Engineer and the City A Symposium Sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering at Its Fifth Autumn Meeting, October 22-23, 1969 (1969) / Chapter Skim
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PROPOSALS FOR ACTION
PROPOSALS FOR ACTION
Pages 99-117
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From page 99... ...
I think we in America need to act in the realization that we cannot save America except as we act to save the American city. And we cannot save the American city unless we bring about a more rational and more responsible allocation of our national resources.
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From page 100... ...
The Congress has set a goal of 26 million new housing units in the next ten years; but we will not achieve that goal unless we being to deal with the new realisms-unless we begin to apply the most advanced technology and design capability and use new materials and marketing techniques. I am privileged to serve as the chief executive officer of what is called the Metropolitan Detroit Citizens Development Authority.
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From page 101... ...
The industry is fragmented by a system of antiquated, obsolete, local building codes. We need to assemble a national housing market.
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From page 102... ...
If there was a local community that wanted to continue to be wedded u> antiquated local building codes, that would be a matter of local self-determination, but then they would be denied access to federal financing. We believe that is the only realistic way to break through, because if you try to change every local building code, it will take another hundred years, and we haven't got that much time.
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From page 103... ...
ANSWER: Well, I think that unless it changes, the American labor movement is going to be in very deep trouble, as it ought to be. I have said on other occasions that only an economic moron thinks you can get more out of producing less, that the only way you can raise your living standards is to have access to more productive tools so that one hour of human labor applied to more productive tools can create more economic wealth.
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From page 104... ...
This apparent inconsistency in observing sophisticated technological developments on the one hand, and viewing a degradation in the quality of life in our urban centers on the other, has resulted in the concerted attempt to apply modern technology and management towards the solution of key urban problems. A number of industrial firms have made commitments to enter the urban and regional sciences area with the intent of using aerospace technology, planning, and management techniques to improve the quality of urban life.
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From page 105... ...
Our urban posture to date has been to meet crisis conditions as they arise with emergency and patchwork solutions, rather than to consider urban development as an integrated entity. We must begin to develop the necessary data base and we must develop urban laboratories to understand the interacting effects if we are to intelligently and efficiently use our technological capacity for urban development.
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From page 106... ...
ORGANIZATION Urban affairs activities must be made a full-time corporate activity if the corporation is to generate an image of significance in the civil sector. Functional and/or product orientation must be subordinant to a more pervasive overview of the role the corporation seeks to assume.
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From page 107... ...
Everyone admits the instant solutions are not possible; then why not add action items that take longer but that have promise to eventually get us on the right side of the power curve? I suggest that HUD initiate an in-depth survey for the purpose of identifying all inhibitions and obstructions-including sacred cows that stand in the way of more efficient planning-to management and implementation of sensible urban programs.
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From page 108... ...
But at the same time you say, quite rightly, of course, that urban affairs is essentially a people-oriented concern. Isn't there a danger of centralization on the one hand and certainly our need and wish to keep diversity at the human level?
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From page 109... ...
In the course of man's occupation of this planet, four developments have had the greatest impact on his attitudes, values, institutions, and behavior: the population explosion, the population implosion, the population displosion, and the accelerated tempo of technological change. I regard all four of these developments as components of what might be thought of as the social morphological revolution, comparable in its far-reaching effects to the industrial revolution.
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From page 110... ...
Underlying all these developments has been rapid technological change, which also had precipitated the entire range of problems contributing to the urban crisis. These include air pollution and water pollution, inadequate supply of housing, traffic congestion, the profligate use of natural resources, and defective urban design.
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From page 111... ...
In my judgment, there was never an example of civil disobedience as injurious to the American people as the civil disobedience of the state legislatures when they deliberately defied federal and state constitutional mandates on reapportionment. This rural minority so callously ignored urban problems that they forced the urban population to turn to the federal government for the resolution of their problems.
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From page 112... ...
If you do not like big government and centralization and a welfare state, let me remind you that for the first time in the history of man we have now developed a way to reverse the population explosion and the population implosion and the population displosion. Up until now, these developments have been irreversible, but at present we have a hope that all of them can be reversed.
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From page 113... ...
It is well to remember that it took roughly the century from 1750 to 1850 for the physical sciences to achieve the respectability and acceptance to enable physical engineers to apply physical knowledge to physical problems. It required approximately the century from 1850 to 1950 for the biomedical sciences to similarly acquire sufficient respectability and acceptance to enable biomedical engineers to apply knowledge to the solution of problems of health and life.
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From page 114... ...
Some of the ills of the cities, however, particularly in the economic, social, or political spheres, simply are not ammenable to solutions arrived at by traditional engineering analyses. An engineer, for example, can propose a system to alleviate urban transportation problems, but after the system is devised, there remains a fundamental question to be answered: Should we go ahead and do it?
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From page 115... ...
Keith Glennan President Emeritus Case Institute of Technology Cleveland, Ohio Martin Goland President Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, Texas Sherman K Grinnell Associate Director, Engineering Design Center, and Associate Professor Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio Philip M
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From page 116... ...
HT167 .E455 1969 Engineer and the city; a symposium...
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