A majority of Cambridge's incoming City Council yesterday called the urban renewal program the city's only hope to stem the thousands of families currently moving out of the city.

Councillor John D. Lynch called the 22,000 permanent residents who have moved out of Cambridge since 1945 the city's "lost battalion" and vowed that the council would take "drastic action" at its first meeting in January to make sure that the population does not dwindle further. "We've got to keep Cambridge from becoming a ghost town," he added.

Recently released state census figures put the city's population at 98,000 a drop of 12,000 from 1950 and 22,000 from 1945.

Lynch cited the urban renewal program--which will redevelop large tracts of city land for residential as well as industrial and business use--as the city's best chance to maintain its present population, and even recover some of the "lost battalion."

Councillors Hyman Pill and Edward A. Crane '35 agreed with Lynch that the Council should initiate a survey by an as-yet-undetermined body to study other methods of stemming the decrease. Councillor Edward J. Sullivan said that "it's important to keep Cambridge a residential community as well as a college campus."