The stark duality of these findings brings Walt Whitman’s words to mind: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” Detroit has room enough for strong and weaker residential communities. Stable residential areas are not diminished by areas with high vacancy rates; rather, both types of spaces define the city for residents and visitors.

Maps of the data show distinct spatial vacancy patterns across Detroit’s census tracts. Residential areas to the north and east of the Cities of Highland Park and Hamtramck have some of the city’s highest vacancy rates, with 19.56 percent to 60.06 percent of homes vacant. Middling vacancy rates pan out horizontally across Detroit’s center. Census tracts with low residential vacancy are clustered about the city’s edge, separated from high vacancy areas by intermediary regions.

City planners, community groups, and proud Detroiters have reason to laud this report. The data allows for targeted remediation and investment efforts by revealing the wide spectrum of neighborhood conditions.  It furthers community development and empowerment by providing information at the block level. Communities can assess the vacancy rate in their area and work to restore unoccupied homes or prevent the spread of vacancies. Just as importantly, the report gives Detroiters a much needed ego boost. Detroit’s residential market is, in fact, doing well—in part.

With its clearly demarcated maps, pie charts and graphs, the Detroit Data Collaborative’s transparent and accountable report will undoubtedly be the basis for careful revitalization efforts by giving national and local organizations the tools — or at least the maps — to implement innovative ideas. A Freep.com article mentions the possibility of turning unoccupied residential parcels into urban farms. Detroit is also a target of the shrinking cities movement, or the notion of right-sizing a city for its declining population. This can mean two things: First, much of Detroit’s existing infrastructure may be demolished or, existing, discarded structures might be put to new and innovative purposes. Already, unused bank buildings have been reinvented as churches and art exhibits frame dilapidated areas. For example, Tyree Guyton, founder of the Heidelberg Project, installed gigantic, colorful art sculptures in and around empty lots on Detroit’s Heidelberg Street in the late 1980s and continues to use art to improve lives and neighborhoods in the city .

Ultimately, Whitman provides a working framework for Detroit’s character. Exposed, Detroit is weakened by its high vacancy rate but also confident in its revitalization efforts and strong residential communities. This is a refreshing contradiction for a city that, indeed, “contains multitudes.” 

During Brooklyn’s industrial past, however, which lasted over a century, the Gowanus Canal was plagued by years of chemical discharges, such as PCBs, and storm water runoff that further washed industrial pollutants into the waterway. Combine the chemicals with combined sewer overflows and the Gowanus Canal had become one of the city’s most polluted waterways. The putrid, oily canal, which had earned the name The Lavendar Lake for its unnatural color, was never cleaned up. (Purple ink was one of many industrial substances discharged into the Gowanus Canal and may account for its “lavender” hue.) But earlier this month the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named the canal a Superfund site, despite vehement opposition from Mayor Bloomberg.

Superfund sites are abandoned hazardous waste sites that are designated as national priority because they have become a potential danger to public health and the environment. The Superfund title gives the EPA the green light to go after polluters for the money it will take to remediate the canal, a very expensive endeavor to the tune of $300 million to $500 million. The EPA has already begun a search for the companies responsible. Within the last few weeks they have named nine companies, including electric and gas company National Grid, and have since been investigating the role played by 20 additional companies, including ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Citigroup.

The Bloomberg administration fought the Superfund designation, in preference of its own plan for cleaning up the canal. Bloomberg called the Superfund process too slow. He also worried the title would scare away developers, who have been eying the area to erect condominiums and luxury apartment complexes. The city’s proposed cleanup plan, which city officials argue would have been faster, involved requesting earmarked funds from Congress and voluntary contributions from polluting companies. Despite Bloomberg’s opposition to the EPA decision, he has pledged to cooperate with them.

Notably, the City of New York is among those expected to pay one of the biggest shares in contaminating the canal.

Next American City recently spoke with award-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Tia Lessin about her response to the EPA decision. Lessin, along with Carl Deal, co-directed and co-produced Trouble the Water, which tells the story of a couple living in the 9th Ward of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hits. Lessin’s office, which she shares with Deal, sits inside of the Old American Can Factory, a former industrial complex on the edge of the Gowanus Canal. The Can Factory houses workspace for over 200 artists, designers and manufacturers.

