Collins Says Federal Action Needed To Solve Pressing Urban Problems

Direct Federal action in the cities, without intervention at the state level, in the only solution for the problems of urban renewal, said John F. Collins, Mayor of Boston, last night in an address to the Young Democrats.

Lack of funds is the major stumbling block in "the nation's number one domestic problem," he said. The recent elevation of an urban affairs department to Cabinet status will be no more than a gesture unless programs are established that make funds available to the cities, he added.

Collins cited both a revised Federal program of taxation and a plan like the President's recently announced Demonstration Cities Program as possible steps toward urban improvement.

Demonstration Cities

The Demonstration Cities Program calls for the selection of 35 or 40 cities throughout the nation as common recipients of $5 million for the initial planning of urban renewal. Over $2 billion will then be made available by June 1966 for an action program in the selected cities.

Collins praised the Demonstration Cities Plan as a beginning program, but said that for long term redevelopment, the sums alloted were "altogether inadequate" for both planning and action.

Boston's Need

He indicated that some kind of increased taxation would be necessary to get money into the cities, and called attention to Boston's particular need. Boston, Collins said, has only a property tax, unlike most other cities with several taxes. With the exception of Washington. D.C., Boston also has the highest proportion of tax exempt property in the country.

He termed the abolition of the excise tax questionable, and said that we must be prepared to say "that nylon stockings third cars and second fur coats were not quite as important as better schools and better housing."

In addition to direct Federal grants and increased taxation, Collins felt that there could be far greater cooperation between Boston and its universities. The city is not getting full alvantage, he said, of the "brain power" available to it.

"If the Harvard M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies," asserted Collins, "would confine its thought processes to improving the situation in Boston alone for twelve months, we might see some tangible results of the potential of the universities" in urban renewal.