Images (15)
Document
| id |
id
575244
|
|---|---|
| contentType |
contentType
document
|
| source |
source
import
|
Source image fields (6)
Extracted text
OCR Page 1 of 15CITIZENS WATER SUPPLY PROJECT
BACKGROUND PAPER:
A NEW AGENDA FOR PLANNING
A New Agenda for Planning
The planning issues of the next decade have already announced
themselves. But policy-makers are not paying attention.
1. Immigration.
The Nation is said to be approaching Zero Population Growth
and its central cities are said to be in a period of increasing
population loss.
But in one critical (ánd central-city-oriented) sector, the
population may be growing dramatically. Some estimates suggest that
the number of illegal aliens in the United States is already more than
8 million; for the New York Metropolitan Area alone, the estimate
of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service was 1. million
in 1975. As the gap widens between American affluence and the
poverty of other parts of the World, particularly in this hemisphere,
the influx of immigrants, legal and illegal, can be expected to grow.
Meanwhile, the Census Bureau acknowledges that illegal aliens
do not appear in its 1970 Census count or in its official estimate
of undercount. And at virtaully no level of government do official
projections of future population take illegal immigration, past or
to come, into consideration.
The result could be underdesign of vital projects and programs
and underinvestment in the central cities where, historically,
immigrants tend to congregate.
2. Urban Systems on Borrowed Time.
America still thinks of itself as a young country.
But many of its cities, and increasingly its suburbs, are old
in terms of the "life expectancy" of basic urban systems. When part
of the elevated West Side Highway fell to the street in New York City,
it was no isolated incident -- for New York or the Country. The
problem extends visibly to such systems as streets and parks and
invisibly to sewerage, water mains and underground utilities. In
a
period of fiscal belt-tightening, moreover, under-maintenance
accelerates the decay.
Meanwhile, most of the planning and funding for urban physical
"infrastructure" is still designed to meet new needs and create new
systems. Even where attention is paid to what already exists (as,
for example, in recent Federal transportation programs) the emphasis
is on more intensive use, not on rehabilitation, replacement and a
critical minimum of maintenance for an already badly weakened plant.
Terms
Relations
belongs_to