Urban and Regional Development Planning: Policy and Administration 9781501743108

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URBAN AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING Policy

and Administration

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2012

http://archive.org/details/urbanregionaldevOOdenn

URBAN AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING Policy

and Administration

DENNIS

A.

RONDINELLI

Cornell University Press

|

ithaca and london

Copyright

©

1970, 1975 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this

book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, First published 1975

New York

by Cornell University Press. Kingdom by Cornell University Press

Published in the United 2-4

Brook

Street,

London

International Standard

W1Y

14850.

Ltd.,

1AA.

Book Number 0-8014-0873-3

Library of Congress Catalog Card

Number 74-18539

Printed in the United States of America by

York Composition

Co., Inc.

Contents

Acknowledgments

PART 1.

I.

9

PLANNING THEORY AND PUBLIC POLICY MAKING

The

State of

Urban Policy Planning

The Evolution of Planning Theory:

13

Six Prescriptions in Search

of a Problem

20

Making, and the

2. Planning, Policy

Political Process

The Inadequacy of Current Planning Theory Planning Theory and Urban and Regional Development Policy

45 47 59

PART II. POLICY FORMULATION: THE EVOLUTION OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS 3.

Emergence of a

Policy:

The Area Redevelopment Act

The Forces of Regional Development "What Could Anybody Do for the Poor Devils?"

66 68

Pennsylvania's Fight for Federal Assistance

71

Pressures for Policy Expansion

81

4. Political Strategy

Policy:

and Reformulation of Development

OEO, ARDC, and

EDA

89

Help for Those "Shortchanged Twice in a Single Lifetime" "The Dole Is Dead" The Public Works and Economic Development Act

PART

65

III.

90 94 100

POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND THE ORGANIZATIONAL

STRUCTURE OF URBAN REGIONS 5.

The

Politics of

Economic Development

Pennsylvania

in Northeastern

115

The Changing Economic Environment

116

Limitations of "Going

117

It

Alone"

6

Contents up Provincial Antagonisms"

"Stirring

"Efforts 6.

Unknown

119

or Dimly Perceived"

The Organizational

126

Structure of Northeastern

Pennsylvania

130

Pluralism, Decentralized Control, and the Openness of the

Regional Structure

The The

132 134

Structure of Exogenous Influence

Structure of Endogenous Decision

Making

141

Shared Influence in Regional Policy Making Shared Functions in Regional Development

144 145

PART IV. ORGANIZATIONAL INTERACTION AND PUBLIC POLICY MAKING 7.

Organizational Complexity and the Ecology of Policy

Making

149

The Distribution of Decision-making Activities Group Interaction and Multinucleated Policy Making Interdependence and Policy-making Structure

The 8.

Characteristics of Public

The Dynamics

of Policy

Goods and

Making

Interaction Processes in Public Policy

The Constraints 9.

V.

186 Making

188 203

of Uncertainty

The Indeterminate Nature

PART

Services

151

159 174 180

of Public Policy

Making

212

PLANNING AND COMPLEX DECISION MAKING

10. Politics, Policy Analysis,

of

and Development: The Future

Planning, Policy Analysis, and the

Change

Summary and Conclusions Index

237

Urban and Regional Planning Management

of

Urban 240 264

267

Tables

and Charts

Tables 1.

Distribution of outlays

by federal departments and

agencies to counties of northeastern Pennsylvania 2.

Industrial location quotients in counties of northeastern

156

Pennsylvania 3.

139

Net income flows

in counties of northeastern

Pennsylvania

1

76

Charts 1.

Policy-making structure and process variables

2.

Variables influencing participation in and control over policy

3.

making

189

Processes of policy-making interaction related to central control, compliance,

4.

152

and intervention

Policy-making and planning characteristics

252

262

A cknowledgments

In preparing this book intellectual

ment

of

I

incurred a

number

of debts, both

and material. Arch T. Dotson, chairman of the Depart-

Government

at Cornell University,

encouragement. Professor Dotson,

who

was a prime source of

has a unique understanding

of and substantial experience in public administration, prodded

my

between planning theory and the

interest in the relationship

complexities of administrative decision making.

He

provided in-

valuable recommendations for editorial improvements in succeeding revisions of the manuscript. I sors

would

also like to

thank Profes-

John W. Reps and Seymour Smidt of Cornell for

evaluations of early drafts of the work.

was developed while

I

Some

critical

of the case material

served on the Cornell-Penn State Regional

Organization Study, which provided partial financial support. association with Barclay G. Jones, a task force leader ect

was an important source of

intellectual stimulation.

My

on the projNearly

fifty

people in the Economic Development Administration in Washington and in various public and private organizations in northeastern

Pennsylvania were interviewed to provide information for the case studies.

Donald D. Moyer, former executive

director of the

Eco-

nomic Development Council of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and his predecessor,

Raymond R. Carmon, were

Sections of Chapters in journals.

The author

the following:

especially helpful.

and 10 have appeared as

articles

1,

3, 9,

is

grateful for permission to reprint

from

"Adjunctive Planning and Urban Development

10

Acknowledgments

Urban Affairs Quarterly, 1 (September 1971), 13-39; "Urban Planning as Policy Analysis: Management of Urban Change," Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 39 (January 1973), 13-22; and "Politics of Law Making and Imple-

Policy,"

mentation:

The Case

of Regional

Development Policy," Journal

of Urban Law, 50 (February 1973), 403-447.

Dennis A. Rondinelli Nashville, Tennessee

:

PARTI

PLANNING THEORY AND PUBLIC POLICY MAKING

Faced with a problem in evaluation that exceeds his capacities, a would-be rational decision-maker can go in either of two ways He can, like Major, the horse in Orwell's Animal Farm, resolve to work harder. Or he can try to develop strategies that adapt to his difficulties and make the most of his capacities by respecting limits on rationality. In its conventional endorsement of clarification of values when they will nevertheless remain obscure, of systematic canvassing of alternative means when alternatives are countless, and of extensive tracking of consequences when consequences go on forever, conventional decision theory displays the mentality of Orwell's horse.

—Charles Comment,"

E.

Lindblom, "Some Limitations on Rationality:

in C. J. Friedrich, ed., Rational Decision.

A

—

CHAPTER

1

The State of Urban Policy Planning

Urban and federal, state,

regional development

and

local

became a major concern of

governments in the 1960's. That concern

was shared by private enterprise as well

by diverse

as

social, civic,

and political institutions. Urban planning policy dealt with a broad range of problems, from the physical renewal of small neighbor-

hoods in nearly forgotten ghettos to creation of a national philosophy

on the

distribution

development. Policy makers at

urban growth

of

and economic

were called upon to cope

all levels

—

with the adverse effects of urbanization gestion,

physical

human

resources

deterioration,

—and

poverty, violence, con-

displacement of economic and

with the alteration in the competitive

advantages of spatial locations caused by rapid technological change. Recent experiments in urban and regional development

were part of a larger to

effort,

—through

spanning three-quarters of a century,

comprehensive planning

control

redevelopment of American of individual programs

is

cities.

—

the growth

Although the success or

and

failure

a matter of continuing debate, the validity

of the planning theories, principles, and assumptions underlying

most federal urban and regional development seriously questioned

policies has

been

and widely repudiated by a sizable element and by its critics in other disciplines

of the planning profession

public administrators, economists, political scentists

become

—who

have

increasingly involved in the process of planning for urban

and regional development.

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

14

The decade

of the

New

Frontier-Great Society generated more

policies designed to ameliorate

any since the

New

urban and regional problems than

Deal. Policy proposals produced a variety of

Area Redevelopment Act of 1961, the 1962 Federal Highway Act, the Manpower Development and

legislation including the

Training Act of 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Public

Works and Economic Development Act

of 1965, the

Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965, and the Model Cities

Program of the Housing and Urban Development Act of

1966. Millions of dollars in federal planning grants were spent to

implement a multibillion-dollar

ment programs.

New

set of

organizations

urban and regional develop-

were created

the

at

city,

county, multicounty, state, multistate, and federal levels. Emphasis at the

national level on urban and regional development con-

tributed to reevaluation

and

structural alteration of the federal

system of intergovernmental relations. 1960's and early 1970's

—

Legislation

of

the

late

the Intergovernmental Cooperation

Act

Act of 1969, and the 1972 State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of reflected a strugof 1968, the National Environmental Policy

—

gle to readjust both the structural relationships

of interaction

among

federal, state,

as to redefine the relationships

between public and private sectors

in the solution of social problems.

federalism," strained severely istering

Society

and the processes

and local governments, as well

The New Deal concept

by pragmatic

difficulties in

admin-

multipurpose policies, was displaced during the Great

by emergent

in turn yielded,

visions of "creative federalism." This concept

under pressures to establish environmental pro-

tection policies, general revenue-sharing programs, trol of

of "dual

urban and regional development

and

activities, to

local con-

experiments

with "cooperative federalism."

Federal legislation prescribed planning as the means of coordinating

redevelopment

activities

decision makers with the

mechanism

comprehensive and objective

would enable them

and providing

to define

state

to formulate

policies.

and

local

and implement

Comprehensive planning

development problems, identify goals

Urban Policy Planning

and

objectives, delineate alternative courses of action,

and

the costs

15

and analyze

benefits of alternatives. After determining the con-

sequences of alternative courses of action, optimal strategies would

be chosen and combined into a comprehensive plan for regional long-range

development.

remove development

Planning would

making from the vagaries and partisanship of politics, thereby reducing uncertainty, inefficiency, and waste in program implementation. And, perhaps most important, planning would decision

provide strong direction and control over the administration of federal assistance, guiding local programs toward attainment of

goals established

From

by Congress and the executive branch.

a traumatic decade emerged a painful lesson: the most

widely accepted principles and assumptions of American planning theory proved inadequate to meet the complexities of implementing urban and regional development policy. Despite government

expenditure of millions of dollars in the twentieth century to pro-

duce a myriad of master plans for urban development, few in the

cities

United States have been developed or substantially re-

developed in accordance with a comprehensive plan. Large-scale policies designed to ameliorate

problems have been verse. 1

major urban

criticized as

social

and economic

being either ineffective or per-

Attempts to require comprehensive planning in federal

housing,

transportation,

poverty,

and

regional

community

economic development,

development

programs

have

anti-

not

succeeded. Traditional planning theory, calling for comprehensive, long-

range master plans, seriously misperceived the nature of social,

economic,

and

political

through which urban and making normally occur. More than

processes

regional development policy

a decade of experience indicates that the ideal process of planning Robert A. Levine, Public Planning: Failure and Redirection (New York: Edward C. Banfield, The Unheavenly City (Boston: Little Brown, 1970), and Daniel P. Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding (New York: Free Press, 1969), provide some of the more 1.

Basic Books, 1973),

vocal criticisms of urban policy.

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

16

envisioned in

the

rarely practiced.

New

Frontier-Great Society legislation was

Urban and

regional development policies

emerged

through incremental, disjointed, uncertain political processes. Conflict,

compromise, and

coalition building,

marked

political

maneuvering

the evolution of a succession of federal programs through

fragmented and multinucleated decision-making structures. The planning agencies created to implement the policies were inter-

governmental hybrids controlled

—financed predominantly by

by federal and

state planners, advised

sentatives

from

state

by boards of

and

own

directors

by

local

composed

and

of repre-

local governments, civic groups, interest

groups, labor, and business. its

federal funds,

state guidelines, staffed

"Where

it

was

and judged by

tried,

claims," argues one planning theorist, "comprehensive

planning turned out to be a colossal failure." 2

on designing new solving complex problems drew heavily from public

Urban planners and approaches to

policy makers intent

administration theory in prescribing ideal organizational structures

and planning

tools.

But planners were misled consistently by the

inability of administrative science to recognize the basic political

processes through which planning policy evolves.

management techniques

of quantitative

analysis, operations research,

model

The

scientific

building, systems

and planning-programming-budget-

ing systems wrapped planners in the mantle of rational authoritativeness.

Scientific

management

principles

prescribed

rational

comprehensiveness in plan formulation, hierarchical integration of organzations engaged in policy making and implementation, and objective, technical, nonpolitical criteria for determining optimal

solutions in the public interest. Regulatory control

was seen

major technique for implementing urban and regional

as the

policies,

supplemented by subsidies and incentives to make the regulations

Where hierarchical integration could not be imposed, management science prescribed centralized coordination either

tolerable.

at

the federal or the 2.

local

—

level

—

of organizations influencing

John Friedmann, "The Future of Comprehensive Planning:

tique," Public Administration Review, 31

(May /June

A

1971), 315-326.

Cri-

17

Urban Policy Planning development decisions. Yet

management techniques were heuristic and often amorphous condi-

scientific

inadequate to cope with the

and implementation: they gave planners

tions of policy formulation little

real leverage to solve policy conflicts.

principles of public administration theory

of vertical structure, in which policy

pyramid,

hierarchical

responsibilities,

mand,

subordinate

and

is

organizational

were based on concepts

made

at the top of

organizations

and implementation

control, regulation,

Urban and

is

The

a

delegated

are

monitored through com-

incentive.

regional development planners found that rational

principles did not

work

in a pluralistic political environment.

Prob-

lems were multiple and conflicting, goals of regional decision-

making organizations amorphous and vague, action uncertain

and

and

costs

risky,

alternative courses of

benefits

value-laden and

Urban and regional development decisions are made by numerous public and private organizations with

unquantifiable. actually differing

not conflicting goals

if

—which

—

only consent to be co-

ordinated, despite legislative and executive mandates,

perceive

it

to

be in their own

interests.

These organizations attempt

to create a sphere of influence to protect their

against

the

guidance

when they

domains of power

and control of comprehensive planning

agencies or regional government units. integration, central coordination,

Mechanisms

for hierarchical

and regulatory control

in

urban

regions remain either lacking or weak.

The very nature

of urban

and regional development

programs evolving from the

New

policies

and

Frontier-Great Society decade

eluded solution by management science prescriptions. Traditional principles of planning did not achieve the goals of federal

and regional development

policies;

urban programs that seemingly en-

couraged innovation and redirection actually only produced variations

on

traditional

themes.

The

effort

was made to improve

planning simply by doing more of the same. "The failure of centralized planning has led to decentralized planning with central

review,"

argues

one former deputy director of the Office of

Economic Opportunity, "thus preserving

the worst of both sys-

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

18

,,;

Former Secretary

terns.

Robert

Wood

claims that

Urban Development "successful community programs contraof Housing and

programs

dict every tenet of traditional administration"; federal

"are non-national

(i.e.,

they cannot be applied uniformly across

must

the country, in Seattle as in Atlanta); nonpublic (they

in-

volve private as well as public organizations); and nonagency

(HUD

cannot help build a neighborhood center without a clear

concept of the health or poverty program to be housed there). Collaboration

is

collaboration

in

the essence of

guarantees

modern

administration; slippage

bureaucratic

failures

and

public

indignation." 4

The

collaborative arrangements necessary for successful plan-

ning and program implementation require political interaction in policy formulation and execution.

Yet administrative theory based

on management science does not consider

When

recognized at

all,

political interaction.

politics is defined as part of the

"problem"

that comprehensive planning

must overcome. The administrative

theories underlying nearly

major urban and regional programs

are derived

on

from intraorganizational management superior-subordinate relationships.

vertical,

fails to

all

principles,

based

Planning theory

provide either a conceptual framework or a suitable vocab-

ulary for understanding policy

environments. Effective

requires

making

in organizationally

complex

5

planning in organizationally complex environments

new approaches, perspectives, techniques, principles, and new planning administration theories based on a

knowledge, and realistic

understanding of the characteristics of urban and regional

policy making.

The concept

of planning itself

must be

redefined.

Traditional comprehensive approaches relying on centralized co-

ordination and control are inadequate. Planning must focus on the

3.

Levine, p.

9.

Robert C. Wood, "When Government Works," Public Interest, 18 (Winter 1970), 39-51, quote at p. 49. 5. See Harlan Cleveland, The Future Executive: A Guide for Tomorrow's Managers (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). 4.

— Urban Policy Planning

19

process of policy innovation in urban areas, on the mobilization

and tion

utilization of policy-influencing resources,

of political interaction

among

and on the

facilita-

the diverse decision-making

groups that shape the nature and direction of urban change.

Chapters 1 and 2 examine in detail the major assumptions and principles of conventional planning theory and explain their deficiencies. The second part of this study focuses on the recent This book will explore four aspects of the problem.

history of the formulation

First,

and implementation of federal regional

development programs, examining the interaction among decision

makers within interest

federal,

state,

and

local governments

and with

groups and private organizations. Chapters 3 and 4 ex-

amine the evolution of federal development

policy, specifically the

Area Redevelopment Act, the Appalachian Regional Development Act, and the Public Works and Economic Development Act. The case history

—which

an

is

interaction in an organizationally

—attempts

cess of policy formulation

political

complex environment rather than

a prototype of public policy making in

development programs

dynamics of

illustration of the

all

urban and regional

to provide insight into the pro-

and implementation

an important

in

component of postwar federal planning programs. The problems involved in planning for the administration of federal development policies are described

by a case study within the case history

the efforts to apply federal development programs in the urban

region of northeastern Pennsylvania. Third, the the nature of

complex organizational structures

book examines

in

urban regions

and the implications for policy planning and administration. Chapter 5 describes the experiences of planners

and policy makers

in

adapting federal programs to local conditions in northeastern Pennsylvania, and Chapter 6 explores the organizational frame-

work

in

which urban development policy

is

made and

There are obvious disadvantages to the use of histories in arguing for

executed. specific case

changes in broad theoretical orientations

the experience of a single set of efforts in policy

making and

administration in a particular area does not yield empirical evi-

20

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

dcnce

applicable

whole range of urban and regional

the

to

development programs. Specific patterns of

may be unique

generalization difficult

and

risky.

Yet there are

examining particular case histories detail,

political

interaction

under investigation, making

to the particular case

also advantages to

—they provide a

rich source of

allow comparison with other cases, and yield propositions

and hypotheses that can be Moreover, detailed case tions of the

way

in

tested

histories

by other research methodologies. can provide enlightening

illustra-

which general policy making and implemen-

tation processes operate.

The case

of regional development policy

and describe from a propositions

is

used here to

specific set of circumstances

illustrate

more general

concerning the process of policy formulation and

implementation. Chapters

7, 8,

and 9

offer a series of propositions

concerning the ecological basis of organizational complexity in

urban regions, the dynamics of lation

political interaction in policy

and implementation, and the

characteristics of policy

formu-

making

complex environments. The case material

in organizationally

used to describe and explain the propositions rather than to

is

test

or "prove" them. Finally, the last chapter returns to the

of the nature

policy making.

and It

more

theoretical issues

role of planning in organizationally

complex

argues for a basic reorientation of planning

theory and of the education and training of urban planners as

urban and regional policy

analysts.

The Evolution of Planning Theory: Six in Search of a Problem

The inadequacies intellectual

Prescriptions

of current planning theory have roots in

its

development. Since the turn of the century, planners set of prescriptions for analyzing

and

organizing urban and regional development policy making.

The

have produced a strong

basic principles transcend differences in political philosophy and

ideology

—they

were used as enthusiastically by the Roosevelt,

Kennedy, and Johnson administrations to

justify the

expansion of

Urban Policy Planning

government

federal

activities in

21

urban planning as by the Eisen-

hower and Nixon administrations to constrain and reduce federal Although programs and policies differed in both

responsibilities.

the degree to which the prescriptions were emphasized

and the

objective to be achieved, the conventional assumptions and prin-

imbued most of the urban and regional

planning

of

ciples

development policies that emerged since the early 1900's. The prescriptions attained remarkable acceptance

by planners and ad-

ministrative theorists during that seventy-year period, even

the

when

most heated controversies raged over exactly how they should

be applied.

The

prescriptions include: (1) rational comprehensive-

ness in the analysis of policy alternatives, the formulation of plans,

and the implementation of programs; (2) hierarchical integration of public decision-making organizations and policy-making and planning

activities;

criteria for

(3) use of objective, technical, nonpolitical

determining optimal solutions in the public interest;

(4) regulatory control as the major technique for implementing

and programs; (5) emphasis on the physical structure of urban regions in the formulation of development policies; and policies

(6)

centralized coordination of organizations

and development

decisions where strict hierarchical integration cannot be imposed.

Rational comprehensiveness has been a fundamental doctrine of planning theory throughout

its

history,

adopted by physical

and expanded by management

designers,

reinforced

though

application has been a subject of heated debate.

its

prescription requires that planners define their objectives

and

and decision makers

and values, the problem, the

their consequences, then

scientists,

The

clearly

alternatives

choose the optimal alternatives and

combine them into a comprehensive long-range plan. Daniel Burnham's call for comprehensiveness ("make no little plans") and

his attempts to create a large-scale physical design for

at the

end of the nineteenth century

his cause.

rallied

many

Chicago

civic leaders to

Charles Dyer Norton, Frederic Delano, Charles

McKim,

and Thomas Adams promoted the approach through the Regional Plan Association of

New York in

the early 1900's.

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

22

The master

plan, however, focused almost exclusively

on phys-

ical aspects of

urban development. As early practitioners defined

a master plan

it

was to be a comprehensive analysis of

streets,

parks, sites for public buildings, open space, zoning districts, public utilities,

and pierhead and bulkhead

lines.

6

physical design was reinforced by those

The emphasis on

who

strong

prepared the 1928

Standard City Planning Enabling Act. Proponents of the Regional Plan for the

New York

siveness in the 1920's

to reduce social, political

issues to largely physical dimensions." 7

and economic

The quest

Metropolitan Area promoted comprehen-

by "a tendency

for rational comprehensiveness

and for the

role of

planning theory in the policy-making process led to prescriptions for

two basic

sets of

problems:

ture be organized for policy is

the role

structure? theorists

How

should governmental struc-

making and implementation? What

and place of the planning agency

The responses were confusing and

in the organizational conflicting.

Planning

evoked a variety of theories pinpointing "the" decision-

making body

to

which the planning agency should be attached.

They prescribed

the reorganization of government to meet pre-

conceived specifications for achieving rational comprehensiveness in planning.

Despite controversy over details of application, however, a strong set of assumptions, values, and guidelines emerged. First,

planners

were convinced that planning could be rational and

objective only

if

freed from the pressure of politics. Intellectually

objective, nonpolitical, a priori, rational

nical or

zational

economic

efficiency) criteria

prescriptions.

Second,

the

integration, central to the precepts of

(usually

became the principle

management

meaning tech-

basis for organi-

of

hierarchical

science,

became

The Master Plan (New York: Russell Sage FounJ. Kent, Jr., The Urban General Plan (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964), p. 18; see also Arthur B. Gallion and Simon Eisner, The Urban Pattern (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1962), pp. 240-250. 7. Forbes B. Hays, Community Leadership: The Regional Plan Associa* tion of New York (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), p. 30. 6.

Edward M.

Bassett,

dation, 1938), pp. 62-68; T.

23

Urban Policy Planning the fundamental goal in integration requires

and

government reorganization. Hierarchical

an organizational structure

responsibility for policy

or set of

by major purpose, process,

Each

level

is

and "unity of command"

arose, however, in both planning

who

is

or place and arranged

top, with authority delegated

of control of each level

is

preserved to prevent overlap,

and waste and to promote

duplication,

in a single

supervised by and responsible

The span

to the next higher level. limited,

clientele,

from the

in a hierarchy coordinated to the various levels.

which authority

All administrative units are departmen-

official

talized

officials.

in

making are centralized

efficiency. 8 Bitter debates

and public administration

as to

should be at the "top" of the hierarchy and where the

planning agency should be located.

Planning looked to public administration theory for means to extricate policy

making from

politics.

Woodrow

Wilson's dog-

matic insistence, in a paper published in 1887, "that administration lies

outside the proper sphere of politics," set the tone

and direc-

tion of public administration theory for half a century. istration questions are not political questions,"

"Although

politics sets the tasks for administration,

be suffered to manipulate

its

offices." 9

"Admin-

Wilson contended. it

should not

Administrative theorists

sought to ensure the separation of policy making and politics from

implementation and management, while maintaining administrative responsibility.

Basic approaches included limiting the power of

the bureaucracy, maintaining the rule of law, creating legislative

or executive supremacy, and establishing corporate objectivity. 10

Early planning theory evolved from the civic reform move-

ments of the

late 1800's

and the Progressive Era

the century. Reinforced by the "Double 8.

at the turn of

E" movement (economy

M. Pfiffner and Robert V. Presthus, Public Administration, (New York: Ronald Press, 1967), pp. 177-178. Woodrow Wilson, "The Study of Administration," Political Science

See John

5th ed. 9.

Quarterly, 56 (June 1887), 481-506.

Arch Dotson, "Fundamental Approaches

to Administrative ResponWestern Political Quarterly, 10 (Sept. 1957), 701-727, critically evaluates the prescriptions and their impact on public administration. 10.

sibility,"

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

24

and

in

efficiency)

public

administration,

planning theory was

dominated by Jeffersonian values and Madisonian

principles, lead-

ing to an almost paranoid distrust of politics and of government

Major theories of municipal administration were influenced by James Bryce's wholesale indictment of city government as one of the conspicuous failures of the United States. Reform was centered on how to get politics out of government. The success of itself.

the muckrakers in finding political corruption, examples of inefficiency, patronage,

and party machine influence

in local govern-

ment led them to demand widespread reform and reorganization. Planning and municipal administration theories were both antipolitical and antiurban. The Progressive reformers despised large cities and were hostile to immigrant groups who gathered there "creating" slums, blight, decay, and health hazards. The very processes of urbanization and their effects on the growth and change of the

city

were repugnant to the reformers;

ners to the reform movement.

The

immigrant groups and the powerful

thus, the

and "Garden City" plan-

attraction of "City Beautiful" designers

close relationship political

between

machines increased

The reformers sought

the reformers' distrust of urban politics.

to

reduce the influence of political parties on local government and to control the development of city growth in "orderly" tional" dimensions. City governments

and "ra-

under Progressive leadership

created large numbers of boards, agencies, and commissions "inde-

pendent of

political control" to provide public

health, welfare,

and educational

services.

works, construction,

11

The reformers aimed to separate planning from the structure of 12 The Regional Plan Association of New York, local government. 11.

See Wallace

S.

Sayre and Nelson

W.

Polsby, "American Political

Science and the Study for Urbanization," in P. Hauser and L. Schnore, eds.,

The Study of Urbanization (New York: Wiley, 1965), pp. 155-156; Blake McKelvey, The Urbanization of America, 1860-1915 (New Brunswick, N.J.:

Rutgers University Press, 1963), chs. 6-8; and Richard Hofstadter,

The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage, 1955). 12.

