|
Reciprocity -- Self Interest, Rightly Understood
From Building Community
Ed Schwartz, President
Institute for the Study of Civic Values
1991
A. Reciprocity and Community Organization
If man in the State of Nature be so free, as has been said:
If he be absolute Lord of his own Person and Possessions,
equal to the greatest, and subject to no Body, why will he
part with his Freedom? Why will he give up this Empire, and
subject himself to the Dominion and Control of any other
Power? To which tis obvious to Answer, that though in the
state of Nature he hath such a right, yet the Enjoyment of it
is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of
others. For all being Kings as much as he, every Man his
Equal, and the greater part no strict Observors of Equity and
Justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state
is very unsafe, very insecure. This makes him willing to quit
a Condition, which however free, is full of fears and
continual dangers: And 'tis not without reason, that he seeks
out, is willing to joyn in Society with others who are
already united, or have a mind to until for the mutual
Preservation of their Lives, Liberties, and Estates, which I
call by the general name, Property.
--John Locke, An Essay Concerning the True Original
Extent, and End of Civil Government
When the security of a neighborhood is threatened, it's not long
before people startmtrying to figure out who's to blame.
Determining who is directly responsible is easy. Criminals are
responsible for crime. Speculators and self-serving developers are
generally responsible for both displacement and abandonment.
Incompetent and insensitive public officials usually are
responsible for breakdowns in public services. Thus,
as neighborhood security deteriorates, people's anger at
criminals, slumlords, and politicians tends to rise.
Beyond those who are directly responsible for creating the
problems, however, are those entrusted with solving them. It is
perfectly reasonable for people to ask whether these
officials are doing their jobs. Are the police doing enough to
catch burglars? Are the courts giving the proper sentences? Is
Licenses & Inspections protecting the community against threats to
residential integrity? Are banks investing enough in community
housing? Are the schools doing an effective job in educating
children? Are local businesses and religious institutions, as
well the residents, doing enough themselves to build a safe,
clean neighborhood where families can properly raise their
children?
These are familiar questions when threats to security become
serious.
What security requires, then, is reciprocity -- give and take
between neighbors and between neighborhood residents and the
institutions that are supposed to protect them. The word
"reciprocity" is not often used in discussions of these problems,
but the principle is critical to understanding them. The concept
itself is simple. When a person sends a gift, he or she generally
expects a thank-you note -- that is, that the receiver will
reciprocate, When we go to somebody's party, we feel obliged to
invite them to the next party that we give. Workers expect a fair
day's pay for a fair day's work. Consumers expect decent products
for their money. And neighborhood residents expect that all
people and institutions will fulfill their responsibilities to
preserve a decent quality of life in the community -- especially,
those people and institutions supported by taxpayers' dollars. In
effect, then, neighborhood residents expect reciprocity from
government as citizens; from the private sector, as workers and
consumers; and from one another, as fellow human beings. When a
sense of security breaks down, we are quick to ask where
reciprocity has broken down.
Moreover, in this period of "Looking Out for No. 1," it is
important to recognize that virtually all political philosophers
of the past believed that a commitment to reciprocity was
essential to a secure society. John Locke argued that government
was necessary because in its absence each person would be a
"King"; and, therefore, no person would be objective enough to be
a "strict observer of equity and justice." There had to be a
sense of fairness operating between people, then, for any one
person to feel safe. In the l9th Century, the French writer,
Alexis de Tocqueville, described this attitude as, "Self-Interest:
Rightly Understood." His description of "Self-Interest, Rightly
Understood," in America is, perhaps, the most famous description
of American values ever written.
The Americans ... are fond of explaining almost all the
actions of their lives by the principle of self-interest
rightly understood; they show with complacency how an
enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts
them to assist one another and inclines them willingly to
sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare
of the state ...
The principle of self-interest rightly understood produces no
great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small
acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a
man virtuous; but it disciplines a number of persons in
habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight,
self-command; and it if does not lead men straight to virtue
by the will, it gradually draws them in the direction by
their habits. If the principle of interest rightly understood
were to sway the whole moral word, extraordinary virtues
would doubtless be more rare; but I think that gross
depravity would then also be less common. The principle of
interest rightly understood perhaps prevents men from rising
far above the level of mankind, but a great number of other
men, who were falling far below it, are caught and restrained
by it. Observe some few individuals, they are lowered
by it; survey mankind, they are raised ...
I do not think that the system of self-interest as it is
professed in America is in all its parts self-evident, but it
contains a great number of truths so evident that men, if
they are only educated, cannot fail to see them. Educate,
then, at any rate, for the age of implicit self-sacrifice and
instinctive virtues is already flitting far away from us, and
the time is fast approaching when freedom, public peace, and
social order itself will not be able to exist without
education."
