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- From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
- Subject: CONVERTING & REVITALIZING THE INNER CITY
- Message-ID: <1992Aug22.082317.23450@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 08:23:17 GMT
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-
- POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES
- A Publication of the CENTER FOR ECONOMIC CONVERSION
-
- Published quarterly. Materials in POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES may be
- reprinted if this publication and the CENTER for ECONOMIC CONVERSION are
- credited and a copy is sent to CEC.
-
- ** Written 4:45 pm Aug 10, 1992 by dwalt in cdp:econconversion **
- CONVERTING & REVITALIZING THE INNER CITY
- by Carl Anthony
-
- During the buildup for the Persian Gulf war, a Los Angeles Times reporter
- was surprised to find young men from predominantly African American
- South Central Los Angeles eager to fight. Perplexed, he asked one recruit
- why. "If you have no prospect of an income and you live in a war zone
- anyway," he replied, "you may as well go fight and be paid for it." The war
- zone the recruit wanted to leave is the inner city, where more young black
- males lose their lives nationwide to homicide every year than they did
- during the entire Vietnam conflict.
-
- The insurrection following the Rodney King verdict made the painful
- reality of the inner city war zone visible. For 48 hours anarchy reigned in
- the streets of Los Angeles. Whole sections of the city stopped
- functioning. Hundreds of thousands of people were sent home from
- schools and work. When the arson and looting were over, damage was
- estimated at $500 million.
-
- Reactions to the insurrection, however, seem strangely anachronistic.
- Officials rushed to dust off forgotten policies from the late 1960s --
- privatization of public housing, enterprise zones, and welfare reform --
- as if we could turn back the clock a whole generation and pick up where
- we left off after the Watts riot of 1965.
-
- Now, inner city communities and their progressive allies in the peace,
- social justice, and environmental movements, must begin rethinking sound
- public policies for urban reconstruction neglected during the past two
- decades during the cold war build up.
-
- A major component of such policies should include a massive
- redirection of public resources now employed in military
- activities The true cost of the arms race at home and abroad
- has been the loss of what could have been produced instead
- with scarce capital, labor, and raw materials. Global military
- spending at 1 trillion dollars per year is more
- than the total incomes of the poorest half of humanity.
-
- New international security strategy requires curtailment of the
- international trade in arms, destruction of offensive weapons, and scaling
- back of companies that make them. After decades of refusal to plan for
- economic conversion, Los Angeles may lose over 100,000 jobs. Other
- military dependent regions are suffering convulsive economic change.
- Also, urban reconstruction must be oriented toward post cold war global
- economic and environmental security, enabling citizens of all nations to
- satisfy basic human needs.
-
- Urban reconstruction is a vehicle for disenfranchised residents to
- meet human needs and develop their potential to lead satisfying
- lives. Growth should be mostly from within, using local talents
- and labor. Community development corporations and local
- enterprises should play a greater role in rebuilding than
- outside real estate interests. New patterns should avoid over
- emphasizing individualism and competition.
-
- Suburbanization, which has divided the nation racially, is, ironically, the
- product of World War II economic conversion -- when veterans, evacuating
- the cities, began moving their families to racially exclusive suburbs. In
- addition, federal subsidies, many times larger than all poverty programs
- combined, stimulated suburban shopping malls, office parks and millions
- of jobs, many of them defense dependent.
- The need for new urban environmental policies was dramatically
- highlighted in June, by the U.N. Conference on Environment and
- Development in Brazil. Inner city neighborhoods should be planned in light
- of global needs -- not as isolated pockets. Current metropolitan patterns
- waste land, air, water, biological resources, and energy. New
- neighborhoods should be based on environmentally sound land use design
- principles to increase resource efficiency and promote greater ecological
- self reliance.
-
- The squandering of human and physical capital in the inner city is a result
- of decades of skewed national priorities, investing billions of dollars
- simultaneously in suburbanization and military buildup while the lives of
- millions of people in the inner city frittered away in smoldering
- desperation.
-
- The challenge of economic conversion in the 1990s is to redirect these
- wasted resources; to revitalize our inner cities, bringing to those who
- live there justice, a stake in society, and reason to believe in the future.
-
- -- CARL ANTHONY is president of Earth Island Institute and director of
- its Urban Habitat Program. He is a member of the Presidio Council which
- is advising the National Park Service on the conversion of the Presidio
- Army Base in San Francisco, and he is former board member of the Center
- for Economic Conversion.
-
- ** End of text from cdp:econconversion **
-
- ******************************************************************
- THE CENTER FOR ECONOMIC CONVERSION
- 222 View St., Suite C, Mountain View CA 94041
- Tel: (415) 968-8798 FAX: (415) 968-1126
- Email: bdelson@igc.org
- The CENTER for ECONOMIC CONVERSION is a non-profit public benefit
- corporation dedicated to building a sustainable peace-oriented economy.
- Founded in 1975, the organization serves as a national resource center and
- a catalyst for conversion planning. CEC provides educational materials;
- speakers; organizing assistance to conversion activists; technical
- assistance to workers, managers and public officials confronting military
- cutbacks; and research on conversion issues.
-
- Beth Delson, Editor; Michael Closson, Executive Director; Joan Holtzman,
- Development Coordinator; Marie Jones, Conversion Planner; Susan Strong,
- Senior Research Associate; Rosemary Wick, Office Manager.
- ******************************************************************
-
-