Cities in Trouble—What Can Be Done

Q  Where has this been done?

A  In Philadelphia, they have done something very simple. The city has guaranteed to the commuter railroads a certain minimum income on condition that the fare be reduced and the services improved. The effect has been that the railroads' commuter traffic has increased to a high degree.

Q  What other cities have done anything about rapid transit?

A  Chicago has built new rapid-transit lines between the lanes of their new freeways and these new lines enjoy good patronage. Chicago has made it a condition that no freeway can be built within the city limits which does not give the city free right of way between the lanes for rapid transit. And a wise measure this is, because it means that with every mile of freeway they also get a mile of rapid transit.

Q  Isn't Los Angeles doing something, too?

A  The most interesting case, I believe, is Los Angeles. My firm is now working as consultants for the city of Los Angeles on its plan for a new rapid-transit system. The fact that Los Angeles is seriously planning a rapid-transit system is highly significant, because the city, for the last 20 years, has given itself—body and soul—to the automobile. When I arrived in Los Angeles 20 years ago there were quite a number of electric rapid-transit lines—to Long Beach, Pasadena, and Beverly Hills. All of them have disappeared. Today, the city of Los Angeles has only a bus system and not a very efficient one.

To replace rapid-transit, the city engaged in the most remarkable freeway-building program in the United States. Hundreds of miles of freeway have been built within the city, and more are scheduled.

Q  Do the Los Angeles freeways have any provision for rapid transit?

A  They do not. They're just automobile channels. But now the city planners are asking: "What have we achieved? As soon as we build these freeways they get congested. The city keeps spreading and we can't seem to catch up. The only thing we seem to have accomplished is to damage the downtown area and some other centers." So now they are trying to reverse their course and turn back toward public transportation.

Q  Mr. Gruen, do you think it is worth the effort to try to save the city as we have always known it? Would it perhaps be better just to let it become decentralized into suburban communities?

A  In my opinion, cities are extremely important. Cities have been, since the beginning of historic time, the cradles of human thought and progress. They have been so because they are the places where communication between human beings is quickest and best established.

Now, there are people who feel that today, with such means of communication as television, telephone and radio—probably soon a television-telephone—the city has lost its importance as far as human communications are concerned. But I don't believe that all these artificial means can fully take the place of direct personal contact.

Therefore, I believe that the city has importance and that we should not lose the city.

Q  Are you optimistic that the problem will be solved and that the big city will be saved?

A  I believe that it must be, and therefore that it will be. I am optimistic because of the change in thinking, the growth of interest in the problem that has occurred in the last five years. There are so many forces moving now that I have no doubt that we will see action.

I also believe that, once the first breakthrough is made in any of the approximately 100 cities that are seriously planning redevelopment of their downtown areas—as soon as one of them succeeds—the idea will spread.