See John L. Hancock, "Planners in the Changing American City,

— 25

Urban Policy Planning for instance,

which campaigned for the creation of municipal

planning bodies, received

its

support from the Russell Sage Foun-

dation, wealthy businessmen, social reformers, "City Beautiful" architects,

for local

led

them

and "good government"

—

government

The

leaders.

reformers' disdain

especially the legislature

to prescribe that the planning function

hands of "an 'independent' or

'non-political'

and the mayor be placed in the

commission of

citi-

zens not responsible to the political executive," relying "on a regional

'elite'

composed

of top-drawer

community

would be activated through personal contacts." 13 mission not controlled by local government

figures,

who

A planning com-

officials,

yet within the

municipal organizational structure, became the universally accepted prescription for formulating

and coordinating urban development

policy in the planning theory of the 1920's.

In spite of their contempt for the

men

serving

bodies, however, early planning theorists for the sake of pragmatism.

The

on

made one compromise

legislature

was by law the organ

— —on which compre-

responsible for ratification of the regulatory devices division control, official maps, housing codes

hensive

planning

city legislative

depended for implementation.

zoning, sub-

Thus Alfred

Bettman, in the 1920's, called for "liaison, friendly diplomatic relations,

to

between the planning body and these other departments,"

ensure

coordination

among

administrative,

legislative,

and

executive branches. Strict organizational separation of planning

from other government agencies, however, could not be compromised. Bettman argued that planning was distinct from either legislation or administration functions this division, in fact,

and that those who denied

repudiated planning. 14

1900-1940," Journal of the American Institute of Planners (hereafter re(Sept. 1967), 290-303, for a review of the early planning literature.

ferred to as JAIP), 33

Hays, p. 17. Alfred Bettman, "The Relationship of the Functions and Powers of the City Planning Commission to the Legislative, Executive and Adminis13.

14.

trative

Departments of the City Government," Planning Problems of Town,

— 26

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

By

the late 1930's these applications of the prescriptions for

urban development planning were increasingly

chantment appeared in

the

early

1940's.

Disen-

criticized.

by public

Attacks

administration theorists on the scope of master planning during this period,

which traditional planners refer to as "twenty years

confusion,"

of

economic, and

charged that a plan should encompass fiscal as well as

lineate alternative actions

social,

physical factors and should de-

and regulatory controls for improving

the whole urban environment. In brief, to overcome planning's limited success in influencing urban development policy, the plan

had

to

be more comprehensive. Robert Walker, a

who reviewed

political scientist

planning administration in a number of

argued that "the scope of

city

planning

is

cities,

properly as broad as the

scope of city government." 15

The overbearing concern

of planning with comprehensiveness

was strongly reinforced by the theory of management

science.

Walker's thesis reflected the trends emerging from the work of Frederick Taylor, modified by public administration theorists Gulick, Urwick, Dimock, Gaus, and others tives

ing

were the

efficient

prescriptions

implementation of

—whose major

policies.

The

line divid-

urban planning from those of

for

management became extremely

fine.

objec-

scientific

Administrative theorists had

taken an interest in national planning and were attempting to explicate the role of planning in public administration.

concluded,

in

fact,

that

"public

Walker's thesis echoed Dimock's

scope must be broad itself."

—almost

administration

call for

as

is

Dimock

planning."

comprehensiveness: "Its

broad as

all

of government

16

City and Region, Papers and Discussions by the Twentieth National Conference on City Planning (Philadelphia: William Fell, 1928), pp. 142-159.

Robert A. Walker, The Planning Function in Urban Government, Chicago Press, 1950), pp. 110-111. 16. Marshall E. Dimock, "The Meaning and Scope of Public Administration," in John M. Gaus, Leonard E. White, and Marshall E. Dimock, The Frontier of Public Administration (Chicago: Russell and Russell, 15.

2nd

ed. (Chicago: University of

1936), pp. 1-12, quote at

p. 12.

27

Urban Policy Planning

The "City Beautiful"

goals of civic design planners gave

to the "City Efficient" objectives of planning administrators.

way The

principles of planning closely reflected the fundamental belief of

management

science that "efficiency

value scale of administration."

17

is

axiom number one

in the

and economy could

Efficiency

be promoted only through rational analysis. Only comprehensive analysis could that "efficiency

community

all

official

be is

rational.

The

logical conclusion, therefore,

was

measurable only in terms of the attainment of

which the administrator

ideals

and moral nature

18 to consider."

At

is

obligated by his

the national level, the

responsibilities of planning included explication of the objectives

administration,

of

identification

and

of problems,

analysis

comprehensive design of long-range programs.

and

19

Widespread controversy arose from the publication of Robert Walker's thesis in 1942 accepting the basic assumptions and values of nonpolitical involvement, centralized coordination,

and long-

range comprehensiveness, but attacking the normative prescription that planning not be

controlled

by administrative

officials.

He

questioned the basic arguments for maintenance of independent

planning commissions:

and "above

politics"

and

that that

planning boards were

"objective"

board members possessed a special

competence for long-range comprehensive planning. Reviewing the effectiveness of planning in thirty-seven

cities,

Walker con-

cluded that planning board members were no more competent than city

of

councilmen. Their attitudes toward the administrative branch local

government obstructed the flow of advice from the

planning commission's professional

staff to

"Rather than seeking close and harmonious

the chief executive.

ties

with the executive

and the council," Walker argued, "planners have created a maxi17. Luther Gulick, "Science, Values and Public Administration," in Luther Gulick and L. Urwick, eds., Papers on the Science of Administration (New York: Institute of Public Administration, 1937), p. 192. 18. Emmette S. Redford, Ideal and Practice in Public Administration (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1957), p. 18. 19. See John D. Millett, The Process and Organization of Government Planning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1947), pp. 32-57.

28

Planning theory and Public Policy Making

mum

of resistance to recognition of the planning function itself."

Walker saw a

planning viewed as a function of

clear solution:

government should be part of the executive function planning agency should be attached to the

staff

itself,

and a

of a city's elected

chief executive. 20

Attempts to

institutionalize planning at the federal level during

the 1930's and 1940's brought a theorists

into

number

of public administration

planning organizations. They had

national

little

sympathy with the basic assumptions of design-oriented planners, however, or with their prescriptions that planning be separated

from administration. Experiments

in large-scale regional planning

such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, merged the concepts of planning and implementation and eschewed the need for a single long-range master plan. 21

The report of the Management in 1937

President's

Committee on Administrative

called for the placement of "planning

man-

agement" under the auspices of the executive branch. The committee's chairman, Charles E.

Merriam, became a strong advocate

of increasing the president's control over

implementation

activities in the federal

promoting administrative a

member

responsibility.

all

policy-making and

government as a means of Merriam's experience as

of the National Resources Planning

Board led him

to

conclude that an executive-controlled agency should coordinate the plans and programs of federal departments, formulating 22 into long-range master plans for public policy making.

drew analogous arguments and

them

Walker

similar conclusions about the place

of planning in local governmental structure. In effect, his prescription

was a means

of imposing hierarchical integration

tralized executive control 20.

Walker, pp. 166-167.

21.

David

Lilienthal,

and cen-

on policy formation and implementation.

TVA:

Democracy on

the

March (Chicago: Quad-

rangle Books, 1966, originally published in 1944).

Merriam, "The National Resources Planning Board: Chapter in American Planning Experiences," American Political Science Review, 38 (Dec. 1944), 1075-1088. 22. See Charles E.

A

29

Urban Policy Planning

The theory

of executive

supremacy through hierarchical

Hayek and

gration evoked vigorous opposition. Friedrich

inte-

other

economists argued that central planning violated the basic principles of public control

law."

The essence

"government

over administration through the "rule of

is

nounced beforehand," so that certainty

how

Hayek maintained, is that bound by rules fixed and anpeople could foresee with some

of a free society,

in all its actions

public authority

solve problems, impose controls,

would be used. But

in order to

and implement plans the planners

and administrators had to discriminate among the merits and needs of different groups: "[Planning] cannot

tie itself

down

in

advance to general and formal rules which prevent arbitrariness."

By

destroying the rule of law,

integrated planning

government

"Agreement

would

responsible that planning

Hayek

protested, hierarchically

also destroy the public's ability to hold

for is

and

formation

policy

execution:

necessary, together with the inability

of democratic assemblies to produce a plan, will evoke stronger

and stronger demands that government or some should be given powers to act on their belief is

of democratic procedure." 23

problem of

The

responsibility.

becoming more and more widespread

to get done, the responsible authorities fetters

own

single individual

that,

if

things are

must be freed from the

Hayek

raised the classical

political philosophy: If planners are the guardians of

They had

the public interest, quis custodient ipsos custodes?

to

be

constrained by an impartial, fixed, objectively enforced rule of law.

Some opponents

believed that comprehensive policy planning

could be performed responsibly only by a legislature, for there that the less authoritative parties enter for definition

philosopher

and

was

programs of the

and authorization. Legislatures,

Herman Finer argued, Hayek maintained.

the judiciary as

less definite

it

political

create the "rule of law," not If

planning

is

centered there,

the rule of law could not be violated by the master plan, for 23. Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom Chicago Press, 1944), pp. 67, 72-73.

(Chicago:

it

University of

30

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

would be an

rule. Arbitrariness

and

it

would be a product of majority

would be checked by the power of the executive

"Hayek's assumption

judiciary.

The plan would not be

part of the law.

integral

created and imposed arbitrarily;

is

that political

power

is

neither

limited in scope, restricted in authority, responsible in operation

nor cooperative and decentralized in execution," Finer retorted. "This assumption

is

stupid." 24

Postwar Planning Theory

Planning theory entered yet another stage of conflict in the

Rexford G. Tugwell, viewing the debate over pre-

early 1950's.

scriptions for legislative

on both

their houses.

to create a

and executive supremacy, wished a plague

The New Deal

braintruster,

commissioned

development board for Puerto Rico, reverted to many

of the ideas of his friend Alfred Bettman. Tugwell, however, took

the civic reformer's principle of separation into an even doctrinaire attempt to eliminate politics that

planning's

ultimate mission

interest" in policy

planning

staff

had

making through

was

from planning.

He

represent the

to

the master plan.

To do

more

argued "public so, the

to be completely separated from control by

the legislature, which

was composed of

politicians using criteria

of selfish interests to decide short-range, trivial details of policy,

and from the influence of the elected

chief executive,

who was

constrained by obligations to political parties and checked by the

power of the

legislators.

the claims of

Hayek and

In a proposal that

came

the fears of critics

close to fulfilling

who found normative

prescriptions of planning theory intellectually arrogant, Tugwell insisted:

"That the future be visualized in

possibilities,

and that

between rational

legislative decision

alternatives;

vancy for another

shall

24.

Herman

Finer,

1945), pp. 67, 213.

its

alternative

be confined to decision

and that the trading of one

no longer be

must somehow be forced

all

possible.

The

irrele-

public interest

into the forefront of decision rather than

The Road

to Reaction (Chicago:

Quadrangle Books,

31

Urban Policy Planning "3

The independent

1 buried under private and local claims."

ning

commission,

freed

of

politics,

plan-

would force the "public

interest" into the forefront of decision.

Tugwell went further. The whole system of American govern-

ment would have to undergo radical reorganization. The checks and balances of American politics and governmental interaction were obstacles

to the rational, long-range,

comprehensive planning

of policy in the public interest. "For the future the

American

system will have to be reorganized by uniting the executive and legislative

as the British did

Tugwell proposed.

when

system was reformed,"

their

that be too radical for immediate imple-

If

mentation, at least "there will have to be added an integrative, a binding,

which

is

a coordinative branch to furnish the organismic unity lacking." 26

now

The independent planning commission

would become the "fourth" branch of government. TugwelTs report came mission's rational

study,

which

five years after the First

in

comprehensiveness,

mended a thorough

the

name

and

of

Hoover Com-

executive

central

supremacy,

coordination

recom-

reorganization of the executive branch of the

federal government.

"The numerous agencies of

the executive

branch must be grouped into departments as nearly as possible by

major purposes ment," urged

in order to give a coherent mission to

this

widely acclaimed report.

"By

each depart-

placing related

functions cheek-by-jowl the overlaps can be eliminated, and, of

even greater importance, coordinated policies can be developed." 27

Along

similar lines, Charles Eliot, former

chairman of the National

Resources Planning Board, in 1950 proposed the creation of a national

development

office

that

would formulate a national

comprehensive plan for economic and physical development, 25. Rexford G. Tugwell, The Place of Planning Puerto Rico Planning Board, 1954), p. 40.

in

assist

Society (San Juan:

26. Ibid., p. 55.

The Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, General Management of the Executive Branch, A Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1949), p. 34. 27.

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

32

congressional committees in drafting national development legislation,

and

assist

and correlate

and programming It

activities.

regional, state

and

local planning

28

became fashionable by the

late 1950's

and early 1960's

to

point out the severe limitations of the master plan approach to

making urban and regional development

policy.

Comprehensive

planning was attacked by public administrators and planners themselves for not giving sufficient help in formulating and im-

plementing political decisions. Planners were urged to adopt new

and more sophisticated urban policy making

analytical

decisions in the public interest.

of

scientific

techniques for dealing with

development

in order to influence private 29

Planning turned to

new forms

management: game theory, quantitative modeling,

welfare economics, operations research, statistical decision theory,

and general systems

analysis.

But the master plan mentality

mained: the new techniques of analysis departed not the values,

assumptions,

and prescriptions of

at all

earlier

re-

from

planning

theory.

While much of the

classical

management

science approach to

public administration was dismissed as naive in the early 1950's, the basic assumptions concerning the role of planning remained largely

unquestioned.

Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson,

had taken administrative theory beyond the a "neoclassical" phase,

still

traditional

bounds

who into

defined planning's role in conventional

terms. 30 Planning theorists Davidoff

and Reiner, attempting

to

reformulate planning principles without the traditional master plan, in effect simply reinforced existing assumptions tions.

The planning

efficiency

and prescrip-

process, they argued, primarily concerned with

and rational

action, sought the achievement of preferred,

28. Charles W. Eliot, "Next Steps in National Planning," JAIP, 16 (Winter 1950), 6-10. 29. Constance Perin, "The Noiseless Secession from the Comprehensive Plan," JAIP, 33 (Sept. 1967), 336-346. 30. Herbert

Administration

Simon, Donald Smithburg, and Victor Thompson, Public (New York: Knopf, 1950), pp. 423-424.

Urban Policy Planning

33

ordered ends, the exercise of deliberate choice, orientation to the future, action carried

on within an ends-means chain, and com-

prehensiveness. 31

In response to suggestions that planning should focus on less

comprehensive, shorter range, problem-oriented components of

urban development came the reply that a more comprehensive,

more

Some

detailed,

more

centrally coordinated process

was necessary. 32

planners called for the creation of an "urban guidance

system" to coordinate development by drawing upon a regional master plan supplemented by clearly identified urban goals, detailed policy alternatives, strong regulatory controls,

urban devel-

opment codes, and integrated public works programs. 33 The "guidance system" would provide rational standards for making public and private development decisions and for coordinating regional

development

with the standards control, official

policies.

Others expressed dissatisfaction

approach embodied in zoning, subdivision

map, building codes, and other police powers as

not rational and comprehensive enough. Physical development

planning had to assure the most equitable allocation of benefits

and

costs so that "the timing of construction is optimal to the

intended goal." 34

The focus on in the late

physical development and regulatory control set

1920's and in Depression Era social legislation was

continued in programs enacted during the next three decades. The national urban redevelopment policies were aimed at the physical

symptoms of urban

distress

rather than

at

underlying socio-

31. Paul Davidoff and Thomas Reiner, "A Choice Theory of Planning," JA1P, 28 (May 1962), 103-115. 32. Martin Meyerson, "Building a Middle-Range Bridge for Comprehensive Planning," JAIP, 22 (Spring 1956), 58-64. 33. F. Stuart Chapin, Jr. "Existing Techniques for Shaping Urban Growth," U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency, Urban Expansion Problems and Needs (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1963), pp. 108-130. 34. Melvin M. Webber, "The Role of Intelligence Systems in UrbanSystems Planning," JAIP, 31 (Nov. 1965), 291.

—

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

34

economic problems

produced physical deterioration. The

that

National Housing Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration to provide mortgage loans enterprise

to

and subsidies

increase housing production.

to private

The urban renewal

programs of the 1950's centered on physical reconstruction and design. Regulatory control

was

to be the

means of implementing

urban renewal planning policies and programs. Eminent domain

was used extensively to condemn buildings and acquire

land,

which was then repackaged and sold

at subsidized prices to private

The 1954 amendments

to urban renewal legislation

developers.

required adoption and enforcement of housing and building codes as the primary in

means of conserving and maintaining urban areas

danger of deterioration and decay. Theorists continued to debate traditional approaches to the

organization of urban and regional policy planning at the local level.

35

The metropolitan government movement rooted

in

the

Progressive Era of the early 1900's gained revitalized support

among

public administrators, political scientists, and planners in

the early 1960's.

The new reformers bemoaned

the fact that local

governments were fragmented, that decision making was decentralized,

and that resources were controlled by numerous public

and private organizations within metropolitan

regions.

Those con-

cerned with rational comprehensive planning charged that the structure of local cient.

government was wasteful, chaotic, and

Rational policies

for

ineffi-

urban development could not be

John M. Gaus, "Education for Regional Planning," JAIP, 17 (Winter Nash and James F. Shurtleff, "Planning as a Staff Function in Urban Management," JAIP, 20 (Sept. 1954), 136-147; J. T. Howard, "In Defense of Planning Commissions," JAIP, 17 (Spring 1951), 89-94; H. T. Pomeroy, "The Planning Process and Public Participation," in G. Breese and D. Whitman, eds., An Approach to Urban Planning (Prince35.

1951), 3-12; Peter

ton: Princeton University Press, 1953), pp. 3-37; D.

the Eventual Abolition

W.

Craig,

of Planning Boards," Planning 1963

"A

Plea for

(Chicago:

American Society of Planning Officials, 1963), pp. 69-81; Peter Nash and Dennis Durden, "A Task Force Approach to Replace the Planning Board," JAIP, 30 (Feb. 1964), 10-22.

Urban Policy Planning planned comprehensively into

until

metropolitan governments.

35

were reorganized

municipalities

planning theory

Conjunctively,

promoted the creation of region-wide agencies with the power to make master plans for the coordinated development of entire metropolitan areas. The prescription of metropolitan government gave the master plan new potential: some planners suggested that

comprehensive plans become regional constitutions. 36 Metropolitan government was but an extension of the basic prescriptions planners

century.

When

had been promoting

political realities

seemed

since the turn of the

to obstruct the aesthetic

redesign plans of the "City Beautiful" movement, the solution was to get planning out of politics. tralized

decision

economic scription

making

When

the complexity of decen-

inhibited imposition of technical

rationality of the "City Efficient"

was

complexity integration

to get politics out of government.

of

and

movement, the pre-

By

the 1950's the

government organization obstructed hierarchical

and centralized coordination for comprehensive plan-

The panacea was to get governments out of government. The techniques to which planning theory turned in the 1960's were deeply rooted in the management science values of efficiency ning.

and economy. "Rationality" efficiency." Operations

in fact

was defined as "economic

research and systems analysis called for

achieving Gulick's "axiom

number one" by

replacing the master

plan with the quantitative model. Nonrational, extrarational, and unquantifiable

lumped

considerations

were ignored, assumed away, or

into a "ceteris paribus" category

"The stranglehold of economics on the result of the Utilitarian foundations of

their contention that people

planner has written. "Those rules are not the

36. Charles

and quickly dismissed. rational

modern economics, with

do (or tend to)

who

act rationally,"

play in a different

concern of the economists." 37

M. Haar, "The Master

Law and Contemporary

model was the

Plan:

one

game by other

When

translated

An Impermanent

Constitu-

Problems, 20 (Summer 1955), 357-419. 37. John W. Dyckman, "Planning and Decision Theory," JA IP, 27 (Nov. 1961), 335-343, quote at p. 336.

tion,"

36

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

into

planning

became

theory

the

economic

efficiency

ideal

ultimately

the prescription for "optimal planning" of public policy. 38

Optimal planning required reconnaissance of the entire economic structure, estimation of future expansion,

and creation of long-

range production targets. The result was centralized comparison

and choice of public investments, leading to development of a comprehensive econometric model. The "new science of manage-

ment" would view the system as a whole. 39 Operations research and systems analysis prescribe a conceptual framework for policy evaluation that reduces to an orderly, iterative process, in Herbert

new

Simon's words, to "intelligence, design and choice." These

words and more sophisticated techniques held the same values

and objectives of planners and management

scientists of the 1930's.

Indeed, Simon himself noted that "except in matters of degree (e.g.,

the operations researchers tend to use rather high-powered

mathematics)

is

it

any philosophy

Simon admitted

not clear that operations research embodies

different

from that of

scientific

management."

Babbage and Frederick Taylor

that "Charles

will

have to be made, retroactively, charter members of the operations research societies." 40

But planners took the techniques beyond the bounds

that even

operations researchers would go in the quest for rational com-

They expected systems (PPBS) would

prehensiveness.

that planning-programming-bud-

geting

interrelate

decisions objectives,

mine

and coordinate

local

with metropolitan development policies and national

would

priorities

identify "national goals" with precision, deter-

among them, and

support comprehensive planning.

41

relate

The

38. See Jan Tinbergen, Central Planning

Press, 1964), especially chs. 39. See C.

1

and

W. Churchman, R. L. (New York: The

to budgets that

history of

PPBS was

(New Haven: Yale

tied

University

4.

to Operations Research

40. Herbert A. Simon,

them

New

Ackoff, and E. L. Arnoff, Introduction

Wiley, 1957), pp. 20 Science of

ff.

Management Decision (New

York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 14. 41. Charles M. Haar, "Budgeting for Metropolitan Development: A Step toward Creative Federalism," JAIP, 34 (March 1968), quote at p. 102; and

37

Urban Policy Planning closely to separation of policy

making from

political influence;

experiments in the Department of Defense were designed explicitly

on policy administrators. These techniques, adopted eagerly by urban planners, were based on to force hierarchical integration

traditional assumptions

—

central coordination, hierarchical control,

and objective analysis through mathematically determined costbenefit ratios

As

would ensure policy planning

in the public interest.

the master plan approach had defined rationality in technical

terms concerned almost exclusively with physical structure, eco-

nomic

efficiency

economic

criteria

structure.

were

concerned

Webber noted

almost

wholly

with

that "neither traditional city

plans nor underlying studies have successfully depicted the city as

a social process operating in space." 42 Thus, inevitably, demands

were made once more to expand the scope of comprehensiveness. Planners were urged to become sensitized to social issues, to plan for the provision of social services,

and

to develop

an advocacy

approach to promote the redistribution of material wealth by fostering "participatory democracy." 43 Theorists called for

com-

prehensive community welfare programs and central coordination of social welfare organizations throughout a metropolitan area. 44

Many that

of the programs for urban and regional social planning

emerged from the

strongly

New

Frontier-Great Society decade again

reinforced traditional prescriptions.

The

dedication to

M. Robinson, "Beyond the Middle-Range Planning Bridge," JAIP, (Nov. 1965), 305-310; David A. Page, "The Federal Planning-Programming-Budgeting System," JAIP, 33 (July 1967), 256-259. 42. Melvin M. Webber, "The Urban Place and the Nonplace Urban Realm," in M. Webber et ah, Exploration into Urban Structure (Philadelsee Ira

31

phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967), p. 79-153, quote at p. 89.

"Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning," JAIP, 31 1965), 331-337; Lisa R. Peattie, "Reflections on Advocacy Plan-

43. See Paul Davidoff,

(Nov.

(March 1968), 80-87; Michael P. Brooks and Michael R. Stegman, "Urban Social Policy, Race, and the Education of Planners," JAIP, 34 (Sept. 1965); and Marshall Kaplan, "Advocacy and the Urban Poor," JAIP, 35 (March 1969), 96-104. ning," JAIP, 34

44.

Harvey

S.

Perloff,

(Nov. 1965), 297-303.

"New

Directions in Social Planning," JA IP, 31

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

38

comprehensive planning was reaffirmed in the Urban Mass Transit

Act of 1964. Congress declared

no federal

that

financial assistance

would be provided unless the aid was sought for a program meeting criteria established by the secretary of housing and urban

development "for a unified or

officially

coordinated urban trans-

portation system as a part of the comprehensively planned devel-

opment

of the urban area." 45 Central coordination

and control

were primary goals of organizations designed to implement the

Economic Opportunity Act, Public Works and Economic Development Act, and the Model Cities Program. The locus of visible control was shifted from federal agencies and local governmental units to public, nonprofit corporations which, as "umbrella" organizations,

were to coordinate physical planning and economic

re-

development programs within metropolitan regions. But attempts to decentralize social planning activities generated strong pressures

by

large-city

mayors

executive control.

programs back under central

to bring the

The

Economic Opportunity (OEO)'s

Office of

elaborate "checkpoint procedure" required public executives in local

and

state agencies to

Action Program

(EDD)

(CAP)

organizations,

area- wide

approve program plans. Community

Economic Development

agencies,

and Model

were to act as

Cities agencies

The concept

coordinating centers.

District

of rational

com-

prehensiveness strongly emerged from the administrative proce-

dures translating enabling legislation into program implementation regulations. Antipoverty funding could not proceed without

prehensive local plans from District organizations

Commerce (OEDPs)

to

CAP

Economic Development

were instructed by the U.S. Department of

submit Overall Economic Development Programs

as a prerequisite to federal aid.

underlying the production of of

agencies.

program

com-

OEDPs

The planning process

would include

"identification

objectives, analysis of existing conditions, formulation

of alternative strategies or courses of action, evaluation of the

consequences 45.

of

alternatives,

selection

Urban Mass Transportation Act of

302, Section 4(a).

of

the

1964, Public

most desirable

Law

88-365, 78

Stat.

39

Urban Policy Planning

and the

courses

carrying

out

of

the

strategies

and

actions

selected." 46

Model

Cities

legislation,

combining physical,

on concentrated

hailed

target areas of

central coordination in

economic planning

an innovative means of

as

and economic development programs

social,

urban regions, not only prescribed

program implementation, but defined socio-

in traditional physical terms.

"The Congress,"

declared the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development

Act of 1966,

"finds that

it

is

essential that

our

state

and

local

governments prepare, keep current and carry out comprehensive plans and programs for their physical development with a view to

meeting

efficiently all their

economic and

social needs."

"Metro-

politan expediters" could be dispatched by the secretary of hous-

ing and urban development to coordinate federal activities at the local level

and

Model

to assist

Cities agencies

—themselves

de-

signed to reduce political conflict over allocation of federal aid

maintain nonpolitical

to

administration.

Model

objectivity

in

Cities legislation

proceeded to define com-

prehensive planning to encompass nearly scriptions

of

management

science:

"

program planning and

all

of the traditional pre-

'Comprehensive planning'

includes the following, to the extent directly related to area needs

or needs of a unit of general local government: (A) preparation, as a guide for long range development, of general physical plans

with respect to the pattern and intensity of land use and the provision of public facilities, including transportation facilities;

programming of

capital

(B)

improvements based on a determination

of relative urgency; (C) long-range fiscal plans for implementation of such plans

and programs; and (D) proposed regulations

and administrative measures which aid of

all

related

in achieving coordination

plans of the departments or subdivisions of the

governments concerned with intergovernmental coordination of Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administra"Economic Development Districts Concepts, Criteria and Functions" (Washington: EDA, 1966, mimeographed), p. 4. 46. U.S.

tion,

—

40

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

related planned activities

among

the state

and

local governmental

agencies concerned." 47

By

order

executive

President

Lyndon Johnson

established

selected federal agencies as "convenors" to centralize coordination

of development policies: urban development programs were to be

under the supervision of the secretary of housing and urban development, and rural and regional programs of the secretary of agriculture. 48 In the

Great Society use of mandated central coordination

devices was widespread. Ironically, attempts to coordinate federal policies

and programs for urban and regional development led to

increased organizational fragmentation and complexity.

