What's a Metro Nation without Strong Cities?

After an interview on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi show Thursday, I started thinking again about this idea of America as a "metro nation."  I was on first with guest host Rebecca Roberts, followed by Amy Liu of Brookings, where the idea of regionalism has been pushed hard for the past couple of years.

The concept of regionalism is smart on its face.  Economies are regional, we count people at a metro level, air and water issues transcend political boundaries, and, in a perfect world, major amenities -- and their cost -- are shared regionally.

But no one should be agnostic about where development occurs in a region.  Metro regions all across America are littered with the inevitable consequence of that kind of thinking.  Let the city core thin out (sucking its vibrancy in the doing) and spread development thinly across the landscape (which never quite becomes vibant).  There.  You have the worst of both worlds.

When regionalism asserts the centrality of the anchor city and the need to build its vibrancy through renewal, then regionalism makes sense.  But too often, the execution of regionalism means the central city gives and gives (and pays and pays), while the suburbs live off the jobs, amenities and identity provided in cities (or, for that matter, another suburb) without paying a dime.

I've watched these regional issues play out for many years in my hometown of Memphis, the central city in a metro area that spreads over three states.  Memphis is a predominantly African-American city, has African-American city and county mayors, and is on track to become the nation's first major African-American metro.  Race has been a driver of location decisions for many years, yet city residents have been expected to fund the very development that undermines their city's vitality. 

City taxpayers frequently find themselves paying twice for so-called "shared" expenses.  They pay once as city taxpayers, for instance, for city schools. Then they pay again as county taxpayers.  Schools are by far the biggest local govenrment expense, so that one especially hurts.  But schools are not the only place city taxpayers pay both as city and county residents. They (we) paid twice again for two arenas, we pay twice for the health department and for planning. 

While Brookings has repeatedly reported that Memphis is a city with a growing population, it is not.  It simply had liberal annexation policies.  Unfortunately, the suburbs the city annexed were declining in value by the time they were consumed by Memphis.  They had few, if any, amenities, causing the City of Memphis to have to spend money immediately on such basic services like parks and community centers.  But most destructively, as one new mall opened ever farther east, one on the west would close. 

So it was wasteful sprawl -- development not net new growth -- that first weakened the city and then ultimately weakened the entire county.  It is not hard to predict the future because the signs are already there:  a weakened metro area.

And all because we forgot that without a strong central city, the rest of the metro could not and cannot outrun its decline forever.

That's why I am not and never will be agnostic about where development occurs in a region.  A regional perspective must begin with a commitment to a strong central city. Without that, our "metro nation" will be headed to decline along with its cities.

  

Tom Christoffel, January 23, 2009

Google?s Blog alert sent me to this post because of the term ?regionalism.? This post should be useful to subscribers of Regional Community Development News, so I will include a link to it in the January 28 issue. A link to the newsletter will be found at http://regional-communities.blogspot.com/ Please visit, check the tools and consider a link as you are involved in regions work. Tom

Link: http://regional-communities.blogspot.com/

bruce fisher, January 26, 2009

Regionalism -- in my usage, it's a term for positive change toward metropolitanization of planning and for refocusing on central cities. Practically, regionalism is a refreshed advocacy for urbanism. Politically, it is a radical movement against 50 years of the destructive power of fractured suburban governance. The trouble with the "metro nation" concept is that its advocates specifically and emphatically avoid engaging the terribly difficult reality that metro regions need to be governed by unified structures that will specifically limit or end the power of local jurisdictions (i.e., suburban townships) to do land-use planning on their own. The "metro nation" concept is a laudable effort to create a leadership vocabulary that does not fight that tough fight over who gets to decide where development occurs. I respect the tremendous power of the minds that have advocated for "metro nation" thinking. As a former COO of an urban county and as a close observer of government practice, I regret to inform everybody that there is simply no way to avoid the fundamental fight, and that now, more than ever, is teh time to utilize the political process and the federal government's fiscal power to reshape the governance of urban regions or metros. America must become re-urbanized. America must become re-focused on its cities. City-centered regional goverance is how this has to be achieved. When I say the word "regionalism," I mean regional governance centered in cities, such that sprawl ends and that ancient municipal boundaries that enforce communal divisions must be disempowered.

Link: fishervariations.blogspot.com

DMIJohn, January 28, 2009

Thanks to the author for articulating this viewpoint. In order to effectively plan on a metro or regional level (I would say the concepts are somewhat different), there are some models that we can look to. First, and most obviously, there is the Portland Metro, a regional government with jurisdiction in three counties and 25 municipalities. Second, there is the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department. The Department makes land use decisions in the unincorporated areas of Mecklenburg County, as well as the City of Charlotte. The head of the Department reports to Charlotte's City Manager. Then there is city-county consolidation. Another issue that needs to be addressed is the role of MPO's. These organizations could be structured to be more powerful in terms of transportation and land use planning, especially if we see a change in the way that the federal government distributes transportation dollars. Ideally, less money would go towards states and more would go towards MPO's. Also, it would be ideal if the federal government follows California's model in the way that transportation dollars are distributed. The law creates links between zoning, transportation, and housing regulations and subsidies to overhaul land use planning throughout the state.

Link: dmiblog.com

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