A Recovery... Or a Reinvention?

America is in a hole.

In the gravest threat to our economy since the Great Depression, we are facing rising unemployment; soaring food, energy, and health care costs; growing debts; a shrinking middle class; and widening inequality. To help us climb out, President-elect Barack Obama plans to craft a $700 billion recovery package, with about two-thirds of that spent on infrastructure projects. This is promising, to be sure, but we need even more.

If we do this right, the Obama administration's stimulus package can lay the groundwork for a healthier and more prosperous nation, not just in the months ahead, but for generations to come. Big problems require big, bold solutions and this crisis requires nothing less than the re-imagining of the American city. Let me explain: for decades, public policy has been to pour money into new highways to far-off suburbs, enabling even more sprawl and making us even more dependent on our cars. That kind of thinking is a non-starter. America needs smarter, more targeted spending (in people, places, and projects) that gets a solid return on our investment and actually strengthens communities too often left behind.

But how do we do that?

First, we need to invest where people live. More than two-thirds of Americans -- including the vast majority of the nation's poor -- live in the top 100 metro areas. These major cities and the older, inner-ring suburbs that surround them are the economic and social engines of the nation. We get the best return on our investment by focusing our efforts on these urban areas, rebuilding their transit systems, schools, and even sewers, and preparing their workforce for a global economy that increasingly values technological know -- how more than broad shoulders.

When we invest in public transit, we connect working families to the good jobs they need.

When we lay new broadband lines in poor communities, we can virtually overnight make competitive waves of entrepreneurs and small-business owners who have been cut off from the digital revolution.

When we encourage the opening of new grocery stores in communities abandoned long ago by big, chain retailers, we put people to work, improve their health, increase their energy, productivity, and life expectancy, and revive lethargic labor markets.

And when we break ground on any construction project, we can set aside one or two percent of the cost to create job training programs. Developing a pipeline of ready and able workers is vital -- and a wonderful chance to expand opportunity for low-income young people.

But none of this will happen if we spend the stimulus money the same way we've been doing for years.

We need to make this chance count. This is not altruism but good public policy. Smart, targeted infrastructure projects are precisely the stimulus we need to help millions of Americans realize their potential, contribute to our nation's economic output, and raise the next generation to do the same.

Comments

[budderbean]

Got that right! I live in an area that surrounding the burbs. A 5 lane road goes right in front of our place. 5 blocks away is a 6 lane freeway with 3 lanes of access road on either side. The neighborhood that I am in has a population of 20.000 But you have to walk 5 blocks and risk your life to get to the bus stop.. Then the bus come every 45 minutes. GOD , It's crazy.. I think one of the investments is in renovating the way we deal with the flow of traffic in out cities.

That would one of the best way's to build infrastructure and create green job's would be to look at the way we deal with transportation. Especially traffic signals. Just think about it. Public support would be behind changing the way our traffic signal change along our daily commute. You know, traffic flow. With the technologies we have today it seems that if we can build a device that will take your picture and issue you a ticket, We should be able to install a device that can see that you are sitting their waiting at a red light and you are wasting gas.

[joebiz]

The Stimulus plan has ballooned to 850 Billion . . . did you anticipate this? If the taxpayer, the little guy who pays taxes, is supposed to foot the bill for thes projects, doens't it make sense to invest those dollars where the greatest economic need exists? Namely, in the places that have the specific need for their communities, those places that are the "loudest" in demanding these funds. The sqeeky wheels get the grease. Unfortunately, it's a top down system, not bottom up.

[NCRedhead]

Amen to 95% of this post, but I do think that some smaller towns and suburban areas also are a wise investment. Some metro areas are built out and people are moving back to smaller towns for many reasons. I think at least some small % should go to non-metro areas. But, I completely agree on the general premise here as the way out of the mess.

[orangepetal]

Pardon me. Is this the plan?

[obamagirl1968]

I agree that this is the time to invest smartly in a 21st century and beyond way of doing things. Reinvestment in urban areas is critical. Arts, entertainment and business are critical growth engines that are concentrated in the cities. Smarter public transit to the suburbs and exurbs is where the infrastructure investments need to be concentrated.

[jhNY]

When the overclass pulls off the big swindle and covers its doings by setting fires to everything on their way out, it is only natural that their victims will cast about for reasonable approaches to the burning edifice in which they had hoped to live out their days. At first, the heat is too intense, so they stand back and watch the blaze from a safe distance. Then they get the hoses and try to put out the fire, though its source remains elusive and often obscured by thick smoke. After a while, what they see before them is a dripping black wreck of twisted structural materials and char. Most will want to move back in. But ecventually, some of the victims will realize that the edifice and its contents are a total loss.

The capitalist system is institutionalized cruelty, a system requiring inequalities of opportunity and unequal distribution of reward. And now its burnt. The USA needs to start over. All over. And first thing on the agenda should not be jobs, which implies an overclass of employers, but the equitable distribution of wealth.

[Henry]

Angela,
When you think about it, the concentration of people in metro areas happens to be a significant part of the problem. This concentration was a problem for Enron, a problem for Citi. Put simply they are too big. It is about time to think about a population that does not live under-sea-level, on land that costs $1000000 plus per acre, and so crowed that it sheds its less fortunate in desparate out-of-sight ghettos. The economy is really about the production of food clothing and shelter. The second levels are trasportation, medical, and entertainment. The notion of economy of scale to argue for this moronic concentration has long since been passed. It should start with the government and be taken up by corporate boards. The capital of this country, for example should be build in Kansas with high speed rail and transit to the all directions. It needs to start some time. Wall Street, the decadent and corrupt Wall Street and Major Leeage baseball also need to be broken up. etc etc...

[jhNY]

The problem with Citi is a corporate culture of opportunistic greed bordering on, if not encompassing, theft; the problem with Enron is that it was a swindle dressed up in the trappings of a corporation.

The concentration of the population in urban areas is a fact; your solutions, if any, are a myth. The capital is still located close to where most people in th US presently live. The middle of Kansas, meanwhile, is close to very few people, including some Kansans. The economy of scale will not be diminished in fact by your pronouncements as to its moronic application, in that it still applies to the American population as it is actually distributed. And nowadays, what will be taken up by most corporate boards will be the intricacies of a bankruptcy filing which allows executives to keep their golden parachutes while the taxpayers are left with their debts. Believe me, that leaves but scant time for your thoughts about the future, if any.

[PATina]

I agree. The best way to get this economy on track is the creation of jobs that pay living wages. But money will still need to be spent in rural areas as well. there are people in those communities that also could use broadband access... not to mention a high speed rail system would connect the rural ares to the urban and suburban areas (and vice versa).