As anticipated, the House took up H. Res. 530 on February 21 and adopted it by a 264-150 roll-call vote. This vote put an end to consideration of Reorganization Plan No. 1 in the 87th Congress.

While the major activity in the second session of the 87th Congress centered on the President's reorganization proposal, individual members continued to introduce legislation to effect a change in the Federal structure for dealing with metropolitan or urban problems.

Seven bills were introduced in 1962: five would have created an Office of Urban Affairs, one an Office of State and Urban Affairs, and one a Department of Federal-State-Urban Affair s. No action was taken on any of these proposals, but the idea of an office as opposed to a department represented a new approach, as did the proposal for a Department of Federal-State-Urban Affairs.

The proposed Office of Urban Affairs or Office of State and Urban Affairs would study urban problems, advise the President, and be responsible for the co-ordination of Federal assistance programs.

The proposal for a Department of Federal-State-Urban Affairs in addition to placing formal consideration of the traditional intergovernmental relations both in its title and its statement of purpose, would transfer all functions of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to the new Department. Other transfers to the new Department are the ones included in former Department of Urban Affairs bills.

Congressional Activity Since 1962

President Kennedy made no mention of the Department of Urban Affairs

in his State of the Union Message at the outset of the eighty-eighth

Congress in January 1963. No draft legislation was submitted, nor were any bills introduced in the name of the Administration. The need for a

new Department was mentioned, however, in the President's Budget Message

of January 17, 1963.

Lack of Executive initiative did not prevent continued Congressional interest in such a Department from being expressed by individual members, however.

Eight House bills were introduced in the first session of the eightyeighth Congress: five for a Department of Urban Affairs, one for a Department of Urbiculture, one for an Office of State and Urban Affairs, and one for an Office of Community Affairs. No Senate measures were offered, and no hearings were held in the House.

President Johnson did not mention a new Cabinet post in his 1964 State of the Union Message, but in his Housing Message of January 23, 1964, he included the following comments:

If we are to deal successfully with the complex problems of our urban and suburban communities, we need governmental machinery disigned for the 1960's, not the 1940's. The Housing and Home Finance Agency, established 17 years ago primarily to administer housing programs, has seen its responsibilities enlarged progressively by the Congress during the intervening years to include the broader aspects of community development as well. The Agency now administers such major community development programs as urban renewal, urban planning, public facilities planning and loans, open space, and mass transit. These basic changes in the Agency's current organization and status which remain much the same as they were in 1947. Action to convert the Housing and Home Finance Agency into an executive department is long overdue. The size and breadth of the Federal programs now administered by the Housing and Home Finance Agency and the significance of those programs clearly merit departmental status. A new Secretary of Housing and Community Development would be in a position both to present effectively the Nation's housing and community development needs in the highest councils of government and to

direct, organize, and manage more efficiently the important and closely interrelated housing and community development programs now administered or proposed for the Housing and Home Finance Agency.

I recommend that the Congress establish a Department of Housing and Community Development. 26/

Two days later S. 2475 (Clark) was introduced to carry out the Fresident's request. On February 13, an identical bill, H.R. 9983 (Reuss), was introduced in the House. No further action was taken on these bills, but the concept of a Department of Housing and Community Development did receive some comment in the hearings on the Housing Act of 1964 held by Banking and Currency Subcommittees in both Houses during February and March, 1964.27/

Thus far in 1965 President Johnson has placed great emphasis on the Administration's intention to create a new Cabinet-level department. In his State of the Union Message of January 4, the President cited his plans for the American city:

An educated and healthy people require surroundings in harmony with their hopes.

In our urban areas the central problem today is to protect and restore man's satisfaction in belonging to a community where he can find security and significance.

The first step is to break old patterns--to begin to think, work, and plan for the development of entire metropolitan areas. We will take this step with new programs of help for basic community facilities and neighborhood centers of health and recreation. New and existing programs will be open to those cities which work together to develop unified long-range policies for metropolitan areas.

We must also make important changes in our housing programs if we are to pursue these same basic goals.

A Department of Housing and Urban Development will be needed to spearhead this effort in our cities.28/

26/----- Message from the President of the United States. Drafts of bills relating to housing. 1964.

27/----- Committee on Banking and Currency. Housing and community development legislation-1964. Hearings, 88th Cong., 2d Sess.; also, U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Banking and Currency. Housing legislation-1964. Hearings, 88th Cong., 2d Sess.

28/Message of the President of the United States. State of the union message. 1965. p. 8.

47-686 0-65

The President again mentioned the need for such a department in his

Budget Message on January 25, and has promised to send draft legislation to Congress in the near future.

Summary

There is no question that the problems of the urban areas in the United States are great and growing, There is also no question that the Federal Government has a responsibility to assist municipalities that seek its help. Past this broad ground of agreement there is little consensus as to what should be done or how it should be done.

As indicated in this report, Congress has been at work since 1953 attempting to define the proper procedure and scope of Federal activity in the area of urban affairs. It is no simple problem.

Difficulties in establishing Federal policy regarding local community assistance stem largely from ambiguities inherent in recent Federal relations with municipal government, from the question of jurisdiction within the executive branch of the Federal Government, and from the appropriate functions to be performed.

First there is the changing relationship of the Federal Government to the local communities in the context of our Federal system of government. Traditionally, intercourse within the system has been between the several states and the central government in Washington. In the past few decades, cities and towns, as well as large metropolitan areas have looked more and more to the central government in Washington for financial assistance, This has strained the traditional Federalism we have long accepted as proper, by establishing a direct relationship between the central government and local municipalities, which are actually creations of the several state governments.

The growth of the Federal grant-in-aid program has established a de facto relationship where no de jure relationship has existed. Large Federal expenditures in local communities have in many cases by-passed the state governments entirely, creating a new kind of Federalism which tends to exclude the state as a functional unit. This change in the structure of American Federalism has been a source of strong opposition to the institutionalization of the new relationship through the creation of a Department of Urban Affairs.

Second there remain wide areas of divergence of views as to the place of the new department, agency, or commission in the executive branch of the government, the potential of overlapping or conflicting jurisdictions, and the additional authority it would give the President.

Finally, within the ranks of those who support the idea of a Department of Urban Affairs in general, there is no well defined statement as to what the scope of the new Department should be--either geographically, i.e., what is an Urban Area?, or functionally, i.e., what Federal programs other than those of HHFA would be included later?

Federal activities in the area of local public works through the Area Redevelopment Administration and Accelerated Public Works programs raise additional questions as to whether these functions might not also be a part of the new Department. Both programs instituted since 1961 were not in existance at the time of last hearings on creating a new department.

It would be well to note that the functions of the Area Redevelopment Administration were at one point (See Douglas-Payne bill S. 3683.)