was the resulting underlying tension that routine and random events, tolerated or ignored under most circumstances, such as the raid on the blind pig in Detroit and the arrest of the cab driver in Newark, became the triggers of sudden violence. Coinciding with this high level of dissatisfaction, confidence in the willingness and ability of local government to respond to negro grievances was low. Evidence presented to this commission in hearings, field reports and research analysis of the 1967 riot cities, establishes that a substantial number of negroes were disturbed and angry about local government's failures to solve their problems. Several developments have converged to produce this volatile situation. First, there is a widening gulf in communications between local government and the residents of the erupting ghettos of the city. As a result, many negro citizens develop a profound sense of isolation and alienation from the processes and programs of government. This lack of communication exists for all residents in our larger cities. It is, however, far more difficult to overcome for low income, less educated citizens, who are disproportionately supported by and dependent upon programs administered by agencies of local government. Consequently, they are more often subject to real or imagined official misconduct ranging from abrasive contacts with police officials to arbitrary administrative actions. Further, as a result of the long history of racial discrimination, grievances experienced by negroes often take on personal and symbolic significance transcending the immediate consequences of the event. For example, inadequate sanitation services are viewed by many ghettos residents not merely as instances of poor public service, but as manifestations of racial discrimination. This perception reinforces existing feelings of alienation and contributes to a heightened level of frustration and dissatisfaction, not only with the administrators of the sanitation department, but with all the representatives of local government. This is particularly true with respect to the police, who are the only public agents on duty in the ghetto 24 hours a day and who bear this burden of hostility for the less visible elements of the system. The lack of communication and the absence of regular contacts with ghetto residents prevent city leaders from learning about problems and grievances as they develop. As a result, tensions, which could have been dissipated if responded to promptly, mount unnecessarily, and the potential for explosion grows inevitably. Once disorder erupts, public officials are frequently unable to fashion an effective response. They lack adequate information about the nature of the trouble and its causes, and they lack rapport with local leaders who might be able to influence the community. Second, many city governments are poorly organized to respond effectively to the needs of ghetto residents, even when those needs are made known to appropriate public officials. Most middle-class city dwellers have limited contacts with local government. When contacts do occur, they tend to concern relatively narrow and specific problems. Furthermore, middle-class citizens, although subject to many of the same frustrations and resentments as ghetto residents in dealing with the public bureaucracy, find it relatively easy to locate the appropriate agency for help and redress. If they fail to get satisfaction, they can call on a variety of remedies. Assistance of elected representatives, friends and government, a lawyer. In short, the middle-class city dweller has relatively fewer needs for public services and is reasonably well-positioned to move the system to his benefit. On the other hand, the typical ghetto resident has interrelated social and economic problems which require the services of several government and private agencies. At the same time, he may be unable to identify his problems to fit the complicated structure of government. Moreover, he may be unaware of his rights and opportunities under public programs and unable to obtain the necessary guidance from either public or private sources. Current trends in municipal administration have had the effect of reducing the capacity of local government to respond effectively to these needs. The pressures for administrative efficiency and cost cutting have brought about the withdrawal of many operations of city government from direct contact with neighborhood and citizen. Red tape and administrative complexity have filled the vacuum created by the centralization of local government. The introduction of a merit system in a professionalized civil service has made management of the city's more business-like, but it has also tended to depersonalize and isolate government. The rigid patterns of segregation prevalent within the central city have widened the distance between Negro citizens and City Hall. In most of the riot cities surveyed by the commission, we found little or no meaningful coordination among city agencies, either in responding to the needs of ghetto residents on an ongoing basis or in planning to head off disturbances. The consequences of this lack of coordination were particularly severe for the police. Despite the fact that they were being called upon increasingly to deal with tensions and citizen complaints often having little, if anything, to do with police services, the police departments of many large cities were isolated from other city agencies, sometimes including the mayor and his staff. In these cities, the police were compelled to deal with ghetto residents angered over dirty streets, dilapidated housing, unfair commercial practices or inferior schools, grievances which they had neither the responsibility for creating nor the authority to redress. Third, ghetto residents increasingly believe that they are excluded from the decision-making process which affects their lives and community. This feeling of exclusion, intensified by the bitter legacy of racial discrimination, has engendered a deep-seated hostility toward the institutions of government. It has severely compromised the effectiveness of programs intended to provide improved services to ghetto residents. In part, this is the lesson of Detroit and New Haven, where well-intentioned programs designed to respond to the needs of ghetto residents were not worked out and implemented sufficiently in cooperation with the intended beneficiaries. A report prepared for