The De-

partment of Commerce in the mid-1960's was represented on fifteen interagency coordinating

committees concerned with eco-

nomic development. The Department of Housing and Urban Development had mandated interagency agreements and formal coordinating responsibilities with forty-one other federal agencies. It

was a member of thirty-one additional interagency committees,

councils,

and task forces designed to coordinate urban and regional

development programs. 49

Theory supported the emphasis on conventional approaches. Observing the proliferation of federal programs dealing with urban

problems and the increased lobbying

for

political scientist

of

Hayek,

and

political activities of diverse interests

new and expanded urban

assistance

legislation,

Theodore Lowi, returning to the basic arguments

insisted

on the elimination of contending interest groups from urban planning

clientele-oriented administrative agencies

and policy making. Rational planning, he believed, could only effectively in a "Juridical Democracy," in which policy

be done

47. Public

Law

89-754, 80 Stat. 1255, 1261, Sec. 201, 208.

Urban Programs," Executive Order 11297, Federal Register, 31 (Aug. 11, 1966), 10765, and "Coordination of Federal Programs Affecting Agriculture and Rural Area Development," Executive Order 11307, Federal Register, 31 (Sept. 30, 1966), 12917-12918. 48. "Coordination of Federal

49. U.S. Congress, Senate tive

Committee on Government Operations, Crea-

Federalism, Hearings before Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Rela-

tions,

84th Cong. 2d

sess.,

1966,

pt. I,

pp. 138-139 and passim.

41

Urban Policy Planning

and implementation were governed exclusively by objective rules of law. The federal system would be reorganized

formulation

and

local

governments consolidated into unitary metropolitan

structures. If metropolitan

government were seriously

unitary principle, he argued, thereby eliminating

all

tried

on a

autonomy

within the region, government would have authority commensurate

with

its

problems'. 50

Nixon administration

policies

embodied a strong redirection of

urban and regional development programs back to conventional

A

administrative prescriptions.

series of legislative proposals

and

executive orders, variously labeled "Cooperative Federalism," or

"New

Federalism," drew directly on basic management science

1930's as expounded by the first and second Hoover Commissions. The Ash Council, established early in the first Nixon administration to review executive branch structure, saw organizational complexity as an evil to be overcome and eliminated from policy planning and program implementation. principles of the

"The present organizational structure encourages fragmentation when comprehensive responses to social and economic problems are needed," the

Ash Council

around major purpose

is

reported in 1971. "Restructuring

integral to

aging domestic programs."

The

an improved system for man-

president subsequently submitted

to Congress proposals for drastically reorganizing cabinet depart-

ments dealing with domestic programs to ensure executive supremacy in plan implementation, central coordination and control, hierarchical delegation of responsibility, conflict:

"Under the proposals which

the federal government

who

deal with

and elimination of

political

I am submitting, those in common or closely related

problems would work together in the same organizational framework. Each department would be defined in a way that minimizes parochialism and enables the President and the Congress to hold specific officials responsible for the .

.

.

50.

achievement of

specific goals.

Similar functions would be grouped together within each

Theodore

J.

End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy and (New York; Norton, 1969), quote at p. 267.

Lowi, The

Crisis of Public Authority

new the

42

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

entity,

making

still

it

easier to delegate authority to lower levels

and further enhancing the accountability of subordinate

officials."

51

Conventional principles were extended, by executive order, to the administration of federal activities at metropolitan and local levels.

The

Office of

1971 required that

Management and Budget

state,

A-95

Circular

of

metropolitan, and regional clearinghouses

be established to coordinate federally assisted projects

locally.

The A-95 agencies would develop organizational and procedural arrangements for coordinating comprehensive and functional planning

to encourage the

activities,

most

effective use of local re-

sources, to eliminate overlap, duplication, local planning activities,

ical

base for the coordination of federal,

ment programs. 52 Executive control and be

strengthened

at

metropolitan

the

and competition

in state

and to provide a consistent geograph-

and

state,

and

local develop-

central coordination level

Variations," a program established to provide

through

power

would

"Planned

to the chief

executive of a major urban area to review and either veto or force

changes in

all

federal

programs with an impact on

his city.

The

Planned Variations program, attempted on an experimental basis in a

dozen

allocation

cities,

invested the

of federal

grant money,

government agencies, but within the

mayor with

power

to influence

not only to his

to all public

city's jurisdiction,

the

own

city

and private organizations

whether or not funds flowed through

local government. 53

These proposals and others such

as

revenue sharing were ad-

vocated as a means of decentralizing power and control, but in 51. U.S.

President's

Office

of

Management and Budget, Papers Relating to the Program (Washington: Government Printing

Reorganization

Office, 1972), pp. 3-22, 46, 48.

Management and Budget, Circular No. A-95, "EvaluaReview and Coordination of Federal and Federally Assisted Programs

52. U.S. Office of

tion

and Projects," Revised, Feb. 9, 1971. 53. See William Lilly, III, Timothy B. Clark, and John K. Iglehart, "New Federalism Report: Tests of Revenue Sharing Approach Identify Problems in Transferring Power to Cities," National Journal, 5 (March 3, 1973), 291-311.

were used

reality they

Urban Policy Planning

43

to reduce federal expenditures for

urban

and regional development and tive

to impose conventional administra-

on planning and program implementation.

prescriptions

A

former assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity argued that revenue sharing could be interpreted, "not as a way of letting states

and

choose broad policy objectives, but of

localities

executing more effectively policies

still

determined nationally." 54

Federal administration of revenue sharing emphasized heavily the

enforcement of regulatory control and continuous auditing of the shared funds at the local

level.

"We're going to spend a

lot of

time

getting a full accounting of the kinds of decisions that states,

and

counties,

cities

make

—how

they spend the money," pro-

claimed a presidential assistant following passage of the State and

Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972. "We're going to ferret out the violations." 55

With strong centralized control and comprehensive

coordination, programs for urban and regional development would

be cut in

size,

consolidated, and reorganized to

fit

the hierarchical,

management science. At the federal level most of the programs would be "folded in" to a new department of community development that would "provide a vertical

organizational concepts of

central point in the Federal system for formulating policy, advis-

on community development, transportation and housing problems and needs, assigning accountability for Federal ing the President

performance, and reducing jurisdictional disputes and the need for interagency coordination." 56

Thus ing a

the major thrust of postwar planning theory, while adopt-

new

rhetoric, fundamentally

expounded conventional prin-

ciples of administration established in the late

1920's and early

1930's. Techniques of operations research, econometric modeling,

systems

analysis,

and planning-programming-budgeting systems

54. Levine, p. vii.

55.

Quoted

in

nal, 5 (Feb. 17,

56. U.S.

Juergen Haber, "Revenue Sharing Report," National Jour1973), 234.

Office

of

Management and Budget, Papers Relating

President's Departmental Reorganization Program, p. 52,

to

the

44

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

offer

new approaches

New

Frontier, Great Society,

and

to

1970's drastically

problem solving and policy making. The

The

new means

limitations that

New

Federalism of the 1960's

changed the formal patterns and structures

of intergovernmental relations.

created

and

Yet many of the programs simply

of applying traditional planning principles.

made

the old prescriptions inadequate for

planning urban policy apply as well to their

new

variations.

CHAPTER 2

Planning, Policy Making, and the Political Process

The irony

of planning theory

engendered, for

is

the intellectual conflict

has never described accurately

it

regional development policy

is

made. Nor do

its

it

has

how urban and

prescriptions

form

a framework for analyzing and implementing urban policy proposals.

Traditional planning literature failed to

politics is inherent in policy

making. Past prescriptions assume,

naively and inaccurately, that policy deliberative,

making

form of problem

objective

recognize that

is

an

intellectual,

Conventional

solving.

approaches to urban and regional development planning failed to perceive policy making as a dynamic political process; they ignore, simplify,

or assume away

much

of the complexity inherent in

political interaction.

In

complex

organizationally

environments

through sociopolitical processes, intergroup adjustment. pluralistic

As a

and "is

process of political interaction, policy making

distinctly different

'problem,' "

argues

is

transcends strictly intel-

solving, is

more complex than

from individual decision making. Policy

Banfield,

solution." 1 Policy can 1.

conflict. It

and deliberative problem

an outcome which no one has planned as a

Edward C.

p. 326.

evolves

and mutual

and decentralized, inherently a generator as well as a

product of interorganizational lectual

policy

conflict,

"it

is

'solution' to a

a resultant rather than a

be neither rationally planned nor centrally

Banfield, Political Influence

(New York: Free

Press, 1961),

46

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

controlled. Politics admits

many

criteria of rationality;

it

is,

as

Lasswell notes, a process by which the irrational bases of society are brought out into the open. Policy

and eventuates

The

making "begins

in conflict

in solution, but the emotionally satisfactory one." 2

basic relationships of interaction are horizontal rather than

vertical.

Truman

that government, the structure through

states

which public policy evolves, "represents a protean complex of

and direction

crisscrossing relationships that change in strength

with alterations in the power and standing of interests, organized

and unorganized." 3 Policy

is

formulated through a process of social "weighting"

and group decisions are

after individual

made.

fully or partially

Other participants are drawn into the process in response to those decisions,

creating conflicts the resolution of which determines

the policy outcome. Only after groups are fully or partially

com-

mitted to seek particular goals or allocations of public resources

does the policy-making process begin. Lindblom explains: "At that time,

whom

the conflicting values of individuals and groups, each of

have been concerned with a limited

brought to bear upon

set

of values, are

policy formulation. Policies are set as a

resultant of such conflict.

.

.

.

The outcome

from what any one advocate of the

probably different

is

final solution

intended and

probably different from what any one advocate could comfortably

defend by reference to his aggregation

2.

is

own

limited values.

a political process,

not

Harold D. Lasswell, Psychopathology and

an

The weighing

intellectual

Politics

or

one." 4

(New York:

Vi-

king, 1960), p. 184. 3.

David B. Truman, The Governmental Process (New York: Knopf,

1959), p. 508. See also Amitai Etzioni, The Active Society (New York: Free Press, 1968), who argues that policy making is a form of social decision in which whole sets of group decisions are considered and conflicts resolved through macrosocial processes. 4.

Charles E. Lindblom, "The Handling of Policy

Norms

in Analysis,"

Allocation of Economic Resources (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), pp. 160-179, quote at p. 174. in

M. Abramovitz

et ah,

47

Planning and the Political Process

Through

interaction

political

individuals

and groups are

and adjustment, the decisions of compromised,

ratified,

altered,

or

rejected.

The

orderly, step-by-step systems analysis

demanded by com-

prehensive planners cannot cope with the dynamics of the policy-

making process. "Not only do these

intellectual steps fail to ex-

haust the factors -which determine decision, but they falsify even

what takes place on a

strictly intellectual level,"

Bauer, Pool, and

Dexter conclude from their intensive review of American business policy making. Decision

making

a stream of social processes."

"is

a social process imbedded in

5

The Inadequacy of Current Planning Theory Although

theorists

have questioned the usefulness of current

planning prescriptions, the fundamental sources of these deficiencies

have yet to be explicated. 6

Conventional theory assumes the existence of "objective rationality," a

standard to be discovered and injected into the decision-

making process.

Both master planning

and systems analysis

techniques have defined rationality as technical-economic efficiency.

But

as

goal

is

Redford notes, "the greatest deficiency of the not that efficiency

is

efficiency

nonmeasurable, but that the goal

itself

5. Raymond R. Bauer, Ithiel de Sola Pool, and Lewis A. Dexter, American Business and Public Policy (New York: Atherton Press, 1963), p. 479. 6. This is not to say that the discrepancy between planning theory and

the realities of policy

making has gone completely unnoticed. John Seeley

recognized the "disorder" of policy making,

"What

is

Planning?

A

Defini-

and Strategy," JAIP, 28 (May 1962), 91-97; Paul Davidoff acknowledged the pluralism of policy making, if he did not explicate its characteristics, "Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning," JAIP, 31 (Nov. 1965), 331-337; Richard Bolan summarized the attacks on comprehensive planning from other professions, "Emerging Views of Planning," JA IP, 33 (July 1967), 233-245; and John Friedmann examined the weaknesses of traditional approaches in planning for underdeveloped countries, "A Con-

tion

ceptual Model for the Analysis of Planning Behavior," Administrative Science Quarterly, 21 (Sept. 1967), 225-251. But planning theory has failed to develop these observations and reorient traditional prescriptions to them.

48 is

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

Many

inadequate." 7

are

drawn

values, criteria, objectives,

add new dimensions that may political,

and assumptions

inevitably into the policy-making process, to which they

and

with efficiency.

conflict

social "reason" are often different

Legal,

from economic

rationality. 8 Indeed, the only real test of rationality is that the

means used by

policy makers to pursue their objectives have a high

probability of payoff.

Even

determine

this criterion is difficult to

objectively: groups involved in policy formation

may

not clearly

perceive or explicitly define their goals. In other cases, the means-

ends chain

is

not a chain at

Means become

than terminal. determines

all.

how

Goals

may be

ends.

The

instrumental rather

availability of

goals are established. Values

become

intertwined with both ends and means. Since almost as possible combinations of values, ends,

means

inextricably

many

and means are introduced

into the policy-making process as there are participants, the con-

cept of rationality

is

highly subjective. 9

Nor does current theory deal explicitly with what Simon and March call "cognitive limits on rationality." Decision makers are unable to take into account many and complex sets of values, costs, tives.

10

and consequences or

to search widely for policy alterna-

Planning theory has not explained

how

its

prescription for

comprehensiveness and optimal choice can be accomplished in the face of limitations

on

rational analysis identified

by Lindblom, 11

7. Emmette S. Redford, Ideal and Practice in Public Administration (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1957), p. 15. 8. See Paul Diesing, Reason in Society: Five Types of Decisions and Their Social Conditions (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), and

"Noneconomic Decision-Making," Ethics, 66 (Oct. 1955), 18-35. 9. George Caspar Homans, Social Behavior (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), p. 80. 10. James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations (New York: Wiley, 1958), ch.

6.

David Braybrooke and Charles E. Lindblom, A Strategy of Decision: Policy Evaluation as a Social Process (New York: Free Press, 1963), chs. 5 and 6, and Charles E. Lindblom, "The Science of Muddling Through," 11.

Public Administration Review, 19 (Spring 1959), 79-88.

49

Planning and the Political Process

the costliness of analysis, the inability to construct highly rational

or inclusive solutions, the high degree of interdependence between facts

and values, the openness of the systems to be analyzed, and

the diversity of forms in which problems arise. These limitations

make

the goal of optimality practically meaningless. Indeed, the

concepts

of

subjective.

12

comprehensiveness and optimality themselves

Like

optimality

rationality,

is

mind

in the

are

of the

beholder. Traditional planning and administrative theories appear to ad-

vocate comprehensiveness for

money,

power,

social,

its

own

sake.

The

cost in

and other resources needed to pursue

rational comprehensiveness

is

vast.

"And

so far as the pursuit

of rationality entails study, forethought and calculation,"

"the pursuit of rationality

notes,

costs are

is

itself irrational

may

Even when planners do attempt

comprehensive planning, they inject their

rational

Homans

unless their

reckoned in the balance. The costs of rationality

rationality irrational." 13

make

man-

own

values,

perceptions of goals, and preconceived interpretations of

criteria,

data and information into the process. Ultimately they call rational comprehensiveness

is

their

own

much

of what

intuition

and

judgment based on uncertain and incomplete knowledge and information. "But planners' intuitions can be and, indeed, often are challenged successfully

by groups with an

effective veto over

the pertinent decisions," argues planning theorist

"These groups intuitions

will insist, quite possibly

have as much,

if

John Friedmann.

with reason, that their

own

not greater, validity than those of

professional planners." 14 12. March and Simon argue (p. 209): "Since there is no reason to suppose that any technique of decision-making whether centralized or decen-

—

—

will bring the organization into the

neighborhood of a genuine optimum, the search for decision mechanisms cannot take criteria of optimization too seriously, but must seek 'workable' techniques of satisficing." tralized

13.

Homans,

A

p. 82.

John Friedmann, "The Future of Comprehensive Urban Planning: Critique," Public Administration Review, 31 (May/ June 1971), 315-326,

14.

quote at

p. 318.

—

50

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

commitment

Their

to

orderliness,

efficiency,

and

rational

comprehensiveness inhibits planning theorists from recognizing incremental sociopolitical techniques of policy analysis and implementation. Instead, they have turned to techniques that reinforce traditional assumptions

and prescriptions, especially

research, systems analysis,

in operations

program budgeting, and PPBS. These

techniques have some value for

programmed problem

solving, for

they are important analytical tools for dealing with problems susceptible to statistical measurement.

But planning cannot simply

transfer these techniques to the heuristic, amorphous, incalculable social processes

through which policy evolves. Planning theory

often attributes Simon's stages of problem solving (intelligence, design,

and choice)

to policy

making and

treats policy formula-

tion as a traditional managerial problem. In so doing, inappropriate tools have

been extended to areas for which they were never

in-

tended. Systems analysts and economists themselves have realized the severe limitations of applying systems analysis to sociopolitical

policy making.

Charles Schultze, a pioneer in systematic analysis of public expenditure policies, has documented the need to reconcile analytical

theory to

political

reality.

He

suggests

that

systematic

analysis dealing with urban development concentrate less

on de-

more on developing workable measures for Hitch and others have warned against viewing

signing ideal plans and

implementation. 15

systems analysis as a panacea for the political complexity inherent in

policy

evaluation

and execution. 16 Other economists have

explicated the fundamental differences between political and eco15. Charles L. Schultze, The Politics and Economics of Public Spending (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1968), p. 119. 16. See Charles Hitch, "Operations Research and National Planning A Dissent," Operations Research, 5 (Oct. 1957), 718-722; Roland McKean and Melvin Anshen, "Problems, Limitations and Risks," in David Novick, ed., Program Budgeting (Washington: Government Printing OflQce, 1964) 218-236; Albert O. Hirschman and Charles E. Lindblom, "Economic Development, Research and Development, Policy Making: Some Converging Views," Behavioral Science, 7 (April 1962), 211-222.

Planning and the Political Process

nomic

rationality.

"In politics one

the substantive costs writes Schlesinger.

and

"One

is

tools

require exact

concerned with more than

is

benefits in a specific decision area,"

engaged

and actions over a whole range of tative

51

in mobilizing support

ill-defined issues."

by words

While quanti-

measurement of inputs and outputs,

long-range analysis, and the development of hard data, the political process can rarely be quantified, emphasizes short-run results, and

depends on judgment, manipulation, and intuitive response. "Put quite briefly, political decision operates under the

normal con-

power." 17

straint to avoid serious risk of the loss of

Planning theory and the principles of administrative responsibility little

on which

its

organizational prescriptions are based have

effect in restructuring federal

had

policy-making processes or in

comprehensively solving urban problems because they ignore or systematically

discount power

organizationally

and

its

unequal distribution in

18

Planning theory has been

complex environments.

misled by administrative theorists' recurring debates over the ideal

approach

to administrative responsibility. All

the problem of political power:

all

have misperceived

ultimately attempt to eliminate

power, competition, and conflict from bureaucracy. 19 "Executive

branch structure

is

argues. "Inevitably

in fact a it

microcosm of our

forces to be found in a pluralistic society.

symmetrical, illusion."

society,"

reflects the values, conflicts

frictionless

organization

The

structure

Seidman

and competing

ideal of a neatly is

a dangerous

20

Because of

its

overwhelming concern with the structure of policy

James R. Schlesinger, "Systems Analysis and the Political Process," Law and Economics, 11 (Oct. 1968), 281-298. 18. Harold Seidman, Politics, Position and Power: The Dynamics of Federal Organization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 13. 19. Arch T. Dotson, "Fundamental Approaches to Administrative Responsibility," Western Political Quarterly, 10 (Sept. 1957), 701-727; Norton Long, "Power and Administration," Public Administration Review, 9 (1949), 257-264; and Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), ch. 6. 17.

Journal of

20. Seidman, p. 13.

52

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

making, planning theory has ignored the evolutionary processes

by which urban and regional development decisions emerge. Political

adjustment, manipulation, and control through nonhierarch-

ical interaction

have been overlooked by

centralists

preoccupied

with means of designing and imposing optimal end states. Indeed,

only within the last few years have processes such as bargaining

and negotiation, exchange,

coalition building, intermediation,

compensation been treated as legitimate or

and

effective alternatives to

central control in public administration; they have not yet been

applied in planning theory.

Nor have

analyzed carefully the processes of inter-

theorists

action that distribute decision-making activities and shape organizational arrangements in metropolitan areas.

they

condemn

as "duplication," "waste,"

As a

what

result,

and "fragmentation"

is

often the manifestation of differentiation, division of labor, specialization,

indicted

and ecological as

association. Organizational complexity

is

"chaos." Linkages of interdependence are labeled

"mazes." Patterns of dominance-subdominance and exchange are "crazy quilts." Prescriptions for large-scale consolidation of local

government tions

fail to

recognize the functions that existing organiza-

perform or the processes by which they are performed. The

organizational complexity that of urban development

is

is

an integral and inextricable part

considered irrational,

inefficient,

and

inscrutable.

Development decisions interaction of a large

in

urban regions are made through the

number

of public and private organizations,

each controlling a relatively small proportion of the economic and political resources that influence the

development of the region as

a whole. In the private sector a large number of establishments

and households make investment, consumption, production, employment, expenditure, location, distribution, and other decisions that determine the rate, direction,

and pattern of the

region's

socioeconomic development. These decisions influence the physical pattern of development, the type, volume, and intensity of

and support for the production and

demands

distribution of social

goods

53

Planning and the Political Process

and

sector.

same types of resource

of the are

from the public

services

made by

And

in the public sector

allocation

and

many

utilization decisions

federal agencies, state administrative

and

legislative

organs, city, township, borough, and county governments, inde-

pendent school authorities, semi-independent sewer, water,

and special purpose

district

authorities,

utility,

semi-independent plan-

housing redevelopment, and other types of commissions

ning,

funded by

local, state, federal,

and private sources. The decisions

of the multitude of public agencies are in turn influenced

by the

demands, needs, support, and pressures of social groups, formal

and informal associations of

civic groups, professional

interest groups, political parties,

The

decisions of

on each

actions

actors are influenced

all

and special

and individuals within the region.

by the

other; the external economies

effects of their

and diseconomies

they impose create constraints and opportunities for action.

Re-

sources for making and influencing decisions are unevenly dis-

persed

among communities and

organizations within a region; and

the ability of any single group to use strained

by broad environmental,

forces, technological change,

and

its

social,

limited resources

is

con-

economic, and political

local mores. Decision

a pluralistic policy-making system

is

making

in

characterized by division of

labor and functional and geographical specialization that limit the interests

and decision-making

ability of

any single private or public

organization. Interdependencies are thereby created

and with organizations located outside the urban

An urban region may be

socially

economic, and political differentiation. organization. It has

area.

and economically homogeneous

relative to other regions, but is in reality

ment

among them

It

a complex of social,

lacks area-wide govern-

few formal hierarchical structures to

coordinate decisions and no central control over the resource allocation, utilization,

and

redistribution decisions of the multitude

of public and private organizations. In most cases

informal mechanisms interest

groups

exist,

of

political

integration.

and there are no regional

political constituencies.

it

lacks even the

Few

region- wide

political parties

or

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

54

Rather, most groups and organizations within the region decisions based

on

policy alternatives

advantages fits

—

to

political

their

—vaguely

itself.

own

interests

and

utilities.

and the decisions of others

make

Each evaluates

in

terms of the

defined social, political, and economic bene-

Geographical subareas are microcosms of sociobut

differentiation,

with

often

identifiable

specialized

ecological functions in the larger regional economy. Political jurisdictions within the region are

fragmented and remain so because

of the nature of the public goods and services they provide.

pattern of structural multinucleation local

The

reinforced by the desire of

is

government to control taxation and expenditure decisions;

the need for a wide variety of local market baskets of public goods

and

services;

and the

which production of

different levels at

The

services reach economies of scale.

autonomy and the attempts

to maintain political

social

desire of local governments

of public

and

private interest groups to maintain a variety of leverage points in

the policy-making process militate against imposition of wide-

spread government consolidation, centralized coordination, and hierarchical integration.

The policy-making process continuous because centralized

it

structure.

environments,

is

incremental, disjointed, and dis-

takes place within a fragmented and de-

Moreover,

decisions

are

in

made by

organizationally individuals

complex

with limited

cognitive capacities, with imperfect information concerning present

circumstances, the intentions of other participants in the policy-

making process, and future to

events. In order for

implement socioeconomic and

effects

on other organizations,

explicit approval of a large

When

it

one organization

political decisions with spillover

must obtain

number

tacit

consensus or

of public and private groups.

the actions of one organization pose threats to the interests

of others, a conflict occurs. Resolution requires interaction through

processes of adjustment, negotiation, and bargaining, compromise,

exchange, or coalition building. Each process of interaction involves both real and opportunity costs to the participants.

The consequences

of the interaction processes are often un-

55

Planning and the Political Process

As

predictable from the outset.

ished

during

re-evaluate

their

interests,

uncertainty

may

groups

process,

the

their

alter

is

increased or dimin-

redefine

their

goals,

bargaining positions, re-

examine their expectations concerning the probabilities of success,

and

shift the allocation of their resources, the intensity

of their demands, and the

commit to

amount

to specific policy alternatives.

obtain mutually

which vary

in composition

Groups also

objectives

beneficial

from small

act in concert

by forming

coalitions,

elites to potentially large-

scale constellations. The composition and shift

and scope

of support they are willing to

life

of the coalitions

with specific policy issues.

The whole process

making takes place within past decisions and policies and

of regional policy

parameters set by accumulations of

the dynamics of current socioeconomic

and technological change

Urban

regions are open systems.

within and outside of the region.

They

are subject to constraints

zations located within

can be neither internal

and influences over which organi-

them have

little

or no control and which

nor rationally planned. Both the

fully anticipated

and external socioeconomic and technological conditions

are continuously changing. Alterations occur in the

amount

of

information available to decision-making organizations within the region; the degree of uncertainty under which the decisions are

being made; the cost conditions and potential gains from pursuing a particular course of action; expectations concerning the probability of social,

economic, and political events; and the perceptions

of the roles which groups and organizations can play in the policymaking process. Traditional management science prescriptions are neither effective nor relevant to policy planning

and program

administration in organizationally complex environments.

