NEIGHBORHOOD GROUPS AND URBAN RENEWAL.

By J. Clarence DaviesIII '59. New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1966. 235 pp. $6.75.

It is difficult to imagine a more timely book than Neighborhood Groups and UrbanRenewal by J. Clarence Davies III '59. This excellent study attempts to provide precisely the kind of information we need today if we are to resolve one of the most pressing and difficult problems facing modern urban America.

The problem involves the seemingly simple, but potentially explosive, issue of the political behavior of neighborhood and local community groups in the formulation of urban public policy. At the very same time that the Office of Economic Opportunity and a host of other agencies are emphasizing community action programs involving "maximum feasible citizen participation" at the local levels, we are witnessing increasingly bitter group conflict and outright violence in many of our great urban centers from New York to Los Angeles. In large measure, conflict reflects the difficult pressures being generated by the civil rights struggle, yet there is more to consider here than the issue of civil rights alone.

The simple facts of the matter are that we know all too little about the basic political dynamics of group action at the local urban level and it is the great virtue of Mr. Davies' book that it attempts to provide some answers for us in a straightforward, well-organized and concisely written manner.

The theoretical rationale behind this study draws heavily on the classic works of Professors David Truman, Wallace Sayre, and Herbert Kaufman. Using the Truman-Sayre-Kaufman models of group politics as a startine point, Davies launches into a detailed consideration of the local community response to three particular urban renewal projects in the New York area: Seaside-Hammels (1953-61); the West Side Project (1955-62); and West Village (1961-62).

After analyzing the controversies mar suirounded each of these projects, Davies attempts to formulate some broader generalizations about the basic political dynamics of local neighborhood groups (e.g. their attitude formation, their leadership potential etc.), and also some concluding generalizations' about the relationship of such groups to the larger concept of the public interest. While conceding that such groups can slow down the political process, he concludes that the benefits to be gained from meaningful citizen participation at the local level are well worth the price.

Although , all three of the particular case studies considered in this book relate to the specific subject of urban renewal, the concluding analysis offers a great deal of insight into the more general political aspects of urban group life regardless of the particular programmatic concern involved. In short, this is a very thoughtful study and a most welcome addition to the very skimpy existing literature in political science on a subject of critical importance to the future development of our urban democracy.

Associate Professor of Government