From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: CONVERTING & REVITALIZING THE INNER CITY 
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 08:23:17 GMT

POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES
A Publication of the CENTER FOR ECONOMIC CONVERSION

Published quarterly. Materials in POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES may be 
reprinted if this publication and the CENTER for ECONOMIC CONVERSION are 
credited and a copy is sent to CEC.

** Written  4:45 pm  Aug 10, 1992 by dwalt in cdp:econconversion **
CONVERTING & REVITALIZING THE INNER CITY
by Carl Anthony

During the buildup for the Persian Gulf war, a Los Angeles Times reporter 
was surprised to find young men from predominantly African American 
South Central Los Angeles eager to fight. Perplexed, he asked one recruit 
why. "If you have no prospect of an income and you live in a war zone 
anyway," he replied, "you may as well go fight and be paid for it." The war 
zone the recruit wanted to leave is the inner city, where more young black 
males lose their lives nationwide to homicide every year than they did 
during the entire Vietnam conflict.

The insurrection following the Rodney King verdict made the painful 
reality of the inner city war zone visible. For 48 hours anarchy reigned in 
the streets of Los Angeles. Whole sections of  the city stopped 
functioning. Hundreds of  thousands of people were sent home from 
schools and work. When the arson and looting were over, damage was 
estimated at $500 million.

Reactions to the insurrection, however, seem strangely anachronistic. 
Officials rushed to dust off forgotten policies from the late 1960s -- 
privatization of public housing, enterprise zones, and welfare reform -- 
as if we could turn back the clock a whole generation and pick up where 
we left off after the Watts riot of 1965.

Now, inner city communities and their progressive allies in the peace, 
social justice, and environmental movements, must begin rethinking sound 
public policies for urban reconstruction neglected during the past two 
decades during the cold war build up. 
        
        A major component of such policies should include a massive 
        redirection of public resources now employed in military
        activities The true cost of the arms race at home and abroad
        has been the loss of what could have been produced instead
        with scarce capital, labor, and raw materials. Global military
        spending at 1 trillion dollars per year is more 
        than the total incomes of the poorest half of humanity. 

New international security strategy requires curtailment of the 
international trade in arms, destruction of offensive weapons, and scaling 
back of companies that make them. After decades of refusal to plan for 
economic conversion, Los Angeles may lose over 100,000 jobs. Other 
military dependent regions are suffering convulsive economic change. 
Also, urban reconstruction must be oriented toward post cold war global 
economic and environmental security, enabling citizens of all nations to 
satisfy basic human needs.

        Urban reconstruction is a vehicle for disenfranchised residents to 
        meet human needs and develop their potential to lead satisfying
        lives. Growth should be mostly from within, using local talents
        and labor. Community development corporations and local
        enterprises should play a greater role in rebuilding than
        outside real estate interests. New patterns should avoid over
        emphasizing individualism and competition.

Suburbanization, which has divided the nation racially, is, ironically, the 
product of World War II economic conversion -- when veterans, evacuating 
the cities, began moving their families to racially exclusive suburbs. In 
addition, federal subsidies, many times larger than all poverty programs 
combined, stimulated suburban shopping malls, office parks and millions 
of jobs, many of them defense dependent.
        The need for new urban environmental policies was dramatically 
highlighted in June, by the U.N. Conference on Environment and 
Development in Brazil. Inner city neighborhoods should be planned in light 
of global needs -- not as isolated pockets. Current metropolitan patterns 
waste land, air, water, biological resources, and energy. New 
neighborhoods should be based on environmentally sound land use design 
principles to increase resource efficiency and promote greater ecological 
self reliance.

The squandering of human and physical capital in the inner city is a result 
of decades of skewed national priorities, investing billions of dollars 
simultaneously in suburbanization and military buildup while the lives of 
millions of people in the inner city frittered away in smoldering 
desperation. 

The challenge of economic conversion in the 1990s is to redirect these 
wasted resources; to revitalize our inner cities, bringing to those who 
live there justice, a stake in society, and reason to believe in the future.

     -- CARL ANTHONY is president of Earth Island Institute and director of 
its Urban Habitat Program. He is a member of the Presidio Council which 
is advising the National Park Service on the conversion of the Presidio 
Army Base in San Francisco, and he is former board member of the Center 
for Economic Conversion.

** End of text from cdp:econconversion **

******************************************************************
                     THE CENTER FOR ECONOMIC CONVERSION
                222 View St., Suite C, Mountain View CA 94041
                  Tel: (415) 968-8798    FAX: (415) 968-1126
                          Email: bdelson@igc.org
The CENTER for ECONOMIC CONVERSION is a non-profit public benefit 
corporation dedicated to building a sustainable peace-oriented economy. 
Founded in 1975, the organization serves as a national resource center and 
a catalyst for conversion planning. CEC provides educational materials; 
speakers; organizing assistance to conversion activists; technical 
assistance to workers, managers and public officials confronting military 
cutbacks; and research on conversion issues.

Beth Delson, Editor; Michael Closson, Executive Director; Joan Holtzman, 
Development Coordinator; Marie Jones, Conversion Planner; Susan Strong, 
Senior Research Associate; Rosemary Wick, Office Manager.
******************************************************************

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