Experts say cities best hope for future

Risk is lack of political will

Marci Gilbert, Apr 20, 11.

Vibrant, dynamic cities hold mankind’s best hope for the future despite chronic problems with housing, transportation, and crumbling services, some big names in public policy told a national gathering of land-use journalists, according to a story in the Kansas City Star.

“Cities have never had more intensity, more magnetism,” said Adrian Fenty, former mayor of Washington, DC, on Friday at Harvard University. However, “nowhere have [economic[ problems been seen more than at the city level.”

The forum’s participants pointed out - sometimes in caustic tones - how a lack of political will was risking America’s best hope for resuscitating its urban centers.

Fixing the nation’s eroding infrastructure - roads, bridges, levees and ports - would cost $2.2 trillion, said Ed Rendell, who was mayor of Philadelphia and governor of Pennsylvania. But money is as scarce as political will, he said.

“There is a level of political cowardice in America I’ve never seen,” said Rendell, who made waves discussing a “nation of wusses” when a National Football League game was canceled in December after a few inches of snow fell in Philadelphia. “Nobody cares (about infrastructure finance.) All we care about is planning for the next election.”

Bruce Babbitt, a former Arizona governor and former US secretary of the Interior, called the nation’s efforts to establish high-speed rail “a complete and striking failure.” Like many bullet-train advocates, he believes they could help the United States catch up with surging competitors, but would require a special tax at a time when few are willing to pay more.

“We don’t have the political courage to define our priorities,” Babbitt said at the forum, a collaboration of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

Larry Summers, a former present of Harvard and former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, called the stimulus program Summers helped create “a political disaster” of sorts. The federal government pumped nearly $800 million into state and local governments, but governors and mayors bickered endlessly and much of the money simply moved forward projects already on the books, he said.

Promises of housing assistance proved to be stimulus’ biggest disappointment, Summers said. People facing foreclosure desperately needed the money, but it wouldn’t be fair to bail them out when many more owners who owe more than homes are worth continue making mortgage payments, he said.

Source: Kansas City Star