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What Is Happening to the Cities?

“STRIKE! Strike! Strike!” The masculine voices that filled San Francisco’s legislative chambers with that chant belonged to policemen, who had never before in the city’s history done so.

Before that cloudy August Monday in 1975 gave way to dawn, two officers were hit by an irate motorist’s car and another was beaten with a baseball bat. Sniper fire rained down on others, precipitating the spectacle of police officers shooting out street lights to avoid being lighted targets. And from parking violations to murder, people took advantage of the absence of police.

Behind this turmoil, and an equally threatening firemen’s strike, was a massive top-level disagreement among mayor, city supervisors, police and fire officers: What share of spiraling city salaries and other costs should the officers get, and should public-safety officers have a right to strike over the issue?

“An entire city was kidnapped and held for ransom,” commented New York Times columnist William Saire. “The ransom was paid, and now the extortionists patrol the city’s streets, making sure nobody else breaks the law.”

On the other hand, public-employee unions in a growing number of cities say that, regrettably, there is no other way to achieve that to which they feel they are entitled. Thus, crippling strikes of municipal employees, though illegal in many places, hit city after city as contracts come due.

Money Squeeze

Underlying these visible symptoms, there are much deeper problems. Many big cities in the U.S. and in other countries are being squeezed in what has been termed a “financial vise”: On the one hand, soaring pay demands of highly organized public employees plus skyrocketing costs of everything a city has to buy, and, on the other hand, swelling numbers of poor city dwellers who require more and more services even though city income is waning.

This “financial vise” tightened early last year into a death grip on the so-called “financial capital of the world,” New York city. City spending had more than tripled in ten years. Even after slashing thousands of city jobs and frantic fund-raising activities by the hastily formed Municipal Assistance Corporation, the city remained under threat of financial collapse from week to week. And when New York State stepped in to help, its own financial integrity immediately began to crumble.

Economic shock waves spread rapidly. The financial journal Business Week declared:

“New York City’s problems are poisoning the well for everybody. . . . Already, states and cities​—even those not in financial distress—​are encountering difficulties borrowing, and paying higher prices when they do. . . . many states and cities may find themselves sliding inexorably into New York City’s dilemma: either cut spending and services . . . or see their increasingly shaky financial scaffolding collapse around their ears.”

Agonized cries for federal help raised this question in another journal of finance: “Uncle Sam can bail out New York, but who will ball out Uncle Sam?” (Forbes magazine, July 1, 1975, p. 42) The U.S. federal government already owes its creditors almost twice as much as it takes in annually from taxes, while New York city owes little more than a year’s income!

Furthermore, much of the world’s economic system is similarly founded upon layer after layer of credit. And many analysts believe that New York reflects the world’s credit structure in miniature. “Credit is faith,” noted a New York official. “Faith lies in the ability of a borrower to repay. If a major borrower like New York doesn’t, that affects credit transactions everywhere.”

Behind this far-reaching financial dilemma are numerous deep-rooted city problems that refuse to go away. Creeping urban “ghettos” hasten the flight of the “middle class” to the suburbs, public employees grow more militant, welfare rolls spiral, housing decays, pollution pervades and crime and violence thrive. Such problems tend to concentrate in big cities far more than higher population alone accounts for, and they are inexorably worsening in many of them.

A Worldwide Disease

“New York just got hit first,” said Mayor Henry W. Maier of Milwaukee. “All large cities are in the trend New York is in. It’s a matter of time.” And U.S. cities are not alone. Japan’s Daily Yomiuri, for example, reports that hundreds of cities in that nation are “on the verge of ‘bankruptcy’ with snowballing expenditures.”​—October 5, 1975, p. 2.

The scope of the world’s big-city problems is indicated by the fact that 116 cities world wide have entered the “million” population category in the twenty-five years since 1950, while it took all the centuries until then to produce just seventy-five cities that large. These metropolises are sprouting up fastest in “third world” countries that can least afford them. Many reflect, not only problems that face Western cities, but also others unique to their own culture.

“Already up to a third of the people living in Manila, Caracas, Kinshasa, and Cairo are not citizens but illegal squatters, living in tents, tin shacks or waterless, drainless hovels,” reports the Milwaukee Journal. “The experts see no alternative to the slums and shantytowns becoming the dominant form of city life in many countries before 1980.”

A look back, though, reveals that city life was often quite different in the past. Kunle Akinsemoyin writes in the Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday Times: “I can well remember when Lagos Island was the pride of Nigeria. That was in my boyhood days some 40 or more years ago. . . . people were friendly, helpful, well-mannered and hospitable.” Now he says sadly that his home city is “fast gaining the reputation of being one of the filthiest capitals in the world.”

Many of you older city dwellers may find that you are identifying yourselves with Mr. Akinsemoyin’s reflections. Why is it that many formerly vibrant centers of civilization are facing serious setbacks? Is there something fundamentally wrong with big cities?

[Picture on page 4]

CAUGHT IN THE MONEY SQUEEZE

CITY HALL

EMPLOYEE WAGES

COST OF SOCIAL SERVICES