Small Target Areas (1968)

IF: An urban area is to be serviced by multi-service centers,

THEN: All the multi-service centers should be small and the target areas correspondingly small.

The target areas should contain 34,000 persons, ± 20% (i.e. 27,000 - 41,000). The corresponding floor area, as given by Pattern 3 Size Based on Population (1968), are 25,000 - 37,000 square feet, with a model figure of 31,000.

<u>PROBLEM</u>

To examine these reasons, we shall compare three broadly different patterns of size and distribution.

A. Large centers, serving large target areas.

B. Large centers, serving large target areas, supplemented by a series of smaller subcenters, equally spaced throughout the same target area.

C. Small centers, each service small target areas.

The major needs which influence the size of the centers are these:

1. The need for "<u>multi</u>-service". Clients do not want to be referred from one agency in one part of town, to another agency in another part of town. Even more important, experience has shown that many clients problems, when correctly diagnosed, turn out to require some kind of service different from the wervice which the client sought (i.e., a client comes in asking for help in housing; after analysis, it turns out that he needs legal aid in fighting his landlord).

This is essential to the whole concept of multi-service centers. [....]

2. The need to reach the hard-core poor. So far, the service centers have a shocking record; although they have reached certain parts of the poor community, they have not succeeded in reaching the very poor. [....]

These two needs are in conflict. The idea of multi-service requires that each service center have a full complement of services. Each center must there have a large enough target area to support various specialists, and must therefore be large.

On the other hand, the problem of reaching the pooor requires that the centers be small, and closely spaced. It requires that they be small for two reasons.

Second, we know that people, and especially poor people, are not well served by rule-bound bureaucratic institutions. The functional issues are partly discussed in Pattern 5 Small Services without Red Tape (1968), where we show that the size of individual services should be small. There are also indications, that the overall size of the center as a whole can have a similar effect, and should be kept as small as possible. [p. 62] [....]

Before trying to estimate the size implications of these facts, we list a number of minor factors which also have bearing on the size: (Numbers continue from 1 and 2 above)

3. Scale economies. A large center may be able to support services which a smaller center cannot support at all.

4. Scale economies within a single service. If a service serves a large target area, and is therefore itself relatively large, the aggregation of personnel within the service may give rise to increased efficiency through the division of labour amongst these personnel. [....]

6. The need for political power. The center will be unable to initiate new programs, unless it has political power. A large center wields more political influence than a small center.

7. The need for simple comprehensive record keeping. This another facet of the referral problem. If cients are referred from service to service, it is impossible to keep track of their records, with the result that they are asked the same stupid questions over and over again. [p. 7]

8. Equilibrium over time. The structure and function of community services does not remain constant over time. Changes in the demand structure for services introduces changes over time into the service system. It may be that in the long run small centers of a more modest scale will develop to compete with the larger center. [....]

9. The need to minimize capital costs, maintenance costs, and salary costs.

We now have 9 factors which influence the size and spatial distribution of multi-service centers, the first two major, the other 7 relatively minor. Let us now compare the three possible patterns, a, B, C, on the basis of these factors. (9 does not appear in the table, since current data gives no indication about the relative cost of A, B, C).

This table leaves it unclear which is the best solution. [....] [p. 65]

[content through p. 67 omitted]

This page is part of A Pattern Language Which Generates Multi-Service Centers (1968)