Unfortunately, in recent years, De Tocqueville's warning about the
effect of selfish values on our communities has been coming all
too true. The "age" of "implicit self-sacrifice and instinctive
virtues" has, indeed, been "flitting far away from us," and the
time has already arrived when, "freedom, public peace, and social
order" cannot exist "without education.. Thus, a process of
developing neighborhood social contracts has become critical to
helping neighborhood residents recognize what the principle of
reciprocity requires of them.
As a starting point in this process, it is necessary to assess
whether your neighbors share a sense of reciprocity with one
another. Consider the following exercises: The Neighborhood
Councils of Independence, Missouri several years ago adopted six,
"Courtesy Guidelines," as basic rules that all residents are
expected to obey. These were:
1) All residents shall maintain the yard, landscaping and
exterior of their living units in presentable fashion and in
keeping with other living units in the area.
2) All residents shall not leave defective cars or trucks
or any other unsightly equipment parked for extended periods
of time on their property or the street.
3) All residents shall not allow noises from activity to
disturb their neighbors, especially during the hours from
10:00 n.m. to 8:00 a.m.
4) All residents shall not allow smoke or other odors that
will disturb others to emanate from their property.
5) All residents shall not allow pets to run loose in the
neighborhood.
6) All residents shall try to be considerate of their
neighbors and try not to do anything that would be bothersome
to them or detrimental to their neighborhood.
What would happen if you presented these rules to your own block
or to the neighborhood residents as a whole? Would residents agree
to live by them? Would they agree to call the police or other
appropriate City agency in response to repeated violations of
them? Would they want to enforce some rules, but not others? Would
they add rules?
The writer tried this experiment on several blocks in his own
neighborhood of Southwest Germantown in Philadelphia a several
years ago. The results were revealing. Even though the rules were
developed in Independence, Missouri, several people were
convinced that I had added a particular rule because of something
that they were doing. In general, however, people on the block
were enthusiastic about the process. We even circulated the rules
throughout the area as a petition, so that everyone had an
opportunity to endorse them. The rules worked well, as long as the
blocks continued to meet. In fact, the continuing effort to gain
compliance with the rules was a reason why several blocks did
continue to meet--the search for reciprocity became a reason for
preserving the community. Yet the effort broke down, finally, when
the residents were unable to break the resistance of one or two
families who were determined to do as they pleased, no matter what
the neighbors thought.
What we learned from the experience was that for reciprocity to be
practiced by anyone, it must be practiced by everyone. As soon as
one person, family, or group decides that it owes less to the
community than the rest, then all members of the community will
cut back on their commitment to the common good. Eventually, the
entire social fabric unravels. Thus, to establish genuine
reciprocity in the neighborhood, an organization must have the
complete cooperation of not only the residents, but the private
institutions and public agencies that shape the values of the
neighborhood as well.
Thus, the neighborhood group that wants to tackle its problems in
depth must first determine what kind of social contract will win
acceptance from the dominant institutions and groups within the
community and then develop a way to ratify the contract and
enforce it. We can see how the process works in examining the
three areas of concern for neighborhoods that we have examined
thus far: crime, the physical environment, and opportunities for
children.
B. Reciprocity and Crime
Our society has commissioned its police to patrol the streets,
prevent crime, and arrest suspected criminals. It has established
courts to conduct trails of accused offenders and sentence those
who are found guilty. It has created a correctional process
consisting of prisons to punish convicted persons and programs to
rehabilitate and supervise them so that they can become useful
citizens. It is commonly assumed that these three components--law
enforcement (police, sheriffs, marshals), the judicial process
(judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers) and corrections (prison
officials, probation and parole officers)- add up to a "system" of
criminal justice.
--National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence,
Final Report, December 10, 1969
When crime does begin to overwhelm a neighborhood, residents seek
redress from one or more agencies of the criminal justice system.
A series of questions are painfully familiar:
1) Do police patrol regularly? When they're called, do they
show up quickly? Do they investigate crimes, or is their attitude,
"Sorry, but there's not much we can do?" How do the police handle
those areas that are known to be persistent
trouble-spots--so-called "drug" corners, or a troublesome bar, or
a well-known drug house?
2) When someone is caught, is the trial swift; the sentence,
sure? Or does the case drag on for months, even years, with the
accused ending up with little more than a slap on the wrist? Do
the police and the District Attorney's office and the courts work
with the victims of crime, trying to give them support? Or are the
victims treated as a nuisance, almost to blame for having gotten
into trouble?
3) Are there enough prisons? Are there effective
rehabilitation programs for offenders and ex-offenders?
