LET'S NOT CONFUSE PUBLIC SECTOR RESEARCH WITH PUBLIC RELATIONS.

Research in University of Missouri at St. Louis is often treated with contempt and is often contemptible, with results that are unfortunate for the metropolitan area and for the people who live here. This vice is not endemic to St. Louis alone, although sometimes it seems that theirs is an exaggerated case. The unfortunate tendency of much of the U.S. government and business-sponsored research is to produce not information and analysis on which decisions are to be based but, rather, testimonial advertising to justify decisions already made on other than well-researched grounds. Research is confused with public relations and selling, and consequently lacks objectivity, seriousness, and, at times, even basic intellectual honesty. Most importantly, this kind of research activity is radically incorrigible and ultimately discredits the use of research and those involved in it. The responsibility for fostering this state of affairs rests primarily with the federal government. Its lavish funding of a lush growth of ill-considered planning activities stimulated a boom both in "planning" and planners. Initially, this might have appeared to be a welcome if crude attempt to introduce a modicum of rationality into the management of local affairs. In the long run, however, it has been almost as much of a disaster as the Poverty Program. The government's planning money has proved corrupting and poisonous, and, like the Poverty Program, hasn't even proved a stable source of income to those it has enlisted.