Local Control as Social Reform: Planning for Big Cities in the Seventies

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Abstract
Decentralization of planning can provide disadvantaged groups with greater access to bureaucratic decision making, incentives to community development, and enhanced democratic participation. In recent years community control has become less of a racial issue and therefore more acceptable to white community leaders. Surveys of community leaders in New York City indicate a high level of support among all racial groups for increased local control, although minority leaders still favor a higher level of community input than do whites. Support for community control is highly correlated with negative evaluations of city services. Decentralization of administrative programs is also favored by many city officials, although with limitations on community input. The New York Office of Neighborhood Government experiment received highly laudatory endorsements from the bureaucrats who served in district service cabinets. The Housing and Development Administration has relied on local groups to implement the Neighborhood Preservation Program for housing rehabilitation. In both cases, however, community participation was eventually stymied. Implementation of decentralization is made difficult because of contradictions between class and locational interests. Meaningful local participation is often either co-opted or suppressed. Nevertheless, urban decentralization continues as one path of moderate but viable reform.

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