Whether or not these studies are, as research director Leonard Fein puts it, "terribly relevant to action" depends on one's optimism. The poor have been exasperated precisely because they have seen none of the action this research is terribly relevant to.

Less vociferous critics of the Joint Center than Bryant Rollins point out that the academic style of urban research ignores the problems of implementing change. There are, for example, a variety of possibilities for improving academic performance of ghetto children--"black" curricula, integration, compensatory education, community schools, federal regional schools, and so on. The theoretical pros and cons of these proposals have generated a lot of discussion--but the fact remains that no one knows to what extent any of them might be effective, or what their unanticipated consequences would be. Says Peter Labovitz, lecturer in city planning at Harvard and consultant at Arthur D. Little, "We are quickly finding out there's not much to study in theory. We need reality-testing."

Consulant firms and agencies offer a better opportunity to study the dynamics of change, and in this respect are, according to Labovitz, a "better lab for learning than the university." Research planning firms like Arthur D. Little start with a specific client or problem, identify his objectives, and design a project around a specific need.

This approach, however fruitful, is clearly outside the design of the Joint Center. Research firms work with multi-discipline teams toward a designated objective. The Center, in contrast, is an amorphous collection of about 60 independently-working people. As Fein puts it, "One does not expect an aggregate product out of this kind of enterprise." Most members regard the Joint Center in non-organizational, personal, functional terms. Comments one fellow, "It gives me office space, a secretary and a grant"--as well as carpets and refrigerators, a disenchanted outsider notes.

Barring urban catastrophe, the Joint Center will continue to do eminently respectable and ultimately useful research. It will not involve itself in the ghetto. Says Jack Rosenthal, a visiting associate, "If you examine the Joint Center on its own terms, it's really rather good: as a research center for people who have their own things to do. It's taking a perfectly sensible course--but a luxurious one at this point."

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan took over as director of the Center in 1966, trend-predictors expected him to chart a more policy-oriented course than his predecessors, Martin Meyerson and James Q. Wilson. While the basic orientation of the Center has remained armchair--and to all indication will remain so--the Center has begun to do policy-advising ("staff studies") with clients or agencies that request assistance, much as a consulting firm would.

Nevertheless, staff studies are kept within the mold of academic enterprise. Says Rodwin, "When (the Joint Center) takes on a practical assignment it does so because the study has scholarly and practical significance beyond the particular case."

For all of the fanfare, technical assistance remains a peripheral concern; the Center has actually engaged in only two action programs.

The first, initiated in 1961, involved "comprehensive planning" in an undeveloped region in Venezuela. The second -- the Metropolitan Boston Studies program, started in 1965--is the rubric under which technical assistance has been given to various Boston agencies which request it. The most frequently cited (and apparently only significant) study produced has been a study of redistricting to alleviate racial imbalance in Boston schools, done for the Massachusetts Department of Education. On less urgent matters, staff members have consulted with other agencies -- the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and BRA, among others.

THE CENTER'S "active" role has been largely passive -- instrumental rather than innovative. Says Fein, "We're a switching station--in theory, we can plug a person into a problem. As it happens, the problems put on our desk have nothing to do with the ghetto."

Unorganized sectors and low-income organizations are ignored because they do not request assistance and in any case could not pay for it. Unless recruiting of clients is begun, they will continue to be by-passed. Comments Fein, "It's unlikely that we'll initiate a program of our own--that's outside both our tradition and resources. People say, 'Well, the ghetto is different, you have to stimulate requests.' That is no longer true; You have to wait. The ghetto is gaining sophistication."

He adds, however, that the Center is receptive. "Nothing stops Model Cities people or United Front people any more than it stops the Metropolitan Planning Council from coming to us. That is not to say, of course, that all of their requests would be acceded to."

The Center is not quite as flexible as Fein suggests. According to Barr, there are budgetary reasons why the Center prefers to work through well-endowed agencies. "The Joint Center has the kind of framework that adapts well to serving established agencies," he says. "We normally look for a paying client. We can get a lot more mileage on funds that way.

Since the Center lacks "free" funds which would allow it to initiate projects independently, it must work in the areas specified by paying clients. A less explicit pressure is the Center's need to avoid alienating the sources of grant money. The Center cannot "afford" to tamper with, say, black community schools or business organizations.

Both Joint Center administrators and alienated outsiders agree on one thing: The Joint Center is not an effective institution for cooperating with the ghetto.