Hoping for a Boost from Obama

"How do we recapture the value of the investments we've already made?" 

If ever there were a time in the life of this nation to ask that question, it is now.  And if asked in a public sense, the answer leads inevitably to the need to re-focus on cities.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer interviewed me on this earlier this week.

Here are the major points from the interview:

Infrastructure. A hot item because it can be the centerpiece of a stimulus package, Coletta hopes the emphasis of any spending on roads, bridges and sewers would be "fix it first." That is, repair what already exists in cities rather than build new or wider expressways out of town. "We need to extract value out of what we've already invested in," said Coletta. One of the things she likes about Cleveland, and University Circle in particular, is the emphasis on investments (think Euclid Corridor) that add value to major existing institutions or anchors.

Transportation policy. Coletta hopes Washington will emphasize mass transit, encourage wiser land use and stop urban sprawl. And with her, it's not simply about the environment. Density, Coletta says, drives productivity. That's because modern knowledge economies thrive when creative people, the types who tend to congregate in cities, effortlessly interact and share ideas. "You need to think about how to enable those happy accidents," she said.

Education. There's no better predictor of a city's or a region's economic performance than its level of educational attainment, in particular its percentage of college graduates. That's a lesson Cleveland has learned the hard way. Obama, during his campaign, called for a $4,000 college tuition tax credit. That would help open college doors to thousands of extra students, and cities would disproportionately benefit. "If you're trying to encourage economic development," said Coletta, "that's the lowest hanging fruit."

  

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