Outreach in Major American Cities

Extract

The question immediately suggests itself: what constitutes a major American city? Subjectively, but with a long side glance at Jane Jacobs, I would define such a metropolitan area by several attributes. One obviously is population density, though the actual number of people that make up the city is less important than the diversity within the population that allows for a great diversity in culture. Major American cities are composed of many cultural, racial, and economic constituencies coexisting in a single polity. Thus, even though Peoria and San Francisco are dense population centers, one is a major farm town, and the other is a major city. This multiplicity of ethnic constituencies is reflected in a city’s educational, economic, religious, political, and cultural institutions which are likewise fragmented, though interdependent. Such cities with enormous and highly diverse constituencies are likely to be more self-sufficient culturally, politically, and economically than other American towns. They supply their own news and publications, stage their own cultural events, concentrate more on their own political processes, and establish autonomous norms of behavior. In fact, what happens in these cities more often creates the news, the culture, the mores, and the politics for the rest of the land. A university operating in such a milieu is not just a light on the hill. It is a constituency within a mosaic of constituencies. It is linked to those other constituencies politically, socially, culturally, and economically, just by being where it is. It must frequently act on an ad hoc basis, responding to requests and solicitations that are sometimes immediate, and sometimes imperative. The parameters of its actions are clearly traceable in the mosaic of relationships which describe the city. It is not as free as the state university in the college town to define its own program, but by its existential commitment to its locale it draws whatever important qualities it will have for itself, for its community, and for the nation.