10.2190/69E7-GJUW-DUVX-NRX1 69E7GJUWDUVXNRX1 4 Stabilizing the Metropolis Through Penetrating Suburban Neighborhoods: An Analytical Systems Approach 47 65 20020509 20020509 20020509 20020509 69E7GJUWDUVXNRX1.pdf http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=69E7GJUWDUVXNRX1 1 Samuel J. Bernstein W. Giles Mellon City University of New York Graduate School of Business Administration, Rutgers University <p>Concentrations of poor, generally minority group residents in core cities is a major problem confronting the nation for the present and proximate future. The following is a quantitative approach for effectively analyzing the consequences of this problem and recommending policies for its resolution.</p><p>At the core of the approach is a systems framework which models the urban-suburban relationship. Its purpose is to provide the methodology for demonstrating solutions through penetrating suburbs and dissolving ghettos with a limited disruption to the former and a significant improvement in the latter. Overall, the aim is to show the way for redressing the imbalanced growth characteristic of metropolitan regions today by equalizing the growth and decay rates within the suburban and inner city areas, thereby making cities more attractive.</p> <i>The New York Times</i>, March 11, 1970. Cf. William Gorham, <i>et al.</i>, "Urban Processes," The Urban Institute, Washington, D. C., 1970, p. 66. For an excellent critique of Urban Dynamics, see Harvey Garn, "An Urban Systems Model, A Critique of Urban Dynamics," The Urban Institute Working Paper No. 113-25, Washington, D. C., August, 1969. See Nathan Glazer, ed., "Cities in Trouble," A New York Times Book, Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1970, Introduction. A recent attempt has been made to statistically test for the explanatory significance of some of those variables. See David F. Bradford and Harry H. Kelejian, "An Econometric Model of the Flight to the Suburbs," Research Memorandum No. 116, <i>Econometric Research Program</i>, Princeton University, October, 1970. For an example of the type of study which can serve to provide such numerical proxies for the variables of this model, see Martin V. Jones and Michael J. Flax, "The Quality of Life in Metropolitan Washington (D. C.): Some Statistical Benchmarks," Working Paper 136-1, The Urban Institute, Washington, D. C., March, 1970. Cf. Bernstein <i>et al.</i>, "The Rehabilitation of Urban Neighborhoods: A Linear Programming Approach," Proc. Amer. Stat. Assoc., 1970, which develops a discussion of how community functions may be measured in terms of expenditures on facilities or modified by growth and decay rates of those facilities. Cf. <i>op. cit.</i>, note 8. Cf. Bradford and Kelejian, <i>op. cit.</i>, On the other hand, see the remarks of Robert C. Weaver, "Class, Race, and Urban Renewal," in Alfred Erpage and Warren R. Seyfried, Eds, "Urban Analysis: Readings in Housing and Urban Development," Scott Foresman, Glenview, Illinois, 1970, pp. 347 ff. Anthony Downs, <i>op. cit.</i> For a discussion of the negative feedback effects associated with ghetto enrichment programs see John Kain, "Housing Segregators, Negro Employment and Metropolitan Decentralization," <i>Quart. J. Econ.</i>, May, 1960. It is interesting to note that the present aim is equivalent with the aim of the Comprehensive Housing Legislation of 1949. See William Wheaton, ed., "Urban Housing," The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1966. See Fromm and Taubman, "Policy Simulations with an Econometric Model, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C., 1968. J. W. Forrester, "Urban Dynamics," The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968. For an extended discussion of the use of growth and decay rates in urban analysis, see Bernstein, <i>et al.</i>, "Urban Rehabilitation," <i>op. cit.</i> For a review of this literature which has enormous possibilities for application to combined economic-social development, see R. M. Solow, Growth Theory and Exposition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1970. See remarks by Downs, <i>op. cit.</i>