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number of cities is increased to 199 and the population contained in them is
creased to some 3 per cent.
in-
Naturally, the proportion of the nationts factories
contained in those 199 cities is far greater than the proportion of the population,
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This is a considerably higher ratio of urban to non-urban population than is
to be found in anyother great power except Great Britain.
Regardless of what
international measures are undertaken to cope with the atomic bomb MENACE y the
United States cannot afford to remain complacent about it,
This measure of vul-
nerability, to be sure, must be qualified by a host of other considerations, such
as the architectural character of the cities, °°
the manner in which they are
individually laid out, and above all the degree of interdependence of industry
and services between different parts of the individual city, between the city and
its hinterland, and between the different urban argas,ach city is, together
with its hinterland, an economic and social organi,vitha character somewhat
distinct from other comparable organisms.
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A number of students have been busily at work evolving plans for the dis-
persal of our cities and the resettlement of our population and industries in a
65.
The difference between American and Japanese cities in vulnerability to bomb
ing attack has unquestionably been exagzerated.
Most commentators who stress the
difference forget the many square miles of predominantiy wooden frane houses to
be found in almost any American city. And those who were impressedwith the pict~
ures of ferro-concrete buildings standing relatively intact in the midst of other-
wise total devastation at Hiroshina and Nagasaki will not be comforted byDr.
Philip Morrison's testimony before the iacliahon Comaittee on December 6, 1945.
Dr, Morrison, who inspected both cities, testified that the interiors of those
buildings were completely destroyed and the people in them killed, Brick buildings, he pointed out, and even steel-frame buildings with ovrick walls proved
extremely vulnerable,
"Of those people within a thousand yards of the blast,"
he added,"about one in every house or tivo escaped death fron blast or burn, Put
they died anyway from the effects of the rays emitted at the instant of explosion." He expressed himself as convinced that an American city similarly bombed
"would be as badly damaged as a Japanese city, though it would look less wrecked
from the air,!!
Perheps Dr, Morrison is exagzerating in the opposite direction. Obviously
there must be a considerable difference among structures in their capacity to
withstand blast from atomic bombs and to shelter the people within then. But that
difference is likely to make itself felt mostly in the peripheral portions of a
blasted area, Within a radius of one mile from the center of burst it is not
likely to be of consequence.