Hurry, Curry

Confronted by an increasingly rapid exodus of industry, money, and residents, last May, a Cambridge group headed by Paul R. Corcoran sent a workable program for Urban Renewal to Washington. Although it was approved there in October, little but talk has come of it since then.

The U.S. Housing Act of 1954 provided for Urban Renewal as a national program which offers individual cities two-thirds of the cost of long-range improvements. To receive this aid, each city must prepare an effective city-wide plan for clearing and rebuilding slums, substantially improving run-down areas, strictly enforcing housing codes in other neighborhoods, and consolidating business sections. This kind of planning does not come easily. Only about sixty cities have taken up the government's offer, with four of them in New England--Somerville, Portland, Portsmouth, and Cambridge.

Accepted by FHA Administrator Cole last September, the Cambridge proposal received a one-year approval ending on October 1, 1956. The program had passed the city council in May, and before the council elections last fall most of the candidates announced that they would support it. City Manager John J. Curry '19, seemed in no hurry to get it underway. It was up to him to appoint a chairman for the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority to coordinate blueprints, but he has not yet found a man. Certainly he has had problems. For a job that requires a competent city planner, the salary offered is small; any man who takes it must have an interest in Cambridge as a community.

The program itself presents many problems in Cambridge. In aiming to consolidate residential, commercial, and industrial sections, Urban Renewal would deprive some residents of their homes and would cut down on the income of a few absentee landlords. Another of its aims is slum clearance. Of the houses moved out under this program, most would be pre-1890. Many without efficient central heating and in districts where the average family rent runs around $20 a month. In these areas residents could afford better housing, if there were any.

Despite the opposition that the consolidation and slum clearance projects will evoke, Urban Renewal seems the best, and perhaps the only answer to Cambridge's long range problems, the greatest of which is the steady decline in population over the last few decades. By consolidating business and industrial sections, raising and enforcing housing standards, and clearing slums, Urban Renewal should go far toward stopping the local exodus of business and residents, solving the parking problem, and making Cambridge a more attractive city.

Although the program got City Council approval in October, only a few people have been willing to give it substantial support. Continued lethargy at City Hall could ruin its chances. The responsibility right now is City Manager Curry's--it is up to him to appoint a man to get the program under way. While he should take sufficient time to find the right man for a tough job, it seems that if the Urban Renewal is to amount to anything, the time is about up.