On Decentralization

Cities have problems. Or so we are led to believe. At any rate, there are many problems to be found in cities of the world, and especially those of the United States. One appealing way to eliminate what are ostensibly problems confined to the city is to redefine its boundaries. Thus, not many years ago, a metropolitan conception was frequently urged. More recently, problems have been defined as best approached on the national or the neighborhood level. Many of these discussions have recommended redefinition of the legal boundaries of government and have implied that such action will result in more effective solutions to our problems. Much of the recent discussion has been phrased in terms of a debate about "decentralization," generally used to refer to allocation of more authority to levels below the present municipal governments, often to individual neighborhoods. Lewis Mumford has published a collection of new and old essays that in different ways urge the revitalization of the neighborhood.' Kotler has argued for the neighborhood corporation as a vehicle for greater local control.2 Sim has stressed that the community newspaper can help maintain the values of rural life inside the metropolis.3 Jane Jacobs has seen the fragmented, chaotic little economic enterprises as the core of city life.4 Since the Mobilization for Youth project, and its impact on the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy administration, involving the poor in decisions affecting their lives has frequently been posited as a solution to many urban problems.5 Hence the Community Action Projects, the renewed stress on citizen involvement in planning for urban renewal and other city projects, experiments with local control of schools in Ocean Hill-Brownsville and elsewhere, and a considerable polemical literature urging or attacking further decentralization.6