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Ghetto enrichment would accelerate programs aimed at upgrading 
the urban areas presently occupied by the Negro underclass. But 
since any program that significantly improves life in the ghetto also 
accelerates Negro migration to the same ghettos, this alternative is 
nothing more than another way of choosing a permanently divided 
country. There are two other options: the first calls for vigorous efforts 
to open the suburbs for Negroes, complemented by some firefighting 
programs of ghetto enrichment. The second choice includes ghetto 
improvement accompanied by a program to create new communities 
where Negroes can be masters of their own lives and shape their own 
environment. The creation of new communities in suburban areas 
in close proximity to existing job opportunities could be coordinated 
with the creating of new communities by black developers and black 
enterprise.°° 
The three major goals of a new community development program 
should be (1) to maximize regional productivity (by attracting 
private capital investment through increased efficiency); (2) to 
minimize public expenditures for capital improvements and services, 
(3) to maximize advancement opportunities for disadvantaged 
groups. Although the economic evidence is not conclusive, it would 
seem that these three goals are potentially realizable through the 
development of new communities because new communities allow for 
a greater degree of public coordination and control over the shape 
and pattern of urban development, allow for economies of scale in 
public expenditures, and allow for increased labor mobility by aggre- 
eating new industrial and commercial development. In addition, 
because new communities are typically built at a higher density than 
typical sprawled developments, they insure economies of scale in 
housing and infrastructure development, they reduce the number of 
miles of public highways and roads needed to link settlements, and 
they offer advantages to new industry through agglomeration. 
Black new communities are only variant of the new community 
idea. The basic point is that new communities—whether integrated 
or black run—offer a wide range of opportunities for low- and middle- 
income people because of the economies of scale, the possibilities of 
increased housing production, the linking of job possibilities with 
new urban development, and—most important—the potential for 
politically feasible direct action and massive subsidy by higher levels 
of government. 
New communities, developed under the guidelines of a State urban 
growth policy, could provide the housing for low- and middle-income 
people within close range of jobs created by industrial relocation in the 
suburbs. The State government has a residue of as yet underutilized 
powers to influence the growth and structure of urban areas. Pro- 
graming and development of public facilities can create an envelope 
within which more efficient and more equitable patterns of urban 
growth and development can take place. The timing, location, and 
scope of public investment decisions influence, if not control, the 
physical form of the region. New community development seems to 
hold out a very real alternative to urban sprawl, an alternative which 
is directed at helping to meet the critical housing shortage and at 
w See Arnold ScLuchter, “White Power/Black svecdon Gocte, Bee Be tga a MT, Alan dee 
Planners For Equal Opportunity position paper on New Communities, presented at the American Societ 
of Planning Officials Conference, New York, April 1970. ae J 
