Review of the Book:
New York Plans for the Future
by Cleveland Rodgers
H. William Batt
[A review of the 1943 book by Cleveland Rodgers,
published that year in New York by Harper & Brothers. This review
was written in March 2010]
Sixty-eight years ago, a book was released to the public with an ad
specifically directed to Georgist readers of Land and Freedom.
The author was a member of the newly established New York City
Planning Commission and former Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle,
Cleveland Rodgers.
"What is said about Henry George?"
asked the blurb. "A book that every Georgeist [sic], civic
worker, taxpayer, businessman, real estate owner, every person
concerned with city planning in or out of New York will find as
dramatically absorbing as it is important and enlightening."
The book was priced at $3.00, what today would likely be $30.00!
That the author would laud planning was to be expected, but it was in
substance much more. The prose flows beautifully, and the subject
matter ranges over history, economics, politics, geography, trade,
sociology and the personalities of the era in a way other books don't.
Still, there was a definite naiveté to the book, reflective
perhaps of a time when people viewed the capacity and promise of
government to realize the public interest as unqualified and
inexorable.
Special interests are capable of doing their own
planning, Some of it is good and coincides with the public interest.
But the larger public interest is paramount and must prevail, not
spasmodically, not in certain neighborhoods or sections, but for the
entire community, for present and future generations. It is the
general interest which suffers from lack of planning and orderly
development. The public at large cannot plan, and when planning is
left to special interests the public is penalized. In this sense,
democracy has been largely planless; but it has always been
purposive. When challenged, democracy has demonstrated that it can
defend itself. But only by planning can democracy achieve its higher
purposes. (p. xiv)
Several later pages lauded the achievements of Robert Moses, this at
a time when his greatest mark some today would say scar was yet to be
left on the City of New York. While heaping praise on the Sage
Foundation's support of Queens' Forest Hill Gardens housing
development, Rodgers had no aversion to the rings of high traffic
corridors that were being outlined at the same time. He could praise
Rockefeller Center but denounce the Equitable Life Insurance building
for the shadows it cast. He exalted the preservation and expansion of
the city's many parks and extolled the accommodations to increased
auto traffic from the suburbs, facilitated by new bridges and tunnels,
as well as the subsidies for parking, that increased congestion. In
hindsight, the visions propounded by Bel Geddes' Autorama at the 1939
World Fair in Queens and venerated in this book are testament to the
arrogance, if not just the naiveté, of planners.
So this is a fascinating book, and for all the problems and
challenges enumerated in its first half slums, chaos, pollution, high
taxes, general poverty and disease one expects some solutions to be
provided in the second. The first section ends with the following
clarion call (pp 142-43):
New York City is the chief remaining product and center
of the so-called democratic-capitalistic system. The democratic part
of the combination has worked well, so far as New York is concerned;
the capitalistic part has been less successful, in spite of the
unparalleled wealth created and concentrated in the metropolis and
the activities directed from this control station. It seems clear,
also, that the basic defects in capitalism cannot be cured
automatically by leaving things to take their natural course . . . .
Government must unify and integrate, seek oneness instead of
multiplicity of interest, as a guide. So long as we persist in
thinking of national, state and local government as separate and
distinct functions, and continue to add to the complexities of each,
we cannot hope to achieve that unity regarding objectives which is
essential in dealing with matters that are the common tasks of
government at all levels. Shifting economic problems to the realm of
politics only adds to the confusion, since social objectives become
mixed with the intricacies of taxation and fiscal policies, which
are usually far beyond the grasp of emotional reformers and
sentimental idealists.
During the book's first half, one sees Henry George's name eight
times. One hopes, and even assumes, given the ad, that the second half
of the book will contain Georgist solutions.
Part II begins with the lament of the 1936 City's Charter Revision
Commission to the effect that political machinations and "logrolling"
have compromised the exquisite visions of earlier municipal plans. The
Planning Commission was proposed as a means of righting the balance of
private interests. The easiest part was to first impose strictures by
district on use, height, and area. (p 165) Hence, "The beauty of
Manhattan's skyline and the charm of her towers are due to height
zoning, which has done much to provide more light and air in certain
congested business sections." Considerable attention was given to
matters of open space, mainly out of concern, it appears, for the
welfare of families and especially children. At the same time, the
book argues that land space is more than adequate for expansion of
housing, of commerce and industry, and public purposes. (p 271) This
presumably arises from the planning and zoning that have obtained in
the city since 1916, and legitimized by court decision.