Even if there is never a community meeting around these issues,
they are discussed in homes through the neighborhood every day.
Each time a new crime becomes known --a burglary, a mugging, a
rape -- the state of law enforcement becomes an item of major
concern. Unfortunately, what appears to be the major problem with
the system often turns out to be not the major problem. The police
are usually the main target for criticism, since they are in daily
contact with the public. Police departments are quick to point
out, however, that taxpayers don't want to pay for the additional
patrols that citizens demand. Besides, citizens who could be
helpful in identifying a suspect frequently don't come forward.
Ultimately, they conclude, the courts often just let offenders
back onto the streets.
When community groups then focus their anger at the courts for
lenient sentences, they hear a new list of complaints. There
aren't enough prisons, judges say. There are no rehabilitation
centers that work. Especially in the juvenile field, there simply
aren't enough programs to handle the volume. Again -- the
taxpayers aren't prepared to support the sort of system that we
say we want.
Unfortunately, crime statistics support this proposition. The
problems are especially acute in the area of juvenile crime -- the
sort of crime that poses the greatest problem for neighborhoods.
Consider the following statistics for Philadelphia in the 1970's
when Building Community first appeared. In 1979, 12,524 young
people appeared before juvenile court. Since it was estimated that
for every juvenile caught committing a crime, there were four who
went free, there were 60,000 crimes committed by juveniles during
that year. Of those who actually appeared in court, compare the
breakdown of crimes with the pattern of sentences.
JUVENILE CRIME AND SENTENCING STATISTICS, 1979
OFFENSE NUMBER SENTENCE NUMBER
Homicide 40 "TOUGH"
Assaults 1,971
Burglary 2,493 Juvenile Institution 704
Robbery 1,684 Other Institution 218
Auto Theft 617 Criminal Court 94
Rape 102 Referred Elsewhere 122
Sex Offense 117
Weapons 438
TOTAL 1,138
Vandalism 214
Weapons 438 "LIGHT"
Theft 2,982
Discharged 5,488
TOTAL 10,658 Probation 2,711
Consent Decree 2,997
TOTAL 11,196
In short, with over 10,000 cases heard in 1979 for crimes ranging
from vandalism to homicide -- over 2,000 for homicide, rape,
assault -- only 1,100 were committed to an institution or formal
program. The 2,711 young people who were put on probation
might just as well have been discharged as well. By 1979,
probation officers were working on caseloads of over 100 -- well
in excess of the legally authorized maximum of 40. Over course
the of 1980's, the public demanded tougher sentences and the
system did respond. By the 1990's, however, crime remained as
serious a community problem as it was ten years earlier, and a
federal judge has been ordering the release of prisoners because
overcrowded jails have become "cruel and unusual punishment."
Thus, neighborhood groups that want to determine where full
responsibility for crime lies, must examine all aspects of the
system, not just the police. What responsibility should citizens
take for reporting crimes that they see? What role should local
businesses and institutions play in securing their properties?
What are the schools and recreation centers doing to provide
constructive activities for young people as an alternative to
crime? What is the District Attorney's office doing to work with
the victims of crime and to alert local neighborhoods to steps
that they can take to support victims? Are the courts responsive
to the demands of neighborhoods? Is there an adequate probation
department --or are probation officers overwhelmed by their
caseloads? Are there enough jails for dangerous criminals and
enough special programs for offenders who can respond to
rehabilitation? Citizens ought to ask all of these questions -- of
one another, of the schools- of the District Attorney, of the
courts, and of the prison system, even as they demand adequate
patrols from the police department. If we have developed
a criminal justice system in this country, we cannot put the
entire burden on only one part of it and expect the rest to take
care of itself. All elements of the system must function properly
to prevent crime. That is what reciprocity requires.
C. Reciprocity and Neighborhood Deterioration
This summer we did a demonstration on the boulevards of the
West Side. People were distrubed that the could never get the
boulevard seeded. Ever year they'd tell us they ran out of
grass....
We had a meetin' with the officials and we said: "We've
computed our taxes, and rather than charge you with
malfeasance, we will have a press conference tomorrow and say
we're going to withhold that part of the money from our tax
dollars and buy our own seed. We'll put our folks to
work--we've got a lot of unemployed fellows--and we can buy
machinery with the money and seed our own lawns. We ain't got
no problem."
At nine o'clock the next morning, they came up with hundreds
and hundreds of pounds of grass seed, all the workers that we
wanted, and we all got our lawns seeded.
--Nancy Jefferson, in Studs Terkel, American Dreams: Lost
and Found
Who is reponsible for the physical decay of a neighborhood? The
neighbors? Businesses? The government? In cases of serious
deteroriation, the answer usually is a combination of the three.