the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower and Poverty presented just prior to the riot in Detroit found that. Area residents complain almost continually that their demands for program changes are not heated, that they have little voice in what goes on. As much as the area residents are involved, listened to, and even heated, it becomes fairly clear that the relationship is still one of superordinate subordinate, rather than one of equals. The procedures by which HRD, the Mayor's Committee for Human Resources Development, the Detroit Community Action Agency, operates by and large admit the contributions of area residents only after programs have been written, after policies have already operated for a time, were already been formulated into a large degree only in formal and infrequent meetings rather than in day-to-day operations. The meaningfulness of resident involvement is reduced by its after-the-fact nature, and by relatively limited resources they have at their disposal. Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes of St. Louis was even more explicit. In testimony before this commission, he stated, we have found that ghetto neighborhoods cannot be operated on from outside alone, the people within them should have a voice, and our experience has shown that it is often a voice that speaks with good sense, since the practical aspect and the needs of the ghetto people are so much clearer to the people there than they are to anyone else. The political system, traditionally an important vehicle for minorities to participate effectively in decisions affecting the distribution of public resources, has not worked for the Negro as it has for other groups. The reasons are fairly obvious. We have found that the number of Negro officials in elected and appointed positions in the riot cities is minimal in proportion to the Negro population. The alienation of the Negro from the political process has been exacerbated by his racial and economic isolation. Specifically, the needs of ghetto residents for social welfare and other public services have swelled dramatically at a time when increased affluence has diminished the need for such services by the rest of the urban population. By reducing disproportionately the economic disability of other portions of the population, particularly other ethnic urban minorities, this affluence has left the urban Negro few potential local allies with whom to make common cause for shared objectives. The development of political alliances, essential to effective participation of minority groups in the political process, has been further impaired by the polarization of the races, which on both sides has transformed economic considerations into racial issues. Finally, these developments have coincided with the demise of the historic urban political machines and the growth of the city manager concept of government. While this tendency has produced major benefits in terms of honest and efficient administration, it has eliminated an important political link between city government and low income residents. These conditions have produced a vast and threatening disparity in perceptions of the intensity and validity of Negro dissatisfaction. Viewed from the perspective of the ghetto resident, city government appears distant and unconcerned, the possibility of effective change remote. As a result, tension rises perceptibly. The explosion comes as the climax to a progression of tension generating incidents. To the city administration, unaware of this growing tension or unable to respond effectively to it, the outbreak of disorder comes as a shock. No democratic society can long endure the existence within its major urban centers of a substantial number of citizens who feel deeply aggrieved as a group, yet lack confidence in the government to rectify perceived injustice and in their ability to bring about needed change. We are aware that reforms and existing instruments of local government and the relationship to the ghetto population will mean little unless joined with sincere and comprehensive response to the severe social and economic needs of ghetto residents. Elsewhere in this report, we make specific recommendations with respect to employment, education, welfare and housing, which we hope will meet some of these needs. We believe, however, that there are measures which can and should be taken now that they can be put to work without great cost and without delay, that they can be built upon in the future, and that they will effectively reduce the level of grievance and tension as well as improve the responsiveness of local government to the needs of ghetto residents. Basic Strategy and Goals To meet the needs identified above, we recommend pursuit of a comprehensive strategy which would accomplish the following goals. Effective communication between ghetto residents and local government. Improved ability of local government to respond to the needs and problems of ghetto residents. Expanded opportunities for citizen leadership to participate in shaping decisions and policies which affect their community. Increased accountability of public officials. We recognize that not all the programs proposed below to implement the foregoing goals can be instituted with the immediacy required by the problem. Because the need for action at the local level, where government impinges directly upon the ghetto resident, is particularly urgent, we propose that our suggested programs be implemented in two phases. It is vital, however, that the first phase programs not be regarded or perceived as short term and anti-riot efforts calculated to cool already inflamed situations. These programs will have little chance of succeeding unless they are part of a long range commitment to action designed to eliminate the fundamental sources of grievance and tension. Programs First Phase Actions Establishment of Neighborhood Action Task Forces To open channels of communication between government and ghetto residents, improve the capacity of the city administration to respond effectively to community needs and provide opportunity for meaningful citizen participation in decision making. We recommend establishment of Joint Government Community Neighborhood Action Task Forces, covering each neighborhood within the city which has a high proportion of low income minority citizens. While the exact form of these groups will depend upon the size and needs of each municipality, the following