Conventional proposals also founder on the naive assumption that the "public interest" is analysis

an

identifiable criterion for policy

and choice, an assumption that claims, with Daland and

Parker, that the planner "his perspective differs

makes a unique contribution because

from others

he has special technical

skills,

in the decision arena in that

he employs a long-range view of

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

56

development, and he in

entirety." 21

its

public interest

utilizes these

elements to view the community

Planners maintain, with Lippmann, that "the

may be presumed

they saw clearly,

to

be what

thought rationally,

men would

choose

if

acted disinterestedly and

benevolently." 22

Yet by what

come

intellectual

and moral powers do planners over-

the limitations of other policy makers? Cannot others with

different

interests,

values,

also think clearly, rationally,

criteria,

and perspectives

objectives,

and benevolently? Would

all

planners,

given the same policy problem, facts, and access to information,

come

to the

same conclusion?

How

do planners decide what

be the optimal solution for future generations

at the target dates

of ten- or twenty-five-year long-range comprehensive plans? training

will

do planners receive that makes them more

What

sensitive to the

"public interest" than other professionals or politicians in legisla-

and executive positions?

tive

a technical

skill,

If

determining the public interest

what techniques do planners use? Or

is

is

determin-

ing the optimal solution an intuitive, judgmental art? In that case,

do

all

planners possess such intuitive judgment?

What

processes

of recruitment into the profession ensure that planners will possess

such qualifications?

Is there in reality

an objective

criterion, the

"public interest," that can be used as the basis for evaluating

choice in policy making?

"To hold out

the public interest as a criterion

is

to offer

an

imponderable," Herring concluded from his study of policy making in federal agencies. "Representing the public interest

of

individual

judgment.

No

objective

standard

is

is

a matter

possible." 23

Planning theory, based on the assumption that a community, or a 21.

Robert T. Daland and John A. Parker, "Roles of the Planner

in

Urban Development," in F. Stuart Chapin, Jr., and Shirley F. Weiss, eds., Urban Growth Dynamics (New York: Wiley, 1962), pp. 188-225, quote at p. 214.

22. Walter Lippman, Essays in American Library, 1955), p. 42.

the Public Philosophy

23. E. Pendleton Herring, Public Administration

(New York: McGraw-Hill,

1936), pp. 26, 152.

(New York: New

and the Public

Interest

57

Planning and the Political Process region, or a nation has

"an interest"

set of operational goals

—has

—

a compatible and identifiable

led to the conviction that

if

policy

making could only be freed from the influence of politics and "selfish interests" the public interest would triumph. "It is no derogation of democratic preferences," that such an assertion

the behavior of

men

in a

flies

Truman

notes, "to state

in the face of all that

complex

society."

we know

of

24

Finally, prescriptions for rational comprehensiveness are, ipso

cannot define "compre-

facto, nonoperational. Legislative bodies

hensiveness."

Administrative

agencies

cannot

set

up working

standards to achieve synoptic objectives. Executives cannot evaluate programs or policies to determine

if

they are being formu-

and implemented comprehensively. Legitimate interest groups 25 cannot calculate the costs and benefits of comprehensive goals.

lated

It

not surprising that federal urban and regional develop-

is

ment

assistance agencies with enabling legislation requiring

com-

prehensive planning have not been able to implement congressional intent. Indeed, they intent.

Nor have

have not been able to interpret congressional

federal administrators been able to evaluate local

planning efforts or to enforce comprehensive planning require-

—a law and continuing planning process"—

ments. Studies of the Federal- Aid

Highway Act

of 1962

requiring that aided highway projects be the result of a "cooperative,

comprehensive,

that the

indicate

Bureau of Public Roads did not and could not execute

that mandate.

It

viewed the requirements as disruptive to

program and procedures. The bureau lacked the

political

power

its

to

Truman, p. 50. Meyerson and Banfield detail the limitations on the ability of Chicago's City Planning Commission to obtain the information, power, consent, or technical skill to make a comprehensive plan. See Martin Meyerson and Edward Banfield, Politics, Planning and the Public Interest (Glencoe: Free Press, 1955), ch. 10. Alan Altshuler's study of Minneapolis-St. Paul concluded that even if planners in those cities had the capability to make master plans, participants in the policy-making process could not and would not evaluate, legitimize, or implement them (The City Planning Process 24.

25.

[Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1965], pp. 311

ff.)

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

58

impose comprehensive planning rules on

and municipal governments

sions

highway commis-

state

in metropolitan areas. 26

The Area Redevelopment Administration's attempts to implement congressional requirements for submission of overall eco-

(OEDPs) by

nomic development plans

condition for financial assistance were no

depressed areas as a

more

successful.

ARA

was able neither

to specify requirements for comprehensiveness

nor to

the

evaluate

OEDPs

submitted.

Most

distressed

area

organizations, therefore, simply filed superficial reports filled with

masses of badly analyzed data to

satisfy

minimum

standards.

ARA

faced the equally unpleasant alternatives of accepting plans they

knew were inadequate qualified

for

constraints

or of declaring certain depressed areas un-

assistance.

prevented

But both administrative and agency from disqualifying

the

because they did not perform a task that define nor evaluate.

ARA itself could neither

"The agency resolved

one observer, "by accepting each

OEDP

political localities

this

dilemma," reports

submitted by communities

as a token of good faith and an indication that the community

desired to plan

The

its

economic future on a sound

older federal programs of urban renewal and

planning have never been able to tional.

basis." 27

The "701" program and

make

community

synoptic analysis opera-

the "Workable

Program" of urban

renewal long ago were recognized as unworkable. 28 Attempts to formulate Model Cities guidelines to allow analysis

and planning by

maximum freedom

localities failed miserably.

for

"They did no

good," one former Model Cities Administration deputy director complained. "Most of the

cities didn't

were willing to play our

silly little

meant 26.

as a challenge, a prod,

See

understand the process but

game

for

was interpreted

money. What was as a regulation, a

Thomas A. Morehouse, "The 1962 Highway Act: (May 1969), 160-168.

A

Study of

Artful Interpretation," JAIP, 35

27. Sar A. Levitan, Federal Aid to Depressed Areas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1964), p. 200. 28. Quoted in Scott Greer, Urban Renewal and American Cities (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 109.

59

Planning and the Political Process

you can

cage. Regulations

The comprehensive planning Cities administration were

freedom

relate to;

something

is

applications submitted to the

"little

more than laundry

lists

inventories of desirable projects, often put together

consultants."

else."

29

Model

or back

by outside

30

Efforts to institutionalize systems analysis, planning-program-

ming-budgeting, and other forms of synoptic evaluation fared better than attempts at master planning. In istration abolished

PPBS

causes, any of which

"PPB

died because of the

sufficient,"

manner

across-the-board and without

new men

of

1970 the Nixon admin-

in federal agencies.

was

much

little

"PPB

died of multiple

one systems analyst notes.

in

which

it

preparation.

was introduced,

PPB

died because

power were arrogantly insensitive to budgetary tradiloyalties, and personal relationships." 31 Ad-

institutional

tions,

ministrative agencies were unable to categorize their activities into

program frameworks, ities,

measure

attribute costs

spillovers

and

benefits to social activ-

and diseconomies, make

tradeoffs

disparate programs, project future trends, and translate sets into

budget requirements.

"No one knows how

to

among

program

do program

budgeting," Wildavsky concluded, "program budgeting cannot be stated in operational terms. There

words mean

let

is

alone an ability to

no agreement on what the show another person what

should be done." 32

Planning Theory and Urban and Regional Development Policy

The problems

of planning theory are

by the search during the past decade 29.

most vividly demonstrated

for

means

to redevelop de-

Fred Jordan, "Confessions of a Former Grantsman," City (Summer

1971). 30.

Judson L. James, "Federalism and the Model Cities Experiment,"

Publius, 2 (Spring 1972), 69-94, quote at p. 82. 31. Allen Schick, "A Death in the Bureaucracy:

The Demise of Federal PPB," Public Administration Review, 33 (March/ April 1973), 146-156, quote at p. 148. 32. Aaron Wildavsky, "Rescuing Policy Analysis from PPBS," Public Administration Review, 29 (March/ April, 1969), 189-202, quote at p. 193.

60

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

pressed urban regions. Major

difficulties in establishing

ment planning agencies and delineating have

arisen.

their roles

develop-

and functions

Conventional prescriptions have not provided workeither for solving the substantive problems

able guidelines,

of

regional development or for institutionalizing policy analysis functions.

Proposals to attach the planning

making

decision

in

staff to

government have been of

little

"the center" of

help in pluralistic

systems and in urban regions lacking either area-wide

political

government control or the prospects for achieving failures indicate that current planning doctrine

may be

it.

These

not only

irrelevant, but perverse.

An

alternative to the comprehensive-rational-hierarchical ap-

proach to be

needed

is

made

if

urban and regional development planning

effective in the

United

States.

Development of

is

that

however, depends on the progress of research along

alternative,

three lines. First, better descriptive studies are needed of the

urban and regional development

way

policies are actually formulated

and implemented. Surely planning cannot prescribe improvements in processes

found

and

to

it

cannot describe accurately. Second, means must be

change attitudes and perceptions concerning the nature

characteristics of

dynamic

political interaction in organiza-

complex environments. This requires an understanding of

tionally

urban areas as complex

sociopolitical,

economic, and cultural

the

The multinucleated structure of regional policy making result of the way in which a complex society makes its

social,

economic, and political decisions rather than of pernicious

systems. is

administrative inefficiency, social irrationality, and political disorder.

The

pluralism, decentralization, openness, shared influence,

and disjointed performance of functions

result

from the ways

organizations respond to conditions in their environment.

They

adjust to each other's actions through processes of political interaction.

But these processes that shape the structure of regional made to conform to the traditional pre-

organization cannot be scriptions

of planning administration, which attempt to ignore,

suppress, or centrally control the effects of such interaction.

Planning and the Political Process Ecological and political interaction, in fact,

make

61

the very con-

cept of the urban region as a "structural place" inadequate. Close

examination of the forces that shape the organizational structure of regions confirms Webber's hypothesis that the variables effecting the rate

and direction of development are not

internal

and

realms."

The most important

among

most important

structural, but interactions

among "nonplace urban

factors are process variables: linkages

specialized activities, channels of communication, exchange

and adjustment, and the flows of information, money, goods, people, and other socioeconomic and political resources

among

decision-making organizations. Both planning and public administration theory

must reorient

their

concern from structural re-

organization to the urban region "as

system of dynamic interrelationships

by

as these are modified

a culturally conditioned

among

individuals

and groups

their locational distributions." 33

Former Budget Director Charles Schultze has concisely summarized the problem:

To manage

the

government units

on a

new

—

all

social

programs

efficiently

we must

of which have equal status

—

to

get

many

work together

any one being considered the "boss" of have to develop the managerial techniques of voluntary cooperation and that is much tougher than the other way of having people told what they are to do. The answers to our current organizational dilemma are, therefore, not to be found in the reports of the two Hoover Commissions and the President's Committee on Adminsingle project, without

the other.

istrative

We

—

Management. The Hoover Commission solution of "placing by jowl" so that "overlaps can be eliminated,

related functions cheek

and even of greater importance coordinated policies can be developed" not workable when you must combine major purpose programs such as health, education, manpower training, and housing in alleviating the social and economic ills of a specific metropolitan area, city

is

or neighborhood, 34 33. Melvin M. Webber, "The Urban Place and the Nonplace Urban Realms," in Melvin Webber et al., Explorations into Urban Structure (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964), pp. 70-153, quote at p. 93.

34. U.S.

Congress, Senate Committee on Government Operations, The

Planning Theory and Public Policy Making

62 If

attitudes

tions are

and perceptions are

to

be changed,

reliable proposi-

needed about the nature and characteristics of

interaction.

political

These propositions may yield a framework for a

planning strategy. Finally, the function, role,

and

definition of planning in

and regional development must be reassessed.

How

urban

planning can

enter a pluralistic political system to guide and facilitate innovation

and change

in

urban regions must be the key concern of that

reassessment.

Urban Affairs, Hearings, Statement of Charles L. Schultze, Bureau of the Budget, 90th Cong., 1st sess., June 28, 1967, Committee Print, pt. 20, pp. 4261-4262. Federal Role

Director, U.S.

in

PART

II

POLICY FORMULATION:

THE EVOLUTION OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

Legislative policy-making appears to be the result of a confluence

of factors stemming from an almost endless

number of

tributaries:

national experience, the contributions of social theorists, the clash

of powerful economic interests, the quality of Presidential leadership, other institutional

and personal ambitions and administrative

arrangements in the Executive Branch, the initiative, effort and ambitions of individual legislators and their governmental and staffs, the policy commitments of political and the predominant cultural symbols in the minds both of leaders and followers in Congress. Most of these forces appear to be involved at every stage in the policy-making process, and they act only within the most general limits of popular concern

non-governmental

parties,

about a specific

—Stephen K.

issue.

Bailey, Congress

Makes

a

Law

CHAPTER

3

Emergence of a Policy: The Area Redevelopment Act

am

"If I

that I bill,"

1

want

elected,

and

if

Flood

to pass the Congress,

if

I

can help

John F. Kennedy from a platform

said

of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,

on a

crisp

Luzerne County Congressman Daniel

The crowd

major

elected, the first

is

J.

it,

will

be the

bill

ARA

in the public square

October day

Flood stood

in 1960.

at his side.

that filled the small patch of green in the center of the

deteriorating coal-mining

town of northeastern Pennsylvania had

heard promises of assistance from presidential candidates before.

The Area Redevelopment Act (ARA) that Flood cosponsored had been bottled up in Congress by political opposition for more than five years. Meanwhile cities like Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Hazleton, and a dozen mining towns dotting a begrimed landscape

overshadowed by black, smoking culm mountains were slowly

The whole region, seven counties in the corner of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania between the southern tier of New York and the northwestern quarter of New Jersey, had experienced three decades of depression and poverty. The people of the area had made arduous attempts to adjust to the vagaries of economic dying.

and technological progress long before proposals for federal redevelopment assistance were introduced in Congress in the mid1950's.

Demands

poverty, 1.

and

for help in overcoming wholesale

physical

deterioration

—such

as

unemployment,

Kennedy

Congressional Record, Vol. Ill, Part 15, 89th Cong., 1st 20244.

12, 1965, p.

sess.,

had Aug.

66

Policy Formulation

promised

West

to fulfill in

Virginia,

speech after speech on his travels through

and other Appalachian

Kentucky,

been voiced by public

officials,

northeastern Pennsylvania.

The

states

—had

labor leaders, and businessmen in policies

and programs for regional

development that emerged from Congress in the early 1960's were shaped by the plight of hundreds of such distressed areas scattered throughout the nation.

The Forces

By

of Regional

Development

the early 1800's rapid industrialization in the Northeast

begun to

strain severely the supplies of fuel

—

—

charcoal and

had fire-

wood traditionally used for space heating and manufacturing. As the forests of northeastern Pennsylvania were depleted, a search began for new forms of fuel. Anthracite coal had been used locally in Pennsylvania since the middle of the eighteenth but not for large-scale commercial purposes until the

century, early

1830's because of the high cost of transportation. Local

roads were poor and a network of intercity highways had not yet developed.

A series of technological

combined with the

rising

demand

advances in transportation,

for anthracite, eventually trig-

gered economic growth. Shipping costs were reduced when local

and

state

governments cooperated with private companies

to create

an inland canal system along the northern and central Atlantic coast.

Local canals were then constructed to link up to the larger

interstate system.

With expansion of the

railroads

from 1840 to

1860 anthracite coal became a major source of space heating and industrial

and transport

The export ization.

fuel.

2

of coal brought rapid economic growth and urban-

Between 1890 and 1919 coal production rose from a

more than 50

million to

more than 92

million net tons.

little

The value

2. See the recollections of Terence V. Powderly, The Path I Trod (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940), ch. 1; and George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York: Harper, 1968), especially chs. 2 and 5.

The Area Redevelopment Act

67

600 percent. By 1915 more than 170,000 men were employed in the northeastern Pennsylvania mines. Population in and around the cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Hazleton increased by more of production in the anthracite industry increased nearly

than 50 percent every decade between 1830 and 1870, the total in the region tripling in the following half-century

to

more than one

million.

strongly influenced

Composition of

this

from 265,000

new population was

by the demands of the coal industry for relawork under adverse conditions for

tively unskilled labor willing to

long hours and low wages. Thousands of eastern and southeastern

Europeans

—

Slavs, Italians, Russians,

and Poles

shanties

attracted

Immigrants were exploited by the

to northeastern Pennsylvania.

mine owners. The companies provided housing in the

—were little

better than

and shacks, and they monopolized commercial enterprises

towns and

cities of

the region.

Over 50 percent of company

houses were assessed at a value of between $10 and $100 in

1900; a typical one had "no

no paper, no

ceiling,

cellar,

no foundation, no

plastering,

simply the frame with rough hemlock boards

nailed upright and strips fastened over the joints." 3

The environment was up

dirty

and dismal. "Even when they come

to the air of the outside world

vitiated

it

is

a bad air that

by fumes of the burning mines," a

the living conditions of

is theirs,

British author studying

immigrant European miners wrote

at the

turn of the century, "for at Scranton also the coal has been on fire

for ten years,

and the smoke

wastes in volumes, and diffuses

One would

rolls

from the slag-coloured

itself into

the general atmosphere.

think that the wretched frame-dwellings, ruined by

on which they were built, and begrimed with the smoke which factories belched all day, would the subsidence of the ground

disgust humanity." 4 Exploitation of the immigrants led to

some

of

(New York: Macand passim, quote at p. 129. 4. Stephen Graham, With Poor Immigrants to America (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 138. 3.

See Peter Roberts, Anthracite Coal Communities

millan, 1904), pp. 12-19,

68

Policy Formulation

the

most militant labor union

strikes

and

companies.

bloody

activity in the country with violent

between

conflicts

miners

and

the

coal

5

Despite the adversities of

life

and and labor

in the coal mines,

the economic growth that anthracite fostered provided employ-

ment and income for thousands of unskilled and uneducated immigrants. They would have found little better opportunity elsewhere, and they had left worse prospects in their native lands.

Many saw

opportunities for advancement in Scranton, Wilkes-

Barre, and the smaller mining towns of northeastern Pennsylvania.

By

the

1920's these

found in

cities of

cities

provided the

comparable

full

range of amenities

size elsewhere in the nation, plus

opportunities for skilled labor and professional practice in services related to mining. their

into

own homes, American

Many

miners soon had saved enough to build

educate their children, and begin to assimilate

society.

"What Could Anybody Do

for the

Poor Devils?"

Economic and technological change could give prosperity but could also take it away. The same forces that led to the development of northeastern Pennsylvania at the turn of the century later brought economic depression. National demand for coal declined sharply by the early 1930's. The increasing use of gas, electricity, and petroleum products for residential and commercial heating deprived the anthracite industry of

its

largest markets.

Average

annual output and value of production dropped nearly 75 percent in the

decade ending in 1935. Mine owners cut back employment

by 35,000

in

the

same

period.

To

a regional economy highly

specialized in the production of coal, these changes brought dis-

placement of a specialized labor force, widespread unemployment in service

industries,

Poverty spread

and decline

among

in total

productive capacity.

those people unable to find jobs in the

5. See S. Perlman and P. Taft, History of Labor in the United 1896-1932 (New York: Macmillan, 1935), especially ch. 4.

States,

— The Area Redevelopment Act area and unable or unwilling to

move

69

elsewhere. Physical structure

slowly deteriorated.

Some

business and civic leaders recognized early in the century

economy dependent on one

that a local

industry was at the

of one-product demand fluctuations. Sporadic

Scranton around 1910 to diversify the

The Chamber

of

Commerce mobilized

city's

efforts

economic

mercy

began

in

structure.

business and civic leaders

throughout the community in the 1920's and 1930's in an attempt to create a

fund to subsidize the location and expansion of manu-

facturing industries in the city, but with

success. Decisions

little

of the mine owners to cut back production had serious economic

The

effects.

jobless

were for the most part unskilled and un-

The demand

educated; their only training was coal mining.

such labor in other regions was low.

Many

of the miners

for

had

invested their meager savings in housing. Moreover, because they

shared ties

common backgrounds and had

and

social

elsewhere.

commitments

By 1940

developed strong family

to the region,

many

refused to

move

average unemployment in northeast Pennsyl-

vania reached 27 percent. One-third of the labor force was un-

employed

in

some urban

centers of the anthracite region.

Facing imminent collapse of the civic

and business leaders

following

money Private

World War

city's

economic base, Scranton

intensified industrial

II.

Community-wide fund

to build shell plants for firms willing to

enterprises

—power

promotion

companies,

move

banks,

drives

efforts

raised

into the area.

even colleges

with large investments in the region or uniquely tied to the local

economy

for their

own

growth, devoted substantial resources to

economic redevelopment. The mobilization program known as the Scranton Plan was used by a plethora of other industrial devel-

opment groups throughout northeastern Pennsylvania. 6 Unemploy6. See I. Wingeard and M. Null, Jr., "Local Action Develops Jobs in Keystone State," Employment Security Review, 20 (Dec. 1953), 6-7, and Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, The Business Review, Dec. 1949, pp. 120-127, and Dec. 1952, pp. 4-11.

70

Policy Formulation

ment continued, however,

200 percent higher than the national average. Physical deterioration and land subsidence became worse. Second- and third-generation immigrants, better educated and less tied to social and family customs, left the area. Between 1940 and 1950 the region lost about 200,000 100

at a rate

to

people.

Local leaders turned for assistance to the federal government

and the major the

political parties,

major candidates in the

hoping for promises of aid from

1952 presidential

election.

One

observer traveling with Adlai Stevenson later recalled the reaction of the candidate as his train stopped at Scranton:

About two hundred people had gathered in the railway yard to hear him make the first of a day-long series of whistle stop speeches, and a sorry crowd they were. Out-of-work coal miners, bleary and unshaven, a few railroad hands, a scattering of tired looking

women

shivering inside their thin coats. Stevenson spoke for about fifteen

minutes, assuring them that they were not forgotten, that elected President he

would do something

he were and other

if

to rescue Scranton

dying towns of Appalachia. Their applause sounded polite but unAs the train pulled out Stevenson turned to a pair of

convinced.

speech writers

who were

assigned to the train for that

week

to outline

he wanted covered in the coming whistle stops of the day seventeen of them if I remember rightly. Then, as we rolled past the smoldering mine dumps at the edge of town he thought back for a moment at the promises he had just made. "My God," he said, "what could anybody do for the poor devils stuck in a graveyard like briefly the points

—

Scranton?" 7

Northeastern Pennsylvanians had a long

government could do

to assist their

list

of things the federal

redevelopment

efforts.

bers of the Northeast Pennsylvania Industrial Development

mission

(NPIDC), formed

in

1950

to

MemCom-

seek federal and state

assistance to attract industry, presented President Eisenhower in

1953 with a detailed report on conditions

in the anthracite region.

7. John Fischer, "The Lazarus Twins in Pennsylvania: How Scranton and Wilkes-Barre Are Rising from the Dead," Harper's Magazine, Nov.

1969, p. 13.

The Area Redevelopment Act

They requested a

71

greater proportion of defense contracts for local

firms,

the location of federal field offices in the region's larger

cities,

appropriations for river valley public works projects, re-

forestation programs, also brought to

and help

many

certain

'in

because of their inability to get such

and

to discuss

glass. its

flooding.

They

later of

were suffering from

local industries

raw and semifinished

firms in the region were forced to cut

steel,

mine

the attention of the White House, and

Congress, the fact that severe shortages

in preventing

materials. Small

back or suspend production

critical materials as

aluminum,

NPIDC

delegation

Eisenhower arranged for the

problems with the Council of Economic Advisers

and the Department of Commerce, but the administration mately refused to provide any

aid.

ulti-

8

Pennsylvania's Fight for Federal Assistance

Subsequent changes in Washington, however, were to offer northeastern Pennsylvania's development leaders federal intervention.

By 1955

at least 19

some hope

for

major and 156 smaller

labor market areas throughout the nation were suffering chronic

and

persistent

economic

unemployment.

activity

and changes

Fundamental in

redistributions

of

the productive capacities of

multistate regions were causing local distress throughout the nation.

Nearly 150,000 jobs were

lost in the

New

England

textile industry

between 1950 and 1959 because of industrial migration. Coalmining towns in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, and

plummeted

to their

Illinois

economic nadir. Exhaustion or depletion of

natural resources, changing production and transport technology,

and competition from other areas with industries producing substitute

goods brought economic

region. Local problems rate of

crisis to

the

Upper Great Lakes

were aggravated by the increasing national

unemployment.

Increasing political and economic pressures were brought to 8.

See Northeast Pennsylvania Industrial Development Commission, "ReRecommendations Made to the President by NPIDC," Scranton,

port on

1954, mimeographed, passim.

Policy Formulation

72

bear on Congress and the White House. The Council of Economic Advisers created a task force to study the problem and found

some

basis for federal concern.

more unemployment was not

But Eisenhower and

conservative advisers maintained that local

his

a problem with which the federal government should interfere. In

1955 report the council concluded that "a large part of the

its

adjustment of depressed areas to

new economic

can and should be carried out by the local

The whole problem

conditions both

citizens themselves." 9

of regional depression was condensed by the

council staff to "spot unemployment."

Some congressmen from depressed urban

areas were not satis-

fied with the council's analysis or with the administration's

view

of the role of the federal government. Senator Paul H. Douglas, a

former economics professor, had long been concerned that certain geographical areas lagged behind the

economy

whole in pro-

as a

and income. His campaign for

duction, employment,

re-election in

1954 gave him a personal view of economic depression southern quarter of

Illinois.

10

in the

Douglas concluded that local

re-

sources were insufficient to overcome the comparative economic

disadvantages of depressed areas and that infusion of external capital could assist localities to adjust to changing

economic and

technological conditions, which were, he believed, national trends.

In 1955, as a

member

mittee, he severely criticized report.

Economic Comthe Council of Economic Advisers'

of the Congressional Joint

Together with the Legislative Reference Service, Douglas'

staff hastily

drafted a depressed areas assistance

bill,

senator introduced in the Eighty-fourth Congress. bill

which the

The Douglas

proposed a $100 million revolving fund to aid those urban

industrial areas

three years, 9.

which had average unemployment of 6 percent for

or unemployment of 9 percent over the previous

Economic Report of

the President (Washington:

Government

Print-

ing Office, 1955), p. 57.

The

early history of the depressed areas program is described in by Sar A. Levitan, Federal Aid to Depressed Areas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1964), ch. 1, Levitan, working with the Legislative Reference Service, played an important role in drafting the Douglas bill. 10.

detail

The Area Redevelopment Act eighteen months. loans,

It

and grants

73

called for assistance, vocational retraining,

new

subsidize the location of

to

industry in

depressed areas.

