Trump and Urbanism: Defending the Unwalled City
Donald Trump ran against cities. During the campaign, he called inner cities “disasters,” implying that this was caused by flawed liberal policies. Trump’s negative portrayal of cities continued after the election. In his Inaugural Address he painted a bleak picture of “[m]others and children trapped in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape,” and he decried “the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives.”
Infrastructure, Taxes, and Sanctuary Cities
The 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric was laced with mischaracterizations of cities, even as we have come to understand the importance of cities and metro regions as the nation’s key economic drivers in the 21st Century. Yet, campaign rhetoric and the candidates’ statements do speak to an understanding of each candidate’s perspectives on cities and their connections to the federal government. Let’s take a look at three broad federal policy areas that will certainly be (or already have been) addressed by the Trump Administration and that clearly have a place-based dimension: infrastructure, tax reform, and sanctuary cities.
Race and State in the Urban Regime
In most U.S. cities, local authorities are responsible for governance of the local public schools and managing the local water supply, among other things. However, in many U.S. cities, local residents and their local elected officials do not have decision-making authority over traditional local government functions. In cities like Detroit, New Orleans, and Newark, states control the local schools. In Flint, the state of Michigan has governance authority over the city’s water supply. These cities have experienced state takeovers of their local governments.
The Promise and Perils of Education Reform
Many early indicators suggest that big cities are unlikely to get much love from the incoming Trump administration. At an early January press conference, for example, the president suggested his administration would focus on rewarding “places that I won” — and most big cities backed his Democratic opponent by large margins, as they have done for many decades. In addition, President Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, not only lacks government experience but is also openly hostile to some of the agency’s programs and efforts.
The Social and Fiscal Consequences of Urban Decline
Most big cities grow, but a handful of once-large American cities continuously shrink. Twenty-one of the 110 largest central cities in the US have lost population every decade since 1980. Once centers of wealth and industry, these places are shadows of their former selves. In 1950, 1.8 million people lived in Detroit; in 2013, 700,000 did. Since 1950 Buffalo, New York has lost 55 percent of its population. Cleveland, Ohio has lost 56 percent, and Youngstown, Ohio has lost 61 percent.
Our Metro Areas Have Become Engines of Inequality
America prides itself as the land of equal opportunity. Sadly, it is clear that equal opportunity is a cruel sham in a nation whose metropolitan areas’ neighborhoods and schools are increasingly segregated by race and class. Our metropolitan areas are rapidly becoming engines of inequality.Here is what the Trump Administration should know:
What the Trump Administration Should Know About Cities
When we started the Urban Affairs Forum last year one of our goals was to become an outlet for scholars to offer thoughts about current events based on their years of expertise. Today we are launching our first (of what we expect to be many) Urban Affairs Forum Scholars Series. The topic: What the Trump administration should know about cities.
What Affects Our Sense of Security?
Japan has a lower crime rate (number of recorded crimes per 100,000 people) for homicide and theft than France, Germany, the UK and the US. The theft rate in Japan is less than one-third that of the US, while the homicide rate is around one-sixth. However, the nation’s sense of security with regard to crime remains low. Our recent study showed that crime rates affect residents’ sense of security in their neighborhoods, and that these effects differ by the type of crime and spatial scale.
The Politics of Urban Climate Change
Cities are becoming an important focal point for climate change policy: they are responsible for a large portion of energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and have shown tremendous leadership in committing to GHG emissions reductions, even as many national governments fail to do so. Indeed, Scientific American recently claimed that, “Climate Change Will be Solved in Cities – Or Not at All” and more than one thousand city leaders attended the recent international climate change negotiations in Paris.
The Nationalization of Local School Board Elections
School board elections have a reputation for being sleepy affairs—low voter turnout, minimal campaigning, and little media attention. But recent news coverage of school board elections in cities like Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and New Orleans seems to indicate heightened interest in these races: out-of-state donors are writing very large checks to support candidates and PACs in local elections. Many of the outside donors are very wealthy and some are billionaires, such as former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Netflix founder Reed Hastings.