Yet contrary to the popular view, individual residents are
often victims of the process, not primarily responsible for it.
Those who flee a neighborhood, leaving their property untended and
abandoned, must assume the blame for the damage that they are
causing for the other residents of a block. If the City does
little to enforce its codes against such absentee owners, it
shares in the blame. If businesses do little to maintain their
operations, and government makes little investment in the
maintenance of its own facilities and buildings, the spiral of
decay continues. Those residents who fail to maintain their own
homes compound the problem. Ultimately, the issues of reciprocity
that grow out of neighborhood revolve around public investment and
regulation of housing, streets, and the collection of trash.
There is an elaborate regulatory system in most communities to
help residents determine reciprocity in dealing with housing and
property in general. Consider the following:
Zoning Laws: These are municipally controlled, and provide
the best protection for a community against development
schemes that threaten it. Usually, any plan that will
substantially change the character of any area must receive
approval from a local zoning board. If the neighborhood group
keeps track of proposals going before this board, then it can
use its procedures to block plans to which residents object.
Reciprocity here demands that the zoning board inform the
neighborhood group of hearings relevant to its interests and
encourage the group to present its position before the board.
At the same time, the neighborhood association must keep
track of these zoning hearings if it is to protect the
interests of the community, and it must alert individual
blocks to zoning changes of special concern to them. In many
cities, requests for zoning variances must be posted on the
property, so that any concerned resident can see them. If
this is not the practice in your city, a full-scale review of
zoning practices is probably in order.
The Mortgage Disclosure Act and the Community Reinvestment
Act: These two pieces of federal legislation were passed in
the late 1970's at the behest of neighborhood groups
concerned about the withdrawal of mortgage capital from
their communities. The Mortgage Disclosure Act, passed in
1976, requires lenders to prepare published annual reports on
the location of all their conventional mortgages by zip code.
The Community Reinvestment Act requires that lenders prepare
annual statements on their efforts to invest in the
communities from which they are seeking deposits. The
Community Reinvestment Act goes beyond mere reporting
procedures moreover. When a bank seeks to open a new branch,
any citizen or group can challenge its branching application
on grounds that it has not fulfilled its responsibilities to
its existing communities. While precise standards for
"community responsibility" are not spelled out in the law
--the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and other Regulators must
make discretionary judgements here -- the Board has denied
several branching applications on grounds that the lender has
not fulfilled its responsibilities under the C.R.A., and it
has forced banks to negotiate with community groups before
granting an application in many other cases. These two
federal laws -- sought and secured nationally through
lobbying by neighborhood organizations -- provide the best
protection against redlining (drawing a "red line" around a
neighborhood that excludes it from conventional mortgages)
and mortgage disinvestment -- of any statute now in
existence.
Laws Governing Public Nuisance and Eminent Domain: These laws
are passed locally and relevant to combatting long-term
abandonment. Public nuisance statues may fall under the
heading of a City housing code, that sets standards for
the maintenance of residential and commercial properties. If
a property becomes abandoned for a sustained period, the
chances are that it is violating one or more items in this
code. As a result, the community group can use its influence
to persuade City officials to enforce the code against
stubborn owners of abandoned properties. In Philadelphia --
where there are now over 30,000 abandoned properties --
enforcement of the code has become a major housing
issue. Neighborhood groups have even succeeded in securing
the creation of a special housing court to handle, en masse,
imposition of fines against owners of abandoned properties
who refuse to maintain them or release them to City
programs for community rehabilitation. Many owners are
speculators, who sit on the properties endlessly in the
belief that someday they will be able to make a
killing on them, Unfortunately, the surrounding neighborhood
must die before this speculative killing can take place.
Thus, use of existing housing codes -including redevelopment
law that allows cities to acquire properties by eminent
domain for an identified "public good" -- becomes an
important weapon for neighborhood groups in neighborhood
rehabilitation, assuming that they can bring City government
itself to side with them.
Landlord-Tenant Law: This, too, is determined locally, and
generally embodied in a standard lease whose provisions
become quite familiar to any reasonably well-informed tenant.
In most cities and states, there are also well organized
tenant groups and councils - along with organized
associations representing landlords -- trying to achieve
equity in rental housing, Since neighborhood
associations often represent only homeowners, they frequently
ignore landlord-tenant squabbles in the community. This is a
serious error. Both tenants and landlords are important
members of the communities -- assuming that the
landlord lives there -- who deserve the same consideration
that other residents receive. Moreover, if landlords decide
to evict tenants en masse - to convert their apartments to
luxury apartments -- or tenants refuse to adhere to the same
standards of home maintenance that are respected by
homeowners in the community, then the entire neighborhood
will suffer. The neighborhood group can play an important
role here, representing neither landlord nor tenant
directly, but the organized voice of the community as a
whole. To exert this influence, however, the organization
must be familiar with landlord-tenant law and be willing to
participate in court hearings where landlord-tenant relations
in the community are being tested.
