Urban areas need Federal help. and those of us from rural areas have good reason to give whatever support we can to programs of that kind. We support them on the meritsand also because many of the people involved used to be our constituents. But as much as anything else. the cities need a respite from burgeoning population growth. We need to at least slow. or perhaps stop or reverse. the rush of population to urban America. It is severely damaging for migrant and native alike. In his State of the Union address in January. President Nixon described the violent and decayed central cities as the most conspicuous area of failure in American life.