By Ed Somers
July 27, 2009

Conference of Mayors President Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels joined President Barack Obama on July 13 in the White House for a meeting and press conference launching the new White House Office of Urban Affairs, led by Adolfo Carrion. Also participating for USCM was CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran.

The White House Office of Urban Affairs and Domestic Policy Council convened the daylong policy discussion on the future of urban and metropolitan communities in America. The discussion built on the Obama Administration's work over the past five months, and was intended to set the stage for the next phase of work on a new urban and metropolitan strategy for America.

Nickels has led the Conference's engagement with the Administration on developing a new metropolitan policy, having convened a meeting in Chicago for mayors with President Obama and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett during the transition period.

The focus of the conversation on July 13 was on a new metropolitan policy in which the federal government listens to local communities about what works in their regions and helps them to bring to life the best ideas from the bottom up.

The participants included leading experts in the areas of urban policy and regional development from academia, national think tanks and local communities from around the country, as well as representatives from the National Governors Association, the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities.

Also joining the discussion were cabinet members and senior Administration officials, including Housing and Urban Development Secretary Donovan, Transportation Secretary LaHood, Labor Secretary Solis, EPA Administrator Jackson, and Small Business Administrator Mills.

On the day of the announcement, Nickels and Cochran hosted a conference call for the Conference of Mayors Leadership with Carrion and David Agnew with the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. On that call, Carrion said that he would be holding a series of town meetings across the country to hear from local leaders on what should be done to help revitalize America's cities.

Carrion said that the first three cities selected are Philadelphia, Denver and Kansas City (MO), with the Philadelphia meeting taking place on July 23.

“A couple of quick acknowledgments. Where's Greg — where's Greg Nickels? There you are, Greg. Thank you so much for your participation today. “

“Now, the first thing we need to recognize is that this is not just a time of challenge for America's cities; it's also a time of great change. Even as we've seen many of our central cities continuing to grow in recent years, we've seen their suburbs and exurbs grow roughly twice as fast — that spreads homes and jobs and businesses to a broader geographic area.

“And when I spoke to The U.S. Conference of Mayors last year, I tried to hone in on this point that what I think traditionally had been seen as this divide between city and suburb, that in some ways you've seen both city and suburb now come together and recognize they can't solve their problems in isolation; they've got to pay attention to each other. And these metropolitan areas, they're home to 85 percent of our jobs and 90 percent of our economic output.

 “An early step was to appoint Adolfo Carrion as our first White House Director of Urban Affairs. And his team and he share my belief that our cities need more than just a partner — they need a partner who knows that the old ways of looking at our cities just won't do. And that's why I've directed the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, and the Office of Urban Affairs to conduct the first comprehensive interagency review in 30 years of how the federal government approaches and funds urban and metropolitan areas so that we can start having a concentrated, focused, strategic approach to federal efforts to revitalize our metropolitan areas.

“And we're also going to take a hard look at how Washington helps or hinders our cities and metro areas — from infrastructure to transportation; from housing to energy; from sustainable development to education. And we're going to make sure federal policies aren't hostile to good ideas or best practices on the local levels. We're going to put an end to throwing money at what doesn't work — and we're going to start investing in what does work and make sure that we're encouraging that.

“Now, we began to do just that with my budget proposal, which included two investments in innovative and proven strategies. I just want to mention these briefly. The first, Promise Neighborhoods, is modeled on Geoffrey Canada's successful Harlem Children's Zone. It's an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck effort that's turning around the lives of New York City's children, block by block. And what we want to do is to make grants available for communities in other cities to jumpstart their own neighborhood-level interventions that change the odds for our kids.

“The second proposal we call Choice Neighborhoods focuses on new ideas for housing in our cities by recognizing that different communities need different solutions. So instead of isolated and monolithic public housing projects that too often trap residents in a cycle of poverty and isolate them further, we want to invest in proven strategies that actually transform communities and enhance opportunity for residents and businesses alike.

“But we also need to fundamentally change the way we look at metropolitan development. For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development. And we've been keeping communities isolated when we should have been bringing them together.

“And that's why we've created a new interagency partnership on sustainable communities, led by Shaun Donovan, as well as Ray LaHood and Lisa Jackson.

“So we're off to a good start. But the truth is, is that Washington can't solve all of these problems that face our cities, and frankly, I know that cities don't expect Washington to solve all these problems. Instead of waiting for Washington, a lot of cities have already gone ahead and become their own laboratories for change and innovation, some leading the world in coming up with new ways to solve the problems of our time.

“So I know that this change is possible. After all, I'm from a city that knows a little something about reinventing itself. In the 19th century, after a cataclysmic fire, Chicagoans rebuilt stronger than before. In the last century, they led the world upward in steel and glass. And in this century, under my friend Mayor Daley's leadership, they're helping to lead the world forward in newer, greener, more livable ways.