Upswing in Our Inner Cities Needs Nurturing Hand of Next President

Just in time for the final round of presidential debates, Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio have released arguably the most important and insightful book on the American city in a generation. Urban policy probably won’t command much air time when Al Gore and George W. Bush face off again later this week, but when the next president takes office he won’t find a better guide to reinvigorating city life than “Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival.”

Actually, one of the signal insights in this compelling new book (which is being published this week by Westview Press) is that life is already on the upswing in many inner-city neighborhoods. Grogan, the former director of the Local Initiatives Support Corp., a national group that helps fund neighborhood revitalization efforts, and Proscio, a former journalist, have little patience for the lazy fatalism that considers social chaos and economic stagnation the inescapable condition of low-income inner-city neighborhoods. That attitude often becomes the justification for neglect: If things can’t be improved, why bother trying?

But progress, they note, is not only possible--it’s underway even on some of America’s meanest streets. “The point is not that poverty has been abolished, or will be, nor is it that inner cities can or should return to the full glory of their wealthier pasts,” they write. “The point is that they are becoming places where people want to live, shop, run businesses and go to school.”

The latest U.S. Census Bureau numbers on income and poverty, released late last month, underscore their conclusion. The combination of the strong economy, and the welfare reform law that has moved millions of single mothers into the work force, has had a dramatic effect on urban poverty. Poverty fell more last year in inner cities than anywhere else. Inner cities accounted for 80% of the total decline in the number of people in poverty last year, the Census Bureau reported; and the poverty rate in inner cities, although still high, dropped by more than two full percentage points--the largest one-year decline ever recorded. About 1 in 6 inner-city residents now lives in poverty, the lowest level since 1979.

Without overstating the case for a turnaround, Grogan, now the vice president for government and community affairs at Harvard University, and Proscio identify four big trends contributing to the revival of inner-city communities. These dynamics don’t justify the ideological preconceptions of either party--which may explain why they have received so little attention, and such intermittent support, at the national level.

The first, and possibly most important, of the four is what the authors call “the maturing of a huge, rapidly expanding grass-roots revitalization movement in America.” Over the last 30 years, neighborhood activists have formed thousands of community development corporations--nonprofit, locally run groups that leverage public and private funds to build and renovate houses, redevelop rundown commercial strips, and increasingly provide other services, from day care to operating charter schools.

Working alongside the CDCs, religiously based local charities have also flowered over the last generation. The CDCs tend to receive most enthusiastic support from the political left, while the faith-based charities are a favorite of conservatives (such as Bush). But at the local level, both are proving effective because (as the authors write), “they embrace American values that transcend political ideology: self-help, entrepreneurship, community building, local control and public-private partnership.”

The second big trend is the return of the market economy to the inner city as supermarkets, clothing stores and small businesses inch back in. Of all the trends, this one most clearly shows how urban revival depends on both public and private, local and national, actions.

National public policy has helped in three distinct respects: The loosening of immigration laws has encouraged a steady flow of new arrivals who bring purchasing power and entrepreneurial vitality. Tougher enforcement under President Clinton of the laws encouraging banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods has widened the flow of credit. And welfare reform has further increased purchasing power by moving more families into the work force. At the same time, the new stores are building on the local foundation laid by the CDCs--which constructed the housing that has allowed working families to remain in inner-city neighborhoods. And, finally, market forces--namely the search for profit--are pushing private companies back into the cities as an alternative to suburbs, where intense competition is squeezing opportunity.

The third major trend reviving cities is the extraordinary decline in crime. Like most analysts, Grogan and Proscio give much credit to the shift in tactics that has seen police departments target not just crime but disorder--the so-called broken windows theory that maintains law enforcement must combat minor infractions (such as loitering) to create a community culture hostile to more serious violations. But the authors persuasively take the analysis further, pointing out that communities can send the same message by rehabilitating derelict homes, apartment buildings and shops.

Finally, they point to a fourth trend: what they call “the deregulation of the inner city.” Though this trend is the most fragile, they see optimistic signs in reforms underway in the three government monoliths that most affect inner-city life: public housing, welfare and the public school system. In each case, they correctly argue, changes that emphasize local control and personal responsibility--without abandoning the national role in encouraging opportunity--offer the most hope for progress.

This nascent urban revival is a bottom-up phenomena that Washington can’t direct. But Washington can play a supporting role, with policies such as an expanded tax credit for low-income housing, more assistance to local groups forming charter schools to compete with failing conventional public schools, and greater reliance on CDCs and local charities to build public housing and deliver social services. Clinton has made progress on all these fronts, but the next president needs to move further, to truly build a national agenda that nourishes local innovation.

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See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ Web site at: https://www.latimes.com/brownstein.