In a recent article in the Jan. 26th issue of Newsweek, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley of the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program argue that America's urban challenges - and opportunities - have crossed city lines and migrated into the suburbs. Our suburbs, they say, now provide more jobs than cities, and have more immigrants. This means that suburbs share, in many ways, the city's traditional role as a job and economic development engine for the metro region.
Katz and Bradley write: "America can't ensure its leading place in the global economy unless we grapple with the problems and opportunities of our suburbs ... suburban governments are being flattened by the housing crisis - they don't have the experience or the capacity to slow the tide of foreclosures or deal with neighborhoods strafed by vacancies."
They argue that the federal government should use "some of the billions in recovery funding to help local governments buy up foreclosed properties and put that land in productive use ... policies need to treat metropolitan areas as a whole."
Katz and Bradley recommend the following:
- Support for regional clusters of high-tech industries and other sectors, which don't gather neatly in one municipality or another
- Creation of walk-able communities and additional public transit to link people in the suburbs with other communities and cities within the metro region
President Barack Obama has argued against an "outdated 'urban' agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities, and ignores our growing metro areas."
These policy recommendations offer a vision of what's next for America's cities, and have particular relevance for Northeast Ohio, due to the fragmented nature of municipalities within our region, as well as current efforts towards fostering a more efficient, competitive economy in our region.
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