One of the most interesting observations concerned the growth of
motor vehicle dependence in the metropolis. "The automobile,"
Rodgers says, "has been the greatest single factor in altering
living conditions in the United States but, while almost everything
else has been adapted to the city, it is [still] necessary to adapt
the city to the automobile." (p 201-02) How this expanded road
network would have altered New York further than what has since
transpired is worth pondering. While places like London, Oslo,
Stockholm and Singapore have found ways now to cut municipal traffic,
American cities, especially beyond New York, are still widening roads.
In passing, mention is made of the possibility of financing this
infrastructure by "assessments on property benefited," (p
203) but this is mentioned only once, not elaborated, and ignores even
local cases. Yet at that time Rodgers notes that the "average
trip of a car ... was five miles."
The praise for automobile culture becomes bizarre at points, at least
in hindsight:
In spite of all that has been done to glorify the
automobile, it is still treated slightingly. The first garages were
stables, and any available space is still considered good enough to
store motors. Cars may cost more than a baby grand piano and give
more pleasure, yet they are left out in all weathers to be battered
and splattered, plundered and stolen. One reason for this may be
that architects, who are supposed to devise shelter for man and his
possessions, haven't fully appreciated the claims of motor cars to
decent care. They haven't invited the car into the house, the store
or the office. When this is done the parking problem will be greatly
simplified for large numbers of automobile users, and street
congestion will be measurably reduced. (p 209)
Later he proposes the construction of more parking garages. On the
other hand keeping cars out of select areas is not satisfactory,
because "that would seriously affect all present property values
. . . . Once it is clearly determined that public policy requires a
solution of traffic and parking problems, they can be solved, even in
the most congested parts of midtown Manhattan." (p 212-213) What
later became understood as Braess' Paradox only came to have traffic
implications in the 1960s. It shows that adding extra capacity to a
network actually increases the volume and the resulting congestion
rather than relieving it.
Despite the author's confusion about the relationship between
transportation and site values, he appreciated that large scale
rehabilitation of old sections of the city was the soundest economic
solution, and that "the most formidable obstacle to large-scale
operations is the high cost of land. . . . Most urban real estate is
controlled not by the titleholder but by the mortgage holder. Thus
impersonal corporations claim rights for unused vacant land on which
they hold mortgages comparable to the rights of the homeowner whose
house and lots are free from a mortgage." (p 222-23) He argues at
one point that "real estate assessments are too high in many
cases," but never offers any further discussion of this except
the sometime claim that speculators are profiting handsomely from
exaggerated land values.
The Russell Sage Foundation is praised several times in passing, the
president of which was Lawson Purdy, earlier also president of the
Schalkenbach Foundation. Purdy had been President of the Taxation and
Assessment for years and no doubt knew Cleveland Rodgers well. This
may account for the existence of the ad. The Georgist allusions in
Part I are rather general and casual; the references complimentary and
broad brush. The first reference (p 48-51) states "Of all the
American reformers who inveighed against social and economic ills in
the last half of the nineteenth century, Henry George seems to have
been the only one to get down to fundamentals." The chapter
continues with general references to Adam Smith, Jefferson, Turgot and
Quesnay. Everything about Georgist thought put forth is accurate, but
it is never applied. Part II, the half addressing the future, contains
not one further mention of George.
Was this book targeted to a Georgist audience? If so, why? The author
was certainly familiar with the Georgist thesis, and numerous
descriptions of the city's difficulties invited discussion of Georgist
solutions. The indictment of land speculators is frequent, but never
trenchant. The treatment of this material, as with much of our urban
history and analysis, was an opportunity missed. Why that should have
occurred for a writer so deeply committed to justice and the "public
interest" is puzzling, if not maddening. It is a challenge which
today, almost three quarters of a century later, still deserves
attention.
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