Next American City: Has the polluted Gowanus Canal been relevant to you in any way since locating your office there in 2006?

Tia Lessin: I worry about the toxic Canal everyday. I spend more time in my office than I do at home. Is the water leaching into the ground and into the water supply that I use to wash my hands and dishes? Into the air? What are the effects of long-term exposure to arsenic, benzene, PCBs, coal tar wastes, heavy metals and volatile organics?

NAC: How do you feel about the EPA’s move to name the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site?

Lessin: I am happy about the Superfund designation. The city had no real plans to clean it up, so the feds will step in. And hold those responsible for polluting the canal, including the City of New York, ConEd, National Grid, CIBRO Petrol Products, the Chemtura Corporation, and the U.S. Navy, financially liable.

NAC: Does the Superfund title affect your business in any way? 

Lessin: It will delay the construction of the Whole Foods across the street, which is a good thing because building a grocery store largely underground on a contaminated site seemed like a really bad idea, and against all common sense.

NAC: What impact do you expect it to have on neighborhood business and development?

Lessin: I think it will have a positive impact. Once the site is truly cleaned up the area can develop, along a healthy, viable waterway. What this community does not need is the building of more luxury condos, and I hope the community holds strong against that kind of development. What we do need is more spaces for creative industries that have been pushed out of Manhattan and are getting priced out of even this neighborhood. The Old American Can Factory at the edge of Gowanus is a sanctuary for visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers, and performance artists, and I would like to see more spaces like this in the neighborhood.

Photographs by Lindsay MacDonald.

To read excerpts from Issue 26, click here.

To subscribe to Next American City, click here.

A bill that would expand Ohio counties’ authority to establish land banks, and reclaim the vacant land threatening the vibrancy of their communities, is moving through the state legislature, and, if all goes well, to the governor’s desk this month.

In late 2008, the state passed legislation to allow Cuyahoga County, home to the foreclosure-ravaged city of Cleveland, to launch a two-year pilot program. The program gave the county the authority to establish a nonprofit land bank with the ability to acquire and rehabilitate vacant land and return that land to good use.

Leading thinkers on land banking helped craft the legislation, and in the last year, Cuyahoga County’s land bank has become a national model. In December, it struck a pioneering agreement with Fannie Mae that would hold the lender accountable for demolition costs associated with its foreclosed properties, and in January, it received $40 million through the second round of the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program to purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed homes.

Given those successes, it is not surprising that stakeholders are working hard to advance pending legislation that would authorize additional counties in Ohio to create land banks using the Cuyahoga County model. After passing the Ohio House in December, the bill was expanded to apply to 41 Ohio counties (the initial version covered 28) and approved by a Senate committee last week. It is expected to go before the full Senate this week.

Advocates are energized about the potential good this legislation can do, especially given Ohio’s growing number of foreclosed homes. (Foreclosure lawsuits hit 89,053 in Ohio last year, a record high). “This bill will provide another tool in the toolbox for communities plagued by vacant and abandoned properties”, said Dawn Larzelere, Associate Director of Greater Ohio Policy Center, “With the ability to form land banks, they will be able to proactively and strategically address the eyesores threatening their neighborhoods”.

With its “chicken and bee” zoning, Cleveland is trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Like other cities, notably Detroit, confronted with rampant home foreclosures and vacant parcels, hundreds of acres of urban land are lying fallow. In the 77-square-mile area within city limits, there are currently 18,000 vacant lots totaling 3,500 acres. While the primary goal is neighborhood redevelopment – including an emphasis on arts and entertainment and building on anchor institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic and universities—the city has also launched several initiatives to try to encourage activity despite dwindling population and stalled private-sector activity.

Among them: stabilizing vacant lots with urban gardens and native plantings, demolition of structures while maintaining foundations to allow the construction of greenhouses, allowing sideyard expansion, and using vacant lots for geo-thermal wells to heat neighboring structures. But perhaps the most interesting effort is re-writing zoning to allow urban farming—dramatically reducing setback requirements for chicken coops and beehives on empty parcels, and clarifying the process for allowing such uses.

