A Happy Convergence
Comeback Cities Highlights Urban Resurgence

Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival, by Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio. Westview Press. (2000) 285 pp., $25.00 hardcover.

Reviewed by Robert Jaquay

At book signings across the country, community development practitioners, grantmakers, and elected officials are lining up with copies of Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival. They have been seen discretely flipping through the pages, conveying an unspoken anticipation: "Are we in here?"

Why this excitement?

Grogan and his co-author, Tony Proscio, have written in clear terms about the resurgence of urban neighborhoods across the country. In the process, they have described the life work and passionate commitment of thousands of residents and neighborhood practitioners, each of whom can legitimately ask the question, "What did they say about us?"

Paul Grogan has spent more than two decades working on urban issues, first as an official in Boston city government under Mayors Kevin White and Ray Flynn. Then from 1986 to 1998, as president of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), he successfully aggregated over $3 billion in private investment for inner-city revitalization efforts across the country. Two years ago, he returned to the Boston area as Harvard University's Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs.

Tony Proscio perhaps is best known among grantmakers for In Other Words, a writing primer that can be compared to the classic writer's bible and style guide, Elements of Style. He urges the use of plain language instead of technical jargon in philanthropy. This straightforward writing style can be seen in Comeback Cities. Proscio, a former editor at the Miami Herald, has served as a consultant to foundations and nonprofits on a variety of housing and workforce development issues. Like Grogan, he has served in local government.

Combining policy analysis with storytelling, Grogan and Proscio describe a resurgence of urban neighborhoods that is both perceptible (though not yet statistically significant everywhere) and still fragile. This nationwide phenomenon is due, in the authors' view, to a happy convergence of four basic trends:

The maturing of the grassroots revitalization movement. The thirty-year evolution from a scattering of groups emphasizing community organizing to an industry of more than 3,670 community development corporations (CDCs) nationwide is described. The authors devote an entire chapter to the South Bronx, and feature shorter vignettes about Houston, San Diego, Cleveland, San Francisco and other places. Steady investment by government and philanthropy as well as the strong support to grassroots organizations from intermediaries such as LISC and the Enterprise Foundation are seen as key.

Rebirth of functioning markets in central cities. Recounting the history of the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, (including the failed attempt in 1999 to repeal it), the authors depict an environment in which solid housing projects, especially those in less affluent areas, have no trouble obtaining financing. Moreover, retailers (thanks in no small measure to the writing of Harvard's Michael Porter) have rediscovered disposable income in urban neighborhoods, leading to renewed investment in outlets that provide not only consumer goods and services, but also paychecks for local workers.

A substantial drop in inner-city crime. Efforts to rehab boarded-up structures, build new homes on vacant lots, and to remove graffiti, abandoned cars and other unsightly stuff contributes to the restoration of social order. The authors believe that these activities added new credence to the work of CDCs. They recount at length the community-responsive policing and other efforts of former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton in New York and Boston to fight "broken windows," which implied license for anti-social behavior that can escalate into more serious crime.

Unshackling city life from gigantic unresponsive bureaucracies. "Deregulating the City" is the theme of a trio of chapters dealing with the welfare system, public housing authorities and public schools. Here the authors take off after "ironbound rules" and "bloated bureaucracies" that defeat good intentions to provide help and service to those who need it. They emphasize the need for a creative pragmatism, not a philosophical dogma, of the kind that has produced the charter school movement, replaced high rise projects for the poor with human-scale mixed-income developments and introduced a work-oriented culture in lieu of welfare rolls.

The practical innovations and government policies highlighted in the book are put forth as a viable "Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival." In expounding on resurgent markets, maturing grassroots movements, the reform of government systems and other Blueprint elements, Grogan and Proscio do more than describe. They aggressively opine. Consider a few provocative (and highly debatable) quotes:

"Though the population has risen through the 1980s and 90s, the gains are small compared to the earlier loss. Poverty is still significantly higher than in most parts of New York. The South Bronx has not regained its former grandeur, nor is it likely to do so. It has become something more necessary and more lasting: It has become pleasant and livable." (pg. 23)

"In the run-up to that period (referring to grassroots efforts of the 1960s and 70s), in the 1950s and 60s, radical community organizers like Chicagoan Saul Alinsky had trained many of these groups to spend their energies antagonizing and demonizing City Hall." (pg. 66)

Similar comments - some blunt, others flip or otherwise strident and inflammatory (there are many in the book to ponder) might lead one to categorize this book as a polemic on cities, designed to provoke new critical debate about things urban. The above observations certainly do prompt rhetorical questions. Is "pleasant and livable" too low a goal for urban neighborhoods? Are organizers and demographers really such obstacles to progress? The polemic label fits, but alone is inadequate; this book is many things and, therefore, quite hard to pigeonhole.

Comeback Cities isn't a memoir, but deeply reflects Grogan's perspective about cities formed by his work at Boston City Hall and, to an even greater extent, at LISC. Far short of stating that one writer had more influence than the other did over the final product, it is fair to say that this is a LISC-influenced book - it is dedicated to Mike Sviridoff, who left the Ford Foundation in 1980 to get LISC up and running; many other prominent LISC figures are acknowledged in the preface; and examples from the field are frequently about places where LISC operates. Despite these influences, surprisingly, the book does not dissect the challenges facing national intermediaries nor does it discuss limitations to this model.

Though it seriously deals with a host of urban policy issues, this work lacks the rigor of another recent book, Urban Problems and Community Development, published by the Brookings Press and also dedicated to the recently deceased Sviridoff. Comeback Cities is more of a thoughtful practitioner's book rather than an academic treatise. Consequently, it is more accessible to the general reader and the full range of those working in the grassroots revitalization movement.

The timing of Comeback Cities' publication is not a coincidence. Released before the presidential elections, it lays out an agenda for cities and the community development field that could be used by those elected, regardless of party. It is hopeful in tone. The book recognizes and praises core constituencies (while putting critics on the defensive) and presents a coherent framework of ideas with appeal to the broad political center.

Grogan and Proscio's blueprint may be sorely tested in the near future. The resurgence of urban markets may suffer in an upcoming economic downturn. Census 2000 results may give at least some credence (possibly quite a lot) to the "doom-saying demographers." Policies of the new Bush administration - at least toward cities and the people who live in them - are not yet clear.

All of these questions aside, one thing is certain, especially to neighborhood practitioners. Comeback Cities proclaims the work of grassroots organizations to revitalize urban neighbors. For that alone, this book is important and most welcome.

Robert Jaquay is Associate Director of the George Gund Foundation of Cleveland, Ohio.

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