Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1546

Letter to the Editor of the New York Herald-Tribune, 230 West 4lst Street, New York 36, New York

February 22, 1955

To the Editor:

Some time ago a correspondent wrote to you propos­ing that some of the best brains of our nation — in science, history, economics and business — be mobilized in a committee to work out a rational plan of solvent administration for our magnificently mismanaged city of New York. So appealing was this suggestion and so great was the need that on the same page with the letter you gave it your generous editorial comment and very thoughtful commendation. I am sure that many others must have been similarly impressed and would be happy to know of some actual steps being taken in the direc­tion laid down.

Pending a better proposal, may I suggest that the committee be selected and its members paid by the prin­cipal owners of the sites and other real estate of the City of New York, such as Columbia University, Trinity Church, Sailors’ Snug Harbor, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and other large owners, each contributing to the expense involved according to the value of its holdings as fairly appraised.

The special committee should be engaged to ascertain what measures of public policy would most lift the present burdens imposed and would most advance the long-term interests, now unprotected, of the persons, corporations and otherwise organ­ized businesses from which the revenues of rent and the investment values of these large properties are derived. Such relief and other services to the inhabitants of these principal properties would be automatically requited by the new values and new income caused and created by these new services, thus vindicating the sound dictum of Adam Smith that the private interest of the general owners of the real estate and the public interest of all its inhabitants is harmonious and one and the same. For the going value of any property or location or region is the amount that its inhabitants voluntarily pay, whether as persons or as corporations, for the benefits and immuni­ties, present and prospective, distributed to them through the hands of its owners. The initiative towards community welfare, therefore, rests with the community owners; for the inhabitants are fully engaged in the administration of their private businesses and enterprises, whereas the community owners, as such, have no other interest or occupation but to administer the community property on behalf of the community inhabitants, to whom its use and occupancies and all the immunities and advantages, as well as improvements, public and private, appurtenant to it, are presently and prospectively sold.

A constructive municipal policy guided and influenced by the principal owners of the municipality, with eye single for advan­tages to its inhabitants, will raise the desirability and thus the values not only of the properties held by these principal owners but also the values of the real-estate as a whole — including that of those owners who take no effective part or responsibility.

This, however, could in no way detract from the advantages and values gained by the principal and active owners. And they, being most active and best organized, would enjoy all legitimate preferences in favor of their own properties and thus induce outstanding owners to come in and cooper­ate with them for the sake of full and equal participation in the benefits created and the values thus gained.

So far as the owners of the even now unrivaled city of New York look widely to general conditions in their city advantageous to free enterprise and to its pro­ductive inhabitants, all its values will rise and its future will be incomparably bright. The prospect is magnificent; — so only the owners be well and construc­tively advised.

Spencer Heath