basic features should be incorporated. Composition Each task force should include a key official in the mayor's office with direct and immediate access to the mayor, ranking city officials from the operating agencies servicing the ghetto community, elected leaders, representatives from the local business, labor, professional and church communities, and neighborhood leaders including representatives of community organizations of all orientations, as well as youth leaders. Each task force would be headed by the mayor's representative. In the larger cities, each of these chairmen would sit as a member of a citywide task force. Functions The neighborhood action task forces should meet on a regular basis at a location accessible to ghetto residents. These meetings will afford an opportunity for ghetto leaders to communicate directly with the municipal administrators for their area to discuss problems and programs which affect the community. In effect, this device furnishes an interagency coordinating mechanism on the one hand and a community cabinet on the other. Ghetto residents should be able to rely on the capacity of the task force to cut through the maze of red tape and to overcome bureaucratic barriers in order to make things. Collection of garbage, removal of abandoned cars, installation of lights in the park, establishment of play streets, happen. To accomplish this purpose, the participating city officials should have operational decision-making authority. Lower-level staff or public relations personnel will be unable to provide the confrontation and interaction with the community representatives which is essential to the effective functioning of the task force. Moreover, there is grave danger that opening channels of communication without providing opportunities for obtaining relief will further estrange ghetto residents. If this is not to happen, the task force should have a meaningful and realistic capacity for securing redress of grievances. For the same reason, it is essential that the task force have the full and energetic support of the mayor and the city council. The potential for responding effectively to community needs is not limited to available public resources. Acting through business, labor and church members, and local urban coalitions which have already been formed, the task force will have a capacity to involve the resources of the private sector in meeting needs within the ghetto. Possibilities range from supportive special summer youth programs, weekend trips, recreation events, camping programs, to provision of cultural and employment opportunities on a year-round basis. The neighborhood action task force can play a significant role with respect to youth activities. One approach which has worked in several cities involves the establishment of youth councils to employ young street leaders, regardless of previous police records, to develop community programs for other alienated youth. These activities might include organizing and operating libraries, neighborhood cleanup campaigns, police community dialogues, and sports competitions in their own neighborhoods. Finally, such an organization can make a major contribution to the prevention of civil disorders. If the task force has been successful in achieving the objective stressed above, its members will have gained the confidence of a wide spectrum of ghetto residents. This will enable them to identify potentially explosive conditions and working with police to diffuse them. Similarly, the task force could have considerable effectiveness in handling threatening incidents identified by the police. To accomplish this objective, an early warning system could be instituted during the critical summer months. Operating on a 24-hour basis, such a system should have the capacity to receive and evaluate police reports of potentially serious incidents and to initiate an appropriate non-police response, utilizing community contacts and task force personnel. Any such operation must have the cooperation of the police, who will be in control of the overall disorder response. To avoid confusion and duplication of effort, the task force should have responsibility for coordinating the efforts of all agencies other than police and fire, once a disturbance has occurred. An example will serve to illustrate how the system might operate. Following the slang last summer of a Negro teenager by a Negro detective in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, a rumor that the youth had been shot by a white policeman and that the police were trying to suppress this information began to circulate through an already tense neighborhood. The situation became threatening. Yet within an hour, three white members of the mayor's summer task force group were able to convince a group of black militants that the police version was true. Walking the streets that night and the next two evenings, they worked to dispel the rumor and to restore community stability. In the larger cities, the citywide task force could have responsibility for coordinating the programs of various municipal agencies, concentrating their impact on poverty areas and planning for the more effective implementation of existing public efforts. The commission believes that the task force approach can do precisely what other forms of neighborhood organizations have not been able to do. It can connect the real needs and priorities of low income residents with the energies and resources of both city government and the private sector. It can substantially improve the quality and timeliness of city services to these areas. It will fail unless all of the groups involved are prepared to deal fairly and openly with the problems of the community. But if it succeeds, it will not only produce improved services, it will go far to generate a new sense of community. End of Section 33 Section 34 of the Kerner Commission Report This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Eric Evans Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders Kerner Commission Report Chapter 10 The Community Response, Part 2 Establishment of Effective Grievance Response Mechanisms Effective implementation of the neighborhood action task forces will depend upon the continuing commitment of the city administration to their success. To ensure attention to many of the sources of tension identified above, we recommend that formal mechanisms for the processing of grievances, many of which will relate to the