Douglas hastily introduced

this bill

before the adjournment of

Congress to upstage the Council of Economic Advisers and the

Bureau of the Budget, which advocated limited assistance programs. By 1956 the Council of Economic Advisers was forced to admit that "the fate of distressed communities

is

a matter of

11

The administration introduced $50 million (compared to Douglas' revised $390 million) program of loans to new and expanding businesses in depressed areas. The main thrust of the administration measure, however, was aimed at imposing restrictions on the Douglas bill. The administration was adamant in the belief that regional economic depression was mainly the concern of local governments and private business groups and that the federal role should be limited to making loans to private enterprise. national as well as local concern."

its

own

bill calling

for a

"They Were Deadly Enemies of the Thing from the Beginning" Naturally, the Douglas

bill

had more appeal to congressmen

from depressed regions than the administration's stopgap measure. Representative Daniel

many

J.

Flood of Luzerne County had spent

years trying to get federal assistance for his area.

the Senate

Committee on Labor and Public Welfare

1956: "This

is

He

told

in hearings in

the seventh time that I have appeared before a

House Committee, a Senate Committee, a pendent commission, against commissions

executive

on

this

joint committee, inde-

commissions,

and commissions

problem. So far altogether

accomplished practically nothing."

12

we have

Flood saw the opportunity

now to ally himself with other legislators from depressed areas. He became the chief sponsor and floor strategist for the Douglas 11.

Economic Report of

the President (Washington:

Government

Print-

ing Office, 1956), p. 61. 12. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Area Development, Hearings, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 1956, pt I, p. 681.

74

Policy Formulation

legislation in the

House

of Representatives

and was a major force

behind what was to become known as the "Pennsylvania Lobby."

But area redevelopment faced a number of obstacles In

ington.

addition

to

the

Commerce, strong opposition was expressed by of

Commerce and

(NAM),

the

in

Wash-

and the Department of

president

the U.S.

Chamber

National Association of Manufacturers

both influential and experienced pressure groups. Most

of the organized business lobbies fought against federal redevelop-

ment

They believed

assistance.

that such aid violated traditional

business ideology: individual enterprise, reliance on market operations,

and freedom of

local

government from federal intervention. 13

The major strategy of the proponents of the Douglas-Flood bill was to convince Congress and the administration that widespread "grass roots" support existed for the program. Numerous witnesses representing local government and local chambers of commerce were called before House and Senate committees during 1956. Pennsylvania Governor George M. Leader and Secretary of Commerce William Davlin assured Congress ernments

urgently

needed

federal

that state

and

local gov-

Congressman

help.

Flood

arranged for the Senate Subcommittee on Labor to hold hearings in Wilkes-Barre in February. section

of

local

organizations

Representatives of the United

Garment Workers,

to

He

testify

favor of the

in

Mine Workers,

bill.

International Ladies

AFL-CIO

Textile Workers,

field

then mobilized a cross

Building Trades

Council, and the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor were recruited to record their assent to the legislation. Local mayors, administrative officials,

and

Flood was able

industrial

to get

to testify in favor of the

tion of the U.S.

by Douglas

development groups made statements.

most of the larger chambers of commerce Douglas

bill,

Chamber. 14 Similar

hoping to

field

offset the opposi-

hearings were arranged

in other states with seriously depressed areas.

The

role of pressure groups in influencing area redevelopment legisanalyzed extensively in Roger H. Davidson, "The Depressed Areas Controversy: A Case of American Business Politics," Ph.D. dissertation, 13.

lation

is

Columbia University, 1963. 14. Area Redevelopment, Hearings, 1956,

pt. II, pp.

466

ff.

The Area Redevelopment Act

But the

To

passage.

was not yet large enough

coalition

75

to ensure the bill's

obtain the votes of rural Southern legislators

who

held

committee chairmanships, Douglas agreed to demands by

vital

Senator

William Fulbright of Arkansas that a compromise

J.

provision be added to the

bill

creating a separate revolving fund

for loans to rural areas of equal

Fulbright

also*

magnitude to that of urban areas.

demanded, and

a provision for unlimited

got,

redevelopment assistance.

qualification of rural counties for area

The Douglas

bill

passed the Senate and was sent to the House a

few days before adjournment. Democrats attempted

up

called

for consideration before the

end of the

suspension of the rules required to extricate

it

to get the bill

session, but the

from the House

Rules Committee required a two-thirds vote and the consent of the minority floor leader. Republicans consulted with the

White

House. Meanwhile, Republican Congressmen Ivor Fenton from

Van Zandt from Altoona

Scranton and James

introduced a com-

promise measure in the hope that the administration would allow it

to

be voted upon. Eisenhower

ment

of

Commerce, whose

redevelopment

Flood

bill

administration's

Douglas Congress.

—

House floor not the DouglasFenton-Van Zandt compromise, or the

own

proposal. 15

reintroduced

A

refused to consent to any area

reaching the the

legislation,

negotiations to the Depart-

left

officials

similar

coalition with

legislation

in

the

Eighty-fifth

Senator Frederick Payne, a Maine

Republican, enabled Douglas to guide the measure through committee to the Senate floor. Eventually

and the House. The iterated

his

belief

bill

that

it

passed both the Senate

was vetoed by Eisenhower, who industrial

development

was

a

re-

local

responsibility.

In 1958, however, changing economic and political conditions

placed aid to depressed areas in a veto

became a major

15. Details are

Hill: Studies in

issue in the

new

context.

The Eisenhower

1958 congressional campaign.

provided by John Bibby and Roger Davidson, the Legislative Process

Winston, 1967), ch.

6.

(New York:

On

Capitol

Holt, Rinehart and

76

Policy Formulation

Unemployment was rising to its highest World War II recovery, Democrats from areas

won

heavily

—almost

since

the post-

districts in

depressed

level

four out of five congressional districts

where incumbent Republicans were defeated were areas. 16

Douglas reintroduced

The

Eighty-sixth Congress. clear to both parties,

his

bill

in depressed

for a third time in the

lessons of the 1958

and several depressed area

campaign were were drafted

bills

by both Democrats and Republicans. The administration's tion,

posi-

however, remained unchanged. Republicans from depressed

areas were placed in uncomfortable political situations. Senator

Hugh

Scott,

a Republican from Pennsylvania, broke with the

administration on the issue in 1958 and offered what he hoped

would be a compromise

more important than

bill.

But

political criteria

became

steadily

the economic and philosophical motivations

behind the proposals. Scott's

bill

only caused wider cleavages.

An

observer described the environment in which the fate of the

program was being decided: In this atmosphere, aid to depressed areas became a political football.

The Administration continued

attack the Douglas

bill, and the any other compromise measure. As a result when the Douglas bill came up for a vote before the Senate on March 23, 1959, it only won by a 49-46 majority. Conservative Democrats withdrew their support of the bill, and a

Democrats refused

number of

liberal

Republicans

favor of the Douglas the Scott

bill

bill

came up

approval of their bill,

depressed areas.

own

who

in previous Congresses voted in

supported the Scott compromise. But when it was rejected overwhelmingly Democrats who insisted upon the

for a vote,

(74-20) by a coalition of Republican

to

to accept the Scott bill or

bill,

liberal

Administration stalwarts

and conservatives who opposed

The Administration

bill

who

supported the

all legislation

to aid

could muster only a few

Democratic supporters and was defeated by a 52-43

vote. Since

contained no provisions to help rural depressed areas

it

had

it

little

to offer the Southern Democrats, and, of course, the liberals considered it

completely inadequate. 17 16.

See Levitan, pp. 4-5, 12-13

17. Ibid., p. 14.

The Area Redevelopment Act Northeastern mobilized.

77

Pennsylvania business and political leaders again

When

the

was reintroduced

bill

in the Eighty-sixth

Congress, Pennsylvania's Secretary of Labor and Industry William Batt became a leading lobbyist for

passage. With

its

Solomon

Barkin, a research economist with the Textile Workers Union,

Batt set up the Area

Employment Expansion Committee

From 1956

ordinate supporting pressure groups.

Batt appeared before numerous

to co-

through 1961,

House and Senate committees

to

present detailed analyses of the problems of depressed regions and to urge passage of federal legislation.

He was

joined by Flood,

Fenton, Davlin, Governor David Lawrence, and Senator Scott. Early in 1958 Congressman Flood organized a campaign

chambers of commerce in to sign

his district to urge President

an area redevelopment

among

Eisenhower

bill.

Meanwhile, in Washington the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

and

NAM

were intensifying

They argued before

their opposition.

congressional committees that state credit organizations and local

development groups were making progress in solving local eco-

nomic problems. Federal programs would be "penalizing success" by taxing healthy economic areas into

distressed

areas.

NAM

result in federal "pirating"

in

an

effort to

induce industry

charged that the subsidies would

of industry.

The American Bankers

Association argued that business loan sections of the

bill

would

obstruct the competitive process of business location. 18

Cleavages developed

among

federal administrative agencies over

The Bureau Labor favored

the merits of the area redevelopment proposal.

of

Employment

its

passage,

ARA

Security in the Department of

despite Eisenhower's opposition,

and quietly provided

supporters with information and encouragement.

The De-

partment of Commerce, however, staunchly supported the president's

position.

Commerce

devoted

blocking the progress of the Douglas

substantial bill

resources

in Congress

to

and to

18. See U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, Area Redevelopment Act, Hearings, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 1959, pp. 188 ff.

78

Policy Formulation

providing information and support to interest groups appearing before congressional committees in opposition to the program.

Flood

complained of the department's role

later

in the struggle:

make no aspersion upon the Department of Commerce, but I know sir, that if we had an enemy in the last 8 years, it was the Department of Commerce with this bill and if I could relate the "I

behind-the-scenes conversations and meetings in the Halls of the

House and

in the Halls of the

Department year

would be no question about the this

attitude of the

They were deadly enemies

bill.

of

the

after year there

Department of thing

from the

beginning." 19

Opposition forces succeeded in locking up the legislation in the

House Ways and Means Committee session.

Only

after

Democratic

pressure on Speaker

for

most of the congressional

liberals in the

Sam Rayburn

House exerted strong

did he undertake the compli-

cated parliamentary maneuvers required to release the

bill

from

the control of the conservative chairman of the committee. Ray-

burn waited

until late in the session, anticipating that

would veto the

bill if it

Eisenhower

passed, thereby giving the Democrats a

strong issue in the 1960 presidential campaign. 20 the

House

in

May

1960.

The bill passed The area redevelopment program was

vetoed by the president for the second time. "This

The

is

a Point Four Program for

My

People"

administration's opposition to the depressed areas

program

became a national issue in the 1960 presidential campaign. John F. Kennedy, former floor manager of the Douglas bill, used the opposition to regional development assistance as a major point in

West Virginia primary, promising, if elected, to give White House support to the measure. He repeated the promise in a number of states after his nomination. In Scranton in October

his

19. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Banking and Currency, Area Redevelopment Act, Hearings, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 1961, Committee

Print, pp. 98-99.

20. See

Bibby and Davidson,

ch. 6, for details.

The Area Redevelopment Act 1960,

Kennedy outlined a

detailed proposal to aid economically

declining areas such as northeastern Pennsylvania.

He

his

Scranton speech with a promise that "as President

all

agencies of

pressed areas."

79

Government

concluded

I will direct

to give priority to the needs of de-

21

The Eighty-seventh Congress

its

first

order of

business, a revised version of the Douglas-Flood

bill.

Attempts

were made

received,

after the election to

as

expand the scope of the

bill.

Groups in northeastern Pennsylvania submitted reports to the president's

and improving munities.

22

asking for

highway systems

depressed com-

in

his staff conferred with

Kennedy

aides

Department of Commerce on redrafting the

in the

But due

regions,

mine subsidence, eliminating slum areas,

interstate

Douglas and

and technicians legislation.

on depressed

special task force

assistance for preventing

to the confusion of presidential transition

Douglas' desire to submit the

bill

quickly,

little

and

revision took

place: the details were similar to those in proposals introduced in

previous sessions. Nevertheless, with a Democrat in the White

House, proponents were confident of approval.

The Pennsylvania lobby again mobilized of public

the

bill.

and private

officials to

Washington

W.

In addition, William

support, sending dozens to speak in behalf of

Scranton had been elected to

Congress from northeastern Pennsylvania and assigned a seat on the

House Banking and Currency Committee, which had

diction over area redevelopment legislation. Daniel

appeared before Congress, for the

same type of

foreign aid

bills.

this

assistance that Congress

my

bills

district,

while they are starving," Flood pleaded.

have 30,000 people in

my

Flood again

time bringing an emotional appeal

"Overwhelmingly these

by the press and the people of

juris-

district

had provided

in

have been supported

seeing billions go

away

"Do you know,

sir,

surviving

I

on surplus food,

21. Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 28, 1960, p. 2.

Report to the Kennedy Task Force on Depressed Areas," prepared by the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce, mimeographed, Dec. 1961. 22. See "Special

80

Policy Formulation

30,000 eating surplus food, so is

why

is

a Point Four program for

I

The

say

I call this

political

on

know whereof

speak and that

1

my people." 23

acceptability

the 1958 congressional lost

I

a Point Four program for America. This

of

area redevelopment shown by

and 1960 presidential campaigns was not

of the Eighty-seventh Congress.

legislators

Thirty-nine

Democratic and four Republican senators joined Douglas in sponsoring the

bill.

Republicans generally, however,

still

hoped

to effect

a more conservative compromise by restricting the proportions of the program. Senator Scott, attempting to introduce a measure on

which moderates could agree, was attacked by Senator Douglas.

Scott's

colleague from

Clark, charged that the compromise it

also

comes too

late."

bill "is

liberal allies of

Pennsylvania,

not only too

Joseph

little,

Douglas accused Scott of being a

but

"split-

down a strong to a number of

the-difference Senator" interested only in watering assistance program. 24

compromises passage.

But Douglas had

in order to

form a

to agree

coalition large

enough

to ensure

In spite of his personal opposition, other proponents

agreed to place the Area Redevelopment Administration under the jurisdiction of the it

Department of Commerce instead of establishing

an independent agency.

as

Many

congressmen insisted that

"antipirating" provisions be included in the

added

bill.

Amendments were

to prohibit the use of loans to assist businesses

moving from

one area to another. After six years of pressuring, campaigning, arbitrating, and

compromising, the Area Redevelopment Act received approval by both houses of Congress in March and was signed into law by the president in

May

1961. Shortly thereafter President Kennedy

appointed Pennsylvania Secretary of Labor and Industry William Batt, Jr., the 23.

first

ARA administrator.

Area Redevelopmcent Act, Hearings, 1961,

p. 100.

24. Congressional Record, Vol. 107, Pt. 3, 87th Cong., 1st sess., 15, 1961, p. 4020.

March

The Area Redevelopment Act

81

Pressures for Policy Expansion

"As much

Area Redevelopment Act was needed,

as the

it

was

said in 1965. "Essentially, the

only the first step," Paul Douglas Area Redevelopment Act was an experimental program to test the feasibility of the economic redevelopment concept and to

develop omies."

25

one of a

new methods for revitalizing local and regional econThe 'Area Redevelopment Act of 1961 was to be but series of responses to the

changing economic and tech-

nological conditions of the 1960's.

The

forces that produced

ARA

generated other ideas, proposals, and programs. seen historically as a catalyst.

Once

enacted,

it

was

to

it

be

became a means

rather than an end, instrumental rather than terminal. Events

quickly displaced istrative

ARA, both as substantive policy and adminNew policies were needed to satisfy the

organization.

continuing, growing

The Legacy of

the

demands

for amelioration of regional distress.

Area Redevelopment Administration

ARA could assist depressed areas in five major ways.

Businesses

located in designated counties could apply for long-term, lowinterest loans to

expand

their operations or begin

new

enterprises.

Loans were available

to local

governments to construct public

works and community

facilities.

Financial and technical assistance

could be given to local redevelopment organizations to prepare "overall economic development programs" sive plans identifying

gesting projects for improving assist

(OEDPs), comprehen-

major causes of economic

distress

economic conditions.

and sug-

ARA

could

both public and private organizations to retrain unemployed

workers. Finally,

it

provided subsistence payments to workers

during their retraining period. Between

1961 and 1963, three hundred projects involving more than $100 million in grants and loans were approved. 25. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, Public Works and Economic Development, Hearings on Titles II and IV of S.

1648, 89th Cong., 1st

sess.,

1965, p. 4.

Policy Formulation

82

But from

its

inception,

plagued the program. agencies had

and administrative troubles

political

ARA

an area

dealt with

which federal

in

experience. Seemingly insurmountable opera-

little

problems arose. 20 From the outset the administrator had

tional

great difficulty finding expert

staff.

petitive with private industry;

and

government agencies because "supergrade"

service

civil

ARA

salaries

were not com-

could not easily "raid" other

it

limited

legislation

positions.

to only five

it

Competent

specialists

in

regional economics, needed to provide technical assistance to local

redevelopment groups priorities,

preparing

OEDPs

and project funding

could not be found.

Administrative problems became more complex in 1962. ARA was given the mission of reducing unemployment in depressed

had large labor

regions while the nation as a whole

nearly

impossible

surpluses, a

task until national economic conditions im-

proved. But as national unemployment rates rose between 1959

and 1961, organizations of municipal and county White House directly,

to

such

labor

develop a program to relieve unemployment

perhaps through massive public works projects

undertaken during the deficit,

officials,

and congressmen from depressed areas pressured the

unions,

the president

enormous

(APW)

bill

difficulty

Deal. Because of a growing budget

was reluctant

expenditures.

was sent

authorizations to

New

$900

like those

commit

to

An

Accelerated

to Congress early in million.

the administration to

The

and was signed by Kennedy

bill

in

Public

was passed with

September.

order, responsibility for the

program

merce and was delegated,

in turn, to the

fell to

Works

1962 which limited

By

little

executive

the Secretary of

Com-

Area Redevelopment

26. An in-depth analysis of its problems was made by the Area Redevelopment Administration staff for the National Public Advisory Committee on Area Redevelopment, "The First Three Years of the Area Redevelopment Program," Unpublished report, Washington, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1964, mimeographed. Administrative operations of ARA have been analyzed by Sar A. Levitan, Federal Aid to Depressed Areas, and Conley H. Dillon, The Area Redevelopment Administration (College Park: University of Maryland, Bureau of Government Research, 1964).

The Area Redevelopment Act

The new

Administration located within the department.

expanded ARA's obligations before

new

functions. Eight thousand

new

it

projects

had

stabilized

83

legislation

its

original

and more than two hundred

labor surplus areas increased the workload of an inadequate

ARA staff.

and already overburdened

Congress, unable to anticipate the consequences of

and without technical expertise

ARA

wide discretion to the agency's

first

responsibilities

decisions

in regional economics,

administrator.

was

its

granted

Thus one of the

to establish criteria for designat-

ing areas eligible for federal aid. Section 5 of the

Area Redevelop-

ment Act provided broad guidelines based on unemployment rates, family income levels, current and prospective employment opportunities, availability of trained manpower, extent of population outmigration, proportion of local residents receiving welfare, and others. later

But some of the indicators were mutually exclusive:

ARA

found that areas with low family incomes did not necessarily

have high unemployment without knowing

if

rates.

Congress included other standards

data even existed.

The agency could not

easily

reckon, for instance, the proportion of local residents receiving public assistance from local, administrator, for

A

and federal sources. 27 The

want of experts, could not

designation standards. of Agriculture

state,

He

and Labor

establish specific

turned, therefore, to the Departments

for technical assistance.

dispute developed between the two departments. Agriculture

insisted that depression

was

basically a rural

problem and offered

a set of criteria that would have designated a vast counties. Labor,

on the other hand,

felt that

number

Congress' intent was

urban industrial depressed areas and offered

to assist

of rural

criteria to

provide aid primarily to these. Agriculture, which had sought to control the rural assistance sections of the

program when the

was before Congress, then refused

ARA

criteria.

Instead

it

to assist

bill

with designation

mobilized interest groups to pressure the agency

into accepting qualifications favorable to rural areas. Standards

27. See

ARA,

pp. 43-46.

84

Policy Formulation

were worked out eventually by

ARA

through a series of compro-

mises with Labor, other federal agencies, and interest groups. Over eight

hundred counties were

employment

rates

creasing pressure led

ARA

criteria

based on un-

But Agriculture's

add 230 counties

to

ARA

Congress also delegated to

eligibility

levels.

to the

list

in-

of eligi-

income or unemployment. 28

ble areas, regardless of

area's designation

under

eligible

and family income

when

local

the

power

to terminate

an

economic conditions no longer met

standards. "Unfortunately adequate data to meet these

implicit needs for information are not available," agency officials

complained.

"Thus the agency cannot

intent of Section

ARA

when they no longer meet simply cannot know when this

areas,

and the

terminated

consolation."

easily

comply with the

13 of the Act which requires that areas are

fact that

no one

eligibility

know

either

is

The

many

condition exists in

else will

of

little

29

After areas were designated the program

Applications

for

ARA

assistance

and be approved by the

located. Public

had

states in

to

faced complex

still

problems. Processing of projects became bogged

OEDPs

standards.

down

in delays.

conform with

local

which the projects were

works grants, moreover, had to be supplemented

by contributions from

local redevelopment organizations equal to

10 percent of the aggregate cost of the project. In areas, project approval

was

many

depressed

either seriously delayed or aborted

by

the inability of local sponsors to raise the 10 percent participation funds. In addition, tive action

between

ARA

ARA

had

to await investigation

from "delegate agencies." The

ARA

clashed

and

its

with

conflicts that

developed

delegate agencies further slowed processing. the

Community

Facilities

charged with clearing grants for sewer and water

CFA

and coordina-

attempted to establish

its

own

Administration, facilities,

grant criteria.

ARA

when

argued

that the standards were unworkable. 30 Other conflicts developed 28. See Levitan, ch. 3, for details of the dispute.

29.

ARA,

pp. 44-45.

30. See Levitan, pp. 141-145.

The Area Redevelopment Act

85

with the Small Business Administration over business loan processing.

ARA

attributed

its

problems with delegate agencies to a

difference "in personal experience as well as the prevailing phi-

losophy and procedures in the various agencies (whose function often differs greatly from that of nevertheless, which tends to

make

it is

a difference,

were constrained

activities

its

own primary

a barrier." 31

itself felt as

Throughout ARA's early years tightly

ARA),

by both friends and enemies. Promises made in the name 1958 and 1960 elections raised

of area redevelopment in the

demands when

expectations and

gressmen who supported

been elected

in

program was enacted. Con-

the

the legislation for six years or

who had

1958 and 1960 on a platform of bringing federal

became impatient with ARA's policy. The president, whose nomi-

assistance to their distressed districts

slowness in implementing the

nation was secured in part by promises in

West Virginia

to

made

"get this country

in a

primary election

moving again," wanted

tangible results quickly.

But redevelopment, by

complex changes advised by

its

very

involved

long-run,

in the structure of regional economies.

ARA was

its

nature,

National Public Advisory Committee to

slowly, to plan carefully

and comprehensively

its

move

allocations. "It

proved impossible for the Administrator to act on that advice," agency

officials

later

complained.

"Local committees warned,

through their Congressmen and Governors, that support for the

program would be

lost unless their projects

could get immediate

approval." Legislators from depressed regions followed closely the progress

(or lack of

it)

of their constituents' applications.

ARA administrators reported: "The ARA reflects the importance of

in

intense Congressional interest

the economic factor in local

voting and served to put the tion

Area Redevelopment Administraunder heavy Congressional pressure from the very beginning.

This interest required a great deal of

no help 31,

in establishing the

ARA,

p. 46,

staff

time and certainly was

kind of dispassionate, analytical atmos-

Policy Formulation

S6

phcrc which tions of

many

ARA

think ought to have surrounded the delibera-

decision-makers." 32

Both within and outside of Congress, the program. That the

critics

continued to attack

Area Redevelopment Act was the first Kennedy made it a political

piece of legislation signed by President target.

Its

success or failure

success or failure of the

became a

political indicator of the

New Frontier.

"This Program Has Utterly Failed"

By March tions.

1963,

ARA

The White House

was beginning

staff

to deplete

its

appropria-

drafted and sent to Congress a

bill

authorizing $455 million in additional funds, but both the White

House and the Area Redevelopment Administration learned that the program was in serious trouble on Capitol Hill. In May the House Banking and Currency Committee had approved increased authorization for five

ARA

programs, but repealed a provision of

the original act allowing the agency to

When of

the

opposition

to

variety of sources,

of whether or not

area redevelopment became evident from a some unconcerned with the substantive question

ARA deserved additional funds. Several Southern

Democrats were more interested in revenge for the president's

in

dealing with

Robert Taft,

borrow from the Treasury.

reached the House floor in June, however, the extent

bill

Jr.,

ARA

on

its

in embarrassing the

proposed merits.

civil rights

White House

program than

Republican Congressman

an Ohio conservative, threatened to introduce an

antidiscrimination rider to the supplementary appropriations

prohibiting contractors

bill,

on ARA-assisted projects from discrim-

inating against Negroes in hiring practices. Conservative forces

were confident that with such a rider the the Southern-dominated

The

bill

would never survive

House Rules Committee. 33

large proportion of

ARA

assistance going to rural areas

32. Ibid., pp. 55, 59.

U.S. Congress, House Committee on Banking and Currency, Area Redevelopment Act Amendments, Hearings, 88th Cong., 1st sess., June 1963, Committee Print, pp. 88-110. 33. See

The Area Redevelopment Act additional

created

among some Northern

hostility

Liberal supporters were disappointed over

its

87

legislators.

lack of results after

Twenty Republicans and eighteen Southern Democrats who had voted for ARA in 1961 now opposed the supplementary appropriations. John V. Lindsay, a New York two years

in operation.

who had been

Republican

a proponent of area redevelopment,

charged from the floor of the House in June 1963 that "this pro-

gram has utterly failed to get off the ground and is leaving in its wake a shameful record of mismanagement, stodginess and waste." 34 A coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats garnered enough votes to reject the supplementary appropriations bill,

209

to 204.

In the Senate, Republicans labeled the appropriations request

an attempt by the White House to create a "slush fund" for the

1964

presidential campaign.

was resubmitted

to the

it

for almost a year,

it

was released

and the House

in the

bill

passed the Senate and

summer

failed to take action

appropriations, but

it

redevelopment program would lapse when

more

uncertain.

it

when

failed to obtain addi-

faced the prospect that the entire its

enabling legislation

expired in June 1965. Events of the following year future even

on

of 1964. It died with adjournment

Thus the administration not only

in October. tional

But the

House. The Rules Committee pigeonholed

made ARA's

Between early 1964 and mid-1965,

the General Accounting Office issued seventeen reports highly

ARA's

critical of

dures,

and

grant and loan allocations, accounting proce-

inability

to

determine when areas were no longer

eligible to participate in the

"Some

protested. "It

gram

set

program.

of the criticism has been premature,"

up

too early to

is

make a

to attack a long-term

of operation."

35

By

final

ARA

problem

after only three years

the end of fiscal 1964, they pointed out, 1,035

areas were participating in the program, 1,600 projects 34. Congressional Record, Vol.

