The Federal Budget: Some Good News for Cities
President Obama’s proposed budget, released last week, contains a lot of good news for cities. The section on the Department of Housing and Urban Development says that Obama intends to fully fund the Community Development Block Grant program at $4.5 billion. The President also proposes to devote $1 billion to combating homelessness, a problem cities are sure to face more of in the ongoing recession, by rehabilitating very low-income housing. I’m also particularly fond of the measure to preserve 1.3 million units of rental housing. As the foreclosure crises has demonstrated (to those not already convinced by 50 years of environmentally and socially disastrous suburban sprawl), not everyone should buy a home, and the government should take a more even-handed approach to supporting renting and buying.
The administration also pledges an additional $5 billion to finance high-speed rail construction and the expansion of mass transit. While it is certainly good to see more money for mass transit and rail construction, I think we should also consider just giving cities money to keep current subway and bus services running, and to keep fares down, as many cities are considering fare increases and service cuts.
Ben Adler reports on Republican and conservative politics and media for The Nation as a Contributing Writer. He previously covered national politics and policy as a staffer at Newsweek, Politico and the Center for American Progress. Ben also writes regularly about urban and environmental policy, and he was a 2008-2009 urban leaders fellow at Next American City.
Laurie Kelly in Langley Park, Maryland on Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 7:32pm
We have a high poverty-level, majority immigrant community, complete with day laborers and the homeless, living in or around 50-year-old brick garden apartments in an area about to undergo major revitalization and redevelopment. Your report gives me hope that community leaders can persuade local leaders not to allow developers to bulldoze all of them, but to rehab and retain some of the buildings. Otherwise, we’ll need more than the standard 10-20% of the new condo units included in new high-rise to be either constructed as affordable studios, or set aside for rentals. What do y’all think?