Cities in Trouble—What Can Be Done

Many mall experiments which are now going on—and I have heard about 50 such experimental malls—are like precocious children. Because it is dramatic to take all traffic out of Main Street and grow trees and bushes there, it has publicity value; it makes newspaper headlines and it therefore is use as a promotional device.

But a mall is only a part of the whole pattern. The question is: How essential a part is it, and when should it be brought into execution?

Q  What is wrong with the mall?

A  The mall will be effective only if other things have been done first. Obviously, if we close up one of our main downtown streets to create a mall, then the automobiles that formerly used that street will have to go somewhere else. That means we just add congestion on other streets. The trouble with our downtown areas is not merely that they don't have green spaces and trees and flowers beds. The main trouble, as I have pointed out, is that it is so hard to get to the downtown area, hard to park once you get there, and then so hard to move around after you park. So, just by creating a mall and planting grass in it, you haven't really solved an awful lot.

Q  What should a city do first?

A  Before you can afford to build a mall, you have to arrange for better accessibility to downtown areas by both private and public transportation.

You have to provide some kind of "retainer basin" for the traffic which flows in from all sides. I usually propose doing this by having "loop" roads encircling the core area and, immediately adjoining these loop roads, storage space for private automobiles and terminals for public transportation.

Also, before we can hope to make this downtown revitalization really effective, we must do something about the slums which have grown, like choking collars, around our downtown areas.

Once we have taken these steps, then the closing of the downtown core to auto traffic and its opening up as landscaped malls and courts and plazas becomes a possible and valuable step.

Q  Who is going to pay for all this? Isn't it true that the people with higher incomes are moving out of cities, into the suburbs?

A  That is not entirely true. In fact, we can observe today the beginning of a return to the city of such people.

I have recently heard some interesting figures that indicate a comeback for city apartments. This may be partly explained by the fact that commuting has become so much of a nuisance. Land has grown more expensive. It is hard to find help to tend suburban lawns and gardens. Provision of public services such as sewage, roads, power, water, schools, is becoming more costly as the spreading continues. The detached house is growing out of the reach of more and more people.

So I would predict that we will see a reversal of the flow, and that the refugees who have left in the last 20 years will come flooding back toward the center of the cities.

HELP FOR REBUILDING CITIES

Q  Isn't it going to cost a lot of money to reshape a city?

A  To correct the mistakes of the past 50 years will, of course, take money. Yet, this is a worthwhile investment.

Q  Are public funds available?

A  We have a number of very practical tools for reshaping our cities and one of the most important is the federal redevelopment and renewal program. In the beginning, this was merely a slum-clearance program and was concerned only with residences. Even with that limitation, it helps downtown areas considerably, because it converts the slums which surround our city centers into middle-income housing.

Lately, through some changes and modifications in the law, it has become possible to apply urban renewal to commercial areas in the downtown sections.