With this elaborate system of codes and laws, why does housing
abandonment and deterioriation become so pervasive in cities like
Philadelphia and Detroit? The answer, simply, is that local
government doesn't enforce them. A city-wide forum on housing
between neighborhood leaders and city officials sponsored by the
Institute for the Study of Civic Values in 1975 gave these
activists a glimpse of the mentality that prevailed
during Frank Rizzo's administration. The following exchange
occurred between a tenant leader and the Director of the City's
Redevelopment Authority:
Tenant Activist: Why isn't there any policy formulated to
stop speculators from coming in, to stop banks from
redlining; to collect property taxes, water and
sewer taxes, housing code enforcement fines from these
speculators to drive them out so that you wouldn't have the
deterioriation which then results in these
areas being unreclaimable?
Redevelopment Authority Director: There's no way that the
City or public agencies can regulate private enterprise.
Whether you agree with it or not, it's private enterprise.
Anyone has a right to buy any piece of real estate they want.
Tenant Activist: You have tools--you enforce the codes on
food stores, but you don't enforce the codes on landlords,
you don't collect those fines...everyone is living in homes
that are not maintained, and the department of Licenses and
Inspections makes lousy or no inspections, the courts do
nothing, and the collections department does nothing. and the
Law Department does nothing. The Redevelopment Authority does
not help and neither does the City Planning Commission.
RDA Director: We do not have control over private homes.
There is nothing we can do.
The City's position was clear: "law and order" under the Rizzo
administration did not apply to the City's housing codes.
Moreover, one year later the Institute released the names of
several thousand owners of vacant houses going back to the 1960's
who had not been required to pay real estate taxes. It took the
election of Bill Green as Mayor of Philadelphia in 1980 to
initiate the collection of these taxes.
Once housing abandonment becomes widespread, the issue of
reciprocity shifts to a City's policies relating to housing
rehabilitation. The Community Development Block Grant passed
initially in 1974 and the National Affordable Housing Act adopted
in 1990 both dictate that federal funds made available to
localities for rehabilitation must "benefit" low and moderate
residents of a City. The National Community Development
Act adds that this "benefit" means the creation of "viable urban
neighborhoods" in which low and moderate income families can
afford to live. A City is to achieve this objective by using
public dollars to make up the difference between what it costs to
rehabilitate a house and what a low income family can afford to
live in it as a homeowner or tenant.
The position of the City of Philadelphia on this principle was
advanced by the Rizzo administration in 1975 during the very first
year of the Community Development Block Grant program. A
centerpiece of the administration's "Year One" plan was the
proposed demolition of 12,000 abandoned houses, mostly in North
Philadelphia. The Institute exposed this plan in a special report
that was released the day before City Council hearings on the CDBG
application. Subsequently, the Institute's city-wide housing forum
became an opportunity to grill administration officials on their
rationale. The response of the Director of the City Planning
Commission was, as Richard Nixon--then President--used to say,
"perfectly clear":
Planning Commission Director: If you take a neighborhood
which, let's say, has a high incidence of abandoned
buildings, and you were to estimate the cost of
rehabilitating the houses that are there--and you're probably
talking about, if you're lucky, $20,000 a building, maybe
$25,000, maybe $30,000--supposed you were to decide to
rehabilitate most of those houses at a cost of $25,000 per
unit. The average property value in the neighborhood is
$6,000. Either you do one of two things, either you give
somebody a thirty year mortgage for a property which is five
times the value of the rest of the property in the
neighborhood (which, when they come to sell it would be a
disaster), or you write down at an enormous subsidy--perhaps
$15,000 or $20,000 a property--the cost to the buyer. That
means you're then putting in something like $35,000 or
$40,000 per unit in order to wind up with a property which,
while it might be good rehab, would start to be very few
rehabs indeed given the resources available to the City.
In other words, one of the biggest problems that the City or
any City has to face--if you've got, variously, 20,000 to
40,000 abandoned buildings in the City, if you were to think
of rehabilitating half of those or a quarter of those at a
cost of $35,000 a property, that money has got to come from
somewhere, and it shouldn't come from the person who buys the
property because he's in a neighborhood which has an
extremely low relative value and it's no good giving
somebody a piece of rehabilitated property which is five
times or even three times the adjoining property value. So
it's possible to do it, but the total budget becomes
completely impossible.
