On the Road

A heavy two weeks of meetings with urban leaders in cities across the country left me with several thoughts:

Urban leaders are scrambling to figure out how to respond to high gas prices, and transit is a priority for mayors everywhere. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio has made getting transit built in her city the top goal of her final three years in office. It was a top issue this morning in Baltimore, where even with light rail, leaders are dissatisfied. (That's not surprising, given our trip to the airport mid-day by rail took more than an hour and a transfer of trains.) I saw a handmade map of a proposed transit system in an unnamed major city that may be privately funded. I'll be in Raleigh Thursday at a transit forum organized by citizens but to be attended by several city council members. Transit fever is everywhere.

Commitment to local communities is so non-partisan. I've been working in Grand Rapids recently, and I've never seen a group of business people more committed to their community and more willing to take responsibility for its future. Any one who believes the urban agenda is only of interest to Democrats needs to follow me around for a week.

Air travel is awful. But airports are generally getting better. BWI's restaurants are particularly impressive. Grand Rapids has free wireless and a quiet room with good seating in which to use your computer. (This seems particularly classy.) The Detroit Northwest terminal has a great nail/massage bar, as do Pittsburgh and Tampa. Detroit also has huge screens with CNN. Pittsburgh also has no sales tax at Nine West and other retailers. O'Hare has only one massage bar but the serious East European pros at work are the best. Southwest gates are crowded but by far the most comfortable. And, as much as I resent expenditures for TSA, the new signage at BWI actually gave me a warm feeling. (Is that possible?)

Small town officials buy the arguments "cities are the solution" and "the fates of cities and their suburbs move in lockstep over time." Sunday I spoke to members of the Tennessee Municipal League about urban issues, and I was surprised by the positive reaction I got. Maybe they were just being nice, but I had the sense they were sympathetic. If so, what a long way we have come. And it certainly mirrors the research done for us by Lake Research Partners earlier this year.

Listening to Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton at the same meeting, I was struck by his measures of success -- the billions of dollars in construction that have completed on his watch, the building of the FedEx Forum, the acquisition of an NBA team. And I compare that to the $3 billion available to his city if only we could get the percent of college grads in Memphis to match the median among the top 50 metro areas. It requires such a shift in thinking to acknowledge that we must measure real success differently than we have in the past.

Ah.... so much to do.

  

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