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Decembec 1970
and-out race war could be a reality.
Cleveland, Ohio's black mayor, Carl
Stokes, told ten big-city mayors - and
the president of the United States -
that
"we are Josing control of
011r
cities.
We can't stop the black violence- and
the white violence will surely come
next."
Still, the frightening potential of
smoldering racial Bareups is only one
of the many puzzling conundrums fac–
ing our cities.
Increasingly, our cities are plagued by
such vexing situations as garbage
strikes, power failures, polluted water,
foul air, decadent city centers, traffic
strangulation, drug traffic, astronomical
welfare rolls, increased crime.
Ever more insistently, experts are say–
ing, as a consequence, that our cities
have reached the end of their ropes.
They look for the
death
of the cities as
we now know them.
Anatomy of a City
Perhaps the best way to understand
what experts mean by "the death of a
city" is to pick an example. And there
can
be
no greater "for instance" than
New York City - one of the world's
monstrous megalopolises.
New York City is a thermometer of
other Western cities. The problems
New York has are not foreign to other
cities. It is only a matter of
degt·ee.
New
York just has more of the same.
Many experts have already "written
off" New York City. Mayor John Lind–
say bimself half jokingly compared the
problems of New York to the ten
plagues of Egypt.
Here are a number of crises - sorne
sporadic, sorne long in developing -
which reccntly hit New York City all
in quick succession.
Firemen were pressing a crippling
work slowdown. Police threatened to
refuse writing traffic tickets, to quit
issuing summonses and to stay off the
job on "sick call."
Meanwhile, the city government was
Top-
Ambo11odor Collo9o Pholo
8oUom - Wide
World Pholo
Two sides of crowded New York
City. ABOYE: Wall-to-wall pedes–
trians on Nassau Street. BELOW:
Children in Harlem. Notice boy
with chain in front of "Bureau of
Child Guidance."
r-\
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