ARA,

had been

109, Part 8, 88th Cong., 1st sess., June

12, 1963, p. 10712.

35.

officials

judgment about a pro-

pp. 13-15, quote at p. 13.

88

Policy Formulation

initiated,

and $243 million

in loans

and grants had been made.

Nearly 70,000 new jobs directly attributable to

were projected,

in addition to

ARA

investments

46,000 indirect jobs expected

in

related activities.

But a general image of

inefficiency

1964 the Johnson administration the

program

in

its

had been

created.

By

late

realized that chances of renewing

current form were small.

A

strategy for saving

the regional development concept had to be formulated quickly it

was to survive the Eighty-ninth Congress.

if

CHAPTER 4

Political Strategy

and

Reformulation of Development Policy:

EDA

OEO, ARDC, and

Prospects for saving the area redevelopment program were en-

hanced by two events

in 1964.

Eighty-eighth Congress, sufficient

Late in the second session of the

House and Senate

liberals consolidated

support to enact a sweeping antipoverty program.

The

Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 focused public attention on the plight of declining areas

and distressed groups as

had not been focused

Perhaps even more important, the 1964

since the Depression. presidential

it

election brought a fundamental realignment in the

composition of the Eighty-ninth Congress. Prior to 1965, Congress

was dominated by a

coalition of Southern

Democrats and Mid-

western Republicans from relatively "safe"

districts,

who had

accumulated seniority and obtained important committee positions. Their rural backgrounds and conservative ideologies led them to

oppose programs involving increased federal intervention

and private

activities.

When

in local

they lacked power to defeat legisla-

tion outright, they could almost always delay

and obstruct

bills

or obtain concessions by forcing compromises.

But Lyndon Johnson's decisive victory over a highly conservaopponent in the 1964 presidential election swept numerous

tive

young, liberal Democratic and Republican congressional candidates into office

on

was unique

in

won 74

presidential coattails.

The Eighty-ninth Congress

postwar history. In 1961 the conservative coalition

percent of the

roll calls

on

bills it

supported or opposed.

90 It

Policy Formulation

won 67

percent in 1963 and 1964.

more

tionally

liberal

Even

in the Senate, tradi-

than the House, the conservative coalition

won between 44 and 48

percent of

battles

its

from 1961

to 1964.

But by 1965 the conservative coalition could win only 25 percent of the decisions as a whole.

it

favored in the House and 33 percent in Congress

Moreover, the Eighty-ninth Congress was much more

willing to support the president's position

Congress in recent history. cent of the

274

roll call

In addition, Democrats,

on

legislation than

votes

on which he indicated a preference.

who

held solid majorities in both cham-

strongly supported an increased federal role in

bers,

government: they approved 80 percent of the ing federal activity.

The

any

gave Johnson victories on 93 per-

It

legislation

American broaden-

1

contrast was dramatic.

At

the end of the Eighty-eighth

Congress, as a result of the conservative coalition's ability to block the president's legislative program, political analysts were decrying the "crisis of democracy" and "government by stalemate."

years later one observer concluded:

"The

first

session of the 89th

Congress was so friendly to President Johnson's as to create concerns that Congress

too deferential." 2

From

Two

legislative

agenda

had become too permissive,

this legislative

environment came major

components of federal policy for regional development planning in 1965.

Help for Those "Shortchanged Twice "This

is

the

in

a Single Lifetime"

emerging pattern for the Nation," Harry

M.

Caudill, chairman of the Congress for Appalachian Development, told Congress in 1967:

"Poor and undereducated people are mov-

ing from the prairies, plains, and mountains

more

rapidly than

Congressional Quarterly Service, Congressional Almanac, 21 1. See (1965), 1083. This was the highest presidential support score recorded since Congressional Quarterly began this type of analysis in 1953, pp. 1099, 1111. 2.

Stephen K. Bailey, The

1966),

p. 29.

New

Congress

(New York:

St.

Martin's Press,

OEO, ARDC, and the cities can assimilate them. There, for

they cluster in worsening slums.

mark such communities

The

EDA

91

too long an interval,

all

rioting

and discontent that

reflect the bitter frustrations of

have been shortchanged twice in a single lifetime

people

—

in their

who

home-

land and, again, in the urban meccas to which they flee in quest of a better day." 3

Urban and

had been recognized

rural poverty

when

as interrelated problems three years earlier

Area Redevelopment Act centered

attention

distress of certain geographical areas

the fight over the

on both the economic

and the

plight of depressed

population groups. Children of the poor lacked educational and occupational opportunities; they were caught in the same cycle of

poverty that had trapped their parents and grandparents. Unskilled

and semiskilled workers were too numerous

to

be absorbed into

an increasingly professionalized and specialized economy. Small farmers and migrant workers shared agriculture

could

not

provide

much

the

adequate

same

fate.

standards

Marginal

of

living.

Minority groups suffered from discrimination and the aged from limited incomes. In 1963, ten million families (nearly thirty-five

million people)

The

had incomes of

federal antipoverty

less

than $3,000 a year.

and area redevelopment programs of

the mid-1960's were, to a large extent,

all

bound

together. Their

experiences with depressed areas, the writings of social political pressures to ameliorate

critics,

and

economic hardship converged in

Kennedy and his close advisers. The administration proposal for a war on poverty began with a call by Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Walter Heller to executhe minds of President

departments for antipoverty recommendations. When Lyndon Johnson succeeded to the presidency, he agreed with early reports tive

urging a diversified program to attack poverty on

many

fronts.

The Bureau of the Budget was assigned to work with the Council of Economic Advisers to draft the initial program. Later Sargent 3. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Government Operations, Commission on Balanced Economic Development, Hearings, 90th Cong., 1st sess.,

1967, p. 89.

92

Policy Formulation

Shriver, director of the

Peace Corps, was appointed to plan the

and a group of close

details

of a legislative proposal. Shriver

friends

and associates screened the recommendations. 4

March

sent to Congress in

The enabling private

legislation

and public

special

interest

the ages of sixteen and twenty-one,

New

was

The Job Corps,

groups.

training for youths

was

conservation and urban training centers. variations of the

bill

was a patchwork of proposals from

program of remedial education and job

on

A

of 1964.

to

a

between

be provided in rural

The idea was modeled

Deal Civilian Conservation Corps, youth

conservation legislation introduced by Hubert H.

Humphrey

in the

Senate in the late 1950's, and proposals submitted to the Shriver task force

by the Department of Commerce. The proposal for a

neighborhood youth corps, which would provide

full-

and part-

time work for youth in government health, social welfare, and recreation agencies,

Administration

had roots

in the

New

Deal's National

and the Youth Employment

bill

Youth

submitted to

Congress by the Kennedy administration in 1962. The poverty legislation

included a

Community Action Program designed

to

provide support for local antipoverty campaigns in urban and rural

and among migrant workers. It was community action councils, nonprofit public or private agencies in which the poor themselves would share in program planning and decision making. The CAP section of the bill was proposed by the Ford Foundation based on its educational demonstration experiments in a number of large cities in the early 1960's. It was strongly supported by staff members of the President's Commission on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth areas,

on Indian

reservations,

to be administered through

Crime and of the Department

of Justice. Provisions for adult

basic education were formulated by Shriver and his associates from

independent proposals submitted by the departments of Labor, 4. See U.S. Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations, Intergovernmental Relations in the Poverty Program (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), chs. 1, 2, and Appendixes, for background and

legislative history.

OEO, ARDC, and

EDA

93

Health, Education and Welfare, and Defense. Rural loan sections of the legislation were included because of pressures raised

by

the Department of Agriculture, farm organizations, and congressmen from rural states. A small business loan program was incor-

porated from ideas suggested by the Small Business Administration

based on experimental loans to ghetto businesses

VISTA, a voluntary

1964.

in

came from Kennedy

made

in

Peace Corps and from

1963 by Attorney General Robert F.

for a national service program.

philosophical

the

and service work corps,

training

Shriver's experiences with the

proposals of a study

in Philadelphia

Heated debates on both

and administrative aspects of the program

generated a number of substantive changes in Congress before the bill

was approved and signed by the president

The

administration viewed the Office of

created by the

bill,

in late 1964. 5

Economic Opportunity,

as a coordinating organ properly located in

the Executive Office of the President, rather than as an operating

agency. Conflicts

among

of administration, which

federal agencies seeking delegated powers

had begun during congressional consid-

eration of the program, continued after

its

enactment.

When

they

subsided, five of the eight antipoverty programs were parceled out

among

cabinet departments, leaving only the Job Corps,

Start educational assistance,

Head

and Community Action Agency aid

under the direct control of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Nonprofit community action agencies would administer of the

programs

at the local level.

The

bill's

many

drafters included this

provision so the programs would not be taken over by "the estab-

lishment" local

:

existing local welfare agencies

and

politically controlled

government organizations. The community action agencies

were similar in many aspects to those established under the Area Redevelopment Act of 1961. Both required broad representation of minorities, local governments,

and potential

interest groups.

Appendix A; John Bibby and Roger Davidson, On Capitol Hill: (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), ch. 7; and John C. Donovan, The Politics of Poverty (New York: Western, 1967), chs. 2 and 3. 5.

Ibid.,

Studies in the Legislative Process

94

Policy Formulation

Both were

requijjed to prepare overall

development programs and

establish priorities for project funding.

"The Dole

Is

Dead"

While Congress debated the Area Redevelopment Act late 1950's, a

movement was forming

for a large region of the United States

in the

to secure federal assistance

known

as Appalachia.

The

New

area, stretching

more than

York

Georgia and Alabama, suffered from having been

to central

five

hundred miles from southern

bypassed in the general progress of technology and resource exploitation. For decades its nearly fifteen million residents depended on coal mining, forestry, and marginal agriculture for their economic base a base that had been steadily deteriorating.

—

In 1957 a series of severe floods in Kentucky focused national attention

on the

plight of

Appalachian

residents.

Shortly after-

ward the governor formed the Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission to prepare long-range plans for the area's physical and economic redevelopment. The governor appointed a young lawyer, John Whisman, as the commission's executive director, with a

to

recommend

broad mandate

to study the area's

courses of action.

that called for a massive

Whisman

program of federal

assistance

help, not only for eastern Kentucky, but for the

region.

The

and

self-

whole Appalachian

report urged creation of a federal development agency

to coordinate federal

technical

problems and

issued a report in 1960

programs for Appalachia and to provide

and economic assistance

the order of the

New

to regional planning agencies

on

Deal's National Resources Planning Board.

In addition, an Appalachian states development authority was

needed to study regional problems and to develop a long-range comprehensive plan. The Appalachian assistance to create development

states

would need external

programs and to

attract private

investment and exploit natural resources for productive purposes.

Governors from the Appalachian meetings to discuss their

common

states

often held informal

problems. In 1960 they met

formally to press for assistance. In May, Governor

J.

Millard

OEO, ARDC, and Tawes

of

Maryland

EDA

95

called a meeting of his counterparts in eight

other states to form the Conference of Appalachian Governors.

The conference convened

October in Lexington, Kentucky, and

in

issued a resolution calling for a special regional

program of devel-

opment involving "local, state and federal governments and both public and private forces." Representatives of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, and Pennsylvania continued to meet, make studies of the area,

in

and plan

political strategy for obtaining assistance.

Both the Douglas task force appointed by President Kennedy 1961 to study regional economic decline and the Area Re-

development Administration had noted the depressed economic conditions in the Appalachian region.

number

ARA

had designated a

of Appalachian counties eligible for benefits under

its

program. But the governors wanted more. They pressed for a pro-

gram

specifically directed to the

problems of their region, which

they could influence. Kennedy, however, was reluctant to fight

another battle with Congress similar to the one over the Area

Redevelopment difficulty

bill.

Early in his administration he had great

program through Congress. But

getting his legislative

the governors persisted, and the White

House

staff

was anxious

to

emphasize the problems of Appalachian poverty. Kennedy created the President's Appalachian Regional

Composed

of the governors

Commission

in April 1963.

and representatives of federal agencies

administering programs in the region, the commission was headed

by Under Secretary of Commerce Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. This action generated demands from other sections of the nation for similar federal attention.

consin,

The

and Minnesota wrote

six senators

to

Kennedy

from Michigan, Wisin

October requesting

a meeting of the cabinet, heads of independent agencies admin-

economic development programs, and the governors of the three states to discuss a program for relieving economic distress istering

in the

Upper Great Lakes

area.

They wanted a Great Lakes

regional commission similar to the one established for Appalachia.

Kennedy

initiated the meetings,

but in the confusion of presidential

96

Policy Formulation

transition

death in November the proposal was

following his

never implemented. 6

Meanwhile, the Appalachian Regional Commission was in the midst of a year-long study of the problems of economic distress.

The commission

prepared details of a federal

staff

program and took a

draft bill to a series of state

legislative

government

November 1963. A final reThe commis-

leadership conferences beginning in

port was submitted to the president in April 1964. sion's report stressed that

among

the

area's

most

inadequate

services,

income and high employment were

visible

social

access, poorly educated

of the

Appalachia was a unique region requir-

Low

ing special assistance.

difficulties.

facilities,

poor

and trained labor

more productive age groups

The commission argued

The

transportation

force,

also inhibited

that although the

lack of social

and

and outmigration its

development. 7

normal processes of

development had never occurred in Appalachia, the region possessed

an abundance of natural resources.

It

recommended

a

four-point program for federally aided public and private invest-

ment:

improvement of

inter

and intraregional highway

development of natural resources, construction of

access,

facilities

to

control and exploit the abundant rainfall, and promotion of im-

mediate improvement in

The

administration

Congress

late in 1964.

human sent

resources.

the

Appalachian assistance

The measure

bill

to

called for creation of a formal

commission composed of a federal cochairman appointed by the president, a state cochairman,

one member from each

Appalachian region, and a professional

staff.

state in the

The commission

form, a radical departure from administrative organization of most 6. See James L. Sundquist, Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson Years (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1968), pp. 97101; and Donald N. Rothblatt, Regional Planning: The Appalachian Experi-

ence (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1971), ch.

1,

for a description of the early

pressures to obtain Appalachian assistance.

Appalachian Regional Commission. President's 7. U.S. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1964), pp. 1-22.

Appalachia

EDA

OEO, ARDC, and

97

was chosen because of pressure by the

federal aid programs,

state

governors to maintain political influence over implementation.

The legislation provided for creation of a federal corporation to make loans to state-designated local development districts. The corporation provision was deleted later when opposition arose in Congress, but the local district requirements remained.

While the administration's chances of guiding the both chambers were good, the White House

number

of promises

bill

had

staff

and exert formidable pressure

to

through

make

a

to consolidate

a strong coalition behind a program benefiting only one section

Opponents attempted

of the nation. bill

in

to obstruct the

Appalachian

both the Senate and the House. Enthusiastic supporters In hearings on the

also caused problems.

bill,

Senators Philip

Hart of Michigan and Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin argued for

They contended that the Upper Great Lakes region suffered from the same basic problems as Appalachia and was entitled to the same federal assistance. Senators Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Edmund Muskie of Maine claimed

extension of

that

its

coverage.

major portions of

economic

distress

extended to the

and

New

New

England were also

in

a state of

any federal aid program must be

that

England region. Nelson

later offered

ments that would extend Appalachian-type assistance to

The that

it

administration

would

Appalachian deplete the

saw

in

feared

amount of funds

all

areas.

expansion attempts the possibility

lose control over the size of the

governors

amend-

that

extended

program. Some coverage

available to their states.

More

would ardent

congressional supporters worried that expansion would endanger the

bill's

chances of clearing conservative coalition opposition in

the House. Thus, the White House, through the Bureau of the

Budget, sent a

letter to

Muskie. "The President

is

aware of the

be gained from planning and carrying out economic redevelopment along regional lines," the Budget Bureau assured

benefits to

the senator, "but the careful definition of regional boundaries

and

the development of regional plans can best be undertaken as part

9S

Policy Formulation

of a general assistance

program for area redevelopment." 8

bill

would be drafted

later

if

A

more extensive amend-

the expansion

ments were withdrawn and the Appalachian Regional Development

Act was approved

in

withdrawn. The

passed the Senate,

on

bill

The amendments were but the House failed to act

original form.

its

before adjournment of the Eighty-eighth Congress.

it

The

proposal, resubmitted to the Eighty-ninth Congress, con-

tained changes designed to overcome expected opposition from

conservative

amended tures.

to

The purposes

legislators.

the

of

program

were

emphasize efficiency and economy in federal expendi-

made

Public investments

would be concen-

in the region

trated in areas with the greatest potential for future growth, the

new

draft stated,

and where the expected return on public

dollars

The bill passed the Senate with little the House once more. But substantial

invested would be greatest.

and was sent

difficulty

opposition arose

to

among both Republicans and Democrats whose

were not included

districts

ander Pirnie,

Mohawk

a

in the

Appalachian boundaries. Alex-

Republican from the economically distressed

Valley of

New

York, for instance, attacked the Appala-

chian program as "sectional legislation at in fairness to the people of

my

district

its

worst." "I could not,

and the

rest of the nation

support the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965,"

he told

his constituents.

Like

many

not agree that the problems of his

other congressmen, he could

district

were any

less

important

than those of his colleagues from Appalachia. "It would be an entirely different matter

if

was the only

the Appalachian region

area in the nation with an unemployment problem or in need of

new highways." 9 Proponents of Appalachian assistance once again were caught

between supporters wishing tressed

8.

areas

to

expand the program

and opponents who saw the

Congressional Record, Vol. Ill, Part

2,

bill

to other dis-

as

89th Cong., 1st

a needless Feb.

1,

March

3,

sess.,

1965, p. 1674. 9.

News

Release, Office of Representative Alexander Pirnie,

1965, mimeographed.

EDA

OEO, ARDC, and

99

expenditure of federal funds from whieh their districts would not Testifying before the

benefit.

House Public Works Committee, the Federal Development Planning

John L. Sweeney, chairman of Committee for Appalachia, attempted think

we ought

.

.

.

But the

real fact

return to the Federal government, to greater than

grams.

I

what

think

both

it

is

all

we

"I

sides:

speak frankly. The name of the game

to

ential treatment.

to placate

is

prefer-

believe the ultimate

the States will be far

expends in Appalachia through these pro-

we have pointed out

in the past,

we

are spending

almost $500 million a year today in public welfare money."

Chamber

Interest groups such as the U.S.

Commerce and

of

the

National Association of Manufacturers feared that subsequent

demands for similar assistance would lead to "a crazy quilt patchwork of laws as each region of the country seeks to have its own special

law passed by Congress." 10

House Republicans defeat the

by

bill.

An

realized that they did not have the votes to

attempt was

made

to

substituting a Republican draft that

life

to

two years and expand

in the nation.

eligibility to all

The amendment,

Florida conservative

amend would

offered

who opposed

all

the Senate version

limit the

program's

redevelopment areas

by William C. Cramer, a redevelopment

legislation,

weaken whatever program finally passed. But Republicans from Appalachia favored the Democratic

was calculated

to

number of The White House staff, realizing that Republican forces were split on the issue, put pressure on Democrats to get the measure through the House without any amendments so that it would not have to go back to the Senate and be compromised in a conference a

bill.

committee.

Republicans reacted strongly to the pressure. The

House Republican Policy Committee recommended bers of

its

that

all

mem-

party vote against the administration draft, calling

it

a "boondoggle" and "pork barrel legislation." Subsequent votes

on amendments,

therefore,

10. U.S. Congress,

split

along party

Committee

Democrats

House Committee on Public Works, Appalachian Reand S. 3, 89th Cong.,

gional Development Act of 1965, Hearings on H.R. 4 1st sess.,

lines.

Print, 1965, pp. 42, 226.

J

00

Policy Formulation

mobilized sufficient solidarity to pass the act without change from the Senate version. 11

The Appalachian Regional Development Act expenditures of nearly $1.1

development aid

billion

to twelve states.

of

1965 authorized

over a six-year period for

Over $840 million

struction of 2,350 miles of highways

roads were provided in addition to $252 million to

ment

of health

and education

marks the end

legislation

human want and 9.

and physical

assist

develop-

facilities.

"This

of an era of partisan cynicism towards

misery," President Johnson exuberantly told

guests in the White

March

services

to assist con-

and 1,000 miles of access

"The dole

House Rose Garden as he signed the 12 is dead. The pork barrel is gone."

on

act

The Public Works and Economic Development Act

The

future of the

Area Redevelopment Administration was

still

precarious in the early months of 1965, despite Congress' favorable disposition toward expanding antipoverty programs. Saving the agency

became a problem

in political strategy. General dis-

appointment and opposition in Congress to the Area Redevelopment Administration and the Accelerated Public Works Program

made

continuation

of

enabling

the

legislation

unlikely.

lacked a supporting clientele powerful enough to keep

ARA

Substantive problems arising out of the

it

ARA alive.

experience created

White House and Congress. Economic Advisers, in consultation with the Budget Bureau and high-level administrative staff in ARA, attempted to anticipate criticisms and formulate new ideas to overuncertainties for supporters in both the

The Council

come

of

past weaknesses.

In

floated "trial balloons" that

a

new

its

1965 annual report the council

would

assistance bill offered

by

later

be included in a draft of

the administration.

It

called for

concentration of project investments in "growth centers" of rural

11.

The

roll call

and analytical background of voting can be found

in

Congressional Quarterly Service, "House Sends Appalachian Bill to President," Congressional Quarterly, 23 (Week ending March 5, 1965), 327-328. 12. Public

Papers of the President, 1965, Vol.

1, p.

102.

— OEO, ARDC, and areas, expansion of

multicounty

overhead regions.

101

redevelopment areas from single counties to

districts,

capital

EDA

to

and more emphasis on developing attract

private

investment

social

depressed

in

13

Late in 1964 the president assigned the Bureau of the Budget

Area Redevelopment Administration staff on drafting new legislative proposals. The first problem was to overcome the agency's adverse image. The program needed a "new look." To avoid a battle over the ARA's competence, an Economic

to

work with

the

Development Administration it.

To

(EDA) was

proposed to succeed

ARA

placate opposition from personnel within

porters in Congress, the administration stated that

sonnel would be transferred to the directed

all

agency, but

it

by a new administrator and second-level policy

Drafters

Bureau

new

and

its

sup-

ARA

per-

would be staff.

then concentrated on substantive problems. Budget

officials insisted

on inclusion of the "growth center" ap-

proach for allocation of redevelopment loans and grants to over-

come

criticism that

widely.

ARA

had distributed

its

assistance funds too

The concept, long advocated in European economic develop-

ment planning, postulated

that regional

development took place

through the growth of an urban center having a favorable infrastruc-

from growth

at the

center would promote development of the surrounding area.

A pro-

ture for private investment. Spillover effects

vision

was drafted requiring each redevelopment area to have a

development center in which investment would be concentrated

minor urban areas within or near the depressed region. During the drafting process a

and Bureau of the Budget

staff

the

new agency

to

have

full

conflict officials.

developed between

ARA

ARA

personnel wanted

control over review and approval of

They had earlier complained to the National Public Advisory Committee on Area Redevelopment that delays in applications.

processing projects seriously hindered

ARA's

effectiveness.

"The

requirement that delegate agencies be used in administering the 13.

Economic Report of

ing Office, 1965), p. 140.

the President (Washington:

Government

Print-

102

Policy Formulation

Area Redevelopment Act was dictated by economy motives," they noted. "It false

is

been an example of

possible, however, that this has

economy." 14 But the Budget Bureau

insisted

on maintaining

the delegate agency requirements, both for reasons of to avoid arousing hostility to the bill

delegated powers.

The

among

economy and

federal agencies with

delegate agency provisions remained.

Both the Bureau of the Budget and the Area Redevelopment Administration concurred with the Council of Economic Advisers that the size of

program

to succeed.

redevelopment areas must expand for a new

The

council argued in

its

that "the regions to be aided should be large

1965 annual report

enough

to include

a resource base for self-sustained growth and to support the

range of community services and public

full

Thus a title Economic Development Districts (EDDs) composed of two or more redevelopment areas with at least one "growth center." Ten percent bonuses on development project grants would be offered to induce localities was added allowing the new agency

to

form

ment the

districts.

district"

ARA

decisions

The concepts

utilities."

to designate

of "growth center"

and "develop-

were designed to overcome operating deficiencies

program and

to relieve political pressure

by creating technical

in

on allocation

criteria for distribution of assistance

funds. 15 14. ARA, "The First Three Years of the Area Redevelopment Program," Unpublished report, Washington, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1964, mimeographed, p. 64. 15. Several congressmen and senators, as well as administrative officials, expressed doubts that either concept would relieve political pressure on the program. One liberal senator who supported the new legislation pointed out that virtually every town in depressed areas would want to be designated a "growth center." He was quoted as warning: "The howls are going to be deafening when some of these towns are singled out for special help and

others find out they've been by-passed.

Namara

to stand

up

to the pressure." See

It's

going to take another

Don

Corditz,

Bob Mc-

"Beyond Appalachia:

Expand Attack on Depressed Areas Ills Encounters Problems," Wall Street Journal, April 28, 1965, p. 1. Another problem encountered in the growth center concept would be the difficulty of technically determining which areas had "growth potential" and which did not. One federal official was

Effort to

EDA

OEO, ARDC, and The administration wanted Congress

to delegate

103

broad discre-

tion for implementation of the program to the secretary of com-

who would

merce,

administrator.

in

EDA

turn

the powers

would have the authority

criteria for the designation of

centers,

delegate

to:

the

EDA

(1) establish

redevelopment areas, development

and economic development

districts;

(2) establish criteria

Economic Development Programs by

for Overall

to

local districts as

a basis for funding; (3) determine, in cooperation with the states, the boundaries of the economic development districts; (4) deter-

mine methods of allocating grant and technical assistance funds

among

EDDs

the

and (5) decide

"How Did

and loan funds for business assistance projects;

when

a district's eligibility

would terminate.

This Legislation Get Here?"

Early in 1965, Lyndon Johnson announced that he would send

a

new

area redevelopment program to Congress before

lation expired in June. Political pressure

the

bill

was submitted. The senators

began

ARA legis-

to build even before

who had attempted

to

have

an Upper Great Lakes regional commission appointed by President Kennedy and to expand the Appalachian program to other parts of the nation tion of

its

were quick to remind the Johnson administra-

promise to draft another aid

bill in

exchange for with-

drawal of expansion amendments. Senators Hart, Nelson, and

Kennedy pressured for multistate

the

pressure Senator Pat legislation (S.

Budget Bureau to draft a separate proposal

regional development programs.

McNamara

To

increase the

of Michigan introduced his

own

812) to create commissions modeled on the Appa-

lachian pattern for other sections of the nation.

To

satisfy these

quoted as musing: "Who's going to play God and decide what little towns left to die because they look now like they won't be growth centers in the year 2000?" Pointing out that until the army decided to make

should be

Alabama, a missile research center, "no one could have prewould become a boom town. There isn't a town in the country that doesn't hope something like that will happen to it, too." See Richard F. Janssen, "Reviving Regions: Plan Aims to Shift U.S. Aid to 'Growth Centers' to Avoid Scattering," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 13, 1965, p. 1.

