Obama, to create new urban office, will be the first President to embrace cities in decades

[BeyondGeography]

Kinda makes sense, since this is hardly shaping up to be The Suburban Century.

Obama to Create White House Office of Urban Policy
November 12, 2008 8:59 AM

On National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" yesterday, longtime Obama family friend and Obama-Biden Transition Team co-chair Valerie Jarrett said that the President-elect would, as pledged during the campaign, create an Office of Urban Policy.

Jarrett said the office would "have a comprehensive approach to our urban development," who will be an "advocate for cities" within the White House, taking "all the variety of different federal programs and help target them in a logical and systematic way."

"For those of us who have worked in city governments across the country, we recognize how invaluable that person will be," she says.

Obama discussed this idea in June in a speech before the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami.

"Yes we need to fight poverty," he said. "Yes, we need to fight crime. Yes, we need to strengthen our cities. But we also need to stop seeing our cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution. Because strong cities are the building blocks of strong regions, and strong regions are essential for a strong America. That is the new metropolitan reality and we need a new strategy that reflects it – a strategy that’s about South Florida as much as Miami; that’s about Mesa and Scottsdale as much as Phoenix; that’s about Stamford and Northern New Jersey as much as New York City. As President, I’ll work with you to develop this kind of strategy and I’ll appoint the first White House Director of Urban Policy to help make it a reality."

- jpt

UPDATE: ABC News Polling Director Gary Langer points out that Obama lost small towns and rural areas by 8 points, won suburbs by a scant 2 points, and won cities (population 50,000+) by 28 points, 63-35 percent. (That includes a 59-39 percent margin in cities with a population of 50,000-500,000, and an even wider 70-28 percent margin in cities with more than 500,000 resident.)

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/11/obama-to-create.html

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. Cool. nt

[bunnies]

2. Cities? Meh.

Everyone knows thats not the REAL amurka. :rofl:

[Bullet1987]

3. It's about time a President focused on the deterioration of American cities

This type of attention is REALLY overdue.

[azurnoir]

4. Great news

Cities need some hugs, in my state the governor owes us a kiss.

[DrToast]

5. Fake America?

[Maven]

6. Excellent news.

[NJGeek]

7. it's about time

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. Rumor has it that Miami Mayor Manny Diaz is being considered for the position

[LisaM]

9. While I strongly support this, I don't think this is entirely fair to Bill Clinton

Who created a block grant program for cities (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-935674.html) and tried to beef up police forces. Crime rates dropped. I'm certainly not arguing that this was entirely successful (look at the presidents who bracketed him) but it's not true that this is the first time in decades anyone cared about urban matters.

[BeyondGeography]

11. Hence the use of the term "embrace"

Cities are about more than just crime, thanks very much. Clinton loves cities, too, as evidenced by his choice of workspace. But he governed in a different time and didn't have as many arguments for investing in cities that Obama now has.

Cities are efficient; they are the future in a much bigger way than the suburbs because they are not automobile-dependent. It will take many more years for Americans to understand this reality, but it's good that Obama is taking these first and much needed steps.

[LisaM]

15. I surely hope Obama succeeds

and I think he'll get more cooperation than Clinton did - a LOT more cooperation - but I just think that we need to remember that Clinton tried hard to revitalize the cities with his block grants. I have no objection to praising Obama on this. I just don't think it's the first attempt in decades.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

24. 'Cities are about more than just crime' YES! IMO Clinton's political "triangulation" reduced

his urban policy on the ground to not much more than "100,000 extra police."

Combined with "Drug free school zones" and other legislation that made the same drug crime committed in a city carry a much longer sentence than if committed elsewhere, Clinton appears to have helped accelerate massive incarceration of African-Americans that began under Reagan. Blacks now are incarcerated at rates SIX TIMES those for whites in most age groups. See http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t6332006.pdf .

Given a choice between spending a given sum of money on incarcerating their young men or on training them for jobs and simultaneusly creating jobs in housing development, healthcare, environmental cleanup, etc, wouldn't most of the people who gave Obama his biggest margins prefer shifting resources from prisons to schools, construction projects, clinics, etc?

IMO, overincarceration of Blacks is the number one urbanpolitical issue and the number one possible source of funds to carry out Obama's urban priorities. This issue was INVISIBLE to Clintonian politicians.

[Coexist]

10. I love Barack Obama.

[genna]

12. Urban development (cleanup) and suburban SPRAWL (esp. after this gas crisis)

:thumbsup:

[Aloha Spirit]

13. And this is why Republicans will still be trying to "remake" their "brand" in 2012.

[WI_DEM]

14. True, last president to really emphasize cities was LBJ

[EconomicLiberal]

26. LBJ - our last true liberal president.

Hopefully Obama is a continuation of that legacy rather than more of the same conservative "liberalism" that defined Carter and Clinton's presidency.

[political_Dem]

16. That is so great to hear. I'm glad he is doing it.

[Uzybone]

17. Cities, really? Pay attention to the driving blocks of our society and economy?

Say it ain't so Obama.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. This man is a sight for sore eyes!

:applause:

[Honeycombe8]

19. I don't see the need, altho I live in a big city. That will alienate the rurals and townsfolk. ...

But whatever. I am NOT going to start off the new administration by criticizing!

[kevin881]

20. Ask the urban planners and architects...

...the suburbs are a failed experiment. They were totally dependent on the automobile.
European cities have no suburbs.

[MadMaddie]

21. This is a good idea but he shouldn't stop there

I have been thinking about this for awhile...we need a program that goes into all of the states that are experiencing dying farm towns and we should revitalize them. We should encourage people who are in the cities who are willing to start lives elsewhere to move and work and live in those communities. If they want to be farmers then they can get trained, if they want to help lay fiberoptics to get these towns on the grids that would be something they could do.

We need to be able to grow enough food to support our citizens withought relying on tainted imports.

We have to revitalize the urban and the rural areas. Rural America and Urban America are vital to a healthy United States.

[BeyondGeography]

23. Agreed...more planning generally would be a healthy thing

Small towns with walkable commercial centers surrounded by farmland need to be an integral part of our future. Cheap energy created a lot of ugly, unliveable places in this country and killed ways of life that we were justifiably fond of. I hope this makes it onto Obama's radar screen as well; it's good policy and and good politics.

[Telly Savalas]

22. As a resident of Kansas City, I'm delighted by this.

We need people in government that care about our cities, and since in Kansas City our municipal government is more concerned with petty infighting than getting shit done, we need to find an advocate somewhere.

[opihimoimoi]

25. Incipient Stage of Mega Cities 3 .......

[johnnyrocket]

27. What a concept, since MOST PEOPLE LIVE IN CITIES!!

It's about fucking time.