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Highway congestion choking suburbs and cities
alike. Lengthening commutes even in the face of skyrocketing
world oil prices. Imperiled federal funding for “New
Start” light rail lines. Possibly the worst housing affordability
crisis we’ve ever seen. Predatory lending practices targeted
at poor Americans.
OK, it’s possible to downgrade and
ignore those issues in a presidential election focused on
mega-issues of war and peace, America’s appropriate role
in the world, and the fate of our deeply imperiled national
treasury.
But is it really so smart to let Iraq and terror and red ink
financing, with side squabbles over taxes and health care,
eclipse so many of the critical issues that will determine
how our cities and towns and their people fare in the years
immediately ahead?
The blackout is, of course, not total. Bush
boasts (like President Clinton before) about significant increases
in homeownership, promising much more to come. The president
raises the No Child Left Behind school legislation with unflagging
frequency. Occasionally he alludes to the brownfield recovery
assistance he’s supported.
As for Kerry, community issues are rare
when he campaigns -- unless you want to count his focus on
stepped-up use of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.
But Kerry has gone on record, far more than
Bush, in promising community-friendly policies on housing,
public transit, police, curbs on predatory lending, fuller
school aid and economic stimulus measures for poor areas.
His campaign even sums it up in a phrase-- “The Kerry-Edwards
Metropolitan Agenda.”
Kerry wants to revive a Clinton-era program
to help entrepreneurs get started in poor communities. Like
Bush, he talks up homeownership expansion. But he presses
the fight for three strikingly successful programs imperiled
by Bush-era cuts -- Section 8 housing rental assistance for
poor families, the HOPE VI program to encourage mixed-income
communities, and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to bring
private capital into the assisted housing market.
Add it all up and Kerry comes substantially
closer than Bush to the domestic priorities spelled out by
the National League of Cities’
“American dream” platform -- to “maximize access
to affordable housing, strengthen public education, create
opportunities to develop marketable job skills and build inclusive
communities.”
But is a collection of city-friendly programs
all we need from our president? David Goldberg, the former
Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer now handling communications
for Smart Growth America, argues not. The way metro regions
grow makes a huge difference, he argues. A national administration
that took time to think through the impacts of Washington’s
spending and rules and regulations could do a lot of good
-- save taxpayer dollars, insure a better economic deal for
less privileged Americans, and create more livable urban environments,
he suggests.
The savings could be gained from a “fix-it-first”
strategy -- conscious policy to shift government infrastructure
dollars, whether they’re for roads or sewers or fresh
water systems, so that they undergird places Americans already
live rather than continuing to subsidize development on farms
and open land. Not only are there brownfields and other inner-city
lands to recycle, notes Goldberg, but older suburbs contain
vast acreage of dead and dying shopping centers that could
accommodate huge amounts of growth.
Closer-in development and expanded public
transit services, he suggests, can also cut down on the long
commutes that not only pollute the air and contribute to U.S.
dependence on Middle Eastern oil but are sapping the incomes
and family time of both low-income people and increasing numbers
of middle-class teachers and public safety officers who find
they can’t afford to live in the towns where they work.
Borrowing development ideas from our great,
older neighborhoods and building more walkable, convenient
neighborhoods will also, Goldberg contends, let our kids walk
or bike to school, cut energy use, and encourage all of us
to reduce auto trips, walk more and likely start shedding
pounds in times of a serious national obesity epidemic.
Today there is a U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency arm quietly promoting smart growth practices. But EPA
rarely coordinates with today’s weak Department of Housing
and Urban Affairs, or a Transportation Department perplexed
by congressional stalemate on roads and transit funding.
So would Americans prefer a more coherent
urban/metropolitan policy? Yes, argues Goldberg, citing a
new national poll conducted for Smart Growth America and the
National Association of Realtors. It shows 86 percent of Americans
want government to fund improvements in existing communities
over new development in the countryside. Significant numbers
of us believe our communities have too little affordable low-
or moderate income housing, insufficient public transportation
or shops within walking distances, and not enough places to
walk, bike or exercise.
Even in a nation of local decision-making, Washington could
be nudging us toward coherent, dollar-wise, equitable, environmentally-friendly
directions in how we use our land and shape our communities.
The national payoff could be huge. How sad that presidential
candidates still aren’t saying so.
Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com
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