Building an Obama urban agenda - PD Opinion - cleveland.com - The Diigo Meta page

• 22 Nov 08
  

  Yule Heibel

  Cleveland Plain Dealer blog entry about Carol Coletta's visit to Cleveland to speak at the annual meeting of University Circle, Inc.

  cleveland.com carol_coletta ceos_for_cities cities urbanism

  • she thinks Barack Obama will be good for urban America.
    
    

    
    
    

    "I think he has an urban sensitivity -- an urban sensitivity based on working to make things happen in some of the most devastated neighborhoods in Chicago," said Coletta. "He knows what works. He understands the scams. He's no bleeding heart."

  • Coletta said she's hoping for three pillars to an Obama urban agenda:
  • 4 more annotations...
  • • Infrastructure. A hot item because it can be the centerpiece of a stimulus package, Coletta hopes the emphasis of any spending on roads, bridges and sewers would be "fix it first." That is, repair what already exists in cities rather than build new or wider expressways out of town. "We need to extract value out of what we've already invested in," said Coletta.
    • Transportation policy. Coletta hopes Washington will emphasize mass transit, encourage wiser land use and stop urban sprawl. And with her, it's not simply about the environment. Density, Coletta says, drives productivity. That's because modern knowledge economies thrive when creative people, the types who tend to congregate in cities, effortlessly interact and share ideas. "You need to think about how to enable those happy accidents," she said.
    • Education. There's no better predictor of a city's or a region's economic performance than its level of educational attainment, in particular its percentage of college graduates. That's a lesson Cleveland has learned the hard way. Obama, during his campaign, called for a $4,000 college tuition tax credit. That would help open college doors to thousands of extra students, and cities would disproportionately benefit. "If you're trying to encourage economic development," said Coletta, "that's the lowest hanging fruit."
    • Coletta says it's important that when urban leaders nudge the White House, they go with solutions in hand -- not with hands out.

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