The city is considering going even further, relaxing rules for raising roosters, turkeys, geese, goats, pigs, and sheep, and possibly including new agricultural overlay districts for more intensive urban farming. Robert N. Brown, director of the Cleveland City Planning Commission, speaking at an annual convening of city planning directors from the nation’s 30 largest cities sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the American Planning Association, and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, said that zoning would not be changed to accommodate processing or slaughtering, but that urban farming was seen as an appropriate use of the vacant land for now.

Urban farming has brought Cleveland to the cutting edge in the trend of local food – and addressing the “food deserts” recently publicized by First Lady Michelle Obama. A farmer’s market has sprouted up in a neighborhood pockmarked with desolation, making eggs, vegetables, honey and other farm-fresh products from backyards and vacant lots available to residents.

Not everyone is happy. One member of City Council fretted about people “setting up Green Acres in their backyard” and turning “my neighborhood into a scene from ‘Deliverance.’” But Brown says that in the first year of the “chicken and bee” ordinance in 2009, there were 14 applications for permits or licenses, mainly for backyard chicken coops, and only two complaints – both regarding the keeping of pigs, and none about chickens or bees.

The City Planning Commission, with support of Living Cities, is currently partnering with two Cleveland non-profits—Neighborhood Progress and ParkWorks —along with the Kent State University Urban Design Collaborative, to design more programs for the sustainable re-use of vacant land in Cleveland.

“Our goal is to make productive use of Cleveland’s growing supply of ‘vacated’ land,” Brown says. “With a smaller population occupying the same land area, the city’s future could be somewhat ‘suburban.’  But we recognize that Cleveland will never out-suburb the suburbs. Our goal is to enhance our urban character and make it more competitive by creating dense, mixed-use urban clusters made more desirable by proximity to such open space uses as urban gardens and urban farms.”

Anthony Flint is a Boston-based writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Today’s Washington is not doing enough to stem that state power. Our national leaders are beholden to the interests of state departments of transportation, and that’s a terrible thing.

Indeed, the strength of state governments in making transportation decisions is one of the primary culprits for the highway-dependent state of the American landscape, in addition to the federal urban renewal policies and Interstate Highway legislation that are more typically singled out for blame. This fact comes to the serious detriment of metropolitan areas, which lack the fiscal ability and legal right to make full decisions about their transportation futures.

The most obvious example of the negative consequences of state control over transportation spending is the fact that even though most highway transportation appropriations (called “flex dollars”) can be used for any type of transportation, including transit, virtually all of it is spent on roads construction.

That’s because the politics of almost every state are dominated by rural and suburban constituents, or, in other words: car drivers. The urban transit users, pedestrians, and bike riders are typically at the back of the pack when it comes to representation.

Despite its interest in addressing urban issues, the Obama Administration has not done much to change the situation. Nor has the Democratic Party-controlled Congress, whose primary constituency, lest you forget, lives in urban areas whose inhabitants need improved access to alternative forms of transportation.

If it wanted, Congress could approve a transportation appropriations bill that significantly increased spending on public transportation. Or it could reinforce the existing system, in which highway construction gets three times the investment as transit, and in which bike and pedestrian infrastructure get virtually nothing. Unfortunately, at least so far, it’s making the latter choice.

Just last week, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), head of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, announced that she would begin work on the next transportation bill this spring. Her first action was to call on a group called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to review the previously announced House bill (“literally, with a pen”) and give her its suggestions. Senator Boxer would only begin her own consideration of the bill from there.

The AASHTO, as its name makes clear, represents in Washington the nation’s state departments of transportation, and its mission is clear: maintain the status quo when it comes to divvying up financing for roads and transit. Its three top leaders represent some of the country’s most rural states: Mississippi, Nevada, and Utah. The fact that the organization, at least according to its numerous reports on the subject, considers acceptable the current three-to-one distribution of funds towards highways and away from alternatives surely is no coincidence.

But the influence of the AASHTO in decision-making is impossible to ignore, because congressional representatives and especially senators must at least appear to be interested in the opinions of state-level interests. This means that any hope of reforming the transportation system so that it provides more funds for alternatives seems unlikely. The goal of transferring more funds to metropolitan areas so they can make their own decisions about what to build is, simply put, politically infeasible.

