Evening star., 1962-02-18
Cities
! and People
A Clean
f: Updoted
BY ROBERT J. LEWIS
THE YELLOWED newspa-
L. per clipping said:


director sat down at his desk
in the Normandy Building
the other day and spent
half an hour sketching the
broad outlines of the Job
ahead.
He is a pleasant, quiet
voiced man who smokes as
he talks. For the last four
or five years, he has been
q special assistant to the
succession of three officials
who, in that time, have
headed the Governments
housing activities John B.
Blandford, Wilson Wyatt,
and Raymond M. Foley. . :"
PERHAPS YOU might say
that clipping was prema-
turely aged. For its date
October 8, 1949 - makes it
only a teen-ager. Yet a mil
lenium seems to have passed
since we wrote those words
for The Stars Sunday edi-
torial section a dozen years
ago.
The National Housing Act
Of l949 had just been passed.
We wanted to tell readers
what the future might bring.
So we decided to base an ex-
position of the law on an
interview with the first man
put in charge of the ma
chinery to carry 1t out.
Practically every voter in
the country knows that Con-
gress passed some kind of
housing program a few
months ago." the article
tbegan.
a.. What is not clear
Is that the Government is
also going to help local COM
munities to buy, clear off,
and prepare slum and other
ore-or-less blighted areas
for 'redevelopment.'
This is where Nathaniel
S. Keith comes in. Mr.. Keith
is a 43-year-old former news
paperman who has just been
named director of the Hous-
ing and Home Finance
Agency's new Slum Clear
ance and Urban Redevelop-
ment Division.
Up to now, he has a
staff Of only two persons.
This staff will have to ex-
pand to about $50; regula-
tions will have to be pre-
pared, policies determined,
and everything readied to
negotiate with communities
wishing to take advantage of
Federal aid under the Hous-
ing Act of 1949."
THAT WAS THE beginning
of the urban renewal pro-
gram you have been hearing
so much about in the last
few years.
The staff of two has been
increased to about 1000 per-
sons today. In SIT cities,
these people are making pos
sible the planning and carry
out of 927 urban renewal
projects with Federal grants
of nearly $2.5 billion. They
have another billion and a
half for grants to other fu-
ture projects.
From a CLEAN, the urban
renewal program has become
grandioSe. The transforma-
tions it is making possible
across the country constitute
one of the boldest undertake
ings In our peacetime history.
From an original emphasis
on slum clearance, the pro-
gram has been subtly
changed through the years.
The clearer, more positive
purpose today is to renew
cities, to make them func-
tion better and be more at
tractive than before.
That this is not always
achieved attests to the COM
plexity of the job, and to the
need for more understand
ing of the diverse elements
which make a city good.
FROM THE BEGINNING,
the hugeness of the venture
was fairly clear.
"Our feeling is" Nat Keith
said IL years ago, that while
we are extremely anxious to
get,under way we are equally
anxious not to make any
fundamental blunders just
to get into business a few
weeks earlier"
Now president of the Ma
tional Housing Conference
and a consultant in the
urban renewal field, Mr..
Keith believes the program
has matured and broadened
"at a rather remarkable
rate" He has helped influ-
ence some of the changes in
direction the work has taken.
But he doesn't claim IL