Huntsville,

dicted that

it

104

Policy Formulation

demands

the

development

Bureau of the Budget added a bill

commissions." The haste with which the as the "Little Appalachias" section,

one observer

to conclude:

"Though

subsequently

title,

was tacked onto the

is

known led

bill

hailed as the enabling clause

for the golden era of regional planning, this itself

to the area re-

title

providing assistance to "regional action planning

the unplanned product of coincidence

new

was

direction

and circumstance.

a classic study of government by improvisation."

16

It

This provision

only temporarily satisfied demands for broad coverage. But the senators anticipated chances to revise the

bill

further at Senate

committee hearings.

On March 25

the president sent his message on

area and

regional economic development to Congress, calling for passage of

a

bill to

aid the

27 million people

living in economically depressed

Area Redevelopment Administration's work as an "experimental program" that provided valuable experience in economic development. The new legislation, the message noted, provided an opportunity to build upon the "best features" of the Accelerated Public Works program, ARA, and the Appalachian program. It would supplement activities initiated regions.

Johnson referred

to the

under the Economic Opportunity Act and the Manpower Develop-

ment and Training program. But opposition to a new area redevelopment program had been steadily building from late 1964 in both the Senate and House Banking and Currency Committees, to which the bill would be referred for hearings and preliminary approval. In the Senate the

chairmanship of Banking and Currency was held by conservative

Democrat A.

Willis

Robertson of Virginia, who had expressed

objections both to extending the

life

of

ARA

and

to creating

now

another area assistance program. The White House

staff

faced a dilemma. In an unfriendly committee a

risked,

best, 16.

bill

his

at

being substantially weakened by amendment, or at worst,

Don

Oberdorfer,

Sept. 9, 1965, p. 23.

"The Proliferating Appalachias," The Reporter,

OEO, ARDC, and EDA

105

being killed altogether without reaching the floor for debate and

on the other hand, they attempted to bypass the Banking and Currency Committees, the bill would become involved in a jurisdictional imbroglio. The bill was clearly economic policy, a vote.

If,

and the committees had legitimate

jurisdiction over

it.

Previous

attempts to bypass Banking and Currency had resulted in heavy

concessions to get a compromise. 17 find a

way

to guide the legislation

The White House needed to through a more friendly com-

mittee without inciting a jurisdictional dispute.

Submission of the message, and a

new

was delayed following the

bill

Title I

was written

president's

to provide federal assis-

The name of the bill was changed to "The Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965." The strategy was to get the proposal assigned to the Public Works Committees in each chamber, where Democratic majorities favored its passage. Senator McNamara, chairman of the Public Works Committee, introduced the bill (S.1648) with Paul Douglas, who had become chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee's Production and Stabilization Subcommittee. At the same time an identical version (HR.6991) was sponsored by George Fallon, chairman of the House Committee on Public tance for public works construction.

Works. To avoid

jurisdictional disputes, arrangements

were made

by the Senate Public Works Committee to submit

Titles II

IV

Banking and

of the act (dealing with business loans) to the

Currency Committee for

letter to

its

and IV assigned

Titles II

and

"advice." Douglas arranged to have

to his subcommittee.

McNamara,

Robertson, invited Douglas, his subcommittee, and

in a

mem-

17. The attempts in 1956 by Senator Douglas to refer the Area Redevelopment Act to his own Labor Committee resulted in a formal challenge by Senator J. William Fulbright, Robertson's predecessor as Banking and Currency chairman. In return for not taking action that would have killed

the bill for that session, Fulbright was explicitly promised expansion of the area redevelopment program to cover rural areas and future jurisdiction over economic development legislation for the Banking and Currency Committee. See

Bibby and Davidson, pp. 200-201,

106

Policy Formulation

bers of the Banking and Currency Committee to join the Public

Works Committee still

opposed the

at hearings legislation,

Banking and Currency's

on the

bill.

18

Although Robertson

he was not aggressive

jurisdiction

a strong battle with members of his

in protecting

and was reluctant

own

wage

to

party over the committee

assignment.

The

strategic significance of political

assigning the

bill

maneuvering involved

a friendly committee was not lost on

to

in its

opponents. Representative Cramer later complained bitterly during floor

debate about the administration's

legislation get here?

The

"How

tactics:

did this

President sent up earlier this session a

separate message relating to area redevelopment.

a

If

bill

introduced and sent to the proper legislative committee,

had been it

have gone to the Committee on Banking and Currency President Johnson sent

it

up

separately,

and

lo

would .

.

.

and behold, when

they realized that area redevelopment was killed in the last session as a result largely of opposition out of the

Banking and Currency

mind and sent up a new message. And thus was born an Economic Development Act, the

Committees, the President changed

potpourri "little

if

you

please, the

Appalachias"

all in

ARA,

his

accelerated public works and

one package." 19

Douglas' Production and Stabilization Subcommittee favorably

recommended

Titles II

and IV, and the

full

Banking and Currency

The four committee along with Chairman

Committee approved the report by a vote of 9 Republican members of the

to 5.

Robertson were opposed. "Congress Would Be Abdicating

Its

Responsibilities"

The Public Works Committee held hearings in the Senate from May 3. By 1965 the nature of public hearings on

April 27 through

18. See an exchange of correspondence between McNamara and Robertson reprinted in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, Public Works and Economic Development, Hearings, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 1965,

19.

Committee

Print, pp. 1-3.

Congressional Record, Vol. Ill, Part 15, 89th Cong.,

11, 1965, p. 199944.

1st sess.,

Aug.

OEO, ARDC, and regional development legislation

had been on the offensive

EDA

107

had changed. Previously witnesses

in urging assistance to

depressed areas.

ARA,

But because of the unfavorable image created by

the Senate

hearings were dominated by administration officials defending the

program, special interests and clientele groups testifying to the

accomplishments of the agency, and state and local government representatives arguing the need for continued federal aid. 20

opposing

ARA

EDA

and

Those

perceived the difficulty of presenting

their views to a liberal Senate

and a pro-ARA committee. They

focused their attention on House hearings instead.

While members of the Public Works Committee favored the bill,

they

made

before sending

substantial changes in the administration version it

to

the House.

Proponents of expanding the

Appalachian program rewrote provisions of Title V, substituting

McNamara

most of the provisions of the

for the states to join the federal

(S.812) that called

bill

government

planning

in creating

organizations almost identical to the Appalachian Regional

Com-

mission. In addition, they increased the authorization for public

works grants, imposed a five-year

limit

was amended

to place a 15 percent limit

works money

EDA

to the Senate floor

on the

on the

of the grant

life

and increased technical assistance funds.

authorizations,

on the amount of public

could spend in any one

on

May

lives of Titles II

26 where

and

III.

Title I

state.

The

five-year limits

Subsequently,

it

bill

went

were placed

was enacted by

a vote of 71 to 12.

During the second and third weeks

Works Committee held hearings on groups

critical

of the

EDA

in

its

May own

the bill.

House Public Here

interest

program found a more receptive

The National Association of ManuThe federal government's intervention

audience than in the Senate. facturers led the opposition. in the private market,

NAM

maintained, represented a misalloca-

20. See U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Public Works, Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, Hearings, 89 Cong., 1st sess., 1965, Committee Print, passim.

108

Policy Formulation

tion of

economic resources that would hamper American industry

in foreign trade, only temporarily stimulate the economies of de-

pressed areas, and upset the natural processes of competition in industrial location.

The American Farm Bureau Federation

strong objections to provisions that would allow

EDA

raised

to bypass

the states and grant assistance directly to local governments and

economic development

district

organizations.

multistate regional planning commission

neous, uneconomical,

and the

result

The

creation

was attacked

of political pressure.

National Association of Counties generally endorsed

opposed establishing Economic Development

of

as extra-

EDA

The but

District organizations

as nonprofit corporations, preferring that they be placed under

the control of local elected officials. 21

Despite a hard core of opposition in the House, broad social

and economic forces within the nation were creating an atmosphere conducive to EDA's passage. The war on poverty focused attention

on problems that previously received low

gional depression

came

national economy.

"A

resources,

unused

human and

priority.

Re-

to be seen as an opportunity loss to the

growing nation cannot afford to waste those natural,

in distressed areas,"

which are too often neglected and

Lyndon Johnson

message on regional development.

"We

told Congress in his

cannot afford the loss of

buying power and of national growth which flow from widespread poverty." Pressures for regional development planning emanated, moreover,

from the growing

regional

distress

realization that the

—economic

and

major contributors to

technological

change

—would

The National Commission on TechEconomic Progress, formed by Congress in 1964, predicted a technological pattern that would alter regional comparative advantages, displace capital and labor, and make continue to plague the nation. nology, Automation and

21. U.S. Congress, House Committee on Public Works, Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, Hearings, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 1965, Committee Print, passim.

EDA

OEO, A RDC, and specialized occupational groups obsolete.

The

vast increase of

during the 1950's

—

local productive capacities

Negro population

the result of migration

Southern depressed areas interrelationship

and

1 09

in

from

Northern

states

rural, agricultural

—brought a new awareness

of the close

between rural and urban problems. Large areas

of economic depression were forming in the black cores of wealthy

metropolitan centers.

Unemployment among Negroes

in the ghettos

of Cleveland, L'os Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and other

from 200

large cities in the mid-1960's ranged

higher than in the national economy. before Congress in support of

EDA

Urban

to

300 percent

officials

appearing

had more than an

legislation

inkling of the danger of widespread violence threatening povertystricken ghettos

if

policies to relieve

economic decline were not

forthcoming.

The

policy emerging from Congress, then,

was being molded

from a curious blend of broad socioeconomic forces and narrow political

demands. Following public hearings in early June, the

House Public Works Committee received version of the

EDA

the

amended Senate

and went into executive session

bill

to write

a compromise draft. In the process numerous changes were made,

many

On the

reflecting special interest pressures. 22

June 22 the Public Works Committee favorably reported

bill

to the

amendments prohibiting EDA public works projects in counties already

House with

from making grants for

additional

being aided under the Appalachian Regional Development Act.

But seven Republican members of the committee voted against the majority report and attached a minority statement condemning the entire

bill

"because we believe that the measures

have been proved wasteful and

was

hastily

it

provides

ineffective, that the bill as reported

and poorly drafted and the Congress would be abdicat-

See U.S. Congress, House Committee on Public Works, Highlights of Works and Economic Development Act of 1965, Public Law 89-136, Section-by -Section Analysis and Legislative History, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 1965, pp. 21-221. 22.

the Public

110 ing

with

Policy Formulation its

responsibilities

if

it

enacted a

bill

so few Congressional guidelines

of such sweeping scope

and controls for proper

administration."- 3

When

the bill reached the floor, additional opposition

became

apparent. Conservatives argued that Congress was delegating enor-

mous policy-making powers to the federal bureaucracy. Congressman Howard Smith of Virginia, chairman of the House Rules Committee, complained This

bill,

like

extensive in

its

bitterly during debate:

the previous

bill,

so vague and indefinite and so

is

grant of authority of administration that no one knows

what extent this thing can go. But we pass bills with this vague authority to some bureaucrat to administer and spend the taxpayers' money in great globs of billions of dollars. After it is done we do not know what is happening down there. ... I just think it is about time that we stop this kind of thing, and it is about time that Congress stopped delegating its duty to legislate to administrators in the executive department, because after you pass one of these vague bills, and I could show you a dozen of them pending before the Committee on Rules now, you just do not know where they start and where they stop and what they can do and what they are prohibited from doing. And when they are in doubt about it they construe the law as they think it ought to be written. 24 to

.

Thirteen amendments

.

.

made by opponents

to restrict the scope of

the legislation and by supporters to expand defeated.

But other amendments having

its

coverage were

substantial impact

on the

program were accepted during the course of debate. B. F. a California Democrat whose congressional

redevelopment assistance under

ARA,

district

was

Sisk,

eligible for

but would not qualify under

23. Four other Republicans on the committee broke with their party and voted with the Democratic majority, primarily because their districts would benefit greatly from EDA assistance. See Congressional Quarterly Service, Congressional Quarterly, 23 (Week ending July 2, 1965), 1291-1292, quote at p. 1292.

24. Congressional Record, Vol. Ill, Part 15, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 11, 1965, pp.

19938-19939.

Aug.

— GEO, ARDC, and criteria outlined in

the

tions for Title I public

new

bill,

works grants from $400 million

another year. The proposal enraged opponents.

can you

an increase of $150 million and

justify

ARA

"How now

long hearings on the question. There

how much

new $100

million

is

no way

additional cost will result

and putting

in these

new

—

$500

to

areas for

in the

world

an increase of

"We

another $100 million," Congressman Cramer demanded.

estimate

111

proposed increasing authoriza-

and extending the qualification of old

million

EDA

that

anyone can

by putting

in this

as I understand

96 counties that cannot qualify under the bill otherwise." 25 Congresswoman Patsy Mink of Hawaii discovered that her had no redevelopment areas under proposed

held

it

state

She per-

criteria.

suaded her fellow congressmen to accept a provision that entitled every state to at least one redevelopment area of the state qualified under

gions later

became known

EDA as

—even

if

eligibility standards.

no

section

These

re-

"Mink Areas." Amendments were

accepted limiting the use of regional development business loans

and prohibiting

EDA from

of the nation to another. These "antipirating" limited

EDA's

amendments

severely

use of regional development funds.

The House passed

the

amended Public Works and Economic

Development Act of 1965 on August 12 by a 246

Four days

from one area

assisting firms relocating

later the Senate

vote, accepting all

to

138 majority.

approved the House version by a voice

amendments

to

its

own

revised draft.

The law

was signed by the president on August 25, five days before the Area Redevelopment Administration's enabling legislation was due to expire.

The focus

from the

legislative to the administrative arena.

of regional development policy

making

shifted

The burden of Economic Development Administration. Its success would depend on its ability to establish regional economic development districts and multistate regional planning commissions. But EDA alone could not planning regional economic recovery

fell

to the

25. Congressional Record, Vol. Ill, Part 15, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 12, 1965, p.

20241.

Aug.

112

hope

Policy Formulation to solve the

complex problems of regional

distress. It

would

need the cooperation of other federal agencies, the assistance of state

and

local agencies in the depressed areas,

private groups in forming, staffing,

gional development organizations.

and the

initiative of

and funding multicounty

re-

PART HI

POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND

THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF URBAN REGIONS

Where cesses

analysis

may

and policymaking are fragmented,

political pro-

achieve a consideration of a wider variety of values

than can possibly be grasped or weighed by any one analyst or policymaker.

It is this

accomplishment

makes agreement among

analysts

at the political level that

less

necessary.

If

political

processes merely settled disputes without responding to a multiplicity

of interests or values,

fragmentation,

agreement on a comprehensive to be prized.

—Charles in

as

would be the case without

then not only agreement set

E. Lindblom, "Handling of

M. Abramovitz,

et al.,

among

of values would

Norms

analysts, still

be

but

much

in Policy Analysis,"

The Allocation of Economic Resources

CHAPTER

5

of Economic Development in Northeastern

The

Politics

Pennsylvania

Organizing for regional development in the more than eight

hundred counties tion assistance,

eligible for

itself,

Economic Development Administra-

became a policy problem. Many planners

found the attempt to organize an economic development

district

The constraints placed on the convenwisdom of planning theory by implementation of policy became apparent. In many areas, plans for establishing districts a short course in politics.

tional

never succeeded. In others, multicounty

by EDA, but the tical conflicts.

that

In

district

some

districts

were designated

agency did not survive subsequent poli-

regions, the

development planning agencies

emerged were weak, highly dependent on federal

aid,

and

thus incapable of exerting a powerful role in regional policy

making.

Development planning agencies did survive and "sphere of influence" in some areas. eastern Pennsylvania.

program

The

One such

political forces that

to northeastern Pennsylvania

marked the

establish

a

region was north-

brought the

EDA

were not unlike those that

region's struggle for federal redevelopment assistance

in the 1950's.

A

wide variety of economic,

social,

and

political

events formed the parameters for organizational interaction. Inter-

group time.

conflict

shaped policy outcomes and reshaped them over

116

Policy Administration in

Urban Regions

The Changing Economic Environment While local government and business leaders in northeastern Pennsylvania were fighting for area redevelopment assistance from

Washington

1950's, development activities were con-

in the late

tinuing at a quick pace.

New

financial aid

became

the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority.

available

from

A community-

wide fund drive organized in 1959 raised more than $1.5 million to assist industries

moving

into the Scranton area.

The

city of

Scranton established a redevelopment authority, which with federal assistance invested nearly

downtown ment fund million

The

million in the rehabilitation of the

projects generated a total investment of

and nearly eleven thousand new region's

As

mining declined

manufacturing.

more than $20

jobs.

economic structure and competitive position were

slowly improving. in

$10

business district. In Wilkes-Barre industrial develop-

the percentage of the labor force employed

drastically,

a larger share was working in

Construction of an interstate highway network

crisscrossing northeastern Pennsylvania near Scranton greatly in-

creased the region's access to larger metropolitan markets in

New cost

York, Harrisburg, and Baltimore. Travel time and transport

among

cities

within the region and with the Philadelphia area

were reduced. In 1960, Congress approved

fifty-eight flood control

and water resource projects (a federal investment of $590 million) in construction

of the

Tocks Island National Recreation Area

adjacent to northeastern Pennsylvania's Pocono Nevertheless, northeastern Pennsylvania

and economic problems. Unemployment

was

still

up

to

district.

still

faced serious social

in

many communities

100 percent higher than national

many younger people and 1960 the region

to

move from

rates,

which led

the region. Between 1930

lost nearly one-third of its total population,

and those who left were among its more skilled, better educated, more productive workers. While the industrial mix had become more diversified the economic base was still dominated by lowwage apparel, textile and tobacco industries. Physical deterioration

Politics of

Development

continued. There were

smoking culm banks,

in

still

in

117

Northeastern Pennsylvania

decaying mining towns, grimy from

which whole blocks of buildings periodi-

were swallowed up when the land upon which they were

cally

constructed subsided into underlying abandoned coal mines. Limitations of "Going

A

It

Alone"

plethora of organizations attempted to promote the region's

recovery.

By 1966

at least thirty-eight nonprofit industrial develop-

ment funds were operating

in

Lackawanna and Luzerne counties

Chambers of Commerce, civic groups, banks, public utilities, and other groups became involved in redevelop-

alone.

local governments,

ment

projects.

competition

Proliferation of these local groups led to strong

among communities

for

new

industries.

Some

leaders

thought that the region was overorganized and that efforts should

be consolidated.

A

few private groups encouraged formation of

a region- wide planning organization. In 1962, Jack K. Busby and

John Davidson of the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company, Dr.

Eugene Farley of Wilkes College, and a dozen lawyers,

bankers, and businessmen from Scranton and Wilkes-Barre began

mobilizing support for creation of a development research organization for Luzerne and

Lackawanna

counties.

men met

regularly

to

regionally

oriented

information collection

discuss

details.

which also served as a catalyst for

The small group

They concluded and

analysis

that

of

a

center,

joint action, could best over-

come

provincial conflicts between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, two

cities

that traditionally

rivals.

A

had been

bitter political

and economic

research center would inculcate a sense of regional

identification in the

and coordinate

minds of business and

civic leaders in the area

efforts to attract industry to the region as a

whole.

Farley and others brought these arguments to the Ford Foundation with a request for financial support.

Late in 1963, Ford

granted $150,000 to organize the Area Research Center within

Wilkes College.

The

center slowly began collecting information relevant to eco-

nomic recovery in

Lackawanna and Luzerne

counties, but

Ford

US

Policy Administration in

Foundation funds expired

Urban Regions

late in

1964. Through the assistance of

Congressman Daniel Flood, the organization received a $150,000 research grant from ARA and re-established itself as the Economic Development Council (EDC), a nonprofit corporation with representation from a wide variety of public and private groups. In late 1965, however, some board members expressed dissatisfaction with

They thought

the rate and direction of the council's progress. staff

was too research-oriented and too

Wilkes College. catalytic,

The

EDC

and mobilization

closely identified with

move into The president

coordination,

to

failed

activities.

the

of the board,

Louis G. Feldmann of Hazleton, wanted a more dynamic pro-

gram.

"Up

part been planned and promoted

mann

development has for the most

to this time industrial

told the

board of

on a purely

directors,

local basis," Feld-

"and has been

restricted to

scattered communities, with large untouched areas in between."

But from two decades of redevelopment experience "we have least learned that 'going

development

nomic

unit,

potential.

it

alone' places severe limitations

No

single municipality

and none possesses

all

the assets or

on our

a natural eco-

is is

at

free of liabilities.

Resources of a particular locality are limited, but when pooled with the resources of other greatly magnified." 1 localities

localities, their attracting

The EDC, he

to pool their resources

powers are

thought, could actively assist

and coordinate

their activities

toward economic recovery. Opportunities to redirect the council's activities arose in 1965.

Passage of the Appalachian Regional Development Act and the Public

Works and Economic Development Act brought

additional

federal assistance to local development groups seeking to perform

the very functions that activists on the

envisioned.

EDC board

The Pennsylvania Department

of

of directors

had

Commerce was

delegated the authority to establish and certify substate develop-

ment

districts

under both the Appalachian and

EDA

programs.

1. See the remarks of Louis G. Feldmann, Board of Directors Meeting, Economic Development Council of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Wilkes-

Barre, 1966, transcript, p.

1.

Politics of

Development

in

Northeastern Pennsylvania

119

Designated organizations would be eligible for a wide variety of federal technical

other

members

and

of the

Feldmann, and

financial aids. Dr. Farley,

Economic Development Council

having the council certified as the development

investigated

district

organiza-

tion for northeastern Pennsylvania.

In November,

EDA

Administrator Eugene P. Foley asked the

Luzerne County Planning Commission its

overall

if it

was

willing to update

economic development plan and form an organization

to administer

EDA

assistance in the region. Since the

Development Council had already been organized, funded, the possibility that

EDA to

was

it

Economic

staffed,

and

could act in this capacity was raised.

receptive, but insisted that the council

be reorganized

meet the federal agency's representation guidelines. The council

was controlled predominantly by businessmen;

expand

its

cational,

board to include local government

it

would have to

officials, labor,

edu-

and minority groups and gain the membership of the

seven county governments in northeastern Pennsylvania.

"Stirring

up Provincial Antagonisms"

EDC leaders

decided to reorganize to meet federal requirements.

Early in 1966 some board members convinced Dr. Farley that as long as the council was closely affiliated with Wilkes College

it

could not get the widespread participation needed for designation. Reorganization involved two steps.

First,

the council

would be

separated from the college and established as a seven-county

development agency, expanding

its

program to include those

functions supported by the Appalachian Regional

EDA.

Commission and

Second, the executive director would be replaced by a more

dynamic individual with contacts

in both the public

and private

Changes were made quickly. Staff direction was turned Raymond R. Carmon, director of the central division of the Pennsylvania Economy League (PEL), who would devote half time to each job. Carmon was well known in the community as a

sectors.

over to

competent researcher with long experience with municipal govern-

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

120

ment; he also had a dynamic personality.

moved from Wilkes

EDC

headquarters were

downtown

College to an office building in

Wilkes-Barre close to

PEL

offices,

and the professional

staff

was

expanded.

The second phase into the council

agencies, interest

of reorganization, bringing local governments

and obtaining

met opposition due

to

personal

group differences, and latent

leaders in sition to

from federal and

certification

ambitions,

political

rivalries

state

between

Lackawanna and Luzerne counties. Much of EDC's expansion was led by Bernard Blier,

political

the oppo-

executive

director of the Scranton Redevelopment Authority and secretary

of the Scranton City Planning Commission. Blier had built a base of political influence in

Lackawanna County by

his

ability

to

obtain large amounts of federal and state funds for local planning

and development

projects; he

was known

as a master of the art

of "mimeograph-machine politics."

He

media with steady streams of press

releases

provided regional news

on the

activities of

the Redevelopment Authority and his personal role in

was

it.

Blier

also executive director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania In-

dustrial

Development Commission, a "paper organization" used

lobby for federal assistance. Although

it

to

had undertaken few

many community leaders were listed members of its board of directors. The seeds of opposition were sown early in 1965. As the Economic Development Council was expanding, Blier approached the board of directors seeking to become its executive director. Board members antagonistic toward Blier not only spurned his hope for the job, but successfully excluded him from membership on the council. When it became known that EDC was attempting to become the district development agency, NPIDC leaders feared that they would lose control over federal redevelopment funds coming into Lackawanna County. Blier and others announced actual development projects, as

that they

would prepare

their

own economic development

plan for

a fourteen-county area in northern Pennsylvania and bid to have the

NPIDC

designated as the

official

development planning agency,

Politics of

Development

Northeastern Pennsylvania

in

121

March 1966, when Congressman Flood Feldmann urging the council to reorganize

Cleavages became wider in

wrote to

more

EDC

rapidly

President

and promising help

in getting aid

from EDA. There-

Economic Development Council offered membership on its board to officials from seven county governments in northeastern Pennsylvania. It followed up the offer with meetings in each county to explain its program and to mobilize support. But Patrick Mellody, chairman of the Lackawanna County after, the

Commissioners, wrote to Louis Feldmann on March 24 that an organization

composed

entirely of

county

officials

would be the

appropriate body to administer federal and state development assistance

nounced

programs

in

his intention of

northeastern Pennsylvania. Mellody an-

forming such an organization

—

the North-

Pennsylvania Economic Development District Commission

east

(NPEDDC). Mellody echoed

Blier's

EDC

charges that

federal funds only for Luzerne County.

was a

who wanted

"vested interest group" composed of businessmen

He and many

of the other

county commissioners did not feel that an incorporated body

He

lacking political status could be effective.

threatened to with-

hold the support of the Lackawanna County government from any

undertaken by

activities

ment

solidarity

other counties

EDC

These

officials later

was already organized,

Mellody and Blier

officially

from

six

explained that they accepted staffed,

formed the

and funded and had

3

NPEDDC

and obtained

membership of a number of other county commissioners.

Plans for the formation of the State

2.

officials

accepted the Economic Development Council's

begun a "well received" research program. the

claims of county govern-

were weakened, however, when

invitation to join.

because

EDC. 2 Mellody 's

Letter

NPEDDC

had been made known

to

Department of Commerce, the State Planning Board, from Patrick Mellody to Louis Feldmann, March 24, 1966, Economic Development Council of North-

located in the records of the eastern Pennsylvania. 3.

See Lehighton Evening Leader, March 31, 1966, and Evening Record

(Wilkes-Barre),

March

31, 1966.

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

122

EDA,

and the U.S. Department of

the Appalachian Commission,

Urban Development.

