The List - where to put our stimulus (Reprint)
Imagine a $1 trillion stimulus program that wasn’t laden with pork. Imagine a program that ended decades of sprawl and decline. Imagine investing in the cities that built America, the cities that have lost jobs and population for the past 30 years. Imagine developing a program that could reverse that trend and create a new triple bottom line of sustainable economic growth, investment in built environments and opportunity for all.
That would be some program.
Now stop imagining.
This year, Congress will have the responsibility — the opportunity — to decide how to spend nearly $1 trillion in a stimulus plan. It will also be making one of the most critical decisions on the fate of older cities, suburbs and small towns in our lifetime.
Difficult choices will need to be made. These choices will determine whether we continue on a path of urban decay and the continued development of our remaining open spaces — or if we begin a new vision of revitalizing Pittsburgh and the other cities that are the keystone of our heritage.
We must focus on “fixing it first.” Existing infrastructure must be given priority over the building of new highways and new real estate developments.
With population loss and high taxes, we do not have the ability to pay for new. We need to modernize what we have.
Constructing new and losing population is a death spiral for a region, leading us to higher taxes that we simply can’t afford. We need to make strategic investments in public transportation and rail systems that can open up access to jobs in developed areas while reducing the need of vehicle miles traveled.
We need to focus on programs to rehabilitate and make energy efficient existing and historic structures. We must train our workers, from the GED to the Ph.D., for the new green jobs that will come with these types of investments. A new, worldwide, trillion-dollar industry of product manufacturing, research and construction is arriving with new standards of green building.
Pittsburgh has the research, development and manufacturing capabilities to be a global leader in this new industry — if we invest wisely.
We must use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address our aging combined sewer overflows that spill pollution and raw sewage into our waterways. Together with our poor air quality, these are the critical barriers that keep new-economy industries from locating here.
Lastly, we need to invest in communities that have struggled with abandoned and vacant properties — structures that continue to pull down the value of housing and cause residents to abandon once thriving neighborhoods.
By doing all these things, we have a chance to revitalize once great cities like Pittsburgh and give them a chance to compete in a 21st-century economy.
The stimulus program must invests in three key areas: 1) housing, 2) transportation and public infrastructure and 3) economic and workforce development. That’s how we can create sustainable and inclusive economic growth. If we squander this opportunity, we may never have the resources to modernize our aging cities and will forever keep them at a national and global disadvantage.
So how can the stimulus program be developed in order to encourage sound investment?
I have been involved with a group of more than 50 organizations and individuals working to create a “New American Resolution” to end sprawl and decline. These groups have been on the front line of revitalizing older cities and their network has grown.
Last month, we sent to the leaders of Congress a detailed plan for the stimulus package. A summary of the main points is presented here.
The complete plan and details on the group can be found on my City Council Web site: www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/district8
Neighborhood Stabilization and HOME Program: Too many communities need help to deal with foreclosures and abandoned properties. These programs include match funds for communities to build, buy and/or rehabilitate affordable housing. All funding should require the greening of rehabilitated properties as part of their program.
Green Funds for Transit Oriented Housing: Under this program, rental properties near public transportation would be eligible to receive funds. Seniors and low-income families would benefit. According to the National Housing Trust, 90,000 green jobs would be created.
Increase Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit and Historic Preservation Fund: An increase from 20 percent to 40 percent for small “Main Street Projects” would help revitalize our forgotten neighborhood business districts. In addition, an increase from 20 to 26 percent for all other certified historic structures will help preserve our history and our heritage. Finally, a change to the Home Energy Assistance program for historic properties would help guarantee the long term security of our treasured past.
Invest in State Rehab Tax Credit Program: State deficiencies have backlogged projects that could have been instrumental in revitalizing neighborhoods. Current economic conditions have made this even worse. Federal funds would generate a significant number of jobs and provide a needed stimulus in all communities.
Repair Crumbling Bridges: Pennsylvania leads the nation in bridges in disrepair and we don’t have the money to fix them. Also, funds need to be spent to modernize existing highways and increase multi-modal accessibility on roadways. A modest proposal to upgrade and centrally manage all of the traffic signals in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan region would do more for traffic congestion than building any proposed roadway.
Fund Transit: Additional funding is needed for section 5309, Title 49 Program for immediate new transit investment and expansion of all transit options for more communities without shovel-ready projects. Additional funding could assist in rail relocation and improvement projects including the creation of a commuter rail line for Pittsburgh and our region. Other states have already documented needs for transit funding that would create over 80,000 jobs.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Facilities: Funding is needed to connect transportation networks, improve safety and encourage the least-cost transportation options. Pittsburgh lags behind almost every other city in pedestrian and bike options and safety.
