In the midst of the controversy over whether a federally-financed Job Corps Center should be located in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood and 22 families from a building in the Pruitt-Igoe apartments should be relocated in the West End, Twenty-eighth Ward Alderman John G. Roach said he believed that the city's West End shouldn't be the site of most of the social experiments in St. Louis.
His comment echoed one made by a neighborhood resident at a meeting Nov. 11 sponsored by the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council to discuss the proposed job center. The resident received loud applause after saying that "we are not the answer to everyone's problems."
Among the "experiments" referred to by observers are the Archway House narcotics rehabilitation center at DeBaliviere and Pershing Avenues and the Delmar School for 285 vocational education students at 5883 Delmar Boulevard.
In addition, the West End has been the site of a controversial urban renewal project, and the use of the "235" program to help moderate income families subsidize interest payments on FHA loans on existing housing.
Combined with crowded schools, a crime rate that rose rapidly at one time but now may be leveling off, lack of recreation areas and the usual racial tensions present in an integrated neighborhood, many residents have indicated that they want to hold off on new ideas for a while until older problems are worked out.
Citizens who express that opinion certainly have a good point. They assert that if the community does not get together and decide on all aspects of its future, a host of well-meaning social reform programs all placed within a small area coincidentally could alter the character of the neighborhood perhaps faster than it should be altered.
In a later interview with The Paper, Roach said, "It's a question of the community's perception of what kind of a future it will have. The neighborhood is getting more burdens and not getting more assets."
Roach believes that an increase in the number of social problems the neighborhood is expected to solve should be met by an increase in the level of services available from the city.
On the other hand, the community will no doubt be unable to continue indefinitely rejecting proposals for new programs in and near its boundaries.
After all, if every neighborhood were to object to such ideas, it would be difficult to start any progressive programs.
The job corps center, already delayed many months by objections in two locations, is an example of that phenomenon.
Some West End black political leaders have strongly favored placing new programs in the area on the basis that they have to be put somewhere and the West End may well have the resources to support them.
State Senator Raymond Howard, during the job corps discussion, said that Gov. Hearnes's veto of the Delmar site should be overridden to "restore the confidence of the people that government will rise above racism and self-annointed criticism of local inhabitants."
The question that remains after the Pruitt-Igoe and job corps questions are settled is not whether the Skinker-DeBaliviere community agrees on every program.
It is, rather, whether the community will be able to agree generally on what its future should be and how it should evaluate future proposals to change the neighborhood.
If a consensus can't be reached on how the community can get together for planning's sake, there will no doubt be future controversies over governmental proposals in which emotion may win over facts.
One hopeful sign that emerged from both recent controversies is that the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council's position was respected by the "powers that be," thus giving the council recognition as a representative organization at a higher level.
The council issued a letter of welcome to the 22 Pruitt-Igoe families and opposed the Job Corps Center. We think the council showed restraint and good judgement, and most important a willingness to consider all sides of the issue in making these decisions.
On future projects — and they will come — there isn't likely to be complete agreement on the merits of any particular idea. However, the future of the community may rest in great measure on its ability to decide democratically what social experiments it should take on and which should be encouraged to locate elsewhere.
In making these decisions, let us first make sure that we have all the facts. If not, call the council office and ask them. We have also suggested to the council (and gotten an affirmative reply) that the new executive director issue flyers (distributed in each block) containing pertinent facts in an objective fashion and previous to a community meeting. We would also like to recommend more advance notice (certainly more than the one day notice for the Job Corps meeting) for these meetings.
We, as a community, must decide each case on its merits and not blindly throw up a wall of prejudice as was done by some in the Pruitt-Igoe case. We must consider deeper issues. For example in the case of the families moving in, do we as a neighborhood have any right to decide who moves in and who does not and in what cases do we employ this "right"? Did anyone make judgements on our desirability when we moved in? If we are consulted, and only if we are consulted, on what basis should we make our decision? Our concerns are whether or not the neighborhood will benefit. If it doesn't benefit, is there any potential harm that could result? In deciding these questions each of us must stick closely to the facts.
Pruitt-Igoe does NOT necessarily mean high-rise disaster. Teenagers do not necessarily mean additional crime. An addict rehabilitation center has not and does not result in more drug addicts.
Finally the council and the community must be and should be concerned with our image as a community. Do we want to be thought of as a "middle-class only" community or one where both poor and middle-class work together on mutual problems — where there is room for all who want to make it a better place to live and work? In making decisions which might be misconstrued as "middle class against poor" type decisions let us make sure our reasons are clearly set out and publicized.
Above all, let us keep our minds open to all sides of each issue and keep ourselves and our community free of narrow bigotry.
Original newspaper source
Originally published in The Paper, December 1970.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1970_12.pdf, printed page(s) 2.
