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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Revolt of the Cities
The Revolt of the Cities
During the past 20 years, immigrants and young people have transformed the demographics of urban America. Now, theyre transforming its politics and mapping the future of liberalism.
Harold Meyerson
Pittsburgh is the perfect urban laboratory, says Bill Peduto, the citys new mayor. Were small enough to be able to do things and large enough for people to take notice. More than its size, however, its Pittsburghs new governmentPeduto and the five like-minded progressives who now constitute a majority on its city councilthat is turning the city into a laboratory of democracy. In his first hundred days as mayor, Peduto has sought funding to establish universal pre-K education and partnered with a Swedish sustainable-technology fund to build four major developments with low carbon footprints and abundant affordable housing. Even before he became mayor, while still a council member, he steered to passage ordinances that mandated prevailing wages for employees on any project that received city funding and required local hiring for the jobs in the Pittsburgh Penguins new arena. He authored the citys responsible-banking law, which directed government funds to those banks that lent in poor neighborhoods and away from those that didnt.
<...>
Peduto, who is 49 years old, sees improving the lot of Pittsburghs new working class as his primary charge. In his city hall office, surrounded by such artifacts as a radio cabinet from the years when the city became home to the worlds first radio station, the new mayor outlined the task before him. My grandfather, Sam Zarroli, came over in 1921 from Abruzzo, he said. He only had a second-grade education, but he was active in the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in its early years, and he made a good life for himself and his family. My challenge in todays economy is how to get good jobs for people with no PhDs but with a good work ethic and GEDs. How do I get them the same kind of opportunities my grandfather had? All the mayors elected last year are asking this question.
They are indeed. The mayoral and council class of 2013 is one of the most progressive cohorts of elected officials in recent American history. In one major city after another, newly elected officials are planning to raise the minimum wage or enact ordinances boosting wages in developments that have received city assistance. They are drafting legislation to require inner-city hiring on major projects and foster unionization in hotels, stores, and trucking. They are seeking the funds to establish universal pre-K and other programs for infants and toddlers. They are sketching the layout of new transit lines that will bring jobs and denser development to neighborhoods both poor and middle-class and reduce traffic and pollution in the bargain. They areif they havent done so alreadyforbidding their police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in the deportation of undocumented immigrants not convicted of felonies and requiring their police to have video or audio records of their encounters with the public. They are, in short, enacting at the municipal level many of the major policy changes that progressives have found themselves unable to enact at the federal and state levels. They also may be charting a new course for American liberalism.
New Yorks Mayor Bill de Blasio has dominated the national press corps coverage of the new urban liberalism. His battles to establish citywide pre-K (successful but not funded, as he wished, by a dedicated tax on the wealthy), expand paid sick days (also successful), raise the minimum wage (blocked by the governor and legislature), and reform the police departments stop-and-frisk policy (by dropping an appeal of a court order) have been extensively chronicled. But de Blasio is just one of a host of mayors elected last year who campaigned and now govern with similar populist agendas. The list also includes Pittsburghs Peduto, Minneapoliss Betsy Hodges, Seattles Ed Murray, Bostons Martin Walsh, Santa Fes Javier Gonzales...We all ran on similar platforms, Peduto says. There wasnt communication among us. It just emerged organically that way. We all faced the reality of growing disparities. The population beneath the poverty line is increasing everywhere. A lot of us were underdogs, populists, reformers, and the public was ready for us.
- more -
http://prospect.org/article/revolt-cities
During the past 20 years, immigrants and young people have transformed the demographics of urban America. Now, theyre transforming its politics and mapping the future of liberalism.
Harold Meyerson
Pittsburgh is the perfect urban laboratory, says Bill Peduto, the citys new mayor. Were small enough to be able to do things and large enough for people to take notice. More than its size, however, its Pittsburghs new governmentPeduto and the five like-minded progressives who now constitute a majority on its city councilthat is turning the city into a laboratory of democracy. In his first hundred days as mayor, Peduto has sought funding to establish universal pre-K education and partnered with a Swedish sustainable-technology fund to build four major developments with low carbon footprints and abundant affordable housing. Even before he became mayor, while still a council member, he steered to passage ordinances that mandated prevailing wages for employees on any project that received city funding and required local hiring for the jobs in the Pittsburgh Penguins new arena. He authored the citys responsible-banking law, which directed government funds to those banks that lent in poor neighborhoods and away from those that didnt.
