Forrester's 30-year-old prescription for cities
Here's a clear and sensible prescription for cities in the onrushing global crisis, f rom The Collected Papers of Jay W. Forrester, Wright-Allen Press, 1975, pp. 277-284.(Thanks
to Mary L. Lehmann and Jay Hanson at the dieof-QA list.) It's
hard to imagine any successful response that does not include something
like this. It has no more chance of being implemented now than it did
when Jay Forrester wrote it for a speech 30 years ago. (Forrester
created and led the MIT group of which some members eventually wrote
Limits to Growth. Forrester was not himself one of the authors of LTG.)
/Start of excerpt
DETERMINING THE FUTURE QUALITY OF A CITY
What does this discussion of technology and social goals mean for the
American Public Works Association? It means that in the past those who
dealt with the technological aspects of urban life were free to
sub-optimize. The public well-being was increased by the best possible
job of drainage, waste disposal, transportation, water supply, and the
construction of streets. But it is no longer true that improving each
of these will always improve a city. By solving each of these technical
problems the technologist risks becoming a party to increasing the
population of a city and the densities of the population. He may start
social processes that eventually reduce the quality of life. The public
is recognizing that improved technology does not always bring an
improved society. As a result, men who have sincerely dedicated their
efforts to the public good, but perhaps have not foreseen the diversity
of social consequences, have already begun to feel the backlash of
public criticism.
So far I have developed several propositions. First, pressures are
rising that will inevitably stop growth. Second, the national
commitment to growth is too strong for the federal government to lead
the country in a new direction until a broad constituency for changed
expectations has been formed. Third, if the stress-creating nature of
growth is to be recognized, and if experiments are to be carried out to
find a satisfactory way of moving from growth to a society that can
accept a future equilibrium, leadership must come from the local and
state levels. Fourth, technical accomplishments no longer appear to be
capable of solving our mounting social problems; instead, technology,
as now being used, may often lead to expansion in urban population and
living densities that become the cause of rising social difficulties.
Fifth, all cities do at all times tend toward equal attractiveness in
which no one city can remain significantly more attractive to
in-migration than other cities. Given this set of propositions, what
freedom of action is left to a city?
A city can choose, to a substantial extent, the mix of pressures under
which it wishes to exist. There are many components of urban
attractiveness, and if one of these is decreased, others can be
improved. One cannot create the ideal city. But one can create certain
ideal features if he is willing to compensate for them by intentionally
allowing other features to worsen. In the past we have improved the
technological aspects of cities and have thereby unintentionally
contributed to the rise of many of the economic and social problems
that plague cities today. There are many facets to a city. There are
many things that the public and an urban administration can do. One
thing they cannot do is produce the perfect city. They can, however,
exercise a wide choice among imperfect cities.
I suggest that a valid goal for local urban leadership is to focus on
improving the quality of life for the residents already in the city, at
the same time protecting against the kind of growth that would
overwhelm the gains. In short, one might raise the attractiveness of a
city for the present residents while, at the same time, decreasing the
attractiveness to those who might inundate the system from the outside.
Such statements, I recognize, lead to ethical and legal controversy. I
am saying that a city should look after itself first. Its own welfare
should come ahead of concern for others who are taking no steps to
solve the fundamental problems for themselves. If enough cities
establish successful policies for themselves, there will be two
results. First, a precedent will have been set for coping with the
fundamental underlying source of difficulties. Second, the larger the
number of areas that solve their problems for themselves, the sooner
and more forcefully will the remaining uncontrolled growth impinge on
other parts of the country and the more quickly will the nation
realistically face the long-range issues of stress arising from
excessive growth.
So what can a city do? It can influence its future by choosing among
the components of attractiveness. The attractiveness components of a
city fall into two categories according to whether they operate more
forcefully on the quality of life in the city or on inward migration
and growth. These two categories are the "diffuse" and the
"compartmentalized" characteristics of a city. The objective should be
to maximize the diffuse characteristics of the city in order to improve
the quality of urban life while controlling the compartmentalized
characteristics in order to prevent the expanded population that would
defeat the improvement for present residents.
The diffuse characteristics, such as public safety and clean air, are
shared equally by all; their effect is not limited to particular
individuals; and they apply alike to present residents and those who
might move in. The compartmentalized characteristics of a city, like
jobs and housing, are identified with particular individuals; they can
be possessed by present residents but are not necessarily available to
others from the outside.
