The racial disorders of last summer in part reflect the failure of all levels of government-Federal and state as well as local-to come to grips with the problems of our cities. The ghetto symbolizes the dilemma: a widening gap between human needs and public resources and a growing cynicism regarding the commitment of community institutions and leadership to meet these needs.

The problem has many dimensions--financial, political and institutional. Almost all cities-and particularly the central cities of the largest metropolitan regions are simply unable to meet the growing need for public services and facilities with traditional sources of municipal revenue. Many cities are structured politically so that great numbers of citizens-particularly minority groups—have little or no representation in the processes of government. Finally, some cities lack either the will or the capacity to use effectively the resources that are available to them.

Instrumentalities of Federal and state Government often compound the problems. National policy expressed through a very large number of grant programs and institutions rarely exhibits a coherent and consistent perspective when viewed at the local level. State efforts, traditionally focused on rural areas, often fail to tie in effectively with either local or Federal programs

in urban areas.

Meanwhile, the decay of the central city continuesits revenue base eroded by the retreat of industry and white middle-class families to the suburbs, its budget

and tax rate inflated by rising costs and increasing numbers of dependent citizens and its public plantschools, hospitals, and correctional institutions deteriorated by age and long-deferred maintenance.

Yet to most citizens, the decay remains largely invisible. Only their tax bills and the headlines about crime or “riots" suggest that something may be seriously wrong in the city.

There are, however, two groups of people that live constantly with the problem of the city: the public officials and the poor, particularly the residents of the racial ghetto. Their relationship is a key factor in the development of conditions underlying civil disorders. Our investigations of the 1967 riot cities establish that:

■ Virtually every major episode of urban violence in the summer of 1967 was foreshadowed by an accumulation of unresolved grievances by ghetto residents against local authorities (often, but not always, the police). So high was the resulting underlying tension that routine and random events, tolerated or ignored under most circumstances (such as the raid on the "blind pig" in Detroit and the arrest of the cab driver in Newark), became the triggers of sudden violence.

■ Coinciding with this high level of dissatisfaction, confidence in the willingness and ability of local government to respond to Negro grievances was low. Evidence presented to this Commission in hearings, field reports and research analyses of the 1967 riot cities establishes that a substantial number of Negroes were disturbed and angry about local governments' failures to solve their problems.

Several developments have converged to produce this volatile situation.

First, there is a widening gulf in communications between local government and the residents of the erupting ghettos of the city. As a result, many Negro citizens develop a profound sense of isolation and alienation from the processes and programs of government. This lack of communication exists for all residents in our larger cities; it is, however, far more difficult to overcome for low-income, less educated citizens who are disproportionately supported by and dependent upon programs administered by agencies of local government. Consequently, they are more often subject to real or imagined official misconduct ranging from abrasive contacts with public officials to arbitrary administrative actions.

Further, as a result of the long history of racial discrimination, grievances experienced by Negroes often take on personal and symbolic significance transcending the immediate consequences of the event. For example, inadequate sanitation services are viewed by many ghetto residents not merely as instances of poor public service but as manifestations of racial discrimination. This perception reinforces existing feelings of alienation and contributes to a heightened level of frustration and dissatisfaction, not only with the administrators of the sanitation department but with all the representatives of local government. This is particularly true with respect to the police, who are the only public agents on duty in the ghetto 24 hours a day and who bear this burden of hostility for the less visible elements of the system.

The lack of communication and the absence of regular contacts with ghetto residents prevent city leaders. from learning about problems and grievances as they develop. As a result, tensions, which could have been dissipated if responded to promptly, mount unnecessarily, and the potential for explosion grows inevitably. Once disorder erupts, public officials are frequently unable to fashion an effective response; they lack adequate information about the nature of the trouble and its causes, and they lack rapport with local leaders who might be able to influence the community.

Second, many city governments are poorly organized to respond effectively to the needs of ghetto residents, even when those needs are made known to appropriate public officials. Most middle-class city dwellers have limited contacts with local government. When contacts do occur, they tend to concern relatively narrow and specific problems. Furthermore, middle-class citizens, although subject to many of the same frustrations and resentments as ghetto residents in dealing with the public bureaucracy, find it relatively easy to locate the appropriate agency for help and redress. If they fail to get satisfaction, they can call on a variety of remedies assistance of elected representatives, friends in government, a lawyer. In short, the middle-class city dweller has relatively fewer needs for public services and is reasonably well positioned to move the system to his benefit.