<...>
Peduto, who is 49 years old, sees improving the lot of Pittsburghs new working class as his primary charge. In his city hall office, surrounded by such artifacts as a radio cabinet from the years when the city became home to the worlds first radio station, the new mayor outlined the task before him. My grandfather, Sam Zarroli, came over in 1921 from Abruzzo, he said. He only had a second-grade education, but he was active in the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in its early years, and he made a good life for himself and his family. My challenge in todays economy is how to get good jobs for people with no PhDs but with a good work ethic and GEDs. How do I get them the same kind of opportunities my grandfather had? All the mayors elected last year are asking this question.
They are indeed. The mayoral and council class of 2013 is one of the most progressive cohorts of elected officials in recent American history. In one major city after another, newly elected officials are planning to raise the minimum wage or enact ordinances boosting wages in developments that have received city assistance. They are drafting legislation to require inner-city hiring on major projects and foster unionization in hotels, stores, and trucking. They are seeking the funds to establish universal pre-K and other programs for infants and toddlers. They are sketching the layout of new transit lines that will bring jobs and denser development to neighborhoods both poor and middle-class and reduce traffic and pollution in the bargain. They areif they havent done so alreadyforbidding their police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in the deportation of undocumented immigrants not convicted of felonies and requiring their police to have video or audio records of their encounters with the public. They are, in short, enacting at the municipal level many of the major policy changes that progressives have found themselves unable to enact at the federal and state levels. They also may be charting a new course for American liberalism.
New Yorks Mayor Bill de Blasio has dominated the national press corps coverage of the new urban liberalism. His battles to establish citywide pre-K (successful but not funded, as he wished, by a dedicated tax on the wealthy), expand paid sick days (also successful), raise the minimum wage (blocked by the governor and legislature), and reform the police departments stop-and-frisk policy (by dropping an appeal of a court order) have been extensively chronicled. But de Blasio is just one of a host of mayors elected last year who campaigned and now govern with similar populist agendas. The list also includes Pittsburghs Peduto, Minneapoliss Betsy Hodges, Seattles Ed Murray, Bostons Martin Walsh, Santa Fes Javier Gonzales...We all ran on similar platforms, Peduto says. There wasnt communication among us. It just emerged organically that way. We all faced the reality of growing disparities. The population beneath the poverty line is increasing everywhere. A lot of us were underdogs, populists, reformers, and the public was ready for us.
- more -
http://prospect.org/article/revolt-cities
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The Revolt of the Cities (Original Post)
ProSense
Apr 2014
OP
ProSense
(116,464 posts)1. Kick for
a fascinating read.
Shortly after Novembers city elections, President Obama invited 16 of the newly elected progressive mayors to a meeting at the White House. Peduto, Hodges, Murray, and de Blasio were among those who attended. Obama talked about his proposal for universal pre-K, which was languishing in Congress. At the federal level, it would obviously take some time to get such a measure enacted, Obama continued, or he could find 20 innovative mayors and get it done tomorrow. Provided they can scrape up the dollars...Whats happening in cities can be described as Obamas agenda trickling down to the jurisdictions where it has enough political support to be enactedbut its also the incubation of policies and practices that will trickle up...
sheshe2
(83,728 posts)2. Kicking on my way out the door...
will read the rest tonight!
Thanks~
ProSense
(116,464 posts)3. Thanks. n/t
Peacetrain
(22,874 posts)4. Since most of our population lives in cities.. all I can say is YEAH!!!!
This is good for us..
