Walker, David M.

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A New Pattern for Urban Renewal

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A NEW PATTERN FOR URBAN RENEWALDAVID M. WALKrkUrban renewal is a necessary concomitant of urban civilization. Since the forceswhich determine urban location tend also to perpetuate it, the ravages of time andthe inadequacies of planning must be repaired by renewing the city instead ofremoving the population. But urban renewal does not regenerate cities pursuant toan immutable law. The forces of renewal do not inevitably prevail over the forcesof decay. Archaeological investigation of ancient urban cultures reveals on the onehand successive efforts at renewal, while proving on the other that cities--even greatones-do not always survive.Technology has marvellously increased our ability to deal with physical problemsof environment. Yet the unsolved problems of modern urban living are so closeabout us we can reach out and touch a surfeit of them at any given hour. They areso familiar their recital would be trite. Urban renewal is the instrument designedto combine the forces of government with those of private enterprise for the resolu-tion of these problems. It is a good instrument, susceptible of improvement butnevertheless capable of doing the job if we use it welLThere is growing recognition of the permanent or continuous nature of urbanrenewal. This program, improved in the light of experience by Congress, bystate legislatures and city councils, and by those who administer it, should be justas much a part of municipal life as zoning, traffic engineering, or fire prevention-infact, with our present urban problems and our present knowledge about their solu-tion, we know that these other accepted facets of municipal government are notfully effective except in combination with urban renewal.A recognition of the continuous nature of urban renewal should rest uponrecognition of the basic reasons for its continuity. Fortunately, our ability to plan,at least to meet today's problems, has increased as our recognition of the value ofplanning has increased. Nevertheless, the creativity of individual ingenuity, which isone of the great benefits of a free society, will always outpace organized planning.Therefore, continuity in urban renewal does not mean increasing government inter-vention in property ownership; it means using the present urban renewal process,with government intervention held to a minimum, for the constant refurbishing andreshaping of our population centers to meet constantly changing circumstances.At the present time, the city core is the center of the urban renewal effort. Asthe cities have grown outward into the suburbs, slum areas of the older central cityhave worsened and spread, creating an immediate need for the slum clearance* LL.D. 1954, Temple University; D.H.L. x96o, Duquesne University. Commissioner, Urban Re-newal Administration, Housing and Home Finance Agency. Executive Director, Redevelopment Authority,City of Philadelphia, 1946-51; Secretary of Labor and Industry, State of Pennsylvania, ig9x-55.DAv o\D CONIEIFORARY PROBLEMSaspects of the program. When urban renewal is viewed in the light of more recentlegislation as an attack on the problems of the city as a whole, not just slum neighbor-hoods, the central city still requires immediate attention because of its age andbecause of its overriding importance to all inhabitants of the entire urban-suburbancomplex. And yet, if we can depend on history to teach us any lessons for to-morrow, we must conclude that inevitably the suburban rings around our centralcities will be inadequate for, or incompatible with, twenty-first century living, andthe urban renewal process will be moving into the suburbs before we are throughwith the central city. And then, unless we plan to abandon our cities, certainlybefore we are through with the suburbs, we will be back renewing the central city, if,indeed, we have ever discontinued there.Urban renewal is just now falling into the pattern that it must adopt to meetthe challenge of maintaining population centers compatible with the changes inmodes of living. The program began with slum clearance in 1949.1 The HousingAct of 1954 developed the concept of urban renewal, including rehabilitation, blight-prevention, and the concept of attacking on a broad front all of the city's housingproblems as an integral part of urban renewal. As the meaning of this transitionfrom a slum clearance to an urban renewal program became clear, in the HousingAct of 19593 the concept of a community-wide program was written into the law withthe provision for a Community Renewal Plan.In my opinion, as those engaged in urban renewal gain experience with com-munity-wide planning under a Community Renewal Plan, there will develop, largelyby administration but partly by legislation, a technique in urban renewal which atthis reading must be called new. Cities will no longer have urban renewal projects.The city will have only one project, which will embrace the entire city. Cities willno longer requisition funds and make plans project by project. A city will pro-ceed with its one large project for renewal, and will draw down periodic paymentsthat will apply to the entire job against a budget that has been established for aten- or twenty-year program.A logical deduction from the consideration of urban renewal as a continuousprocess would be that the budgeted amount for a Community Renewal Plan wouldhave certain characteristics of an open-end mortgage, being in effect more of a currentestimate than a limitation on expense. This may well prove to be the case. How-ever, the development of the Community Renewal Plan has enough immediateproblems without borrowing further from the future. This reference to the Com-munity Renewal Plan illustrates the fact about urban renewal that strikes me mostforcefully: it is only beginning.'63 Stat. 413, 42 U.S.C. 1 1441 (1958).'68 Stat. 622, 42 U.S.C. S 1450 (1958).'73 Stat 672, 42 U-S.C.A. 5 1453 (Supp. 1959).

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A New Pattern for Urban Renewal

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