Every diffuse characteristic of a city that makes it more attractive
for the present residents will also make it more attractive for those
who might move in, who would increase the population and density.
Therefore, every improvement in the diffuse categories of
attractiveness must be accompanied by some worsening in the
compartmentalized categories of attractiveness to prevent
self-defeating growth. The attractiveness characteristics of a city
should be categorized in terms of whether they affect all residents or
primarily potential newcomers. For example, the vitality of industry, a
balanced socioeconomic mix of population, the quality of schools, the
freedom from pollution, low crime rates, public parks, and cultural
facilities are all desirable to present residents. If there is no
counterbalance to restrain an expanding population, such attractive
features tend to be self-defeating by causing inward migration. But the
compartmentalized characteristics of a city primarily affect growth
without necessarily reducing the quality of life for present residents.
The number of housing units and the number of jobs tend to be
compartments in the sense that they have a one-to-one correspondence
with individuals rather than each being shared by all. The absence of
an unoccupied house or a job can be a strong deterrent to in-migration,
without necessarily driving down the internal quality of life.
I see no solution for urban problems until cities begin to exhibit the
courage to plan in terms of a maximum population, a maximum number of
housing units, a maximum permissible building height, and a maximum
number of jobs. A city must also choose the type of city it wants to
be. To become and remain a city that is all things to all people is
impossible. There can be many uniquely different kinds of cities, each
with its special mix of advantages and disadvantages. However, the
policies that create one type of city may destroy another type. A
choice of city type must be made, and corresponding policies must be
chosen to create the combination of advantages and disadvantages that
are characteristic of that type. One might have an industrial city, a
commercial city, a resort city, a retirement city, or a city that
attracts and traps without opportunity a disproportionate number of
unemployed and welfare residents, as some cities are now doing. But
there are severe limits on how many types of cities can be created
simultaneously in one place. When the choices have been made, and when
effort is no longer dissipated in growth, there will be an opportunity
to come to grips with social and economic decay.
Why do I bring this message to the American Public Works Association?
Because the members are at the center of the two most important issues
I have raised. First, leaders in public works are the custodians of the
technological aspects of the urban environment. Those responsible for
the physical aspects of a city can continue to solve the technological
subgoals of roads, water, waste, and transportation and thereby sustain
the growth process and cause a continual shifting of pressures into the
social realm of rising crime, increasing psychological trauma, growing
welfare costs, and accelerating community breakdown. Or, they can move
to reverse the growth attitudes that in the past we considered good,
but are good no more, and help halt further expansion of that part of
our technological base on which the urban crisis is growing. A second
reason for these issues to be important in public works comes from the
unique influence of public works over what I call the compartmentalized
characteristics of a city. Public works actions directly affect the
number of streets that are built, the number of houses that are
erected, and the number of industrial locations that are established.
Such physical actions, backed up by zoning and municipal policy,
determine the kind of urban growth and whether or not there is to be
growth. Through the judicious use of, and indeed the appropriate
limitation of, water supply, drainage, building heights, waste
disposal, road building, and transportation systems, a city can
influence its future.
The reader may be thinking that planning and controlling the size and
composition of a city and the migration to it are undemocratic or
immoral. It may even seem that I am suggesting control where there has
not been control before. Neither is true. Every city has arrived at its
present size, character, and composition because of the actions that
have controlled the city's evolution in the past. By adding to the
water system, sewers, and streets, a city has, in effect, decided to
increase its size. By building a rapid transit system a city is often,
in effect, deciding to change the composition of its population by
encouraging new construction in outlying areas, allowing inner areas to
decay, and attracting low-income and unskilled persons to the inner
ring at the same time that job opportunities decline. In other words, a
control of growth and migration has been exerted at all times, but it
has often been guided by short-term considerations, with unexpected and
undesirable long-term results. The issue is not one of control or no
control. The issue is the kind of control and toward what end.
