Philadelphia's New Problem

Despite the ribbing to which the stolid old (276 years) city has been subjected for decades, Philadelphia (pop. 2,200,000) has much in common with other big U.S. cities: it is badly in need of a face-lifting. And more than most other cities, Philadelphia is up to its lorgnette in change. The sound of Philadelphia's mighty billion-dollar rebuilding program this week was clanging merrily from cobblestoned Society Hill to Germantown.

But, like many another city, Philadelphia in its ambitious urban-renewal program (e.g., rehabilitation of downtown shops, banks, hotels; 14-acre Penn Center replacing the dowdy Broad St. railroad station) is faced with a shaky question mark that cannot be erased with just so many tons of steel and concrete. It is a human problem: more and more of Philadelphia's white families are moving out of the city, leaving behind a growing population of low-income Negro families. And the problem of balancing the population becomes more and more difficult because the Negroes are blocked from moving to the suburbs by a growing collar of whites-only communities that Democratic Mayor Richardson P. Dilworth, 59, calls a "white noose."

The Toll. Slim, outspoken* Dick Dilworth, combat veteran of both world wars, Yaleman and longtime political partner of his City Hall predecessor, Joe Clark (who is now a U.S. Senator), has civic, religious and political organizations, as well as an officeful of assistants, looking for the answers to the problem. "The white noose," says Housing Coordinator William Rafsky, "is disadvantageous to everyone. Apart from being morally wrong, segregation takes a tremendous economic toll."

Philadelphia's Negro population numbers about 490,000, with new immigrants --mostly from the South and 60% unskilled workers--coming in at the rate of 600 a month. Most of the Negroes are concentrated in the central sector of the city, dubbed "the jungle." There, dismal lines of grimy, red brick row houses huddle bleakly behind paneless or paper-covered windows, and tenants must sometimes use ladders in place of stairways, outhouses instead of running-water toilets. With the jungle overcrowded, other immigrants fan out into other areas in the city. Some well-off families manage to slip into fine old neighborhoods like Germantown, where they keep well-run homes. But the net effect of the migration is to create new ghettos, drop real-estate values, drain tax revenues, lift the crime rate,/- and overburden public schools (18 are all-Negro; in 50, Negroes comprise from 50% to 90% of the student bodies). "There are 60,000 units housing 200,000 people today," says Mayor Dilworth, "that are unfit for human habitation."

The Density. Why not tear down the slums and simply replace them with public housing units? Says Dilworth: "Already, 60% of public housing is located in the Negro slum areas. It would take $800 million to rip out the Philadelphia slums. You'd reduce the density by one-half, and you'd have no place to put the rest of the people." Adds Bill Rafsky: "As soon as we displace the Negroes, we run up against discrimination in housing." Example: South Philadelphia, where the big Italian communities are fighting Negro inroads.

The Negroes also vote--and in this respect, says a member of Philadelphia's Commission on Human Relations, "the danger is that it may be to the advantage of politically shrewd Negroes and white politicians to keep the Negro segregated, and to use him as a balance of power."

The Plan. Dick Dilworth is rated as the Negro's good friend (30% of City Hall employees are Negroes). But he has an unorthodox answer to the city's problem: more segregation. His plan: induce white families in the city to stay put in their neighborhoods, urge white suburban families to move back to the city. (He has built his own $164,000 home in what formerly was a run-down area.)

"What we're doing now," he says, "is deliberately making non-Negro apartments for older whites, pricing them out of the Negro range. We're designing the Eastwick project [2,500 acres, 12,000 units, in southwestern Philadelphia] the same way. We hope that no more than 10% of Eastwick will be Negro. We have to give the whites confidence that they can live in town without being flooded." Dilworth is against an anti-discrimination ordinance for the city, since he believes that it would only serve to panic the whites all the more.

Another way to fray the noose, says Dilworth, is to encourage more Negro movement into the white suburbs. Once, when a Negro family in suburban Levittown was hounded by white neighbors (TIME, Oct. 7), Dilworth gave his full approval to Quaker groups who were helping the besieged family with food and moral support ("If we lost that one," says he, "we would never again be able to get another foothold there"). He also admits that "we're mighty anxious to get Negroes into the Main Line. We'd be happy to finance a house for somebody."

If he can eliminate the slums, lure back the whites and break the white noose, Dilworth will be the first mayor to solve an urban problem vexing most major northern cities. Philadelphia Negroes are fully behind him. All he needs now is a good, heavy concentration of similarly dedicated whites. Says Dick Dilworth: "It's damned serious."

*Mayor Dilworth outspoke himself from Pennsylvania's 1958 governor's race last week by publicly advocating U.S. recognition of Communist China ("After all," he told a women's Democratic club in Washington, "Communist China is China itself"). With that scarcely opportune statement, Dilworth instantly found himself besieged by I) Philadelphia's strong Democratic machine--led by Congressman William J. Green Jr. and City Democratic Leader James Clark--which had been fighting to keep the mayor from announcing for the governor's race, and 2) Pittsburgh's mayor and Democratic Kingmaker David Lawrence, a longtime Dilworth supporter but strictly a hands-off-Red-China hand. At week's end, Dick Dilworth cleared his throat and declared that he does not care to leave Philadelphia, might even want to run again for mayor come 1959.

/- Most Northern cities do not keep records of Negro v. white convictions, but as in New York City, where 35% of the crime rate is charged to Negroes, the rate in Philadelphia is disproportionately high.

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