performance of the city government, be established independent of the local administration. We are convinced, on the record before this commission, that the frustration reflected in the recent disorders results, in part at least, from the lack of accessible and visible means of establishing the merits of grievances against the agencies of local and state government, including but not limited to the police. Cities and states throughout the country now have, under consideration, various forms of grievance response devices. While we are not prepared to specify the form which such a mechanism should take in any particular community, there are certain criteria which should be met. These include independence. This can be achieved by long-term appointment of the administrator, subject to city council removal. The grievance agency should be separate from operating municipal agencies, adequate staff and funding. Exact costs will vary depending on the size and needs of the city's population. It is most important that the agency have adequate funds and staff to discharge its responsibilities. Comprehensive coverage of grievances against public agencies and authorities. General jurisdiction will facilitate access by grievance. Moreover, unlike specialized complaint agencies such as civilian review boards, all agencies would be brought equally under public scrutiny. This should facilitate its acceptance by public officials. Power to receive complaints, hold hearings, subpoena witnesses, make public recommendations for remedial action to local authorities, and, in cases involving violation of law, bring suit. These powers are the minimum necessary for the effective operation of the grievance mechanism. As we envision it, the agency's principal power derives from its authority to investigate and make public findings and recommendations. It should, of course, have a conciliation process whereby complaints could be resolved without full investigation and processing. Accessibility. In large cities, ready access to grievance may require setting up neighborhood offices in ghetto areas. In others, local resident aides could be empowered to receive complaints. It should be possible to file a grievance orally or in writing. If forms are used, they should be easily understood and widely available. Participation in grievance process. Grievance should be given full opportunity to take part in all proceedings and to be represented by council. They should receive prompt advice of action taken. Results of investigations should be made public. Expanded legal services. Among the most intense grievances underlying the riots of the summer of 1967 were those which derived from conflicts between ghetto residents and private parties, principally white landlords and merchants. Though the legal obstacles are considerable, resourceful and imaginative use of available legal processes could contribute significantly to the alleviation of resulting tensions. Through the adversary process, which is at the heart of our judicial system, litigants are afforded a meaningful opportunity to influence events which affect them and their community. However, effective utilization of the courts requires legal assistance, a resource seldom available to the poor. Litigation is not the only need which ghetto residents have for legal service. Participation in the grievance procedures suggested above may well require legal assistance. More importantly, ghetto residents have need of effective advocacy of their interests and concerns in a variety of other contexts, from representation before welfare agencies and other institutions of government, to advocacy before planning boards and commissions concerned with the formulation of development plans. Again, professional representation can provide substantial benefits in terms of overcoming the ghetto resident's alienation from the institutions of government by implicating him and its processes. Although lawyers function in precisely this fashion for the middle-class clients, they are too often not available to the impoverished ghetto resident. The legal services program administered by the Office of Economic Opportunity has made a good beginning in providing legal assistance to the poor. Its present level of effort should be substantially expanded through increased private and public funding. In addition, the participation of law schools should be increased through development of programs whereby advanced students can provide legal assistance as a regular part of their professional training. In all of these efforts, the local bar bears major responsibility for leadership and support. Assistance for mayors and city councils In the chapters that follow, we direct attention to broad strategies and programs of national action. Yet the capacity of the federal government to affect local problems depends to a great extent on the capacity of city government to respond competently to federal program initiatives. In the face of the bewildering proliferation of both community demands and local, state, and federal programs, mayors and city councils need to create new mechanisms to aid in decision-making, program planning, and coordination. At this time, however, no assistance is available to develop these new and critically necessary institutional capabilities or to support the required research, consultants, staff, or other vital components of administrative or legislative competence. The Commission recommends therefore that both the state and federal governments provide financial assistance to cities for these purposes as a regular part of all urban program funding. Hearings on ghetto problems and enactment of appropriate local legislation Many of the grievances identified in our study of the conditions underlying civil disorders can be redressed only through legislative action. Accordingly, we recommend that the legislative body of each city with a substantial minority population hold, as soon as possible, a series of hearings on ghetto problems. In large cities, these hearings could well be held in the ghetto itself to facilitate full citizen participation. In addition to establishing a foundation for needed legislative measures, these hearings would constitute a visible demonstration of governmental concern for the problems of ghetto residents. They would also provide a most useful means of bridging the communications gap, contributing to an improved understanding in the white community about the conditions