Shannon Murray
Dr. Vasileiou
ENG 103.2682
10 May 2011
To Shrink or Not to Shrink? That is the Question
Public housing in New York City has been around since the 1930s and has been pretty vital in the survival of the city. A man named Roger Starr once said “I cannot imagine what the city would be like without it.” This man, Roger Starr, who in the 1970s was the New York City Housing Administrator, is known for advocating “one of the biggest controversies that a housing administrator ever got into,” an idea known as “planned shrinkage.” This strategy planned to gradually reduce municipal services such as, sanitation collections, public transportation, ambulances, etc., to “encourage, within limits, the movement of people from these neighborhoods to more concentrated areas,” which would speed up population movement. Basically, Starr suggested a reduction of public services in the slum areas which were already deteriorating and already had residents moving out. This concept, which was first proposed back in 1976, was suggested in the first place to help assess the budget crisis not only in New York City, but the entire United States, and to also conserve the public services that were left after all of the budget cuts nationwide. It was targeted at areas such as the South Bronx, and Brownsville and was said to have a “greater redevelopment value” once the areas were vacant. The whole plan was really proposed to earn back some revenue for the city and to give certain areas a new reputation. Although this proposal may come off as extremely unethical, it is important to understand where Starr is coming from and it is necessary to look at the whole picture from an unbiased point of view.
One year before “planned shrinkage” was even introduced, in the year 1975, the United States was in a recession, “the country’s worst recession in 34 years” to be exact. The current deficit was $78 billion under the President Ford administration and inflation was seriously hurting New York City. For a few days in May the nation witnessed a very public verbal argument between the Mayor of New York and President Ford. The Mayor of New York City, Mayor Abraham Beame on May 13, 1975 ordered that 13,782 job positions were to be dropped as of July 1, 1975. The entire country was in debt, but in order to meet its requirements for the new budget, it was necessary. Five hundred twenty-five Police Officers were to be let go, along with 332 Firefighters, 791 Sanitation workers, and 4,907 teachers and Education related workers to just name a few. The following day on May 14th Mayor Beame made a statement to the people about President Ford and his lack of interest in helping New York City saying that “New York’s problems are not created by the sins of its people, but by the national policies,” and stating that the Ford administration was “crippling our city.” Mayor Beame pretty much blamed the economic problems on President Ford, and was irate that he wasn’t even offering to help. The next day, May 16th, a statement was released from the Governor of New York, Hugh Carey and Mayor Beame saying that President Ford and the Republicans in power have denied their request for Federal assistance and rejected any proposal for State assistance. They stated how “police protection will have to be substantially reduced” and “the remaining services will be both inefficient and thin, beyond all contemplation and beneath what the citizens have a right to expect.” They said that Ford is simply trying to make an example out of New York City for the rest of the nation, but this “crude political act” will “prove disastrous to the people.” They plead one last time to the President saying “we call upon them to reconsider…and not to abandon the people in a time of economic crisis.” Another day later on the 16th of May a statement was released to the public about more drastic cutbacks that would have to be made in the city if the President does not agree to help. Another 38,000 positions will be eliminated by June 30th adding to the already 13,782 which is almost 52,000 jobs lost and an 18% decrease in the work force. Mayor Beame took some time to make himself look like the “good guy” to the public. He stated, “In the brief 16 months I have served, I have managed to slash almost $1 billion in budgetary expenses.” He then gives examples of what all of these lost jobs would mean and how it would affect everyone in the city. “Police street patrol will reduce by 25% causing response time to double” with 911 calls being screened or just completely ignored altogether. Four hospitals will close along with day cares centers, and “10 Child Health Stations depriving 10,000 children of health services.” Public schools, colleges, welfare centers and prisons are just a few of the many places that would be affected by the job reduction. Mayor Beame’s final statement on May 20th is a very angry and upset one. He says that the President is punishing New York for “past budgetary practices” when he should be worried about the $78 billion debt our country is in. These statements just show how bad the economy was at that time and why we were all desperate for some sort of plan to get us all out of our recession. Almost a year after the drama between the Mayor and the President, Roger Starr proposed the idea of “planned shrinkage” and the city is quick to voice their anger of this new plan. Some headlines read, “Starr Under Fire for Plan to Shrink Slum Services” and “A Display of Ignorance” and the articles read to be very biased. Many people were so upset they called for Starr’s resignation, while others protesting and even attacked him while he speaking at a public conference. His plan was called, “genocidal, racist, inhuman, arrogant and irresponsible” by certain Councilmen. In a 1993 interview Starr remembers a time when he turned on the radio to hear a young Puerto Rican woman say “Starr hates us Puerto Ricans. He wants to drive us out of the city.” Even Mayor Beame, who he described as a “very, very sweet man” and someone who hated to offend anyone, was very unsure of the idea. Overall, the plan was so unpopular that he became an extremely hated man very quickly.
Roger Starr’s good friend Robert Moses once said “there’s only one way to make a housing problem go away, and that’s to start with vacant land.” This statement probably gave Starr his inspiration for his idea of “planned shrinkage.” He felt the only way to help these areas and start to gain revenue was to start fresh and have everyone move away from the slums he wanted to redevelop. Moses told Starr he wanted to move people out of their buildings and demolish their homes and then continue to do this until all of the slums are finished. Starr then said, “Bob, you don’t really think that you can treat people nowadays as though they were parcels in the package room in the railroad station, you just move them around without asking them whether or they like it or not.” Starr did have a concerned side to him, he just believed in being brutally honest. He understood that people were human beings and had to be treated with respect. Thus, Starr had motivation to think of a better way to go about doing this, for the wellbeing of New York and its inhabitants. Starr had some problems with rent-control “because rent control was destroying New York City’s private housing stock from the middle ranges down to the lowest ranges.” He also had problems with public housing. He states, “The problem is to fill the housing with tenants who are not destructive and who pay their rent, and who we want to keep there forever because they’re good tenants, and the problem with government programs is that you find yourself having to take in tenants who are extremely destructive and whom you can’t get rid of.” He also has problems with these tenants doing drugs and things that weren’t foreseen at all like “urinating in the elevator.” All of his problems have to do with different things he has experienced with people and he is mostly concerned. He stated that with all of the economic problems in the United States there city was in bad shape because it had borrowed all of its money. He felt frustrated because he feels like he has to “take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.” His philosophy about these populations of people was just that he wanted them to be self-sufficient people who can thrive off of their new community, but even if he “offered a step up to families of low income, this did not guarantee that these families would indeed take the step upward in putting their lives in order.” He did not have problems with one particular race, he simply wanted to make sure that the people in these new developments were the right choices for the tenants.
I believe that Roger Starr, although blunt about his opinions wasn’t the “homicidal lunatic” everyone thought he was. After World War 2 he was released from the army and went straight to work for his father’s business. He then joined the board of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council and eventually was picked by Mayor Beame to be the housing and development administrator. I believe that “planned shrinkage” could have been a very successful strategy but the way Starr presented his ideas made the people involved become very defensive. It was meant to be a way to pick up the dying areas of the city and make them the best they could be, thus boosting their revenue, and given the financial status of the city and the country, any little bit of profit could help. I also think that his idea was appropriate for the times. He did not mean to come off racist, nor did he force any type of migration on these people in the projects, these people just happen to be minorities who settled in these areas. It was also a way for the people to move to nicer parts of the city, and for those areas to become nicer for others to move in. I don’t think that “planned shrinkage” was such a bad idea, but I think it would have worked better in a different time.
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