On the other hand, the typical ghetto resident has interrelated social and economic problems which require the services of several government and private agencies. At the same time, he may be unable to identify his problems to fit the complicated structure of government. Moreover, he may be unaware of his rights and opportunities under public programs and unable to obtain the necessary guidance from either public or private sources.

Current trends in municipal administration have had the effect of reducing the capacity of local government to respond effectively to these needs. The pressures for administrative efficiency and cost cutting have brought about the withdrawal of many operations of city government from direct contact with neighborhood and citizen. Red tape and administrative complexity have filled the vacuum created by the centralization of local government. The introduction of a merit system and a professionalized civil service has made management of the cities more businesslike, but it has also tended to depersonalize and isolate government. The rigid patterns of segregation prevalent within the central city have widened the distance between Negro citizens and city hall.

In most of the riot cities surveyed by the Commission, we found little or no meaningful coordination among city agencies, either in responding to the needs of ghetto residents on an ongoing basis or in planning to head off disturbances. The consequences of this lack of coordination were particularly severe for the police. Despite the fact that they were being called upon increasingly to deal with tensions and citizen complaints often having little, if anything, to do with police services, the police departments of many large cities were isolated from other city agencies, sometimes including the mayor and his staff. In these cities, the police were compelled to deal with ghetto residents angered over dirty streets, dilapidated housing, unfair commercial practices or inferior schools-grievances which they had neither the responsibility for creating

nor the authority to redress.

Third, ghetto residents increasingly believe that they are excluded from the decision-making process which affects their lives and community. This feeling of exclusion, intensified by the bitter legacy of racial discrimination, has engendered a deep seated hostility toward the institutions of government. It has severely compromised the effectiveness of programs intended to provide improved services to ghetto residents.

In part, this is the lesson of Detroit and New Haven where well intentioned programs designed to respond to the needs of ghetto residents were not worked out and implemented sufficiently in cooperation with the intended beneficiaries. A report prepared for the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower and Poverty, presented just prior to the riot in Detroit, found that:

on.

Area residents * * * complain almost continually that their demands for program changes are not heeded, that they have little voice in what goes *** As much as the area residents are involved, listened to, and even heeded, * * * it becomes fairly clear that the relationship is still one of superordinate-subordinate, rather than one of equals. *** The procedures by which HRD (the Mayor's Committee for Human Resources Development, the Detroit Community Action Agency) operates by and large admit the contributions of area residents only after programs have been written, after policies have already operated for a time or already been formulated and to a large degree, only in formal and infrequent meetings rather than in day-to-day operations. *** The meaningfulness of resident involvement is reduced by its after-the-fact nature and by relatively limited resources they have at their disposal.1

Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes of St. Louis was even more explicit. In testimony before this Commission, he stated:

We have found that ghetto neighborhoods cannot be operated on from outside alone. The people within them should have a voice, and our experience has shown that it is often a voice that speaks with good sense, since the practical aspect of the needs of the ghetto people are so much clearer to the people there than they are to anyone else.

The political system, traditionally an important vehicle for minorities to participate effectively in decisions affecting the distribution of public resources, has not worked for the Negro as it has for other groups. The reasons are fairly obvious.

We have found that the number of Negro officials in

'Examination of the War on Poverty, Staff and Consultants Reports, prepared by Center for Urban Studies, University of Chicago, for the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower and Poverty, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 90th Cong. 1st Sess. (Sept. 1967), vol. VI, pp. 1721 ff.

elected and appointed positions in the riot cities is minimal in proportion to the Negro population. The alienation of the Negro from the political process has been exacerbated by his racial and economic isolation.

Specifically, the needs of ghetto residents for social welfare and other public services have swelled dramatically at a time when increased affluence has diminished the need for such services by the rest of the urban population. By reducing disproportionately the economic disability of other portions of the population, particularly other ethnic urban minorities, this affluence has left the urban Negro few potential local allies with whom to make common cause for shared objectives. The development of political alliances, essential to effective participation of minority groups in the political process, has been further impaired by the polarization of the races, which on both sides has transformed economic considerations into racial issues.

