National Urban Policy Remarks Announcing the Policy.

Contrary to any previous reports, the urban policy has come through strong and unscathed. And I come this afternoon to address not recipients of the urban policy, but those of you who participated so deeply and sincerely and effectively in the evolution of it.

Twenty-one months ago in Milwaukee, I pledged to the United States Conference of Mayors that if I became President, the cities of our country would have a friend, an ally, and a partner in the White House.

Today I want to affirm that friendship, to cement that alliance, and to give form and substance to that partnership.

I'm convinced that it is in our national interest not only to save our cities and urban communities but also to strengthen them and to make them more attractive places in which to live and to work.

The policy that is embodied in the message that I'm sending to Congress today is designed to marshal the immense resources of America in a long-term commitment to pursue that goal. It is a comprehensive policy, aimed both at making our cities healthier and at improving the lives of the people who live in them.

The deterioration of urban life in the United States is one of the most complex and deeply rooted problems of our age. The Federal Government has a clear duty to lead the effort to reverse that deterioration, and I intend to provide the leadership.

But Federal efforts alone will never be enough. Everyone in this land has a personal stake in the health of our urban places. In the complex web of economic, social, and cultural relationships which holds our society together, none of us are immune from the distress of others. If we are to preserve the special values of urban, suburban, and rural life, we must recognize that those values are interdependent. To a greater extent than ever before, the future of our cities and the destiny of our Nation are joined.

I believe that this link is now recognized by almost every American. Yet, throughout most of our history, America has been ambivalent about our cities.

Reflecting these conflicting attitudes, direct Federal involvement in urban affairs has followed a kind of seesaw pattern. In formulating this new policy, we've had the benefit of past experience.

From the experience of the urban renewal program of the 1950's, we learned to be skeptical about what Reinhold Niebuhr called the "doctrine of salvation through bricks"—the idea that we can bulldoze away our urban problems.

From the experience of the Great Society in the 1960's and during more recent years, we learned—despite many successes—that we can succeed only if all levels of government work together with private citizens and interests in a fairly and fully coordinated way toward common goals.

The time has come to put an end to these abrupt swings of policy and to replace them with the kind of long-range urban policy that I promised in Milwaukee—"a coherent national urban policy that is consistent, compassionate, realistic, and that reflects the decency and the good sense of the American people."

We must acknowledge the value of our urban communities. This value includes a physical plant that must not be allowed to deteriorate any further—trillions of dollars invested in buildings, houses, streets and roads, transit systems, water and sewage systems, factories, offices, parks.

Even more important is the social value of cities to those who live in them and to the rest of those who live close to them-their services as centers of culture, entertainment, finance; the enormous variety of human exchange that's possible there; their creativity and their contribution to our common life; and the role they've always played as homes for people of all kinds and all circumstances who are searching for the American dream of opportunity.

Yet many of these communities and the people who live in them are in distress, and others face future hardship if we fail to act.

Today I call on all of you and the institutions and groups that you represent to join me in building a new partnership to conserve our communities—a working alliance of all levels of government, with the private sector of our economy and with our citizens in their communities and neighborhoods.

Are you willing to help? [Applause]

In spite of some beliefs that have been expressed around this particular home, mayors hold the most difficult public offices in our land. [Laughter] It's time that the rest of us fully support their efforts to ensure that our cities will not merely survive but prosper.

This new partnership offers no quick nor easy solutions. No such solutions exist. But it does give us the tools to build the kind of creative alliance that can produce long-term solutions. This is a tough, no-nonsense program, based on efficiency, effectiveness, and cooperation.

The new partnership is guided by these principles: simplifying and improving existing programs and policy; combining the resources of Federal, State, and local government and using them as a lever to involve the much greater strength of our private economy to conserve and strengthen our cities and communities; being flexible enough to give help where it's most needed and to respond to changing circumstances and the particular needs of each individual and different community; increasing access to opportunity for those who are disadvantaged in a special way by economic circumstances or by a history of discrimination; and, above all, drawing on the sense of community and the volunteer effort that I believe is still alive in America and on the loyalty that Americans feel for their own homes and their own neighborhoods.

The Federal contribution to the new partnership is a long-term commitment, involving three major areas of activity: first, the very substantial increases we've made and are making in programs that directly benefit urban communities; second, the reorientation of Federal activities to make certain that they support our urban goals; and third, new initiatives to help urban communities fiscally and economically and to help their people meet human and social needs.

This administration has been committed to the future of urban America ever since the first day that I took office. That's why we did not wait until the formal announcement of a national urban policy to strengthen existing programs and to initiate new ones that are crucial to that policy. The Congress, represented well here today, has cooperated enthusiastically.

