How metros could save our economy

Local prosperity for a nation

Wendy Natt, Mar 23, 09.

The vast majority of the US population resides and works in metropolitan regions, and the long-term prosperity of our nation depends heavily on the success of its distinct but “interlinked metropolitan economies,” according to a recent article by Bruce Katz, Mark Muro, and Jennifer Bradley of the Brookings Institution. Despite the fact that America operates as a “MetroNation,” our economic development policies do not promote strong, successful metros. This “mismatch” between the nation’s economic reality and its policies and structures must be aligned through both a national vision and a new focus on empowering metro areas if the US is to emerge from this economic recession and achieve long-term stability and prosperity.

Some excerpts from the article “Miracle Mets: How U.S. Metros Propel America’s Economy and Might Drive Its Recovery”:

“As a nation, we remain fixed in old arrangements, established decades ago and kept in place by bureaucratic inertia and entrenched political interests. Such a misunderstanding of contemporary urban structures inevitably leads to bad public policy decisions.

Take as an example the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, now finally in the public eye. We should be spending money on metropolitan infrastructure, such as new transit lines or the maintenance and upgrade of existing roads and bridges, because it gives the best return on investment, the most bang for the buck. And yet the federal government sends the overwhelming bulk of national infrastructure funds to states, not metros. Given the vagaries of state politics, state departments of transportation in turn tend to scant metro investments in favor of building brand-new roads in far-flung places. Money that could be fueling the metro economic engine ends up widening a rural highway.”

“Washington must lead in areas that transcend the reach of local action and require national vision, direction, and purpose—areas such as the provision of worldclass interstate road and rail links, investments in science and basic research, immigration reform, and the creation of a framework for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.”

pdf of full 14-page article, originally published in Democracy Journal