The Community Development war that ensued between neighborhood
activists and the Rizzo administration revolved entirely around
the principle of reciprocity in relation to low income
neighborhooods advanced in this forum. The Rizzo administration
refused to invest substantial funds in the poorest areas of North
Philadelphia. Housing advocates demanded a reversal of the
position. It was not until W. Wilson Goode became Mayor in 1984
and established a North Philadelphia Plan involving extensive
use of Community Development funds for rehabilitation of houses in
areas of greatest need that this policy was reversed. Yet a City
Planning Commission Demolition/Vacant House Treatment Study
released in 1984 revealed that between 1970 and 1983 the
City did demolish 16,833 residential buildings, 9,323 of them in
North Philadelphia.
The principle of reciprocity applies equally to a City's
investment in the streets, sidewalks, and public buildings of a
neighborhood. Here, the arena for debate is the
City's capital program, which invests in the upgrading of the
physical plant of the neighborhoods. Again, there is never enough
money to go around, so the question of where such investments will
be made is a critical part of the City budget process.
Unfortunatley, since the capital budget is financed by bonds, it
attracts much less attention than tax-supported City services The
only exception are the funds appropriated the capital budget for
building and upgrading recreation facilities. Neighborhood groups
do keep track of these projects. Yet if a neighborhood's streets
and sidewalks are allowed to decay year after year, the effect can
be as devastating as the collapse of its housing market. Here
again, an important principle of reciprocity between government
and individual communities is at stake.
By contrast, the principle of reciprocity in relation to a City's
collection and disposition of trash has become a hotly debated
item over the past several years, as the cost of trash
disposal has risen. Between 1984 and 1987, the cost of Trash
Disposal in Philadelphia rose from $14.5 million to $35.9
million--150%. This was equivalent to a 3 mil increase in the real
estate tax. Moreover, City projections showed that the Landfill
Removal budget was likely to climb to $40 million over the next
Fiscal Year--and to well over $60 million by the 1990's. These
projections have proven accurate: landfill costs in 1991-92 have
risen to $59 million. This trend is likely to continue.
In response, the Goode administration proposed to build a
"trash-to-steam" plant in South Philadelphia, that would stabilize
costs at $50 million per year well into the future. The residents
of South Philadelphia launched a vehement campaign against the
plan, arguing that reciprocity was not served by "dumping" the
City's trash in their back yards. At one point, City Council
proposed a system of smaller plants throughout the
City that at least would share the burden, if a trash-to-steam
facility was to be seen as a burden. For a time, it appeared that
the City might be able to ship its trash to a disposal plant
outside of the City, until the residents of the community where
this plant was to be built got wind of the plan, so to speak, and
blocked it. Ultimately, City Council rejected the Trash-to-Steam
plan outright, and forced the administration simply
to pay the higher landfill costs and try to achieve savings
through a new recycling facility. To the Council, reciprocity
dictated that the entire City pay more so that no one part of it
would have to bear the burden of a disposal system that residents
believed to be environmentally unsound.
Thus, as with crime, vacant houses, deteroriating public
buildings, and trash raise serious issues of reciprocity between
residents, institutions, and government. Who is responsible for
maintaining vacant property? How should the City invest
rehabilitation dollars to restore them? Where and on what basis
should the City allocate scarce capital funds for the upgrading of
City streets and public buildings? How should the dispose of its
trash? These are the new issues of the urban environment, as
profound as the questions of clean air and clean water have been
for the suburban communities which have raised them. Underlying
all of them is the question of reciprocity.
D. Reciprocity and Children
Average expenditures per pupil in the city of New York in
1987 were some $5,500. In the highest spending suburbs of of
New York (Great Neck and Manhasset, for example, on Long
Island) funding levels rose above $11,000, with the highest
districts in the state at $15,000. "Why," asks the city's
Board of Education, "should our students receive "less" than
do "similar students" who live elsewhere? "The inequality is
clear."
--Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities
As heated as debates over crime, housing, and trash can become,
nothing compares to the struggle around issues of reciprocity in
relation to children in America. After all, the doctrine of
"equal opportunity" suggests that each new generation should be
given a chance to transcend the position of their parents. Yet how
can society equalize the chances of young people whose families
are far apart in income and quality of life? Much of the debate
revolves around formal education itself, as the brief passage from
Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities suggests. Yet most of a
child's time is spent with his or her family and in the
neighborhood, where basic values and opportunities are
shaped as well. What is the reponsibility of residents, of
institutions, and government to promote equal opportunity for
young people here? Once again, reciprocity--what we
owe to each other--is at stake. A cursory review of a few of the
major issues suggest how high the stakes are.
