Regional conference hosts urban policy expert
Bruce Katz : New federal-local policy needed to meet today’s challenges
The United States is increasingly a “metro nation” and demands a new federal-local policy that “encourages, facilitates and supports a new kind of metro governance in the nation,” argues urban policy expert Bruce Katz.
Speaking Sept. 23 at a Regional Policy Conference in Minneapolis, Katz said America faces serious economic challenges and that “restoring national prosperity is dependent on enhancing metropolitan prosperity.”
Bruce Katz, director of the metropolitan policy program at the Brookings Institution, was the conference keynote speaker.
The nation’s top 100 metro areas encompass only 12% of the nation’s land, Katz said, but they are home to two-thirds of the nation’s population and generate 75% of our gross domestic product. They are “the engines of national prosperity.”
Katz, director of the metropolitan policy program at the Brookings Institution, was the keynote speaker at a daylong conference cosponsored by the Metropolitan Council, the McKnight Foundation and the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. The invitation-only event was attended by about 125 elected officials, civic and business leaders.
The focus of the conference was the Obama administration’s emerging urban/regional agenda and the implications for the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
“We want to know how we can best position ourselves to build on the excellent planning framework that we have all helped to shape for the Twin Cities region,” said Council Chair Peter Bell in kicking off the discussion.
Katz ticked off a long list of problems confronting the nation – among them high unemployment, stagnant wages, an aging society, widening income and educational disparities, a housing sector in shambles and “the inexorable challenge of climate change.”
“We are the world’s largest per-capita emitter of greenhouse gases,” he said. “This is not just about coal-fired power plants or lagging auto technology. Our sprawling patterns of development help explain why the U.S. continues to rank first among the world economies in per-capita carbon dioxide emissions.”
But while our metro areas are “the prime economic movers in the nation,” he said, they lack the financial resources and governmental structures needed to “address their central problems, realize their full potential and, in doing so, resolve our most pressing national challenges.”
Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell served as a moderator for the conference.
“Our local government structures cling to boundaries more suited to an 18th century township than a 21st century metropolis,” he said.
Katz indicated that the Twin Cities metro area is better positioned than most – thanks to the existence of the Met Council, a regional body with significant planning and governing powers, as well as the region’s unique tax-base sharing law.
However, he argued that the nation needs “a new federalist compact” that sets a national vision and empowers metro areas “to tailor national policies to their own realities.”
Thus far, Katz said, there are indications that President Obama “embraces this vision.” Among the signs: The establishment of a White House Office on Urban Affairs, the appointment of a “climate czar,” increased collaboration among federal agencies on key urban issues and the investment of federal stimulus dollars in “metro friendly” initiatives.
While “there is much to celebrate with the new administration,” Katz encouraged the Met Council and regional leaders to build upon their record of regional problem-solving and “help drive more extensive federal reform.”
In response, Bell said he believes the Twin Cities must continue to strike a careful balance between regional and local values, and that increased federal and state financial incentives would be helpful in fostering greater regional cooperation among local governments.
He also recommended that changes in the Council’s responsibilities or jurisdiction be made “incrementally” and "somewhat cautiously,” saying that any “big bang” approach is likely to backfire politically.
Read panelists comments on developing a regional economic vision.