NewGeography.com blogs

You don’t have to believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be vice-President, much less President - I certainly don’t - to understand that her nomination has unsettled many people in our big metropolitan centers. The very idea that a former Alaskan small town Mayor being selected for such high office has elicited an outpouring of scorn towards micropolitan and small town America.

One prominent recent example is the article by Jennifer Bradly and Bruce Katz entitled “Village Idiocy” published in the Oct. 8 issue of the New Republic. Bruce, who is a very influential figure in urban policy circles, finds praise for small town values an “understandable fantasy.”

In reality most Americans, as he points out, live in big metro areas. That’s the level where Brookings, and most of our leading policy commentators, believe political power and decision-making should be concentrated - when Washington is not the preferred option.

Yet Bruce and other compulsive centralizers forget that over one-third of Americans still would like to live in small towns or the countryside – roughly twice as many who want to live in his beloved, high-density cities. Migration patterns show that Americans are moving, on net, more to mid-sized and smaller cities, and within the metropolitan areas, away from the central cities. If the benefits of small town living is a “fantasy,” it’s a widely shared one.

Even residents of metropolitan areas often regard themselves as residents of their local town or neighborhood. Most local governments remain small-scale, particularly in the vast suburban hinterlands.

Few residents of greater Los Angeles, for example, feel an emotional allegiance to the “region,” much less than shadowy Southern California Association of Governments. Instead we identify with Irvine or Burbank, Riverside or Ontario. Even those of us who live within the borders of the city of Los Angeles, tend to consider ourselves residents of Valley Village, Leimart Park, Koreatown or Highland Park. If anything has gotten strong in LA over the past three decades, it’s identification with neighborhoods.

Katz and many of his regionalist colleagues would prefer that all of us look to some centralized regional authority for leadership and inspiration. Although regional organizations have their place, the notion of local control will continue to possess great appeal. Even the nomination of Sarah Palin won’t change that.

Many of you might know I am a bit of a Houston fan. It's not that they don't have zoning --- I am neutral on that issue --- but because they have heart. I was privileged to see Houstonians open themselves to 250,000 or more mostly poor and minority evacuees from Louisiana after Katrina. It was an inspiring effort and very ecumenical, led largely by evangelical Christians but including Jews, Muslims, Catholics and anyone else who gave down.

Now, after Ike, they are taking care of their own, as we can see from a message from Elliot Gershenson to Jeff Mosley (listed at the bottom) at the Greater Houston partnership.

A lot of cities may be prettier or have better weather than Houston, but in terms of helping neighbors, no big city is better. As Davis Henderson, CEO of the Greater Houston Chapter of the American Red Cross, told me after Katrina, “Who else would have adopted another city like we adopted New Orleans?” Henderson previously oversaw Red Cross operations in Tampa and Chicago. ”In Houston,” he adds, “a neighbor is a neighbor --- not a competitor.”

Urban greatness has many facets, but if I was to pick one, the kind of generosity of spirit Houston has showed would be at the top of my list.

Here's the full letter:

Like so many non-profits, IM has been out of power but still kept going, serving the community. It's hard to believe that it is possible to serve so many seniors and refugees without computer power and phone service, but somehow we have done so. Just as so many other first-responder organizations like the Red Cross, Salvation Army and government agencies like the City of Houston, Harris County and FEMA have stepped up. We'll likely hear stories about failed efforts, but the true heart and guts of our city needs to be recognized. There are so many stories of bravery, dedication and pure visionary action that are worthy of telling.

There's the story of dozens of churches and other faith groups who have been housing evacuees from Galveston and other places in their gyms and sanctuaries - providing food, shelter and clothing. Much of these expenses will be borne by them. Certainly the time and talent of their core volunteers and staff is being diverted from other programs - all because the people of Houston are heroes.

There's the story about crime - not the one we would expect - but how low the crime statistics have been.

People in Houston have learned how to drive! Somehow, with all those lights out, people have slowed down and let the other guy take a turn.

I keep hearing that people connected with their neighbors, many for the first time. And now as the electricity is coming back on and the garage openers begin working again, it feels like we're losing something very special.

