Cities: No Haven

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The Long & the Short. "New Haven is only relatively the best city," adds Edward Logue, another famous alumnus of Lee's administration, who resigned as Boston's renewal administrator last July to campaign for the mayoralty. For all New Haven's success in tapping the federal treasury, Logue, Sviridoff, and the men who run the city's programs fault the Government for being too stingy. "The cities," says Logue, "just aren't a priority item any place but at city hall. The Government is long on eloquence and short on funding." Dick Lee, a short (5 ft. 7 in.), scrappy fighter who has wrapped his life as tightly around his city as any mayor in America, would agree. "For everything we've done," he says, "there are five things we haven't done, or five things we've failed at. If New Haven is a model city, then God help urban America."

There are, says Mike Sviridoff, four key factors in keeping the city cool. The first is the mayor and his ability to communicate. The second is the police department and its skill in dealing with minorities. The third is the quality of antipoverty programs. The fourth, quite simply, is luck. "New Haven," he says ruefully, "ran out of that one."