Signs of Vitality

War, recession, urban decay, pollution--most Americans would judge these to be gloomy times. Not John Fischer, 65, the former editor of Harper's magazine and author of its "Easy Chair" column. In his new book, Vital Signs, U.S.A. (Harper & Row; $8.95), he takes an unfashionably optimistic view. He acknowledges the crumbling of old, familiar forms of government--institutions unable to control haphazard growth and its attendant environmental ills. But rising in their place, Fischer found in his travels through the nation, is a surprising number of brand-new forms of government designed to cope with precisely these problems. This largely unnoticed development, he writes, may well represent the "real greening of America."

Reducing Chaos. The new governing units are mainly concerned with planning the use of land in areas that transcend old political boundaries. In Georgia, for example, Fischer traces the rise of a sort of supralocal government that reduced the chaos of 159 competing counties to 18 "development districts." Though each of them can only make plans for its own region, it has considerable political power because it, rather than the state or county, controls the inflow of federal funds. Another kind of confederated government is Minneapolis-St. Paul's Twin Cities Metropolitan Council, which has dealt remarkably well with a complicated mixture of urban-suburban problems, planning everything from mass transit through sewer systems to small new satellite cities. On a larger scale, the Appalachian Regional Commission has helped to improve the economy and environment in the mountain counties of 13 states stretching from New York to Alabama.

Fischer enlivens these success stories with graceful prose and a fascinating cast of characters. The hero of the consolidation of Jacksonville, Fla., where the voters in five municipalities chose to form one central government, is an enthusiastic oligarch named J.J. Daniel, who got his way simply because "he knew almost everybody of consequence in the community." Fischer also writes admiringly about Seattle Lawyer James Ellis, a lonely reformer who, by sheer persistence, started a citizens' movement that cleaned up polluted Lake Washington, began a new parks program, and won approval of a mass-transit scheme for the Seattle metropolitan area. Then there is the sprightly Gloria M. Segal, a housewife turned real estate visionary; she wheeled and dealed, assembled 100 acres of land, and then started the new town of Cedar-Riverside near downtown Minneapolis.

If there is a flaw in Vital Signs, it is that Fischer seems to have stopped his research in 1973. Since then, some of his model developments have run into trouble. Work on Mrs. Segal's new town, for example, has been stalled for 17 months by an environmental suit, and nearly all of the planning districts have lost power as the economy slowed down. But the setbacks seem to be only temporary. The times really are producing leaders who have started grass-roots movements to make the U.S. work better as it continues to grow.

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