More Active

Moynihan also would like to see the Center involved in more activist programs. Traditionally, Harvard has shied away from this kind of project and has stressed basic research. At M.I.T., he says, "they think that basic research is what you do when' you don't know what you're doing"--they have always been more favorably disposed toward action-oriented programs.

The original Memorandum of Agreement between Harvard and M.I.T. stated that, "The principal responsibility of the Joint Center will be in basic research. An essential, but secondary, objective is to build a bridge between fundamental research and policy application at national and international as well as local levels." Moynihan, however, seems prepared to shift the emphasis and bring the Center closer to the M.I.T. philosophy.

Greater activism by the Joint Center is not only needed but also wanted in the community, Moynihan continued. Boston and Cambridge officials do not always seem eager for such assistance. When a non-profit group of academic planners who call themselves Urban Planning Aid (UPA) recently helped a Roxbury neighborhood facing renewal to win concessions from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the BRA's director, Edward J. Logue, denounced UPA as a group of "tinker toy boys" using the renewal program as "an academic exercise." UPA, as it happens, includes two members of the Joint Center and has its offices at the same address as the annex of the Center. There is also talk of a more formal affiliation between the two groups. Moynihan insists that he has an excellent working relationship with Logue, but one may wonder how long this would last if the Center went in for more UPA-style activism.

Cambridge officials are ambivalent about the new emphasis that the Joint Center is apparently preparing to adopt. On the other hand, they recognize that the Center could help them cope with Cambridge's problems, and they resent what they consider the Center's neglect of Cambridge. "Most of those professors know their way around Washington better than they do around Cambridge," a Cambridge official declared recently. "You could plop them down four blocks from Central Square and they'd never find their way home."

Yet these same officials reject the idea that the Center should have any velopment programs. Rather, they regard the Center's planners as "brain-stormers" who should be on call to large practical role in the city's de-assist the city's own experts. Any attempt by the Joint Center to take a more active role would meet strong resistance.

At M.I.T., Moynihan says, "they think that basic research is what you do when you don't know what you're doing" - they have always been more favorably disposed toward action-oriented programs ... Greater activism by the Joint Center is not only needed but also wanted in the community.

The Center would also face financial problems in moving toward a more activist policy. At present, the Ford unrestricted grant, amounts to about a third of the Center's total budget. The other two-thirds comes from Foundation money, the Center's only grants and contracts that commit the Center to particular activities. Moynihan would like to reverse this ratio, in order to give the Center more flexibility and independence. But until he is able to attract more "unrestricted funds," he will have to go slow in changing the direction of Joint Center activity.

Moynihan has no illusions about the power of the Joint Center, even if it were greatly expanded. "What we need," he says, "is to make the bankers and lawyers and engineers and businessmen who build our cities more sensitive to the social and aesthetic consequences of what they are doing." Walking down the new three-foot-wide sidewalk on the west side of Palmer Street, he demonstrates his point by pretending to collide with the No Parking sign planted squarely in the middle of the walk and then by trying to slip between the building and a truck parked in the street. "As long as you have people who can spend thousands of dollars to build a sidewalk like this," he declared, "all the experts and all the activists in the world won't make the city amore pleasant place to live.