The
Changing
oreler:
THE CITY
The Center for the Study of Local Government at St. John's University exists on the premise that "decentralization is feasible." It is doubtful u:hether Thomas Jefferson u:ould have said it like that but the intent is the same: graceful living.
Originally funded by the Ford Foundation's $182,000 grant tteo years ago, the Center for the Study of Local Govel'11ment on the St. John's campus attempts to solve the problems and determine a healthy future for the micro-city (population 10,000-50(000).
Dr. Edward L. IIenry, chairman of the govel'l1ment department at St. John's along with approximately a dozen assistants, are presently conducting attitudinal surveys and preparing monofTl'([phs on research and conferences.
Dr. Henry, also the mayor of one of the micro-cities being studied by the center, St. Cloud, spoke at St. John's on March 24, 1969, on "The Future of the Small Community."
The lecture was the fourth in a series of six on "Church and Community -Non-metropolitan America in Transition," sponsored by The Office of Pastoral Studies at St. John's. A condensed version of that lecture is reprinted here.
We have the mission of taking a long, hard look at the potential of the small community, roughly those between 10,000 and 50,000 in size. Perhaps, somewhat arbitrarily I am designating cities of this size as "micro cities" and those of less than 10,000 "mini-cities". Surprisingly, over 75 million Americans still live outside the major urban complexes today. Ten million or less still live on farms, the others in cities of a few hundred to 50,000. The population is divided today about V3 in ten cities; V3 suburbs; % outside metropolitan areas of 50,000 up. The great bulk of all
U.S. cities, 16,800 of them, are in the micro and mini-size category -a to 50,000. It is the
DR. EDWARD L. HENRY
"130 Clevelands by the year 2000?"
larger cities in these two size groups that seem capable of becoming growth centers in the federal system.
My thesis holds that national interest requires a reversal of the population drift to the large city. Whether this can be or should be fostered by positive public policy is in the process of becoming a public issue. There are certain developments which suggest an affirmative answer. These involve the growing problems of the big city including civil disorders and the increasing diseconomies of scale for living and working there. The answer to repopulating the countryside revolves to a large degree about the creation of viable centers of job creation, shopping variety, educational and cultural amenities, governmental institutions, and medical and entertainment facilities. Such centers can become "mother cities," a modern parallel to the major city of the ancient Greek city state, with a clientele extending forty to sixty miles into the hinterland. While some
23
