With the problem of the cities uppermost in the minds of many citizens, the incorporation of the Urban Institute in April of 1968 was a timely event. A non-profit research organization, the Institute aims to become the focal point for scholarly research on urban problems in much the same way that RAND and similar organizations have for some time been tackling the problems of national defense.
Following unsuccessful efforts in in the Congress to generate greater understanding of what is happening to our cities, President Johnson called upon a group of distinguished citizens in December of 1967 to establish an urban institute as a private non-profit corporation. Arjay Miller, president of Ford Motor Company, was named chairman of the board of the new Institute, and William Gorham, with a research and policy background which included The Rand Corporation and key roles in both the Defense Department and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, was elected president. The Institute's resources will come from foundation grants, research contracts, and grants from governmental agencies—federal, state, and local. They are expected to total approximately $5 million, supporting a staff of 80 in the first year, and, to reach a $10-$15 million level with a staff of 150 by July 1970.
While the Urban Institute's effort will be centered on the activities of its resident research staff in Washington and will focus upon problems common to all American cities, much of the Institute's work wIll be conducted in other cities. Some early studies and experiments will center on citizen participation in public services, such as education, public safety, and building code enforcement.
The Institute also plans to establish a variety of fellowships. As its program grows, the Institute expects to become the major clearinghouse for information on research and policymaking activities of urban agencies around the country.
The initial program of the urban Institute will emphasize several major problem areas. Work is currently underway on the problems of urban income and employment. In recent years research on urban poverty by a number of independent researchers has spotlighted factors associated with the volume and distribution of underemployment among the urban poor. A major effort is needed to bring them all into a consistent picture of the dynamics of urban poverty, a step essential to more effective public programs for reducing urban poverty. The Urban Institute hopes to make a substantial contribution here.
The failure of the housing market and national housing policy provide a more adequate urban housing stock justifies a substantial effort by the Institute staff to clarify the key imperfections and the shortcomings of existing housing institutions; the demand for housing services, technological and institutional characteristics of the housing industry, and the financial structure of the industry will come under study.
The Institute will engage in a far reaching set of studies of local fiscal resources and alternative sources of financial support for necessary urban services. Among the urban services themselves, immediate attention will be turned to the problems of (1) public order and safety and (2) education—both key issues in the current urban crisis. Communication between policy makers and constituencies also becomes a key problem dramatized by the increasing pressure of the poor for a voice in the public decisions which affect them.
In addition to these substantive issues, the Institute will seek ways to develop more coherent public policy for the development of our cities. In the first instance, it will turn its attention to the difficult problems of policy evaluation: How can urban publics become informed about the consequences of adopted policies? How can we know whether or not policies are achieving desired outcomes? Next, it will focus on federal urban policies and activities with a continuing analysis to assess their consistency and impact.
The Urban Institute is now a going enterprise. It increases substantially the resources allocated to research on these problems, and by serving as the central focus of information and analysis on urban research it can provide links to the contributions of the increasing number of urban research institutions and activities across the country.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1969 issue of Resources magazine.