of ghetto life. Expanded employment by city government of ghetto residents We strongly recommend that local government undertake a concerted effort to provide substantial employment opportunities for ghetto residents. Local governments now employ 6.4 million people full-time, most of whom live in urban areas. They comprise one of the fastest growing segments of the economy. This offers an opportunity of the greatest significance for local government to respond to one of the most critical needs of ghetto residents, and, at the same time, to decrease the distance between City Hall and the ghetto by deliberate employment, training, and upgrading of Negroes. To accomplish this goal, we recommend that municipal authorities review applicable civil service policies and job standards, and take prompt action to remove arbitrary barriers to employment of ghetto residents. Re-evaluation is particularly necessary with respect to requirements relating to employment qualification tests and police records. Leadership by city government in this vital area is of urgent priority, not only because of the important public employment potential, but also to stimulate private employers to take similar action. Second Phase Actions Establishment of Neighborhood City Halls The Neighborhood Action Task Force concept provides a basis on which lasting structures can be erected. The principal change required in order to transform the official component of the task force into a permanent instrument of local government involves the establishment of offices in the neighborhood served. Depending on the size and composition of the neighborhood, the permanent staff should include an assistant mayor, representatives of the municipal agencies, the city councilman staff and other institutions, and groups included in the task force. This facility would function, in effect, as a neighborhood city hall. The neighborhood city hall would accomplish several interrelated objectives. It would contribute to the improvement of public services by providing an effective channel for low-income citizens to communicate their needs and problems to the appropriate public officials and by increasing the ability of local government to respond in a coordinated and timely fashion. It would serve as the eyes and ears of the mayor and council, and furnish an informal forum for complaints and grievances. It would make information about government programs and services available to ghetto residents, enabling them to make more effective use of such programs and services while making clear the limitations on the availability of all such programs and services. It would expand opportunities for meaningful community access to and involvement in the planning and implementation of policy affecting the neighborhood. Most important, the neighborhood city hall, building on the task force approach, affords a significant opportunity to accomplish the democratic goal of making government closer and more accountable to the citizen. Development of Multiservice Centers Frequently, services vital to the ghetto resident, job placement and location, health care, legal assistance, are inaccessible because they are located at considerable distance from the ghetto, a distance often made greater by the lack of efficient public transportation. This problem is compounded by the fact that many key service institutions are fragmented, requiring those seeking assistance to pursue it at various locations scattered throughout a large urban area. To meet this need, the Office of Economic Opportunity has funded over 700 neighborhood centers in ghetto areas throughout the country since 1961. Many of these have been small storefront operations, housing OEO funded services. Some, as in Detroit, have had a fairly wide range of services and have served a large number of families. The principal problem has been that most centers have not been comprehensive enough. They rarely include traditional city and state agency services. Many relevant federal programs are seldom located in the same center. Manpower and education programs from HEW and the Labor Department, for example, have been housed in separate centers without adequate consolidation or coordination, either geographically or programmatically. The resulting proliferation led the president to call upon the Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish comprehensive one-stop service centers. The experience thus far indicates the need for more effective coordination of federal programs at the national and regional levels. Legislation may be required to simplify grant procedures and assure such coordination. Each center should have enough neighborhood workers to reach out into the homes of needy people who are not able to seek help. To assure that the service centers are relevant to the needs and styles of the neighborhood, ghetto residents should be trained and employed at all levels. This purpose can well be served through establishment and involvement of community service center councils to establish overall policy. We recommend increased federal funding for comprehensive centers and implementation of the policy guidelines proposed above. Improved Political Representation It is beyond the scope of this report to consider in detail the many problems presented by the existing distribution of political power within city governments, but it is plain that Negro-Ghetto resident feels deeply that he is not represented fairly and adequately under the arrangements which prevail in many cities. This condition strikes at major democratic values. To meet this problem, city government and the majority community should revitalize the political system to encourage fuller participation by all segments of the community. Whether this requires adoption of any one system of representation, we are not prepared to say. But it is clear that at large representation, currently the practice in many American cities, does not give members of the minority community a feeling of involvement or stake in city government. Further, this form of representation delutes the normal political impact of pressures generated by a particular neighborhood or district. Negro representation and participation in the formal structure of government can also be furthered by a concerted effort to appoint Negroes to significant policy positions in city government. More effective community participation. One of the most difficult and controversial problems we have encountered