The reciprocity issues facing pre-school youngsters and their
families revolve around child-care, health care, and early
childhood education. As two parents now seek work out of choice
and economic necessity, who must take care of the children? This
has become a major issue of reciprocity within the workplace, with
some employers now taking responsibility for child-care allowances
and even on-the-job child care centers.
For those whose jobs do not offer such benefits and who do not
have nearby cousins or grandparents to take charge, child care
within the neighborhood becomes a major concern. Who should should
sponsor this--private agencies, profit companies, government
itself? Should all parents be required to pay for it, or should
government subsidize costs for low income working families? What
role should a neighborhood organization play in attempting to
provide child-care for the pre-school families of the community?
These are not broadly debate questions within civic associations
now. Yet as long as child-care remains a serious problem affecting
the security of families, it remains a serious potential issue for
a neighborhood. Obviously, a neighborhood with strong child-care
services will be more attractive to working families than one
without them, all other things being equal.
This is not the place to explore every issue facing American
education, except to say these are for the most part issues of
reciprocity as well. What is the obligation of a School District
to insure that all schools are providing equivalent educational
services to the children? What is the responsibility of the
District to offer compensatory services in areas where parents
would not be able to provide adequate educational reinforcement in
the home given their own educational deficiencies? Should a city
or state permit so-called "educational choice," providing
subsidies for families that wish to send their children to private
schools, as a way of forcing public and private education to
compete with one another? Or would "educational choice" place
inner city schools at an even greater disadvantage, given the
problems of their surrounding environments? These issues are all
quite familiar to educational advocates. Understanding them as
questions of reciprocity might help clarify what the mutual
obligations between the family, the community, and the School
District ought to be, and how active a role the neighborhood group
should play in meeting them.
Conflicts over youth services and programs available to youngsters
outside of school raise reciprocity issues as well. Should
employers take reponsibility for hiring youngsters as part of
Public-Private summer jobs programs like "Phila-A-Job," operating
in Philadelphia? Should the City support programs like a Youth
Service Corps, encouraging young people to make direct
contributions to a community? What is the appropriate recreation
program for a City government to sponsor? Which level of
government should assume primary responsiblity for protecting
young people from child abuse--the city, state, or federal
government? Under which asupices should such programs be
administered? How can the City and the community better coordinate
the disparate programs and services available to young people?
Here, too, there are probably more urban residents working to
address these issues than any other facing a neighborhood. All of
them revolve around the question of reciprocity between the
individual, the community, the private sector, and the government.
If the security of children is a primary concern for families
within a neighborhood, the question of how the neighborhood and
the government responds to this concern will have a lot to do with
whether the neighborhood survives. Parents will put up with a
great in relation to their own security--burglaries, vacant
houses, uneven collection of trash. Tolerance ends when
neighborhood conditions threaten their children. That is
what reciprocity within families requires, and a civic association
or community development organization oblivious to these concerns
will be overlooking a matter of central importance to the
neighborhood itself.
III. E. Reciprocity and Public Accountability
The image of the working-class politician as a beloved
neighborhood figure is largely fiction. West Enders feel that
politics is intrinsically and inevitably corrupt, and that
few politicians can resist the temptations. Consequently,
they must be watched sot hat the constituents come out ahead
in the exchange of votes and favors.
--Herbert Gans, The Urban Villagers
A fundamental principle lies behind all these specific questions
of reciprocity in a neighborhood that gets to the heart of our
democratic system: people expect reciprocity from government
itself. There appear to be three levels to our thinking. First, we
are told by the Constitution that government's role is to
"establish justice," "promote the general welfare," and "secure
the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity."
Thus, when we come up against situations that appear unjust,
contrary to what we believe to be in the general welfare, and
threatening to human freedom, we instinctively feel that
government has not fulfilled its obligation to its own principles.
Thus, our sense of reciprocity as citizens is violated.
Second, we expect politicians to keep their specific promises to
us. A mayor tells us that he is going to clean the streets, build
new recreation centers, and create citizen advisory committees to
all government programs. If he fails to act on these pledges in
due course, people begin to get angry. They voted for him because
of these promises. If he won't keep them, then he appears to be
deceiving the people. Again, reciprocity is violated.
Finally, many citizens approach government as taxpayers who demand
appropriate levels of service for the money that they spend on it.
Obviously, a person must be a taxpayer to feel this way -- those
living on public assistance lose this specific claim on
government. For most people, however, dealing with City Hall, the
State Legislature, and Washington, D.C. is no different from any
other economic transaction. They want tangible evidence that the
portion of their income reserved for public agencies, near
and far, is being spent as they would want it to be spent.
Otherwise, they insist, reciprocity does not exist.