I learned about one church's senior pastor who received a phone call from someone he didn't know living back east. The caller said they could not find their elderly parents and were desperate to find out if they were ok. So this pastor got in his car late that night, with a load of food, water and ice and drove across town to find the parents. He drove up to the house and knocked on the door. They were fine, but without electricity or phone, so he called their kids on his cell phone and said "here, someone wants to talk to you." After the call the parents said they didn't need anything but across the street there was someone who really looked like he did. So the pastor gave all of his food, water and ice to the neighbor. The next day he came back with more food and water only to find that the neighbor had distributed what he received the night before to his neighbors. The church volunteers returned each day until the electricity came back.

The president of my synagogue bought Sabbath dinner for 1,250 families who he thought might need a kosher meal. In the end a number of synagogues and the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston backed him up so that he did not need to take this financial burden on his own. Only about 500 families came forward to receive these meals, so in the end he and my synagogue donated enough food to the Houston Food Bank and the Jewish Community Center to feed 700 families and seniors.

I could go on - but I think you already know what I am talking about. You've likely witnessed this yourself and have been amazed by the grace that has been shown by Houston and all of our leadership.

On that note (about leadership), please let me make a special appeal. Normally this would have been the Tuesday Memo when I showcase the annual United Way campaign which just began. IM is proud to be a significant recipient of United Way funding and we use these funds to serve well over 1,000,000 meals to seniors each year, to make the resettlement of hundreds of refugees the best we know how, and to support our Ready Houston! disaster preparedness and response activities (which has been in full swing these past two weeks).

My focus always is on the community building elements of the campaign. I have been quoted as saying that if someone gave Houston $1 billion dollars NOT to run an annual campaign, if I were the United Way Board Chair I would turn it down. Not because I am foolish, but because I believe, as important as the money raised is, it is equal䁥

There is no city I am aware of that seems to have the amount of parks and green space it wants. This paucity is particularly glaring when it comes to parks for children and most prevalent in large, dense urban areas. And this is why non-profits like San Francisco's City Fields Foundation are stepping in to upgrade existing parks because public funds are not available in the quantities demanded by the public.

On Saturday in San Francisco, the group held a ribbon-cutting for three refurbished soccer fields in the Crocker-Amazon neighborhood. The new fields will add approximately 12,358 hours of playtime on the soccer fields per year.

In Great Britain, the National Playing Fields Association has been doing this for over 70 years. Just goes to remind you, that when it comes to building any sort of infrastructure, there seems to be a great organizational advantage to having some sort of centralized body.

America, the world's most advanced continental nation, could be on the verge of a great resurgence, much of it based in regions largely unacknowledged by many pundits, academics and the media. What is needed now is an infrastructure strategy to make it happen.

So say New Geography contributors Delore Zimmerman and Joel Kotkin in recently released white paper proposing a new method of infrastructure financing for the heartland of America: a Heartland Development Bank.

In order to capitalize on emerging economic opportunities and to rebuild America's productive capacity in energy, agriculture and manufacturing enterprises we propose the creation of the Heartland Development Bank. The Bank is envisioned as a $10 to $25 billion source of financing for infrastructure development projects. The Bank would serve as a lead lender on projects of economic significance in the Heartland and leverage considerable co-investment from the private and public sectors.

Delore and Joel recently led a round table discussion on financing heartland infrastructure. The discussion is available on Youtube, or check out the case laid out in the policy paper.

Michael Lind of the New America Foundation has just published an excellent and inspiring article in Democracy Journal about the need for a new financial and physical infrastructure.

"One of the goals of reforming and regulating finance is to ensure that American industry and American infrastructure have access to the private and public investment they need," Lind writes. "Industry, infrastructure, and finance form a system—an American System. And a new American system, well-designed and well-implemented, will be crucial in revitalizing American economic prosperity in the twenty-first century."

Lind talks about previous "American systems" of finance and organization that were adopted over time to adjust to the economic realities of the age and how today, we are in dire need of creating a new system that reacts to the new realities we face.

Some of these ideas include the creation of a National Investment Corporation and a National Research & Development Bank and the creation of a Department of Infrastructure that merges some of the transportation agencies together. These are bold ideas explained in clear prose with illuminating historical examples.

Many of his ideas lend themselves towards centralization and thus remind me of the New Deal a bit. The existence of the Works Progress Administration and the Public Works Administration was one of the rare times in American history when infrastructure finance was centralized. It was also one of the most prolific times in our history for the construction of vital and long lasting public infrastructure that still stands today.