The Urban Crisis

Societies Out of Control and the Cities They Have Spawned

Edward J. Dodson

[An unpublished essay, written in 1989]

In virtually every country in every part of the globe policymakers and planners work to redirect, stimulate, control or reduce the growth of urban areas. Few of the world's cities have, however, grown according to plan, which raises several rather intriguing questions for those concerned with the problems facing so many of the globe's urban populations. First, is why cities have developed as they have; and, second, is whether principles of planning are capable of operating universally with only minor adjustments for societal differences in institutions and culture. Is better planning the answer to many of our problems, or do a society's socio-political dynamics make implementation of even the best plans a virtual impossibility?

In comparing the development pattern of cities within Western Europe (part of the Old World) against that: of the United States (part of the New World), there are clear reasons why and how development occurred along distinctly different paths. One is that Old World cities grew into urban centers over very long periods of time and have survived dramatic changes in socio-political arrangements, in the technological infrastructure of the urban environment, and in their very reasons for being. A consistent element in the history of European cities has been the predominant role played by the political leadership in land allocation and use. This pattern has in large measure continued within the framework of strongly interventionist governments, whether one looks at the Eastern bloc or the Western social democracies.

TOWARD LAISSEZ-FAIRE
Britain and the United States

Historians have categorized the period of English colonization of the North American continent as one of salutary neglect, when isolation from central government fostered the growth of self-government built around the common and positive law of England. Britain's victories over France and Spain in the Old World secured for North Americans a framework of government that was strongly oriented to the protection of property (both in titleholdings to land and to production). And, although civil liberties were incorporated into the U.S. Constitution by means of the Bill of Rights, a primary concern of these rather conservative delegates to the convention was to protect property from confiscation by the State and from what they viewed as an entrenched system of monopoly rights sanctioned in Old World law. Problems of commerce and international credit had brought the delegates together, but the nationalists among them saw to it that the loose confederation of states would be subject to a central authority whose powers would grow with the creation of a permanent bureaucracy. History has documented the constant clash between the perceived sovereignty of the individual in the face of increasing government intervention, particularly at the Federal level. In the United States, the fundamental question of whether or not the separate States remain sovereign and only voluntarily United is one that continues in the political arena. A long and bloody civil war was fought to subdue those who challenged Federal authority to intervene in matters of perceived State sovereignty.

The socio-political arrangements that dictated the economic circumstances in eighteenth and nineteenth century England were, in very important respects, running counter to that of most of the rest of Europe. The structural changes experienced by continental Europeans reflected a tendency toward centralization of political authority. As a result, the continental cities expanded during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries more as centers of power than for the convenient operation of commerce. The walled cities of feudalism had gradually incorporated inner citadels to house and protect spiritual and secular leaders from their disfranchised subjects. Alliances brought the European princes together against other princely alliances, and the process of warfare and intermarriage resulted in the consolidation of power, wealth and control over territory (and people). Prior to the arrival of large scale manufacturing, this system of cultural arrangements sanctioned the extraction of production from tenant farmers by landed aristocracies; a portion of these agricultural goods was exchanged for coinage which made its way from the lesser to the higher nobility and finally into the hands of the monarchy. With the industrial revolution the basis for consolidating power simply became potentially more destructive, and the size of the State bureaucracies grew to accommodate the needs of the State-fed military-industrial partnership.

With armies constantly fighting their way back and forth across Europe -- and with privilege as the basis of citizenship -- the continent's large cities had to be planned in anticipation of the probability of conflict from within and without. What happened in England was very different. For one thing, the English managed a shaky unification with the Scots, after subduing the Welsh and Irish, thereby consolidating power in the British Isles under one central government. What distinguished Britain from the continental powers, however, was that in succeeding at unification a balance of power had arisen between the landed nobility, the commercial interests (who used commerce to gain landed status), and the monarchy. This was evident in the make-up of Britain's Parliaments and the outpouring of commercial law that developed to govern trade and commerce. London was not only the seat of government but was also the center of finance capitalism being fostered under British mercantilism. As other port cities arose on Britain's western coast, the landed found themselves sharing wealth and power with a strongly individualist commercial class whose attitudes gradually achieved a philsophical and political importance as Social-Darwinism.