Finally, these developments have coincided with the demise of the historic urban political machines and the growth of the city manager concept of government. While this tendency has produced major benefits in terms of honest and efficient administration, it has eliminated an important political link between city government and low-income residents.

These conditions have produced a vast and threatening disparity in perceptions of the intensity and validity of Negro dissatisfaction. Viewed from the perspective of the ghetto resident, city government appears distant and unconcerned, the possibility of effective change remote. As a result, tension rises perceptibly; the explosion comes as the climax to a progression of tension-generating incidents. To the city administration, unaware of this growing tension or unable to respond effectively to it, the outbreak of disorder comes as a shock.

No democratic society can long endure the existence within its major urban centers of a substantial number of citizens who feel deeply aggrieved as a group, yet lack confidence in the Government to rectify perceived injustice and in their ability to bring about needed change.

We are aware that reforms in existing instruments of local government and their relationship to the ghetto population will mean little unless joined with sincere and comprehensive response to the severe social and economic needs of ghetto residents. Elsewhere in this report, we make specific recommendations with respect to employment, education, welfare, and housing which we hope will meet some of these needs.

We believe, however, that there are measures which can and should be taken now; that they can be put to work without great cost and without delay; that they can be built upon in the future and that they will effectively reduce the level of grievance and tension as well as improve the responsiveness of local government to the needs of ghetto residents.

BASIC STRATEGY AND GOALS

To meet the needs identified above, we recommend pursuit of a comprehensive strategy which would accomplish the following goals:

Effective communication between ghetto residents and local government.

■ Improved ability of local government to respond to the needs and problems of ghetto residents.

■ Expanded opportunities for citizen leadership to participate in shaping decisions and policies which affect their community.

Increased accountability of public officials.

We recognize that not all of the programs proposed

below to implement the foregoing goals can be instituted with the immediacy required by the problem. Because the need for action at the local level, where government impinges directly upon the ghetto resi dent, is particularly urgent, we propose that our suggested programs be implemented in two phases. It is vital, however, that the first phase programs not be regarded or perceived as short term, and anti-riot efforts calculated to cool already inflamed situations. These programs will have little chance of succeeding unless they are part of a long-range commitment to action designed to eliminate the fundamental sources of grievance and tension.

ESTABLISHMENT OF NEIGHBORHOOD

ACTION TASK FORCES

To open channels of communication between government and ghetto residents, improve the capacity of the city administration to respond effectively to community needs and provide opportunity for meaningful citizen participation in decision-making, we recommend establishment of joint government-community Neighborhood Action Task Forces covering each neighborhood within the city which has a high proportion of low-income minority citizens. While the exact form of these groups will depend upon the size and needs of each municipality, the following basic features should be incorporated:

Composition. Each task force should include a key official in the mayor's office with direct and immediate access to the mayor, ranking city officials from the operating agencies servicing the ghetto community, elected leaders, representatives from the local business, labor, professional, and church communities, and neighborhood leaders, including representatives of community organizations of all orientations, as well as youth leaders. Each task force would be headed by the mayor's representative. In the larger cities, each of these chairmen would sit as a member of a city-wide Task Force.

Functions. The Neighborhood Action Task Forces should meet on a regular basis at a location accessible to ghetto residents. These meetings will afford an opportunity for ghetto leaders to communicate directly with the municipal administrators for their area to discuss problems and programs which affect the community. In effect, this device furnishes an interagency coordinating mechanism on the one hand and a "community cabinet" on the other.

Ghetto residents should be able to rely on the

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ity of the task force to cut through the maze of red tape and to overcome bureaucratic barriers in order to make things-collection of garbage, removal of abandoned cars, installation of lights in the park, establishment of playstreets-happen. To accomplish this purpose, the participating city officials should have operational decision-making authority. Lower-level staff or public relations personnel will be unable to provide the confrontation and interaction with the community representatives which is essential to the effective functioning of the task force. Moreover, there is grave danger that opening channels of communication without. providing opportunities for obtaining relief will further estrange ghetto residents. If this is not to happen, the task force should have a meaningful and realistic capacity for securing redress of grievances. For the same reason, it is essential that the task force have the full and energetic support of the mayor and the city council.

