NEW YORK SISYPHEAN TASK CONFRONTS POPULOUS CITY’S NEW MAYOR

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30976, 4 February 1966, Page 12

NEW YORK SISYPHEAN TASK CONFRONTS POPULOUS CITY’S NEW MAYOR

[By the New York correspondent of “The Times J [Reprinted from “The Times”] Now that the transport strike is over, Mr Lindsay' «« j* Pin to tackle the many other problems which face any irnbpnt w i, o particularly a liberal Republican like the present 1 nroblem first: given so many election pledges. To take the most u g P .. . .' ' The city is in the grip of a demographic revolution, ™ Bin je 1955 a million middle-class whites have moved out f lesser means farther afield, while as many Negroes and Puerto Ricans ’ B revS?v have moved in, making slums of several areas which were previously respectable.

This demographic revolution itself has created complications, economic, educational and criminal, with which the mayor must cope. On the economic side, the spreading “urban blight” calls for more money and more planning to ■rehabilitate slums and raise standards of living among the poorer people. Federal loans for low rental housing projects have already helped to clear some of the worst depressed areas in Harlem and the Lower East Side, but much more must be done if racial resentment caused by ghetto-like conditions is not to erupt into riots on the scale of those which shook the Watts district of Los Angeles last year. Welfare Pay Trebled Ironically enough, the factors which have made New York a less attractive city for the middle class to live in have also made it less attractive for labour-intensive industry to operate in. Industrial and unskilled or semiskilled employment declined last year by about 2 per cent. The unskilled poor who form more and more of the city’s eight million population constitute less and less of its payroll. Welfare payments have nearly trebled in the last 12 years and have now reached the astonishing figure of more than 560 m. dollars (£200m.) Mr Lindsay is proposing to tackle this by setting up a “human resources administration” which would bring together welfare, anti-poverty and youth programmes under one agency, and he has enlisted a young expert to head a study group which the Ford Foundation is expected to finance. Mr Lindsay believes the big foundations should turn their attention and resources to civic needs and shoulder the task. of recruiting experts to plan and execute urban rehabilitation. The Mayor is also known to be convinced that the central problem facing the nation is the need for Federal funds and attention to save the cities from further deterioration. He has said: “The national focus and the first priority must be on the cities,” and he regards this as quite as important to the country’s future as the race for the moon, or Vietnam, or better transport. Eight Years Needed This last is a long-term programme, one which will in-

volve a nation-wide campaign by mayors and city dwellers to organise a Washington lobby and persuade the Federal Administration to spend more time and money on the requirements of the growing urban population. As one commentator puts it: “By the time Lindsay is ready to try for the White House, the urbanisation of America may have made the cities, as the state houses and the Senate have been, the cradle of the presidency.” Before anything like that can happen—and Mr Lindsay has indicated that in his view it will take eight years to do what has to be done in New York, meaning that he hopes to be re-elected in 1969—the new Mayor will have to prove himself. He will have to carry out a substantial part of his electoral promises. On the score of housing, he has advocated a “vast commun-ity-improvement programme” to take advantage of available Federal funds to promote middle-income flat construction and check the flight of middle-income families to the suburbs. Simultaneously he proposed to set up a new department of housing maintenance to help the one million New Yorkers now living in rotting tenements. To cope with crime and narcotics, Mr Lindsay has said he will enlarge the present police force of 28,000, build a “massive mobile patrol system” by doubling the number of police cars, and institute round-the-clock surveillance of known dope peddlers, as well as set up a city hospital exclusively for addicts and local community clinics for those seeking help. On education, Mr Lindsay is on record as favouring integration, even if it involves providing buses to take children from one locality to another to maintain racial balance in schools —an unpopular policy undertaken by the outgoing Wagner regime which only the conservative Mr Buckley opposed in the November election. Then there are the basic, physical issues that confront the mayor, issues concerned with water, light, air pollution and communications. The city’s reservoirs are today barely a third full, and in spite of some slight improvement in the catchment lately, it is clear that a new approach to water supplies is needed. Like other big cities the world over, New York will probably have to tap the contaminated waters of its adjacent rivers before long, principally the Hudson, even if this means an expensive purification system. Two Tons Of Soot Air pollution in New York, while not as bad as in Los Angeles, is undoubtedly a threat to the public health. It is estimated that two tons of soot fall on each square mile of Manhattan every day, Mr Lindsay has already enlisted the services of an expert from California to advise him. Apart from penalising industrial culprits, the city will probably have to legislate against automobile exhaust fumes, just as California has done. On the score of electric lighting and power, last November’s 10-hour “black out” showed how vulnerable the city is.

As to communications, Mr

Lindsay seems to be headed for a clash with the grand panjandrum of New York’s public works system, Mr Robert Moses, head of the Tnborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the man who has done more than anyone else to build the present network of highways leading into and out of the city. Mr Moses favours more of the same, including an elevated mid-town expressway across Manhattan, but Mr Lindsay has demurred and indicated that he doubts whether this would ease traffic congestion on the island. He has alternative ideas, such as more subway lines, expansion of existing express routes, priority traffic lanes for buses and trucks, and relocation of the city’s docks to remove heavy freight from Manhattar It remains to be seen whether Mr Moses can work with the new mayor, who lacks the authority to dismiss him. Financial Crisis Underlying all these much to be desired reforms is the financial crisis facing New York City. Mr Lindsay has described himself as “a receiver in bankruptcy,” and the description seems apt. On an operating budget of 3900 m. dollars a year (about £1393m.) the estimated gap between revenue and essential spending for 1966-67 is 500 m. dollars (about £179m.). This gap arises solely from current spending programmes and does not include any attempt to fulfil Mr Lindsay’s campaign promises. As one financial commentator says: “On the face of things, John Lindsay has two choices: he must impose new taxes, or make meat-axe cuts. Quite likely he’ll have to do both.” As to the prospect of new taxes, the mayor is up against the fact that his fiscal, policy must be approved by the Board of Estimate, in which he can count on no more than eight out of 22 votes, the rest being those of Democrats. So also on the city council, headed by the Democratic gubernatorial hbpeful Mr Frank O’Connor, Mr Lindsay can count on no more than seven Republican out of 37 members. The Democratic majority on both bodies may be expected to cramp Mr Lindsay’s legislative style. However one looks at it, the task facing Mr Lindsay is little short of Sisyphean. Fortunately for him and his fellow citizens, he is a comparatively young man with much energy, talent and ambition. He has said: “I want to be a good mayor. If my record is good after one term, I would hope to get re-elected.” Given a reasonable amount of bi-partisan support, such as the late fusionist mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, received from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mr Lindsay may make good. If he does he might also become presidential timber himself.