11/4/102

country, again I'm talking about those of 75,000 - 100,000 people where the so-called middle income can't get places to live. Why? It costs too much. In order to achieve something like a rental of $18 $19 - $20 a room in New York City and any other city of any size on the Atlantic seaboard, you have to have subsidy --usually separate subsidies. That subsidy may take the form of a grant, an aid from the Federal or the State governments; it may take the form of writing down the cost of land or draining off slum buildings so that the builder begins with a cleared area. But even that is inadequate today without taxes. In order to arrive at a rental in New York City of $20 - $22 a room, you have to build on the cheapest land that is available, and after the other breakdowns a tax subsidy of at least 50%. I mean by that, that when the structures are finished, the fellow who puts them up will pay 50% of what will approximately be paid, if there were no subsidies. Now you add to that, the same thing applies measurably to small houses, the subdivisions, multi-housing projects -- you add to that another 25% or 30% and the whole thing becomes absolutely prohibitive. And everybody has to get a subsidy in order to live unless his income is above $10,000 a year. Those are the facts and if you want to ask any questions, I think we could substantiate them.

I don't know exactly what would be added or would have been added to the cost of Levittown which is a good project in its way. I mention that not because it is in this area but because it represented a very rapid and unusual concentration of population where there had previously been a few farms. 20,000 houses, 80,000 people on what were 5 farms. I know this that it would

11/4/103

add at least 20% or 25% and you add all of the other difficulties there, and I am not talking about New Orleans, I'm talking about Long Island, ground-level, the drainage and endless other difficulties. I would put the initial cost to build a program in Levittown at 50%, ask Bill Levitt or ask other people about it. They are people who have gone out there and they have suddenly awakened to the fact that people have in other subdivisions that there is a bill coming to them for drainage or trunk sewers or paving that they hadn't thought about. Now you just lightly add to the cost of these buildings and you won't solve any housing problem. You can say that that is all going to be paid by the Federal government, but it is a cinch that it is not going to be paid by municipalities almost all of which are up against deficits. Nor states -- bear in mind that any state that has a big city also has a big hinterland. It has an enormous population and there you fit acreage against people, within those fights, acreage almost always wins. In other words, the people that live in the open spaces are not interested in having their taxes increased in order to build shelters in big cities.

As for communication, I think a great deal has been done already. A great deal has been done by the radio and television people and is being done. As for firebreaks etc. I regard them as entirely unworkable. We have a devil's own time getting our limited, narrow right-of-way in our arterial program largely paid for in our municipalities by the Federal Government. Most of you know that the expressway system is 90% Federal and 10% State. And even then we have immense difficulty getting the rights-of-way, an appalling problem. And to talk about mowing down buildings and firebreaks

II/4/104

to anticipate atomic attack, I just don't understand it. As for starting a
great big program in Washington, I don't know whether or not that would be
terribly impressive around the United States. A good many people think
Washington is expendable.

I have already referred to cost and time schedule on building these
things. It would not be four or five years but nearer twenty years. No major
arterial implement today, no major housing improvement in the city involving
slum clearance and going through built-up areas is accomplished even by
the ablest people in less than three years and usually five. That is a little
thumb tale that we all know about. As to what would be done, I think that
a modest program of multi-purpose work, these hospital wings and additions
and stockpiling there, some underground work of a public nature, I think
possibly enough money so that the only agency that I know of in the municipality
that really effectively keeps in touch with this thing and acts as a focal point
for volunteers, is the Fire Department which is the only one -- not the Police
Department but the Fire Department. In each fire house, for example, the
municipal system or volunteer system and one or two people who would be
civilian defense people on full-time and who would be there to organize the
neighborhood to do something in emergencies. I think that would be an
effective thing.

Beyond that, I'm not going to take any more of your time. I think
we will have to live with that problem somehow or other. I don't think we
are going underground; I don't think that we are going to disperse. I don't
think that the population of the country is going to take this thing seriously

(Y)

D

11/4/107

MR. SPARGO: I hadn't expected to but offered the opportunity, I can't help but say that there are of course many approaches which Mr. Bascom has made that are obviously correct. If the problem is going to be attacked, it certainly needs a fresh start. I think that is repeating what Mr. Moses said. I only add emphasis of what Mr. Moses said on cost figures and there I would have to say that, in my opinion, the estimate of the cost is so low as to be almost meaningless even if you get down to 50 or 75% of the population of the country. It is very difficult for me to attempt to understand how any group could sell to the country a program that was only going to take care of 50 - 75% because each one in this country is going to say, "Well, I'm in that percentage." Perhaps we haven't given enough thought to that and perhaps there are ways of doing it, but I would have my grave doubts about it. That's all I would like to say.

MR. BASCOM: I certainly appreciate Mr. Moses' simple understanding of the problem. But I'd like to clear up a few points because there seem to be misunderstandings of what I've said. First of all, I'm answering in the same words that he has about the educational program. My thought is that perhaps we might use some emphasis of particular parts of this program which lean toward the scientific training aspects. I was not proposing that we make a grand, national effort to each about atomic weapons in schools and, as I said, I skipped rather hastily over the paper that I wrote as this is dealt in somewhat more detail there. Rather, I feel, that we should teach the corresponding physics which make for an understanding of nuclear weapons.--how radium heating works and sunshine works and something about permaflex --

[y]

11/4/108

these are easily taught elsewhere. As for the part about dispersion, I did
not mention the subject of evacuation because I would agree that this is not
a very practical suggestion although I might argue some technical details
mentioned. Anyway I'm talking mainly about people living further away than
they now do from the city and consequently they would be somewhat more
dispersed than they are at the moment.

MR. MOSES: Well, how do you get them to do that?

MR. BASCOM: Well, if there were better transportation facilities,
they would do this anyway. I suspect that people would rather live in
Levittown than in the Bronx, that is the reason they moved to Levittown in the
first place. I am suggesting that we put some steam behind more communities
of that nature.

MR. MOSES: That is one of the reasons why the Bronx has increased
so much in population in the last five years?

MR. BASCOM: I'm talking really about relative population. Our
population is going up in the country -- it's going up very steeply. I'm
just saying let's not put all of the new people in the old areas -- let's put
them some place else.

MR. SPARGO: Perhaps we can give you a general case of the reaction
of people to telling them where they are going to live by using Hempstead,
as example. We happen to be trying to relocate some 400 families which