CITIES: New Men for Detroit and Atlanta

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Both are the first blacks to be elected to run their cities. Both take office with solid assurances of aid and support from not only the black but the white leadership of their communities. And both confront first and foremost the problem of street crime: their cities rank among the highest in the U.S. in homicide rates. A tale of two cities and their new mayors, Coleman Young of Detroit and Maynard Jackson of Atlanta:

DETROIT. Coleman Alexander Young's first speech as mayor was blunt and to the point. Squinting into the bright glare of TV lights in the Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium, he declared: "I issue an open warning right now to all dope pushers, to all rip-off artists, to all muggers: It's time to leave Detroit. I don't give a damn if they are black or white, or if they wear Super Fly suits or blue uniforms with silver badges: Hit the road."

The harsh words brought the mostly black audience of 2,000 cheering to its feet. What seemed most welcome was Young's conviction that one of the deteriorating city's chief problems was solvable and that the city was governable. Only recently, former Mayor Jerome Cavanagh had suggested that the best any mayor could do was "buy time until things get better."

Detroiters have done just that for years with no result. Their schools are going broke. At night, the city's residents avoid going out for fear of violence; that violence included a record 750 homicides last year. Race relations have scarcely improved since the 1967 riot in which 43 people were killed. So many whites have fled to the suburbs that the city's population dropped 8% in the past three years alone, to 1.4 million. Now, more than half of Detroit's residents are black, and many are poor.

Crime headed the litany of ills dominating the election issues. Young's opponent was pistol-packing John Nichols, 54, a former police commissioner.

One of his innovations had been a controversial unit within the police force called STRESS (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) to deal with street crime.

But blacks complained that they were too often the targets of the unit's quick-on-the-trigger whites; in their first four months in action, STRESS officers killed eight blacks. Young promised to disband STRESS, put more cops on the beat, and decentralize the 5,500-member force by setting up 50 neighborhood police stations. In the end, the election was decided chiefly along racial lines: 92% of the blacks voted for Young; 91% of the whites for Nichols. In a city now more than 50% black, Young won with a 14,000-vote margin out of 450,000 ballots cast.

Last week Detroiters put aside traditional enmities—poor v. rich, labor v.

management, black v. white—for three days of inaugural celebration. The theme was reconciliation. U.S. District Court Judge Damon Keith, who is black, and State Supreme Court Justice John Swainson, who is white, administered the oath of office to Young in unison.

At a sellout luncheon for 3,500 in Cobo Hall the next day, Young received fervent promises of support from Henry Ford II and United Automobile Workers President Leonard Woodcock. The festivities culminated in an inaugural ball Friday night in the flower-festooned hall, where more than 8,000 people danced the night away.