ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200025
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REGINALD SHAREEF
PROFESSOR Thomas Sowell's latest book, ``The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy,'' offers a powerful critique of elite public policy decision-making in America.
Sowell, a resident scholar at the Hoover Institute, contends that intellectual and political elites continue to make decisions based on a vision of promised benefits but ignore the grim and bitter consequences of those decisions.
Although empirical evidence (that is, feedback from reality) can be offered to demonstrate the destructive outcomes of the prevailing vision, elites tend to disregard disconfirming evidence and proceed with failed policies. According to Sowell, this type of dogmatic thinking often leads to the ``great catastrophes of history.''
Members of the Henry Street Revival Committee would do well to read this book. Perhaps it would alter their vision for revitalizing Herny Street, since empirical evidence has shown that urban renewal in the Gainsboro area has only benefited the city's tax base and land developer's pocketbooks. For minority residents of the area, urban renewal has only meant dislocation for the benefit of no-minority businesses. UCLA Prof. James Q. Wilson long ago stated that urban renewal often simply becomes ``Negro removal.'' Locally, former Congressman Jim Olin has called urban renewal in the Gainsboro area ``the rape of a community.''
Yet, leaders of the Henry Street Revival Committee have offered up the same laundry list of policies and promises that Gainsboro residents have seen decimate their community. Moreover, the same governmental entities that so alienated these residents are again in charge of the revitalization efforts. Is there any wonder Gainsboro residents want meaningful input into the decisions that will significantly impact their lives? Would residents of any other community in Roanoke, given the same historical realities, react differently?
One aspect of the plan is particularly revealing. The housing authority and a single developer are to share ownership and control of all leases, which are to contain "restrictive covenants," in the words of one published report, against undesirable uses.
This is disturbing for several reasons. First, in a market-oriented system, government should not be in the business of picking economic winners and losers. The victory of capitalism over communism was supposedly a victory of impersonal market forces over central governmental planning. However, the empirical evidence shows that urban-renewal policy has always ensured land developers will make a handsome profit from their ventures in these areas. So much for free-market rhetoric!
Second, restrictive covenants have historically been used to deny African-Americans property ownership in predominantly white neighborhoods. During his Senate confirmation hearings a few years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist was severely criticized for signing a restrictive covenant that barred him from selling property he owned in Phoenix to African-Americans. It is indeed ironic that in 1996, the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority would utilize a tool that has traditionally excluded African-Americans from owning property which historically was black-owned. So much for the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause!
Proponents of the plan seem to suggest that the community will benefit economically regardless of who owns the businesses on Henry Street. This type of economic theory is ``trickle-down economics.'' The empirical evidence does not support this theory, either. Few of the workers of businesses spawned by urban renewal in Gainsboro actually live in the area. Consequently, very little spending of the revenues generated by these businesses occurs in Gainsboro. Never in its history has Gainsboro been so economically depressed.
Sowell argues that those who accept the elite's vision of social policy believe they are not only intellectually correct but are also on a morally higher plane. He writes, ``Put differently, those who disagree with the prevailing vision are seen as being not merely in error, but in sin.''
However, those who differ with this vision of Henry Street's development should not be intimidated by this social construction of reality. Indeed, given the harsh experience of urban renewal in Gainsboro, these residents hold the moral high ground and should not relinquish it.
There is a wise adage that states, ``Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'' The residents of Gainsboro have been fooled numerous times by governmental agencies promising revitalization through urban renewal. If they are fooled again, they will deserve the scorn and derision that future generations will surely rain upon their tarnished names and reputations.
Reginald Shareef is an associate professor of political science at Radford University.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: RICHARD MILLHOLLAND/Los Angeles Timesby CNB