The Urban President

Reviews of Monday's remarks by the president on his plans for urban America have been mixed.  Some have praised simply the attention he gave to the subject while other have criticized the apparent lack of muscular policy response on behalf of cities.

I read it this way.  It is still hard to break urban policy out of the mindset that it's mostly about poverty and housing. 

There are at least two big pieces of good news: 

The president has promised to review federal policies impacting urban areas.  He has directed the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, and the Office of Urban Affairs to review the impact of infrastructure, transportation, housing, energy, sustainable development and education.  This takes a very broad view of urban policy and recognizes that almost everything the federal government does affects cities because that's where people live.  It also implicitly acknowledges that it makes no sense for federal policy to undermine cities.  That is very good news indeed because for 50 years, too much federal policy has been moving in the other direction.

The other piece of good news is that transportation is now being viewed through a different lens of place and in concert with housing and sustainability.  The president called for housing, transportation and energy-efficiency to "go hand in hand."  "For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development," the president said.  He is supporting a comprehensive effort to build sustainable communities, led by the secretaries of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. 

So clearly, the administration is moving in a very positive direction when it comes to the interests of cities.  But it is still a struggle to find the clear, declarative point of view as to why cities matter to the nation, what makes them successful, and insist that those understandings be reflected in policy, not for the benefit of cities but for the benefit of the nation.  The struggle is compounded to some extent by the artifice of cities vs. metros.  And we are still missing an acknowledgement that human capital development is the single most important success factor for cities and metro areas -- period.  (Education was noticeably missing from Monday's discussion.)

As I've noted before, no one has to brief the president on cities.  He understands cities better than most.  This is not a long distance relationship.  The same is true about the people he is counting on to do a 180 on federal policy. (And that includes not only the good people in the Office of Urban Affairs, but also the Domestic Policy Council and the people who lead the various federal departments.) 

All the signs point to more thoughtful federal policy that will please America's urban leaders.

  

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