"This is good for us. "
...it is. One can see it in Seattle's push to increase the minimum wage and in New York's efforts led by Bill de Blasio.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stays on offense
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
<...>
(New York Mayor Bill) de Blasio offers no apologies for waging war on economic inequality, for taking his time in making key appointments or for riling advocates of charter schools. Hell concede errors of presentation, pointing out that he renewed a substantial majority of charter school arrangements even as his opponents grabbed national attention by casting him as an enemy to them all. His biggest mistake, he said, was in underestimating the extraordinary level of opposition to change.
If youre fighting inequality, if youre talking about income inequality and other structural inequalities in this society, a lot of people take exception to that, he said in an interview last week in his City Hall office, whose centerpiece is the desk used by Fiorello La Guardia, the legendary New Deal-era mayor, and we did not foresee some of it manifesting the way it did.
<...>
A lot rides on de Blasio, the best-known of a wave of unabashedly progressive mayors who won election last year, including Betsy Hodges in Minneapolis, Marty Walsh in Boston and Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles.
Local progressivism, an old American tradition, went out of style because the assumption in the 1960s and 70s, as de Blasio said, was that the federal government was a great agent of progressive social change and because its not easy.
Making social change in one local setting, or fighting inequality in one local setting, he said, is: one, hard; two, engenders lots of opposition; three, by definition is imperfect because so much of what should be happening should be happening on the state level and more profoundly at the federal level.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-new-york-city-mayor-bill-de-blasio-stays-on-offense/2014/04/20/d89a0f02-c72e-11e3-8b9a-8e0977a24aeb_story.html
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
<...>
(New York Mayor Bill) de Blasio offers no apologies for waging war on economic inequality, for taking his time in making key appointments or for riling advocates of charter schools. Hell concede errors of presentation, pointing out that he renewed a substantial majority of charter school arrangements even as his opponents grabbed national attention by casting him as an enemy to them all. His biggest mistake, he said, was in underestimating the extraordinary level of opposition to change.
If youre fighting inequality, if youre talking about income inequality and other structural inequalities in this society, a lot of people take exception to that, he said in an interview last week in his City Hall office, whose centerpiece is the desk used by Fiorello La Guardia, the legendary New Deal-era mayor, and we did not foresee some of it manifesting the way it did.
<...>
A lot rides on de Blasio, the best-known of a wave of unabashedly progressive mayors who won election last year, including Betsy Hodges in Minneapolis, Marty Walsh in Boston and Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles.
Local progressivism, an old American tradition, went out of style because the assumption in the 1960s and 70s, as de Blasio said, was that the federal government was a great agent of progressive social change and because its not easy.
Making social change in one local setting, or fighting inequality in one local setting, he said, is: one, hard; two, engenders lots of opposition; three, by definition is imperfect because so much of what should be happening should be happening on the state level and more profoundly at the federal level.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-new-york-city-mayor-bill-de-blasio-stays-on-offense/2014/04/20/d89a0f02-c72e-11e3-8b9a-8e0977a24aeb_story.html
These cities can help to lead the way, not only in their respective states, but also in other cities and states. That's because much of the debate is now national, and it's a good strategy to support these initiatives at every level.
Two states (Connecticut, Maryland) have raised the minimum wage to $10.10, and Vermont is on the verge.
Statement by the President on Maryland's minimum wage increase
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024791544
Senate picks up minimum wage
http://vtdigger.org/2014/04/09/senate-picks-minimum-wage-bill/
Peacetrain
(22,874 posts)8. Kicking this back up for a GREAT read
ProSense
(116,464 posts)9. Thanks. Here's an article on
the mayor of Houston:
Houston Mayor Introduces Sweeping Human Rights Ordinance
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024856239
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)5. Thanks, bookmarked for later. n/t
ProSense
(116,464 posts)6. You're welcome. n/t
ProSense
(116,464 posts)10. Another. n/t
freshwest
(53,661 posts)11. Fabulous piece on how we take the country back from the Koches. This will work. Thanks, PS. n/t
ProSense
(116,464 posts)12. You're welcome.
It's a great piece, and it illustrates why people need to vote.