CITIES MIGHT BE ON THE MEND : CISNEROS SEES SIGNS OF RESURGENCE BUT ADMITS SUPPORTING DATA SCANT.

Byline: Lori Montgomery Knight-Ridder Newspapers

After talking for three years about how bad things are in some American cities, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros abruptly changed his tune this year.

``The cities are coming back,'' Cisneros recently declared in Detroit.

That sounds like just so much election-year rhetoric to some urban experts, who note that for most distressed older cities in the North, the latest available data show that the exodus to the suburbs is continuing.

But others say Cisneros might be on to something.

In recent interviews, bankers, real estate experts, community activists and scholars said they see a subtle shift in some of the nation's most troubled cities. Like a clearing fog, decay and despair are slowly giving way to hope.

``The secretary is holding up some very visible good-news stories. . . . To be fair, you didn't find these things taking place 10 years ago,'' said Ned Hill, a Cleveland State University professor who has written skeptically about urban success stories.

But while the cities remain troubled by entrenched poverty, too much crime and school problems, ``you look at this and you have to hold your breath,'' Hill said about some good news.

In an interview last month, Cisneros conceded that he can't offer many statistics to support his comeback claims. ``You want to go to the end of the road and look at the results,'' he said. ``I am arguing a dynamic. This is a momentum.''

He said he believes America's troubled older Northern cities have turned an important corner.

``I see enough evidence now that this is not just an anecdotal thing in particular neighborhoods,'' Cisneros said. ``There's a broad swathe of resurgence.''

Among the positive indicators:

Crime is down. Some troubled older cities led a nationwide decline in crime rates last year. Violent crimes dropped 26 percent in New York, 21 percent in Los Angeles, and 12.6 percent in Detroit.

The crime rate dropped 13 percent in 1995 for the nation's 50 largest cities, with some newer cities doing less well, a hint that at least some of the nation's urban problems may be shifting to the South and in the West.

In San Jose, crime edged down 1.2 percent. And in Phoenix, crime rose 9.2 percent.

But crime remains a growing blight in many older cities of the North. In Baltimore, the violent crime rate per 1,000 residents rose from 24.4 to 30.6. In Philadelphia, it climbed from 13.5 to 14.4.

Employment is up. The national unemployment rate has fallen to nearly 5 percent, and many cities are riding this tide. The unemployment rate in Detroit has been cut in half since 1992, dipping to 8.3 percent in August. Unemployment rates in Chicago and Philadelphia fell to 6.9 percent.

Housing starts are up. Townhouses are springing from the rubble in New York's South Bronx. In Cleveland, middle-class families are snapping up huge new homes in inner-city neighborhoods at a fraction of suburban prices. Census data show building permits for single-family homes are on the rise in Baltimore, Detroit and Philadelphia.

Business is coming back. After years without a retail ribbon-cutting, cities are finally getting new supermarkets and other basic services. Burger King has vowed to open more than 100 new franchises in inner cities. Pharmacy giant Rite Aid is opening new stores in long-neglected parts of Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Harlem and Newark, N.J.

``In the late '70s and early '80s, retailers abandoned the downtown areas,'' said Rite Aid spokesman Craig Muckle in Camp Hill, Pa. ``Now, a lot of people are going back to the cities. So we're kind of going where the opportunities are.''

Downtown office towers are becoming less empty, if not filling up. Nationwide, downtown office vacancy rates have declined to 15.9 percent from a 10-year high of 19.9 percent in early 1993, according to a market report by Houston-based ONCOR International.

And big downtown office complexes are finding buyers again, although at bargain-basement prices.

``You don't see that strong bias against a central business district location that you might have seen 10 years ago,'' said Ned O'Hearn, a senior vice president at ONCOR.

But does it all add up to a genuine comeback? That's the million-dollar question, experts say. Complicating matters: No one agrees what a comeback is.

Urban economist David Rusk says a city hasn't turned the corner until it gains economically on its suburbs. Few older cities can make that claim.

Baltimore - one of Cisneros' comeback case studies - has a great tourist attraction in its Inner Harbor waterfront development, a wildly popular new baseball stadium and a new football stadium on the way. Despite everything, Baltimore's share of the region's population and taxable wealth has continued to decline.

That, Rusk says, ``is not a good trend.''

Others measure city recovery by investment in and vitality of the downtown core. Still others say a city can't declare victory until poverty declines, household incomes go up, and the lives of residents generally get better. But important data about city poverty and household incomes won't be available until the next census.

``There's clearly some sense that there are things happening,'' said HUD Assistant Secretary Michael Stegman. ``But I think it will take more time for the larger numbers to show a big difference.''