Can Urban Agriculture be a Solution to Blight? Not necessarily.
Like other post-industrial or legacy cities in the United States, such as Detroit and Cleveland, New Orleans has garnered attention for its boom in urban agriculture over the past few years. While the city has historically boasted a backyard gardening culture, along with a surge of community gardening movement in the 1990s, commercial and non-profit gardens became more prevalent in the years following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There were over 100 urban gardening and farming projects in the city as of 2014, with growers engaging in a wide range of agricultural activities from growing vegetables and flowers, planting fruit orchards, keeping bees to raising chickens and goats.
Left on Base
In 2013, El Paso, Texas took the sacrifices cities make in building sports facilities to new symbolic heights when it demolished its 34-year-old city hall in order to clear the land for a new minor league baseball stadium. El Paso committed to the project, not for the love of the game, but in order to anchor their downtown redevelopment, which included 85 projects receiving nearly $500 million in total from municipal bonds.
Understanding Globalizing Cities in India
Globalizing cities in the emerging Asian economies are increasingly facing tough competition from cities within their countries to attract global investments. In this competitive national scenario, some cities are more successful than others in attracting global capital, even though they operate under similar macroeconomic and regulatory environment. This spurred me to examine the roles played by the local political actors in steering the economic policy directions of their cities. And also to find out, whether we can measure the political-economic characteristics of these newly globalizing Asian cities, through the same yardstick of the well established global cities of the Western world or do we require a new framework?
Power in Russian Communities
The relationship between the legislative and executive branches of local government is the key aspect of power in the Russian local communities. Formally the branches are equal and independent of each other. However local actors have natural aspirations for leadership and power since it can increase their capacity to govern and implement social and/or corporate interests.
Boundaries and Speed Bumps
Metropolitan sprawl is a well-studied, multidimensional phenomenon. Sprawling development patterns play a substantial role in taxing the resources and infrastructure of local governments, as well as contributing to global environmental externalities like climate change. Counties have become increasingly tasked with municipal-style public service delivery, including land-use planning.
‘Yes I do’ – Why Municipalities Merge When They Are Not Forced To
Mergers of general-purpose local governments are a recurring topic on the agenda of national or regional governments in the OECD countries. From time to time, national or sub-national governments decide to reform the territorial structure of their local government landscape. These reforms usually consist of, or are accompanied by, territorial restructuring and municipal mergers.
Where do Housing Voucher Holders Choose to Live?
In the United States, the differences in what a neighborhood can offer is stark. Some neighborhoods are full of amenities: safe and clean streets, high-performing schools, and abundant employment opportunities and services; other neighborhoods have high crime rates, failing schools, and are physically isolated form services and employment centers. Living in a good neighborhood can positively impact life trajectories.
Coethnic Endorsements and Perceptions in Local Elections
Most people are familiar with endorsements in Presidential Primaries and other elections. During election season, it seems we cannot go one day without an announcement about an endorsement for one candidate or another. But what is an endorsement? An endorsement is a cue or a heuristic—a signal—and it conveys a lot of information.
Housing Disinvestment and Crime in a Phoenix Suburb
Investors played a large role in driving both the housing boom and bust. Investor related foreclosures were responsible for a non-trivial number of foreclosures, resulting in nearly 20% of foreclosures nationwide. Our recent study finds that neighborhoods with more foreclosed properties that were previously owned by an investor leads to short-term property crime bursts in communities.
The End of Urban Policy—and the Beginning
It is no longer fruitful to treat cities and other urban places as special interests with special problems in order to successfully address many of America’s urban inequalities. Critical forces now shaping urban America overwhelmingly are found beyond it. Future policies should become more holistic in scope and purpose than in the past, treating urban populations and places as they are connected to America’s system of power and governance.