Water and Wastewater Infrastructure: Older communities have been left with the legacy costs of an antiquated water system. The cost to repair it exceeds the tax base. Funds should be made available to bring systems with combined sewer overflow violations into compliance and promote source water protection and availability. No one wants to live or work in a region with dirty air or dirty water.
Increased Community Development Block Grants: Programs could be created for the renovation of public facilities, the improvement of streets and neighborhood centers, the adaptive reuse of our older, historic schools, the installation of energy conservation to public property including LED street lights and the development of renewable energy options such as wind and water turbines and solar energy projects. Without federal assistance and local prioritization our public infrastructure will continue to crumble and needed green investments that could lower costs will never be recognized.
School Modernization: The stimulus program should target funds to repair, modernize and green our older school buildings. Funds should be used to improve energy efficiency, equip them with first-class technology and revitalize them for another generation. We should never have to close a school because it costs too much to renovate; that decision should be made only for academic reasons.
Focus toward Private Sector: Public infrastructure improvements should assist private sector industries to carry out economic development and job creation/retention. Emphasis should be given to industry clusters with the ability to have the greatest multiplier effect on good jobs and should avoid real estate development or retail activities.
EPA Brownfields Program: Allocations are needed to fund all of the qualified applications for EPA Brownfields Cleanup and Site Assessment programs. Some 25,000 jobs would be created nationally and they would be in areas where the need is the greatest — in census tracts with double the national poverty rate.
New Market Tax Credits: According to the U.S. Treasury, under the New Market Tax Credits program for every $1 of federal tax revenues, $14 of private sector investment is leveraged. Assuming jobs are created averaging the rate through 2007, an additional $1.5 billion would create over 40,000 jobs nationally primarily in areas like Pittsburgh.
Job Training: To fill the increased demand of skilled workers generated by investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy and manufacturing, additional funds would be needed under the Green Jobs Act of 2007. This would authorize new workforce development funds to national and state training programs, which could help to spur an entire new industry in the Pittsburgh region.
Community Outreach Partnership Centers: Pittsburgh is fortunate to have several universities within our borders. COPCs would help colleges and universities apply their resources to the challenge of revitalizing distressed communities. A University of Pittsburgh partnership could be expanded to assist neighborhoods with at least three of the following issues: housing, infrastructure, economic development, neighborhood revitalization, health care, crime or planning. Other programs could be created with other universities.
The Economic Development Administration’s University Centers: This program would provide funding to higher-education institutions for the support of local and regional economic development. Centers generally undertake three broad categories of activity: direct technical assistance to clients, applied research, and information dissemination. It leverages staff, students, facilities, research capabilities and other university resources to economic development organizations or individual businesses.
Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program: To prevent the loss of additional manufacturing jobs, this fund would allow MEP centers to operate without the currently required, but largely unavailable, state matching funds. MEP centers provide services to small manufacturers to help them become competitive enterprises in the global economy.
Fully funding all of these programs nationally would require less than one-tenth of the anticipated funding for the stimulus program.
It would provide hope for cities like Pittsburgh.
It will give older American cities one last chance to finally be responsible and address the costs associated with the remediation of our industrial heritage.
It will help us to fix what is broken and create a new stable foundation to rebuild ourselves — under the promise of a new, sustainable economic engine.
All it requires is political will.
Post Feedback
And all we get is a very unimaginamal list of status quo has been projects that have been hanging around forever! Hamilton is ahead of London and London is ahead of us in developing their airports into an intermodal aerotropolis and Detroit is doing the same.
And all these basic infrastructure construction jobs are male centred. There is nothing to show the next generation that we dreamed a better vision for the city. Nothing for Soft Infrastructure as in libraries, neighourhood development, education, arts, culture and heritage (preservation and reuse)
I wish Pittsburgh well and putting together a very real and progressive plan of action and not just a list of projects that has been around forever.
But there is another view of Pittsburgh:
EVEN THE SUPER BOWL CAN’T DEFEND PITTSBURGH FROM A RECESSION
http://tiny.cc/S18k8
CALLING PITTSBURGH DEPRESSION-PROOF IS A JOURNALISTIC FELONY
A guest-post from Bill Steigerwald in Pittsburgh:
http://tiny.cc/0wGT1
“If the New York Times went to Berlin in 1936 to write a story about how that city was “Depression-proof,” would it forget to mention that Germany was being run by a bunch of Nazis? If it went to Pyongyang tomorrow would it go ape over that city’s tidy orderliness without noting that North Korea was a totalitarian hellhole? If the Times bureau in Moscow reported on wheat production in Ukraine in 1933, would it overlook the government-designed famine that was killing - oops, sorry, let’s not go there.
