The Cities Revisited

AMERICAN NOTES The Cities Revisited More than three years after the Kerner Commission analyzed the causes of the great urban riots of the 1960s, the racial ghettos of the U.S. are more than ever an environment of decay, distrust and despair. That is the conclusion of a report, "The State of the Cities." issued by a commission of the National Urban Coalition.

"Housing is still the national scandal it was then," says the report. "Schools are more tedious and turbulent. The rate of crime and unemployment and disease and heroin addiction are higher than ever. Welfare rolls are larger. And, with few exceptions, the relations between minority communities and the police are just as hostile." If such trends continue, the report concludes bleakly, "most cities by 1980 will be predominantly black and brown, and totally bankrupt."

The new commission did find one hopeful sign: a "new tough pride, self-confidence and determination" of minorities to build their own grass-roots institutions of self-help and reach "for the levers of power." At the same time, the report warns: "The most disturbing point most of those we spoke with made was that they had no faith at all in 'the System'--the Government and the private wielders of power--as a protector or a provider."

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