Repository: UIHistories Project: SWE - Proceedings of the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists [PAGE 188]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

minority families are at the mercy of welfare subsidies. Public housing projects have provided safe sanitary homes for many low income families, but the problem is larger than the availability of funds, and even housing cannot make the situation ideal. Education for useful work and for acceptance of higher values, equal freedom of choice of housing and neighborhood, and equal opportunity for advancement are necessary before the racial problems of urban areas can be solved. Automation and efficienty have decreased the manpower required to produce the necessities and luxuries that will supply our market. Unemployment is the resultant. The unskilled labor class is, of course, hardest hit. It is paradoxical that unemployment exists while there are still such shortages in technical, scientific and professional fields. Many cities are now initiating programs to train the unemployed for skilled jobs. Industrial concerns are working with schools to provide work-education programs for high school dropouts. Expanded educational opportunities for all are also exigent. Taxes assessed against real estate are steadily increasing in most American urban areas. Public facilities in older cities need replacement, improvement, and/or extension. The booming population of most suburbs necessitates new facilities or enormous expansion of existing facilities. As the population grows, the number of employees required to serve the public must also increase. Construction costs and wage levels are much higher than they have been in the past. All of these costs must be paid by the urban tax payer. Municipalities must seek to balance their economic bases by attracting and retaining healthy industry and commerce as well as variety in residential facilities. Tax payers must realize that their quest for improved public services means payment of commensurate taxes. City government has become increasingly more complex as urban populations grow and urban problems are augmented. To perform its duties within a budget which will be accepted by the tax payers requires that city government be one of the most skillfully managed organizations. In fact, considering the obstacles to be faced, most city governments are indeed better managed than many large corporations. The City of Chicago government includes some 50,000 employees involved in such diverse activities as city planning, street sweeping, budgeting, garbage collection, air pollution control, traffic engineering, building maintenance, police protection, bridge design and construction, fire fighting, building code enforcement, water distribution, tax collection, urban renewal, education, licensing, zoning code enforcement, electrical wiring, airport construction, architecture, youth welfare, public health, street paving, sewer construction, office management, forestry, public safety, purchasing, human relations, law, libraries, mapping, movie censorship, port development, parking, rat control, relief payments, social work, and many more. Maintaining a competent staff of public servants, especially at professional levels, has been difficult in most American cities. Salaries have been low, and the exaggeration of political corruption and

IV-6