IN THE LONG RUN

Given these differences in socio-political structure, we should expect to find different types of cities emerging on the European continent from those of Britain or North America. Up until the late 19th century this was certainly the case. Then, as participatory government expanded to include civil rights for those who had been propertyless (and largely without political power), the physical and socio-political structure of all the major cities began to change. Liberalism (influenced to a greater or lesser extent in each country by Fabian socialism), presented the common challenge of improving health and safety standards, providing public access to recreation and establishing publicly-funded education. How these programs were implemented and administrated was, however, both determined by and contributed to the degree to which each society moved toward centralization or decentralization of public decision-making.

Cultural differences also play an important role but primarily with regard to the speed rather than in the direction of change. The greater the homogeneity within a population group (e.g., ethnicity, language, socio-economic class, religious beliefs) the higher the probability that the cultural value system will result in consensus building around decisions of public policy. Conversely, in a society such as the United States, pluralism and the existence of Old World subcultures present powerful obstacles in the path of consensus building around the policy agenda of Federal, State and even municipal governments. In the pluralistic society, planning is most effective at the lowest levels of public intervention and decreases in effectiveness as the effort expands in scope. For example, despite notable exceptions, U.S. Federal spending has too often gone to pork barrel projects that are narrowly beneficial but are undertaken d3spite the recommendations of planning specialists. Planners in the U.S. must not only face 50 state governments but literally thousands of regional and municipal bodies that claim jurisdiction over resource allocation.

While noting the obvious problems associated with the U.S. model, a return to market-oriented growth policies during the 1980s has countered the drift toward highly interventionist central planning (at least for awhile). Two reasons for this are a loss of public support and the decline in government revenues available for largescale development/redevelopment projects. In the U.S., the Reagan era emphasized a return of program administration to the states and a scaling back of revenue sharing; regional and municipal governments then looked at a menu of ways to encourage private development that included below-market land sales and long-term tax abatements Margaret Thatcher's conservative government has attempted to do the same in Britain, and even the French have moved to return industry and finance to private interests. In effect, there are no longer any full employment social-democracies (New Zealand may have been the last to change direction).

So, what does this all mean and where are we headed? Absent the societal commitment to redistribute income that characterized the 1950s thru the 1970s, urban problems have worsened rather than improved. Private sector resources have not been forthcoming for development in areas where household income does not support a high level of consumption. The market does not provide very satisfactory levels of housing, employment or support services for low income consumers. Programs such as rent and food subsidies, publicly-funded medical care and education and other forms of transfer payments to the poor do mitigate the impact but cloud the situation for analysts. A similar problem for investigators does not exist in most of the so-called Third World, where the police and military enforce a cruel and oppressive redistribution of production to the few who are permitted to monopolize titleholdings to land, dominate commerce and industry and control the financial structure.

The absence of public accountability of officials in these societies has brought near-bankruptcy to their people. Foreign debt has accelerated domestic poverty and imposed on the populations drastic reductions in consumption, as the purpose of nearly all commodity extraction and production is to generate sales in foreign markets. The emphasis on exports in the United States and Europe and Japan, et al. indicates there is a similar underlying problem facing all nations.

In nearly every society we are now seeing a widening gap between those who are the haves and those who are have nots, with less and less opportunity for upward movement in socio-economic condition for the overwhelming majority of those already at or near the bottom. Removal of the leveling aspects of welfare state programs does allow for private investment decision-making; what such measures as privatization, deregulation and lowered marginal tax rates on incomes do not automatically generate is wealth-producing investment. The challenge for the planning community is to convince policymakers that decentralization must be accompanied by other changes that discourage the allocation of investment reserves into wholly speculative opportunities that produce no new physical wealth or employment opportunities but only serve to redistribute existing wealth from one group to another.

The global economy has been going through a period of intense speculation. Real estate prices have soared and vacancy rates are rising in almost every major metropolitan area. Third World debtor nations are unable to repay their loans and hundreds of savings and loan associations and savings banks are failing in the U.S. Governments are facing concurrent crises of rising unemployment, homelessness, crime and social disintegration. Speculation in currencies and commodities futures has destroyed the basis for using corporate profitability as the basis for investment in stocks, and the debt-financed leveraged buyout has created mountains of debt for our major corporations.

A sizable portion of the global economy is in deep depression; groups in every society are experiencing hyper-inflation and/or recession. Thus far, the illusion of global economic expansion and recovery has been maintained by massive deficit spending by the U.S. government and U.S. consumers. Any number of variables could throw us into a full-scale global depression; then, just watch the paper profits disappear, the number of real estate loan defaults escalate and bankruptcies skyrocket. We are in for some very tough times ahead; it is not a question of if, but how soon!