Business: WHY HOUSING COSTS ARE GOING THROUGH THE ROOF

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> Local authorities should accept some new forms of government, or at least governmental cooperation, in order to put an end to the zoning and planning warfare by which suburbs fight to remain enclaves for the well-to-do. As Alcoa Chairman Fritz Close said last week in San Francisco: "Enabling the poor to find housing in the suburbs, where the jobs are, is probably the biggest single step this country could take toward solving its social problems."

Few if any of the fundamental reforms are likely to occur unless the public really demands them. The status quo is defended by many powerful forces —some unions, bureaucrats, local-government officials, even by elements of the fragmented housing industry itself. Until now, the existing scheme of things has been supported by public ignorance and apathy. Yet millions of people are being victimized—the mobile executive who cannot afford a comfortable house, the city resident in the greatly overpriced apartment, the slum dweller who has a tough time finding any housing that qualifies as decent. The lives of these people are indeed being shaped by the buildings in which they live, and they are impatient for change.