The interurban control of population movement is the internal
counterpart of international control of population movement. Except for
the legal, coercive, psychological, and economic deterrents to human
mobility, the standard of living and the quality of life of all
countries would fall to the level set by the population group that
accepts the lowest standards. No group can be expected to exert the
self-discipline now necessary to limit population and the environmental
demands of industrialization unless there is a way to keep the future
advantages of such self-discipline from being swallowed up by inward
migration. If the control of international movement of population is
ethical, then some intercity counterpart must also be ethical. Or, if
the justification is only that of practical necessity, then the
internal necessity arises in a country that is reaching its growth
limit without having established a national means to implement a
compromise between quantity and quality. Between nations, countries
exert restrictions on population movement that are not allowed
internally between urban areas. Even so, the policies of each city have
a powerful effect on mobility and on the resulting character of the
city. Because controls are implicit in every action taken and every
urban policy adopted, a city should understand the future consequences
of its present actions. A city affects its local choice between
quantity and quality mostly by how it handles the diffuse versus the
compartmentalized components of attractiveness.
The difference between diffuse and compartmentalized control of urban
population can be illustrated by two extremes of policies that might
govern the availability of water. Depending on how it is managed, the
availability of water might be either a diffuse or a compartmentalized
control on growth. Consider a city with a limited water supply-more and
more this will be the actual situation. To illustrate diffuse control,
one could distribute water freely and equally to everyone, both present
and future residents. New houses could be constructed, new industries
could be encouraged, growth could be continued, and the water could be
divided among all. If no other growth limits were encountered, growth
would continue until the low water pressure, occasional shortages, and
the threat of disaster from drought had risen to the point where
out-migration equaled in-migration. Under this circumstance of
unrestricted access to water, net growth would have been stopped, but
the equally distributed nature of the water shortage would have reduced
the quality of life for all residents. The water shortage would be
diffuse; it would be spread to all, former residents and newcomers
alike. Alternatively, the opposite water policy illustrates
compartmentalized control. Building permits and new water connections
could be denied so that water demand is constrained to lie well within
the water supply. Water would be available to present, but not to new,
residents. Under these circumstances, the quality of life for the
present residents would be maintained, but growth beyond the limit of
satisfactory water supply would be restricted.
I believe that such a choice between present residents and potential
in-migrants is inherent in a practical solution of our urban problems.
Unless control through such self-interest is acceptable, and ways are
available to exercise control, there is no incentive for any city or
state to solve its own problems. Its efforts will be swamped from the
outside. There must be freedom for local action, and the consequent
differences between areas, if social experiments are to lead to better
futures and if there is to be diversity in the country rather than one
gray homogenized sameness. If there is to be any meaning to the
president's hope of preserving "the ability of citizens to have a major
voice in determining policies that most directly affect them," local
areas must be able to control their destinies in different ways and
toward different ends.
If people are to influence the policies most affecting them, it follows
that policies will be different in different places, and the resulting
trade-offs between growth and the quality of life will be different. If
there is to be any substance to local choice, there must be differences
between localities.
In the policies for a city that I am proposing, the ethical and legal
issues are substantial. A city, in looking after its own well-being,
will no doubt be accused of being selfish because it discriminates
against nonresidents. But what are the alternatives? Must it
discriminate against its own present residents instead? Must it
discriminate against its own long-term interests? Must it be forced to
take only a short-range view of its future? Must it be a party to
delaying the day when the nation faces the fundamental choice between
quality and quantity? Our past policies have not been so successful
that they should persuade us against new experiments.
If a sufficient number of cities find new ways of controlling their own
destinies in spite of national policy and what other cities do, then
pressures to work toward the long-term well-being of the country will
be quickly generated. If some cities and states take effective steps to
establish an equilibrium with their natural surroundings, and to
maintain a viable and proper internal balance of population and
industry, then the remaining growth in the country will quickly descend
on those communities and states that have taken no such action. A
national consensus to establish a viable balance with the capacity of
the environment will quickly develop out of the contrasts between those
who have and those who have not dealt with the basic issues of
overcommitment.
In summary, I believe that the country is now heading more deeply into
economic and social difficulty. Technological solutions will no longer
suffice. There is no national consensus strong enough to support an
effective national policy nor to ensure national leadership in solving
the problems that are arising from growth and overcommitment of the
nation's long-term capability. But, fortunately, the problems are
solvable piecemeal at the local level independently of other areas and
of the national government. Local action can set a precedent for the
country as a whole. Those in public works are in a uniquely influential
position for exerting that leadership.
/End of excerpt