relates to ghetto demands for self-determination or community control. To a limited extent, this concept was made a matter of national policy in the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which specified that community action programs should be developed, conducted, and administered with maximum feasible participation of the residents of the areas and members of the groups served. In the three years since the beginning of the war on poverty, the effort to put maximum feasible participation into effect has met with both success and failure. One measure of its success can be seen in the extent to which the demand for participation, even control, over a variety of programs affecting the ghetto has spilled over into the most traditional areas such as public school administration. But the demands made often seem intransigent and the time required for negotiation with residents extravagant. The pulling and hauling of different factions competing for control within the ghetto community sometimes makes it difficult to mount any program. Moreover, it is often easier to organize groups to oppose, complain, demonstrate, and boycott than to develop and run programs. Yet, the demand for a community voice represents a marked and desirable gain over the apathy that existed before. Despite its problems, we believe that meaningful community participation and a substantial measure of involvement in program development is an essential strategy for city government. The democratic values which it advances, providing a stake in the social system, improving the accountability of public officials, as well as the pragmatic benefits which it provides far outweigh these costs. The essential question which city leadership must face is the ultimate goal of community participation. In this sense, community involvement is directly related to the strategy of decentralization for with the support of the city, neighborhood groups may become an effective force for carrying on a variety of functions, such as physical renewal and development, which can be highly disruptive when imposed by outside authority. If these principles are accomplished, then the choice of mechanisms will depend upon the needs of the particular community and the structure of the local government. We have described earlier in this section opportunities for meaningful community participation in the processes of government. Additional and diverse instrumentalities such as community neighborhood school boards, community planning boards, tenants councils, youth councils, advisory committees and consumer trade organizations offer further ways of providing institutional channels for effective citizen participation in public decision making. The crucial issue, however, is whether city government is willing to legitimize these organizations by dealing with them on a regular basis with respect to matters within their competence. We believe that such an approach offers substantial promise of improving the relationship between local government and ghetto residents. The involvement of the ghetto community in the planning and operation of development programs need not be confined to the public arena. There is great potential in private community development corporations which can emerge from a combined public-private sponsorship and perform mixed functions for the community, including sponsorship of locally owned businesses. A most promising approach is the Neighborhood Membership Corporation, the first of which was established in Columbus, Ohio in 1965. The East Central Citizens Organization, ECCO, under an OEO grant. Functioning as a town meeting, its members include all of the residents of a defined ghetto neighborhood, 8,150 people. Its activities encompass daycare centers, credit unions, legal and medical services, newspapers, restaurants and business enterprises. Both money and manpower will be needed from government, foundations and private business to create and assist these corporations and other new community institutions. Technical and professional support will be required. The opportunity that they offer to develop stable community leadership structures and constructive involvement should not be allowed to fail for lack of such support. Finally, there remains the issue of leadership. Now as never before, the American city has need for the personal qualities of strong democratic leadership. Given the difficulties and delays involved in administrative reorganization or institutional change, the best hope for the city in the short run lies in this powerful instrument. In most cities, the mayor will have the prime responsibility. It is in large part his role now to create a sense of commitment and concern for the problems of the ghetto community and to set the tone for the entire relationship between the institutions of city government and all the citizenry. Part of the task is to interpret the problems of the ghetto community to the citizenry at large and to generate channels of communication between Negro and white leadership outside of government. Only if all the institutions of the community, those outside of government as well as those inside the structure are implicated in the problems of the ghetto can the alienation and distrust of disadvantaged citizens be overcome. This is now the decisive role for the urban mayor. As leader and mediator, he must involve all those groups, employers, news media, unions, financial institutions, and others, which only together can bridge the chasm now separating the racial ghetto from the community. His goal in effect must be to develop a new working concept of democracy within the city. In this effort, state government has a vital role to play. It must equip city leadership with the jurisdictional tools to deal with its problems. It must provide a fuller measure of financial and other resources to urban areas. Most importantly, state leadership is in a unique position to focus the interests and growing resources, political as well as financial, of the suburbs on the physical, social, and cultural environment of the central cities. The crisis confronting city government today cannot be met without regional cooperation. This cooperation can take many forms, metropolitan government, regional planning, joint endeavors. It must be a principal goal, perhaps the overriding concern, of leadership at the state level to fashion a lasting and mutually productive relationship between city and suburban areas.