Seriously, is it too much to ask for a little Journalism 101 from America’s Rag of Record?
On Wednesday the Times, following a similarly lame piece of Chamber of Commerce journalism done by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Nov. 23, did a glowing Page 1 story (”For Pittsburgh, There’s Life After Steel” by David Streitfeld) about the Pittsburgh region’s alleged imperviousness to the national recession.
You see, cities that have pioneered deindustrialization, shed huge chunks of population and shifted to service economies that run on curing sick people, college kids and government bureaucrats, as the former Steel City basically does, are now recession-proof, the rationalizing goes, because they’ve essentially been in low-grade recessions for decades.
Anyway, the Times – like the Plain Dealer and the parade of other national media that periodically traipses to this great town to gawk and glorify Pittsburgh’s many natural and man-made assets – forgot to tell its trusting readers that the city of Pittsburgh (where the Steelers and young Mayor Luke Ravenstahl play) is bankrupt and essentially in state receivership.
Nor did the Times note that Pittsburgh’s ever-dwindling, ever-aging, relatively poor and under-educated population (down in the city to 310,000 from 650,000 about 50 years) is subjected to crippling high taxes and deprived of basic city services like reliable snow-plowing.
Nor did it note that Pittsburgh’s city schools spend more than $20,000 per student per year yet are hemorrhaging students annually.
Nor did it note that the city has wasted scores of millions of tax dollars on failed Downtown retail redevelopment schemes, subsidized professional sports stadia and a series of mass-transit boondoggles like our under publicized “Tunnel to Nowhere,” a 1.2-mile, $435-plus-million light-rail tunnel under the Allegheny River.
It’s tragic enough that the Times’ national editors think that an over-taxed, chronically mismanaged city that has been deindustrialized, depopulated and abused by its political rulers for 70 years is favorably situated to deal with recession.
But to not devote one paragraph to the shameful failings and idiocies of Pittsburgh’s public sector is a journalistic felony. Somebody please show the Times’ editors how to Google the word “Potemkin.”
For a real time look at Pittsburgh go here:
http://www.pittsburghtoday.org/web/home.jsp
The latest regional numbers, as reported by PittsburghToday.org, a useful web site devoted to documenting the economic reality of the Pittsburgh region as well as boosting it, showed job losses accelerating in December for the second straight month.
The above links to Pittsburgh can be found on the New Geography website. One that you should be reading on a regular basis.
New Geography has a two part series on Cleveland, Ohio that is really worth reading:
Part I: CLEVELAND: HOW THE COMEBACK COLLAPSED
http://tiny.cc/2Nxy7
“The Cleveland comeback has stalled. Once hailed as a shining example of rebirth in our industrial heartland, Cleveland now sits rudderless and drifting backward. Between 2000 and 2007, Cleveland suffered one of the largest proportional population losses in the country: the city shrank by 8%. Per capita income growth in Cleveland also lags behind cities like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh. Since the early 1990s, the gap between Cleveland and these other cities has widened. As a regional economy deteriorates, the pressure for social services goes up. It’s not surprising, therefore, that local tax rates in Cleveland are among the highest in the country. Political corruption also takes a toll; Cleveland sits in Cuyahoga County where federal law enforcement officials recently launched a sweeping probe of political corruption….”
Part II: CLEVELAND, PART II: RE-CONSTRUCTING THE COMEBACK (this second part is really worth your time to read!)
http://tiny.cc/65WlO
Yesterday, in Part I, I talked about how, despite the Cleveland region’s significant assets, the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s strategy is failing to transform its economy. Today I’ll focus on the strategy’s five weaknesses, and how to fix them.
First: The Wrong Approach To Achieving Scale
To be effective, economic development initiatives have to be big enough to make a difference. Traditionally, this has meant building bigger organizations. The Cleveland leadership is following an economic development model based on hierarchies.
What worked 30 years ago does not work so well today. Across the business landscape large, vertically integrated organizations are breaking apart. In economic development, this transition means that civic leaders need to build regional scale by developing networks. In a world of increasing economic complexity, regions that have strong, trusted networks will be more competitive. They will learn faster, spot opportunities faster, and will align their resources more quickly. And they will make faster and better decisions. Cleveland’s civic leadership can be far more effective if it learns the power of social networks. A number of good books explore this topic; The Tipping Point should be required reading…”
Happy reading!