Housing

and

proached

HUD

governments,

NPEDDC

for

eligible

assistance

financial

Blier that his organization did not

announced

meet

their intention of

its

in

coordinating

informed

requirements,

NPEDDC

expanding membership to

include a cross-section of public and private groups to meet

broad-representation requirements. 4

support

in

ap-

HUD

When

municipal planning and redevelopment.

leaders

organizers

about being designated a regional council of

They continued

Lackawanna County, gaining

backing

the

EDA's

to mobilize

of

the

Scranton Tribune, the Scranton Central Labor Council, and the

chairman of the Scranton City Planning Commission. Meanwhile, the Economic Development Council was mobilizing its

own

coalition of support. Farley

and Carmon asked several

community and business leaders serving on the EDC listed as members of NPIDC to resign formally from the latter organization. Copies of the letters of resignation were then sent to EDA in Washington to demonstrate prestigious

board who had been

Lackawanna group did not have strong community supThe council also secured the endorsement of both of Penn-

that the port.

sylvania's

United States

Congressman Flood.

senators

EDC won

and renewed backing from

the support of the

Development Administration's regional Middle-Atlantic

field

office

headquarters as well.

at several local meetings

on behalf of the

Economic

personnel in the

EDA

field staff

spoke

council's designation,

thereby invoking the anger of the Lackawanna group. "Our organization

is

a bit concerned by the turn of events here in North-

eastern Pennsylvania," Philip

Council protested to the

Brady of the Scranton Central Labor

EDA

administrator in Washington that

EDA field personnel were showing undue favoritism. 4.

See "Development District Proposed for Region," Scranton Times,

March 5.

15, 1966.

Letter

from

Philip

Brady to Eugene

P.

Foley,

1966 in EDC records. See also Tom Wilson, with EDA Funds," Pocono Record, July 5, 1966.

April

5

6.

EDA

administrator,

"A Thousand

'Ifs'

Ride

Politics of

Again

in

123

Northeastern Pennsylvania

summer of 1966 members of the EDC tried to Lackawanna County Commissioners to join the

in the

persuade the council.

Development

But Mellody and

his fellow

commissioners rejected the

support for Blier's position and calling the

offer, reiterating their

EDC's development activities a "private club approach." In December 1966 the Pennsylvania Department of Commerce officially certified the Economic Development Council as the development

A

agency for northeastern Pennsylvania.

district

storm of protests came from Scranton. Telegrams were sent by Mellody, Brady, and others to Pennsylvania Secretary of

merce John Tabor. Mellody threatened

Assembly the threat

investigation; but

demand a General

to

Tabor stood firm on the decision and

was never followed up. Despite

Commonwealth,

EDA

still

certification

by the

EDC

or pro-

would not designate the

vide technical assistance because

Lackawanna County was not

represented officially on the board of directors. Both

EDC

Com-

EDA

and

looked upon the obstruction as a nuisance that would be

resolved in time, and overall

EDC

was allowed

to begin preparing

an

economic development program for the region.

Opponents of the council, however, continued Attempting to block

final designation

their attacks.

by EDA, the Lackawanna

group questioned the competence of the council's research and criticized

its

supporters.

known

to

sonnel,

became a

Congressman Daniel Flood, who was

have substantial influence with favorite target.

EDA

Washington per-

The county commissioners

issued

a news release charging that "the need for a 'special interest'

Luzerne County organization directed by Congressman Flood

is

not in the area's future or the public interest" and claimed that "elected public officials in this county are local planning

more

able to handle

and projects." 6

EDC by the Lackawanna group, many public and private leaders in other counties had decided not to oppose the council further. They began to see Notwithstanding continued attacks on the

6.

Scranton Tribune, June 19, 1967.

124 it

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

in their

own

interests to support

and incidents

certification,

state

began

to create cleavages

among

EDC's

in

efforts after

those

group. Blier's credibility was questioned.

news

issuing

releases

their opposition to

and

letters

EDC;

received

it

summer of 1967 supporting the Lackawanna

the early

He was

charged with

quoting community leaders about

they later claimed never to have

such statements. Blier wrote to the Appalachian Regional mission in

1967, for instance, over the signature of

president, Victor

when of

the letter

NP IDC's

Diehm, protesting the designation of EDC. But

was made

Diehm claimed he knew nothing

public,

and that "Mr. Blier was

it

made Com-

base in registering the protest." 7

off

The Lackawanna County group's

criticism of the

EDC

later

brought some of the council's latent supporters openly into the conflict.

When

EDC

Blier charged

with "juggling statistics" to

channel federal funds for sewer and waste treatment projects away

from Lackawanna County

into Luzerne,

WBRE-TV's news

editor

defended the council in an editorial accusing EDC's opponents of "guttersniping."

"Not only are the charges

truth but they stoop to stirring

when

up

far

removed from the

provincial antagonisms at a time

the region's economic and social well-being depends

on a

healthy sense of unity," the editorial argued. 8

The Lackawanna group intensified attacks on Congressman Flood. The rumor was circulated among local government officials that Flood had been controlling EDC's activities, attempting to build his

own power base

alleged that

EDC

in

the region.

was "hatched

as

Later Blier publicly

a special interest Luzerne

County vehicle [with which] Congressman Daniel J. Flood has been attempting to override county, city, borough and township governments." Mellody accused Flood and

EDC

twisting" to get the commissioners to join. But,

"Lackawanna has done and 7.

will continue to

directors of

Mellody

"arm

insisted,

do pretty well by

See "Diehm Denies He's Protestor," Scranton Sunday Times, June 19,

1967. 8. 1,

WBRE-TV,

1967.

"Guttersniping,"

mimeographed

reprint of editorial, June

Politics of

itself

—we

direction

Development

don't need Luzerne County, badly in need of

itself,

to advise us."

9

125

Northeastern Pennsylvania

in

some good

The Economic Development Council

emphatically denied that Flood was influencing

its activities,

claim-

ing that contacts with his office were routine, those any organization involved in obtaining a federal grant

would have with

its

congressman. Flood himself seemed unaware of the accusations. In late spring of 1967 the congressman was informed of the charges and that Mellody, Blier, and others had filed protests to

EDC's

with

designation

EDA's Middle-Atlantic Flood was moved

Robert Cox,

regional director, and the Washington to use his substantial

power

in

Washington

tion's access to federal agencies.

EDA

asking

letter

office.

The congressman wrote a

stern

people in Washington to warn Secretary of

Commerce Alexander Trowbridge and Economic Development

EDA

Assistant

Secretary for

Ross Davis of the consequences of tolerat-

ing further obstruction by the

consider any

to block the opposi-

Lackawanna group. Flood would

cooperation with Blier a personal affront. 10

That Flood was a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee reviewing the Commerce Department budget and a cosponsor of

EDA's

that his warning

that he

enabling legislation were assurances enough

would not go unheeded. Flood, moreover, said

would "talk

to

Mellody and Brady."

After more than eighteen months of conflict, on June 25, 1967, the

Economic Development Council was designated

officially as

the development district organization for northeastern Pennsylvania.

The

The board

council formally reorganized using of directors

was expanded

who

futility of

9.

sional

interests.

And many

of

opposed EDC's expansion recognized the

further contravention and agreed to join the council.

Scranton Tribune, Sept.

10.

EDC

initially

guidelines.

to include representatives

from a wide variety of public and private those

EDA

4,

1967, p.

3.

from Flood to Francis Dooley, Director, Office of CongresRelations, Economic Development Administration, June 22, 1967, in

Letter

records.

126

Urban Regions

Policy Administration in

Unknown

"Efforts

or Dimly Perceived"

After two years of planning, reorganizing, pressuring, and comofficial

designation of

EDC

the regional

unemployment

rate fell

promising, the

On

July

1

lasted only five days.

below the minimum

6 percent required by the Public Works and Economic Develop-

ment Act. The Northeastern Pennsylvania Economic Development District was formally de-designated. Despite

de-designation by

its

EDA,

however, the council con-

tinued to be the regional development organization under the

Appalachian and State Department of Commerce redevelopment programs. The

EDA

had given the council a technical assistance

which formal designation was not required, to carry on planning, research, and coordination for economic recovery. grant, for

But the business and

who founded

civic leaders

the

EDC

had only

general conceptions about what functions the organization could

perform. They wanted

it

accelerate

to

industrial

development,

stimulate planning, assemble and analyze information, and promote

cooperation

among

a multitude of communities and organizations

involved in development

activities.

But the Economic Development

Council was a nonprofit corporation, financed by public and private funds.

It

had no

legal

powers to control development

and no formal authority

activities

relatively

few resources

—a budget

and

six professional staff

role

in

regional policy

to require coordination. It

had

of less than $100,000 a year

members. The problem of defining

making would have

what EDC's executive director

later

to be

called "an

its

resolved in

atmosphere of

creative tension."

The which

tension arose from the complex regional organization in

EDC

would have

to

operate.

While regional economic

development had been predominantly a local function in the 1950's,

by 1966 a myriad of public and

federal organizations were

all

and

competing for resources and influence.

The Pennsylvania Department Industrial

private, local, state,

of

Commerce,

Development Authority, and the

the Pennsylvania

State Planning

Board

Development

Politics of

in

127

Northeastern Pennsylvania

were working with local industrial development groups and community planning agencies to create local redevelopment programs.

The Commonwealth, moreover, formed a Department of Community Affairs to provide local governments with technical and financial aid and to coordinate municipal administrative efforts.

At

the federal level

and 1960's created agencies

specialized in particular aspects of

the .local level

at

planning.

new programs established during the 1950's scores of new commissions, authorities, and

Community Action

Model

councils and

Cities agencies

were created pursuant to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964

and the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1966. Federal development of the Delaware River Basin generated the Tocks Regional Advisory Commission,

Island

planning

agency

included

that

two

a multicounty,

counties

of

tristate

northeastern

Pennsylvania.

The

EDC

board of directors believed that

it

could succeed only

with the cooperation of other public and private groups. In their overall

"The it

economic development program the

role of the Council

is

EDC

staff

explained:

seen primarily as catalytic

—

that

is,

should try to encourage actions of the most vitally interested

groups, but within a framework which will assure the

maximum

benefits to the District within the shortest period of time least

real

cost.

.

.

.

The

usurping no one's role;

its

District

and the

Organization should aim at

goal should be to supplement, not to

supplant."

As

a result,

basic research,

EDC's work was organized regional recreation

dustrial development, planning coordination, tion. Specific tasks,

into five categories:

and tourism promotion,

in-

and public informa-

however, were ultimately adjusted to targets

of opportunity, changing perceptions of the development problem,

and requests for assistance from other organizations. In conjunction with preparation of an overall economic development program required by

EDA,

of regional

manpower

the council undertook a series of special studies resources, labor

and production

capability,

tourism and recreation potential, and local manufacturing char-

128

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

Newspapers and

actcristics.

EDC's

publicize the

were used extensively

television

research studies, as were the council's

to

own

newsletter and circulars. Perhaps the most extensive efforts went

toward industrial development and promotion. Here, so as to avoid interorganizational conflict and political opposition, the council

was

careful not to impinge

on technical and

financial assistance

commerce and focused on activities

functions being performed by local chambers of

development groups. Instead,

industrial

it

would induce them to work together, to pool their advertising and promotion resources. In time the council was able to that

move

other areas of planning.

into

1967

In

it

initiated

joint

highway planning projects with county planning boards and

in

conjunction with public and private agencies assisted the Pennsyl-

vania Department of

Commerce

in preparing a state

Appalachian

Investment Program.

With the succession of a new executive the council expanded the scope of

its

director,

concern in

Donald Moyer, late

1969 and

Moyer placed much more emphasis on getting wider in EDC's activities. The became an intermediary among local groups sponsoring

early 1970.

individual

EDC

and organizational participation

development projects, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Pennsylvania

Bureau of

State

and Federal Economic Aid.

Similarly, the council offered to act as intermediary

U.S.

between the

Department of Commerce, which was promoting foreign

trade by manufacturers in depressed areas, and industries in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Moyer committed

the Susquehanna River Basin

EDC

to cooperating with

Study Committee and the State

Planning Board. The council attempted to take a stronger role

problems of education

in analyzing

levels in conjunction with state

Thus the over time.

and

direction It

had

sociopolitical

and

at the

primary and secondary

local school officials.

and scope of the council's

activities

to adjust continually to a changing

environment and adapt to the

pressures of a myriad of other specialized groups. to carve out

its

own

place, define

its

own

changed

economic

activities

The

EDC

and had

role without benefit of

Politics of

Development

in

the experience of predecessor organizations.

Few

other district

planning organizations existed in the nation on which pattern

Moyer work

its activities.

told his

"If the past

board of

efforts are either

perceived."

is

directors,

unknown

129

Northeastern Pennsylvania

it

could

the instructor for the future,"

"some of our most important

at the present time or only

dimly

CHAPTER 6

The Organizational Structure of Northeastern Pennsylvania

Organizations operate within a structural environment. They

must

establish

relationships

with

other organizations in order

and functions, exert

to define their roles

resources most effectively.

influence,

and

utilize their

The development planning agencies Economic Development Admin-

created with the assistance of the istration,

the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Office of

Economic Opportunity, Model Cities, and other federal programs all had to find a place within existing regional organizational strucUnderstanding the nature of regional organization

ture.

to understanding the

is

basic

weaknesses of the prescriptions of traditional

planning administration. Earlier in the

book

was argued that these prescriptions are

it

inadequate because they inaccurately describe regional organiza-

and urge reforms

tion

conform.

Now

it

is

to

which the structure cannot be made to

necessary to ask more searching questions.

What

are the characteristics of the structure of regional organiza-

tion?

Who

makes

decisions affecting the rate

regional development?

What

zations within a region

and direction of

are the relationships

among

organi-

and between regional organizations and

those outside?

Using northeastern Pennsylvania as a

specific

example, a de-

tailed analysis of its organizational structure leads to five

major

propositions: 1

.

The policy-making

structure

is

organizationally complex, plu-

131

Organizational Structure in Northeastern Pennsylvania ralistic,

fragmented, and decentralized.

Numerous informal and make

formal organizations in both the public and private sectors decisions that affect the rate

and direction of socioeconomic and

physical development. 2.

Control over resources and decision-making powers

jointed

is dis-

and dispersed, both organizationally and geographically,

over subsectors of the region. The control of investment funds, jobs, wages, salaries

and other forms of personal income, economic

factors of production, public goods

and is

and

services, social

directly productive capital, taxable property,

decentralized

the region.

among

the

and many others

numerous decision-making

Each organization

overhead

units within

controls relatively small portions of

the total resources.

The policy-making structure is open to external influence from both public and private organizations. The decisions of 3.

exogenous plants,

groups

and organizations

—headquarters

of

branch

resource suppliers, intermediate and final markets, state

government agencies, federal departments and agencies, parent organizations of local social and civic groups, and others

a

vital

4.

—have

impact on the rate and direction of regional development.

Performance of socioeconomic and

shared by decision-making

functions

is

Organizations in both the public

units.

and private sectors are involved

political

in nearly all substantive activities

affecting the region's development.

Few

activities in the

region

are performed exclusively in the public sector or in the private sector, or

by

distinctly separable "levels" of

development functions are shared. 5.

Influence

and power are shared,

numerous organizations within the ture. Policy evolves It

government. Regional

1

albeit

pluralistic

unevenly, by the

policy-making struc-

from interaction among specialized

emanates from organizational competition and 1.

Compare

System, Daniel

this analysis

interests.

conflict, rather

with those by Morton Grodzins, The American

Rand McNally, 1966); and Robert Wood, 1400 Governments (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961) J.

Elazar, ed. (Chicago:

— 132

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

than by authoritative prescription through government hierarchy or a pyramidical socioeconomic "power Pluralism, Decentralized Control,

elite."

and the Openness of

the

Regional Structure

The

Private Sector

Regional structure private enterprise. is

composed

strongly influenced

is

The

by the organization of

private sector in northeastern Pennsylvania

of a multitude of establishments that

make

invest-

ment, consumption, production, and distribution decisions. The sector consists mainly of small firms, each employing relatively

small portions of the total labor force and each producing a small

proportion of total output. Decisions affecting the region's devel-

opment are made by

at least

25,000 establishments and by more

than 270,000 household units.

Although

its

omy," there

seven counties are classified as a "regional econ-

are, in reality, a multitude of open,

fragmented, and

overlapping markets: neighborhood markets, subcenter, and urban-

wide trading areas, metropolitan markets, and interregional trading centers. Hazleton, in Luzerne, serves as a retail

and wholesale

trading subcenter for the southern section of the county, as well as for parts of rural

Carbon County. Wilkes-Barre

also serves

Luzerne and shares part of the Lackawanna County market with Scranton. Both Wilkes-Barre and Scranton are subregional market centers for parts of rural

Stroudsburg in that county

Monroe

is

Wayne, Monroe, and Pike counties. a retail and wholesale subcenter for

and parts of Pike. Hancock and Port

in the southern tier of

New

York,

attract

Jervis, located

consumers of larger

nondurable items from rural northeastern Pennsylvania. Journey-to-work patterns within the region ity of local

labor markets. In

some

areas

up

reflect the

to

complex-

45 percent of the

workers are employed outside of the county of their residence.

Workers

living

outside

the

region

commute

into

northeastern

Pennsylvania, and local residents travel to jobs located outside

133

Organizational Structure in Northeastern Pennsylvania to larger metropolitan centers in

delphia,

New

York,

New

Jersey, Phila-

and Harrisburg. extent of organizational pluralism, decentralization, and

The

fragmentation within northeastern Pennsylvania

by the

size of

made

is

evident

employment, investment, and production capacity.

Nearly 72 percent of the business establishments employ

less

than

seven people. Slightly more than half employ three workers or less.

In relatively few subareas of the region does any single

industry generate

more than 2 percent

received by local residents.

Some regional

firms, of course,

do make a

development. Nearly

Company, Illinois.

relatively larger

140 establishments

and international corporations:

Eberhard

impact on

(less

Faber,

RCA,

American Tobacco,

than

1

the Trane

and

Owens

Their investment, employment, and production decisions,

however, are made primarily on the basis of extraregional national and international financial

number

income

more than 250 workers. These tend

percent of the total) employ to be national

of the personal

2

and technological

criteria:

factors.

of firms, especially in the apparel, textile, electronic,

equipment industries

in northeastern Pennsylvania,

dependent on defense contracts, federal and

moreover, are

state

procurements

of goods and services, and government subcontracts.

20 percent

of total federal expenditures

made

A

and

More than

in northeastern

Pennsylvania in 1967 were in the form of contracts and procurements, the

size, type,

and

stability of

which change from year to

year with changing political and economic factors determined at the national level.

Further, the economic decisions of the private establishments are not

made

entirely

under the control of the organizations ostensibly making

them.

entirely

Countervailing

on the

basis of

power

is

market

exercised

criteria.

Nor

are they

by numerous labor

2. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Internal Affairs, Pennsylvania's Income and Population by County, 1929-1963 (Harrisburg:

Commonwealth

of Pennsylvania, 1965).

134

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

unions. Nearly every major occupation group

and nationally

local

affiliated

is

organized into

labor unions, fifty-eight of which

Wilkes-Barre. They attempt to influence decisions wage rates, working conditions, employment, and quality of goods and services. Individual labor unions and central labor councils wield varying amounts of political power that affect the outcome of both public and private development policies.

have

offices in

concerning

The

Public Sector

Control over development resources and regional policy making is

further dispersed

among

federal

and

state agencies, departments,

commissions and administrations, county governments, local municipalities,

semi-independent authorities, independent school boards,

and county school make, and

districts.

These public organizations

indirectly influence,

directly

decisions shaping the rate

and

direction of regional growth, such as the provision and mainte-

nance of social overhead

capital, operating expenditures for a

variety of public goods

and

services, the

from other government agencies and private

services

wide

purchase of goods and establish-

ments, employment of professional and nonprofessional labor, and the regulation of public and private activities.

The Structure

of

Exogenous Influence

Federal agencies had a pervasive impact on socioeconomic and physical

development in northeastern Pennsylvania during the

1960's. In

1967 nearly one hundred federal programs operated

within the region, administered by

more than two dozen

federal

departments and commissions, as well as their component bureaus, offices,

and

more than half a billion dollars seven-county area more than eighteen times

divisions. Outlays of

were made in the

—

amount spent by all municipal governments and thirty times that expended by county governments in 1965. Federal expenditures were more than double that of state agencies. Federal agencies spent nearly $53 million for program administration and wages, including direct payments to military and civilian emthe

135

Organizational Structure in Northeastern Pennsylvania

ployees

and

services

administrative

for

by

supplied

private

least twenty-five major federal programs directly

establishments. At increased income in northeastern Pennsylvania through transfer

payments and

social welfare assistance.

They included commodity

school lunch, and food stamp programs of Agriculture. Health, EducaDepartment administered by the tion and Welfare, the Veterans Administration, and the Civil distribution programs,

Service

Commission provided aid

assistance,

to dependent children,

community health

came

old age

compensation to individuals. Aid

pension payments, and

disability

health assistance

districts,

payments, unemployment insurance,

security

social

school

to

assistance,

and veterans

into the region through state and local

agencies.

Private organizations, state government agencies, business

and

manufacturing establishments, local governments, municipal authorities, special districts,

and individuals received assistance from

a large number of federal agencies. Technical assistance grants

and research and planning aid came from the Farmers ministration, the

Department of

Interior, the

Home Ad-

Appalachian Regional

Commission, the Urban Renewal Administration, the Public Health Service,

and a myriad of other federal sources for

activities

rang-

ing from natural resource research, public works planning, and

urban renewal programing to medical research and community health

program development.

While the impact of federal is

pervasive, administration

"the federal government"

is

is

activities

on regional development

not monolithic. Indeed, to speak of

to distort

and simplify

its

structure.

Federal decisions are not centrally controlled, nor organizationor temporally coordinated. Each of the nearly one

ally, spatially,

hundred programs in operation

in northeastern Pennsylvania

ema-

nates from a distinct decision-making unit. Federal policy for each

program has been developed

in

response to different national

problems, at different periods of time, by different legislators and administrators.

Each has

its

Each agency has

own

its

own

set of legislative directives.

administrative objectives

and

definition of

its

136

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

Each

mission.

own is

as its

own

decision-making

regulations, guidelines,

and

tools for

Each has its implementation. Each criteria.

involved in a complex network of organizational interrelation-

ships with other federal agencies, state bureaus, divisions, and

commissions, local governments, private organizations, and social groups.

The

pluralism,

decentralization,

disjointed

control

over

re-

sources, fragmented influence, shared performance of functions,

and openness of the policy-making system

arise

from complex

networks of delegated responsibilities and discretionary powers. Agencies in one department have administrative control or review

power over

parts of the programs of others.

For one agency

to

operate a program at the regional level that requires cooperation

or specialized inputs from another, an interagency agreement or

memorandum Urban and

of understanding

must be negotiated.

regional development programs, being both areally

oriented and multipurpose,

are entangled in intricate

interagency delegation and coordination arrangements.

Economic Development Administration,

for instance,

webs of

When

the

provided

business loans to private firms the applications had to be cleared

by the Small Business Administration. als

and perfomed a

study of the little

credit investigation

company submitting

control over the time

the criteria

the studies technical

it

SBA

SBA

reviewed the propos-

and market

the loan applications.

feasibility

EDA

had

took to review the applications,

used in the review process, or the personnel doing

and making

assistance

final

recommendations. Supplementary

programs involving manpower

training,

the other hand, were reviewed by the Department of Labor's

on

Man-

power Development Training staff. If EDA public works grants and loans involved sewerage or community facilities, applications had to be processed through the Community Facilities Administration of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Farmers Home Administration reviewed

EDA

grants to rural areas.

grants to municipalities for waste disposal projects were

approved by the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. In

137

Organizational Structure in Northeastern Pennsylvania

EDA

addition,

sponsibilties

had interagency agreements or coordinating rewith the Bureau of the Budget on sewer-project fund-

Education and Welfare on hospital and educational grants; and the Bureau of Public Roads of the Depart-

ing; Health, facilities

ment of Transportation on highway-related of Economic Opportunity, which provided

The

decisions.

Office

assistance to county-

wide antipoverty agencies during the 1960's, delegated the administration of of Labor;

its

Neighborhood Youth Corps

its

to the

Department

Adult Basic Education programs to the Department

of Health, Education

and Welfare;

its

programs

rural loan

to the

Department of Agriculture. The Small Business Administration implemented OEO's loan assistance programs;

HEW

controlled

work experience development projects. The director of OEO could make decisions only with the joint approval of the heads of 3

its

the delegate agencies. Ironically, attempts to coordinate decision

making led and

to increased organizational fragmentation, pluralism,

decentralization.

The U.S. Department

of

Commerce was

represented on fifteen interagency coordinating committees con-

cerned with economic development. The Department of Housing

and Urban Development had interagency agreements, formal understandings,

and mandated coordinating arrangements with

forty-one other federal agencies. It additional formal

was a member of

and informal interagency committees,

and task forces attempting

to

thirty-one councils,

coordinate urban and regional

development programs. 4 The degree to which these administrative arrangements impinge on the decision-making

agency

is

variable.

ability of

any single

While some coordinating committees and task

forces require a great deal of

manpower, agency

interaction,

and

Nixon administration removed the Job Corps and program from OEO control and delegated them to the Department of Labor and HEW respectively, leaving the poverty agency managing only the Community Action program. In 1972 the administration began dismantling OEO altogether, vesting functions in delegate agencies. 4. See U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Government Operations, Creative Federalism, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, 89th Cong., 2d sess., 1966, pt. I, pp. 138-139 and passim. 3.

the

In early 1969 the

Head

Start

138

Policy Administration in Urban Regions

compromise, others are only "paper organizations" that meet per-

and Budget Bureau demands

functorily to satisfy congressional for "coordination."

Fragmentation of control tional.

distributed thinly over tions

is

geographical as well as organiza-

Federal expenditures are dispersed throughout the region,

in

the

numerous

local

Table 1). Only defense spending counties and

governments and organiza-

seven counties of northeastern Pennsylvania

HEW

in

(see

Lackawanna and Monroe

expenditures in urban centers are relatively

concentrated. While federal agencies, departments, and commissions have a pervasive impact federal programs

on regional development

decisions,

are often merely large rather than powerful.

Resources are not concerted. Their impact

is

not directed.

In addition to the programs of federal agencies and depart-

ments, another complex set of influences on regional development

emanates from the sions, fiscal

activities

of departments, agencies, commis-

and authorities of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 1967, state agencies spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars

in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Money came

highway construction, maintenance, and

into the region for

repair, educational assis-

tance programs, and public works. Like the federal agencies, state

government units

influence, directly

and

indirectly, a

wide spectrum

of regional activities. Flood control, stream clearance, park and

open space

acquisition,

housing and redevelopment, mines and

mineral industries, and port development are aided by the depart-

ments of Agriculture, Forests and Waters, Labor and Industry,

Mines and Minerals, Urban

Affairs,

and Highways. Transfer pay-

ments flow into the region from the departments of Labor and Industry, Military Affairs, Firemen's Relief

Motor Fund and

new

the Liquid Fuel

building construction

state-aided institutions

ments to the region's 5.

and Pension Fund,

Tax Fund. The

state invested in

and renovation of state-owned and

and made substantial wage and salary pay-

residents. 5

See Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Governor's Office of Administra-

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