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A SINGLE SOCIETY: How the Nation Can Eliminate Its Slums and Ghettos and Avoid Creating More (If It Wants To) by Donald Canty

A SINGLE SOCIETY: How the Nation Can Eliminate Its Slums and Ghettos and Avoid Creating More (If It Wants To)

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Pub Date: Nov. 1st, 1969
Publisher: Praeger

This is a serious, well-written, and (for the general reader) important book on the crisis of the cities by a writer professionally active in urban affairs who has a deep committment to an integrated society -- the ""single society"" of the title. After surveying the problems faced in the cities, with particular emphasis on black-white relations, the author goes on to outline a national urban policy to replace present piecemeal efforts. There are good sections on housing (he thinks integrated new towns are one possible approach toward bringing the races together in a livable environment); on government's responsibility for creating new jobs and training the unemployed to fill them; on the manner in which present political units must be restructured to deal with metropolitan issues. Quotations and statistics, though drawn from obvious sources like the Kerner Commission Report, are skillfully chosen to make points. There are, of course, some weaknesses: the omission of transportation and health, both trouble areas in the cities; a minimal discussion of the political difficulties involved in working out the recommended solutions. Possibly, canty is overly optimistic about the prospects for integration -- even he admits that if residents of new towns wished to live separately, nothing could be done to prevent them. But his program is far from utopian, and this concise, intelligent study should interest those who view our urban disaster areas with the alarm they deserve.