Making Equity Planning Work: Leadership in the Public Sector.
Randall, Stephen J.
Krumholtz, Norman and John Forester, Making Equity Planning Work:
Leadership in the Public Sector. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1990. Pp. xxiii. 260. Index.
Bear, Larry Alan, The Glass House Revolution: Inner-City War for
Interdependence. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990. Pp. 146.
30 illustrations, notes, index. $24.95 U.S.
There is a pleasant irony in the fact that Larry Bear's
insightful study of the Temple area of North Philadelphia is published
by the University of Washington Press and that Norman Krumholtz's
study of equity planning in Cleveland is published by Temple University
Press. The two studies have a good deal in common in their focus on the
problems of inner-city America, the nature of political power, the role
of private corporations in urban reform, and the prospects for change.
Both studies underline the impediments to reform, its urgency and the
implications of failing to come to terms with one of the most pressing
problems in American society today. Krumholtz's analysis of
Cleveland, however, underscores the lengthy historical tradition of
urban reform and the previous efforts which have been made to address
the problems.
Krumholtz's account is essentially a personal memoir of the
decade (1969-79) during which he served as the head of the planning
staff of Cleveland under three different mayors--Carl Stokes, Ralph Perk
and Dennis Kucinich. Krumholtz provides a detailed (overly detailed many
readers will conclude) account of the issues that confronted planners in
gaining support for their ideas in the political, community and
corporate sectors of Cleveland, in particular the frustrations of
planners such as Krumholtz who were committed to the idea of equity
planning--that is, planning with the specific goal of ameliorating the
lives of the weaker and poorer segments of a city population.
Krumholtz divides his study into two sections. The first outlines
the experience of the planning department in Cleveland in several
specific issues, including the Euclid Beach development, the Clark
Freeway and other regional and inner-city transportation issues, low and
moderate income housing, tax delinquency and land banking, relations
with community groups and other city agencies. The second part of the
book attempts to apply the lessons of the Cleveland experience to urban
planning in general.
Krumholtz's account stresses the absence of a clear political
mandate for planners in Cleveland and the opportunity this afforded for
the planning department to forge its own agenda. In some major areas,
such as low-income housing, there were major defeats as they faced
racism and class interests. In other areas, such as changes in
Ohio's property tax laws, they experienced success.
In spite of the failures and frustrations that Krumholtz
experienced during his ten years in office, there were a sufficient
number of victories for him to conclude optimistically that planners can
have an impact on those segments of a society which are most in need,
that they can contribute to the alleviation of inequality, and that it
is possible to resist the pressures of the main power blocs in any
community. Krumholtz stresses that in order to make progress planners
have to be conscious of both the professional and political dimensions
of a planning problem. Some of their failures in Cleveland, especially
in the early stages of their work, derived from a naive neglect of the
power structures of the city. As he indicates, the most important
"planning and development initiatives come not from the city but
from the developers, utility companies, the Growth Association and major
law firms."
Significantly, that lesson also comes through very strongly in
Bear's fascinating, beautifully illustrated and effective study of
the decision by Bell in the mid-1980s to establish a major computer
facility in the Temple area of North Philadelphia. Where the two studies
differ most strongly, however, is in their treatments of the roles
played by the major corporate players--in the Philadelphia case: Temple
University and Bell Telephone. In both cases the institutions were
forces for positive community change, especially for positive change in
the relationship between the institutions and the communities in which
they operated.
In the early 1980s Temple University found itself losing a
significant number of its students because of the deteriorating physical
and human environment in which it was set in North Philadelphia, an area
of largely black and Hispanic populations, high levels of unemployment,
significant numbers of families which are female headed and below the
poverty line, widespread drug use and violent crime. The desire of Bell
to locate its new computer facility in the area provided an opportunity
to improve the physical and human environment, and it moved into a
logical partnership in attaining its goals, even though this was against
considerable odds in the community and in the larger political context
of the city and state governments.
Bear demonstrates that Bell, with a longer and better tradition of
social responsibility than many American corporations, deserved a
significant degree of credit for the initiative. It would have been easy
for Bell to have located a new office complex in a largely white, middle
class suburb. There was considerable pressure for that decision within
the company, from senior executives as well as from average employees
who were concerned about the safety of the environment in which they
would be working. A series of Bell CEOs fought against the current to
achieve their goals in North Philadelphia in cooperation with Temple
University. Bell achieved its objectives with careful attention to local
community needs and sensitivities. Bear stresses what Bell CEO Raymond
Smith argued, that the company had a social responsibility to the
public, "that there is in the long term no conflict between
community service, social responsibility and corporate profits."
With that objective in mind, Bell appointed for a two year period a
black executive, Charles Powell, to serve as liaison with the Urban
Affairs Partnership. Powell was given an office at Temple for that
purpose in order to improve his links with the community. Throughout
that period Powell and other Bell officials and Temple University
administrators worked with a broad range of interest groups, including
the Philadelphia Urban Coalition, the Urban Affairs Partnership, the
Institute for the Study of Civic Values, the East of Broad Street
Coalition, the mayor, department of commerce, city council.
Opposition from the North Philadelphia community leaders at the
outset was strong. Residents feared that the infusion of corporate
capital into a high-tech operation would drive up land and housing costs
in the area and drive out those residents who could not afford such
increases, even though they also believed that such residents had
nowhere else to go. Many of them also viewed Temple University as a
hostile presence. The children of the area were not Temple's source
of students; the institution was simply another outside force, like
Bell. Yet, effective liaison, patient and sincere negotiations among the
involved interests, gradually reduced community hostility to the
project.
In the short term, Bell's new facility in North Philadalphia
did little to expand employment opportunities for area residents. At the
time of Bear's writing, Bell had hired only eight residents out of
one hundred and seventy-three employees in the building. Three of the
eight were in management positions. Temple University also made little
progress with its Science and Technology Complex and Job Program.
Nonetheless, Bear remained optimistic about the future. After the
facility opened, for instance, Bell continued to fund the Career
Mobility Center.
Bear's carefully documented, well-researched study, for which
he had unrestricted access to Bell files and executives, provides
important alternatives to the normally gloomy and pessimistic studies of
corporate-community relations. As he concludes: "The future of
America's inner cities--and by extension the future of our
nation--will be determined through the efforts which shape the forces
and dimensions of urban renewal."
Stephen J. Randall
Imperial Oil-Lincoln McKay Chair
in American Studies
Faculty of Social Science
University of Calgary