The potential for responding effectively to community needs is not limited to available public resources. Acting through business, labor, and church members, and local Urban Coalitions which have already been formed, the task force will have a capacity to involve the resources of the private sector in meeting needs within the ghetto. Possibilities range from support of special summer youth programs (weekend trips, recreation events, camping programs) to provision of cultural and employment opportunities on a year-round basis.

The Neighborhood Action Task Force can play a significant role with respect to youth activities. One approach which has worked in several cities involves the establishment of youth councils to employ young streetleaders (regardless of previous police records) to develop community programs for other alienated youth. These activities might include organizing and operating libraries, neighborhood cleanup campaigns,

police-community dialogues, and sports competitions in their own neighborhoods.

Finally, such an organization can make a niajor contribution to the prevention of civil disorders. If the task force has been successful in achieving the objectives stressed above, its members will have gained the confidence of a wide spectrum of ghetto residents. This will enable them to identify potentially explosive conditions and, working with police, to defuse them. Similarly, the task force could have considerable effectiveness in handling threatening incidents identified by the police. To accomplish this objective, an early warning system could be instituted during the critical summer months. Operating on a 24-hour basis, such a system should have the capacity to receive and evaluate police reports of potentially serious incidents and to initiate an appropriate nonpolice response, utilizing community contacts and task force personnel. Any such operation must have the cooperation of the police, who will be in control of the overall disorder response. To avoid confusion and duplication of effort, the task force should have responsibility for coordinating the efforts of all agencies, other than police and fire, once a disturbance has occurred. An example will serve to illustrate how the system might operate.

Following the slaying last summer of a Negro teenager by a Negro detective in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, N.Y., a rumor that the youth had been shot by a white policeman and that the police were trying to suppress this information began to circulate through an already tense neighborhood. The situation became threatening. Yet, within an hour, three white members of the mayor's summer task force group were able to convince a group of black militants that the police version was true. Walking the streets that night and the next two evenings, they worked to dispel the rumor and to restore community stability.

In the larger cities, the city-wide task force could have responsibility for coordinating the programs of various municipal agencies, concentrating their impact on poverty areas, and planning for the more effective implementation of existing public efforts.

The Commission believes that the task force ap

proach can do precisely what other forms of neighborhood organizations have not been able to do. It can connect the real needs and priorities of low-income residents with the energies and resources of both city government and the private sector. It can substantially improve the quality and timeliness of city services to these areas. It will fail unless all of the groups involved are prepared to deal fairly and openly with the problems of the community. But if it succeeds, it will not only produce improved services; it will go far to generate a new sense of community.

ESTABLISHMENT OF EFFECTIVE GRIEVANCE-RESPONSE MECHANISMS

Effective implementation of the Neighborhood Action Task Forces will depend upon the continuing commitment of the city administration to their success. To ensure attention to many of the sources of tension identified above, we recommend that formal mechanisms for the processing of grievances, many of which will relate to the performance of the city government, be established independent of the local administration.

We are convinced, on the record before this Commission, that the frustration reflected in the recent disorders results, in part at least, from the lack of accessible and visible means of establishing the merits of grievances against the agencies of local and state government, including but not limited to, the police. Cities and states throughout the country now have under consideration various forms of grievance-response devices. While we are not prepared to specify the form which such a mechanism should take in any particular community, there are certain criteria which should be met. These include:

■ Independence: This can be achieved by long-term appointment of the administrator, subject to City Council removal. The grievance agency should be separate from operating municipal agencies.

■ Adequate staff and funding: Exact costs will vary depending on the size and needs of the city's population. It is most important that the agency have adequate funds and staff to discharge its responsibilities.

■Comprehensive coverage of grievances against public agencies and authorities: General jurisdiction will facilitate access by grievants. Moreover, unlike specialized complaint agencies, such as civilian review boards, all agencies would be brought equally under public scrutiny. This should facilitate its acceptance by public officials.

■ Power to receive complaints, hold hearings, subpoena witnesses, make public recommendations for remedial action to local authorities and, in cases involving violation of law, bring suit: These powers are the minimum necessary for the effective operation of the grievance mechanism. As we envision it, the agency's principal power derives from its authority to investigate and make public findings and recommendations. It should, of course, have a conciliation process whereby complaints could be resolved without full investigation and processing.