People organized to advance the concerns of an entire neighborhood
will be especially sensitive to the performance of government for
two additional reasons: First, they often can see -- or at least
experience directly--whether public officials have responded to
their requests. Either the trash has been collected or it
hasn't--people can judge for themselves. They don't have to wait
for an annual report.
Second, since people vote by neighborhood--not by mail; not on the
job--they can make a direct collective response to the politician
if they are displeased with his or her performance. The special
position of neighborhoods in exercising political power cannot
be overstated. Every other kind of organization that relies on
people, as opposed to money, must return to a neighborhood -- to a
specific, geographically based election district--in order to
assert electoral strength. Neighborhood residents don't have to
return anywhere. They vote where they live. Thus, if a community
group is angry, it only has to mobilize local residents to depose
the target of their hostility. No greater force for reciprocity
between a politician and a neighborhood exists than this shared
knowledge that neighborhood power becomes political power every
election day, as residents go around the corner to the polls.
Moreover, the turnouts achieved in specific elections can bring
results for a neighborhood beyond the precise outcome of the
contest. At the local level, politicians throughout the system are
following the voting returns to make judgements as to who
is interested in exercising political power, and who isn't. Thus,
it is not simply a candidate's prowess that is being tested, but
the voters themselves. If they stay home, they become expendable
in the politicians' eyes when decisions are being made and
programs are being developed. No point is less understood about
politics--especially local politics--than that a candidate's
victory or defeat is also a test of strength for the voters who
support him. Thus, voters are really voting for themselves in an
election--for their own ability to influence the system as much as
a candidate's ability to serve in public office.
The principle is as clear as the newspaper stories following
elections, telling us whether the blacks voted, or the ethnic
wards "came out," or the unions "produced." These statistics tell
all politicians who's in and who's out--and who, therefore,
deserves the reciprocity that political power brings. The
challenge for neighborhood groups, therefore, is persuading
residents that voting is critical to working for a better quality
of life. Government may appear irrelevant, but this impression is
quite wrong. No matter how trivial the office, it probably does
something that affects the neighborhood.
A first step for neighborhood political education, then, might be
to list all community services that have a direct affect on the
sense of security that people feel in the neighborhood and then
evaluate whether these services are functioning properly.
Obviously, the police, the courts, and the prisons are central the
problems of crime. The City's housing agencies, its Department of
Licenses and Inspections, its Streets Department, and its Public
Property Department will be crucial to combatting abandonment and
blight. Not only the Schools, but the Libraries, the Recreation
Department, the Department of Human Services, the Health
Department, and the Private Industry Council all share a
responsibility for working with neighborhoods to provide a decent
quality of life for young people.
If any or all of these services aren't functioning, then
reciprocity will require an ongoing effort by both residents and
public officials to make needed improvements. If the problems are
serious, few will expect solutions overnight. What they will
expect, however, is a show of genuine concern from the politician,
and a reasonable effort to make needed improvements.
Ultimately, however, reciprocity from government will depend on a
group's ability to persuade local residents that they should vote
on the basis of neighborhood concerns and that they should vote in
large enough numbers to demonstrate these concerns. To be sure,
most civic associations cannot endorse candidates themselves,
under their charters. They can speak out on issues, however--and
they can sponsor non-partisan "get out the vote" campaigns.
Moreover, individuals within the group can become involved
political, wearing other, "hats," as it were. Some neighborhood
groups might refuse to "dirty their hands" in this process, in the
belief that politics is inherently corrupt. The politicians won't
care, however. It just means that they will have fewer voters to
worry about. The only sure way under this system to guarantee
reciprocity from a politician is to influence his or her election.
F. Community and Reciprocity
I am not afraid to say that the principle of self-interest
rightly understood appears to me the best suited of all
philosophical theories to the wants of the men of our time,
and that I regard it as their chief remaining security
against themselves. Towards it, therefore, the minds of the
moralists of our age should turn; even should they judge it
to be incomplete, it must nevertheless be adopted
as necessary.
--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Out of threats to security grow demands for reciprocity -- for
institutions and people to play their part in preserving a decent
quality of life. The search for reciprocity, then, is
the project that keeps a group focused on its basic goals. It is
not enough to say "Stop crime," or "Fix up those houses," or,
"Clean the streets," or even, "Save our children." People must
come to grips with who or what is supposed to perform these
services and why they aren't doing so properly. Nor is there room
here for merely, "Looking Out for No. 1." Genuine security depends
upon at least some measure of cooperation in meeting our common
needs. Alexis de Tocqueville called this understanding,
"Self-Interest: Rightly Understood." We are calling it
reciprocity. Whatever you call it, a neighborhood cannot survive
without it.
|