Total assistance—in just 2 years—to State and local governments has already been increased by 25 percent, from $68 billion to $85 billion. We've had major improvements in such urban-related programs as the Community Development Block Grant program and the new Urban Development Action Grant program and urban education. I proposed a doubling in our expenditures for employment and training to over $12 billion in 1979, and we have already increased the number of public service jobs by 150 percent. We added 4.1 million new jobs last year.

In many of these programs, we are enlarging the share that's provided to cities and to urban areas. And I've asked for the abolition of the present disastrous welfare system and its replacement with a fair and workable Better Jobs and Income program that will provide immediate fiscal relief to State and local governments.

But increases in spending cannot be a substitute for effectiveness overall, nor are they the sole measure of the depth or extent of our commitment.

For those who live in our urban areas, the gravest flaw in past Federal policy was not that we failed to spend money; it was that too many of the programs were ineffective, and too many that did work had their benefits canceled by other conflicting Federal and State activities.

In developing this national urban policy, we took a long, hard look at the work of every single major department in the Federal Government. In the process, agencies ranging from the Defense Department to the General Services Administration have been made more sensitive to urban concerns. This is the beginning of a long-term change in the attitude of the entire Government bureaucracy toward urban communities.

Our review generated a large number of proposals for changes in existing programs. Some will require legislation; most of them can be done through immediate administrative action. There are more than 150 of them. Let me mention just three or four.

All agencies will develop goals and timetables for minority participation in their grants and contracts. Five major agencies have already taken such action.

The Defense Department will set up a new program to increase purchases in urban areas.

The Environmental Protection Agency will modify its water and sewer programs to discourage wasteful sprawl.

The General Services Administration will retain facilities in downtown urban areas and will also put new ones there.

If the kind of review that led to these changes had been done on a regular basis in the past, our urban problems would be much less severe today.

As a key component part of the comprehensive urban policy, I'm establishing a continuing mechanism, involving many of you, to analyze the effects of new Federal policies and programs on our communities. Once that mechanism is in place, analysis of the urban and regional impact of new programs will be an integral and a permanent part of all policy development throughout our Government.

I believe that this reorientation of Federal activities, to take account of the needs of other communities, will be as significant as any action the Federal Government could take.

But even with substantial increases and improvements in existing programs, gaps still remain. The new initiatives that I am proposing today—$4.4 billion in budget authority, $1.7 billion in new tax incentives, and $2.2 billion in loan guarantees-are designed precisely to fill those gaps.

To make government at all levels more efficient, I propose incentives to cities with coordinated economic development plans, a simplification of planning requirements, and a new coordinating mechanism for Federal programs.

To help relieve the distress of the most fiscally strained communities—replace the expiring countercyclical aid program with a new fiscal assistance program targeted on those communities with the highest unemployment rate.

To encourage the States to channel additional resources into their own distressed areas—a new incentive grant program.

To provide increased opportunities for our unemployed—a new employment tax credit to encourage private industry to hire jobless young people, whose plight is among the most serious human problems of our whole society, and a new program to encourage private industry, a new partnership with mayors, to hire and to train more disadvantaged workers.

To strengthen the economic base of cities—major incentives to private investment in urban areas through increased and affordable credit from a new National Development Bank, expanded grants, and a new tax incentive, and an innovative program of labor-intensive public works, aimed at repairing and rehabilitating the existing facilities in our urban communities.

An inner-city health and social service initiative, together with expanded support for mass transit, housing rehabilitation, and urban parks and recreation initiative, and a new arts and cultural program will promote community and human development and preserve historic buildings in our urban areas.

And to marshal the thousands of Americans who want to contribute their time and energy to the betterment of their own neighborhoods, I'm proposing neighborhood rehabilitation and anticrime projects and a new Urban Volunteer Corps.

All of us recognize, again, that the Federal Government does not have the resources by itself to do the job. We are ready to provide the leadership, the commitment, and the incentives which will encourage all sectors of our country to rebuild and to maintain the quality of America's communities.

Only through unprecedented consultation and cooperation has this urban policy been evolved. Thousands of government officials and private citizens have worked for many months to reach this goal, and now this same mutual effort can ensure success in implementing the proposals.

This job will not be done overnight. Problems which have built up over generations cannot be reversed in a year or even in a term of a President or a Senator. But let there be no doubt that today marks the turning point. For today, we commit the Federal Government to the long-term goal of making America's cities more attractive places in which to work and to live, and helping the people who live in them lead happier and more useful lives. With your help we will not fail.

Thank you very, much.