CITIES: 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.