There’s no reason for advocates of alternative transportation to take this badly: they still have the ability to make a difference in how government funds are spent. It’s just that much of the fight they’re currently advancing on Capital Hill would be more productive if pursued at the state house.

As a native San Franciscan, I can’t help but be amazed at the irony that the mayor who won his first election with compassion for the homeless as his trademark issue would introduce the most draconian piece of legislation San Francisco has seen yet, in the neighborhood that spawned the Summer of Love. On the other hand, I know just how annoying these “gutter punks” who populate Haight Street can be, and that they aren’t exactly the flower children who made the neighborhood so famous. What upsets me is not that Newsom’s law will take away Haight-Ashbury’s hippie vibe—despite all the head shops, that vibe has been gone for some time—but that the Haight Street gutter punk story is a way for the city to gather support for an otherwise oppressive, and possibly unconstitutional, law.

No one in San Francisco will tell you that gutter punks aren’t obnoxious. Probably not even the gutter punks. A lot of the general distaste for them stems not only from their aggressive panhandling techniques, but the fact that they are perceived to be homeless “by choice”; that they bought in to being homeless through punk culture, and not the other way around.

Though San Francisco is known for its liberal politics, and its tolerance and compassion for the homeless, Haight Street gutter punks have done everything in their power to be left out of this equation, and the rest of San Francisco’s homeless might have to pay the price, should the sit/lie law go into effect. Naturally, homeless advocacy groups are upset, but I think this sort of policy should concern all San Franciscans, and it probably would if City Hall and the local media didn’t center the conversation only around Haight Street gutter punks.

One of the things that most people love about San Francisco, and what sets it apart from every other city in California, is its vibrant—and sometimes bizarre—streetscape. The sit/lie law, in my opinion is a direct threat to that. C.W. Nevius, who favors the ordinance, mocked these concerns in his most recent column for the Chronicle, whose editorial board has recently come out in favor of the law. “What about the sea lions at Fisherman’s Wharf,” writes Nevius, “All they do is sit and lie. And they’re belligerent, too. I say lock ‘em up.” Clever observation, but they’re not on the sidewalk, C.W. They’re in the water, and as long as they stay there, the sea lions will be safe from the long arm of the law. But guess what famous Pier 39 fixture isn’t? By my interpretation of the law, the World Famous Bushman could definitely get arrested for scaring tourists in his playful fashion. So could one of those robot-alien-people, though that wouldn’t be such a big loss.

So much of San Francisco’s culture is based on this eccentricity, this freedom to do what you want, be who you are, et cetera. In San Francisco you don’t get the feeling that the city is merely a place to do business. It’s also a place for people to live, and for many it’s a refuge. I challenge anyone to catch that feeling in Midtown Manhattan.

Furthermore, SFPD doesn’t need a sit/lie ordinance to harass gutter punks on Haight Street; they’ll go ahead and do it anyway. They probably ought to. But a city-wide law that makes it illegal to sit or lie on the street anywhere in San Francisco strikes me as a real threat to any sort of city life other than that which makes the wheels of commerce turn smoother.

Back in the 1970’s, when San Francisco’s skyline was springing up with lots of new skyscrapers, residents complained about “Manhattanization”. They feared San Francisco was losing its character and its gorgeous vistas to all the new development. The two are inextricably linked, after all. I’d argue that this sit/lie ordinance is yet another round of Manhattanization in San Francisco. The sit/lie law is similar in nature to most of Mayor Giuliani’s “broken window” policing tactics that he used in the early 90’s to “clean up” New York. But even Guiliani didn’t need to make new laws; he just made his cops enforce laws already on the books. And, further, the public support for this form of policing came from residents of a crime-ridden city that people felt was on the verge of self-destruction, not from residents of a prosperous city with incredibly low crime rates who get annoyed when a person probably undeserving of charity demands money or cigarettes from them on a certain street in a certain neighborhood. San Francisco doesn’t need the sit/lie laws like New York needed Giuliani’s tactics. If the Board of Supervisors passes this law, San Franciscans might lose something they never knew they loved so much. Just ask a New Yorker.

*The Merchant Chair of the Association is Kent Uyehara, owner of FTC Skateshop on Haight. Ironically, FTC is understood by most younger skateboarders to stand for “F—- The Cops.”

However, this extraordinary ability to connect people than ever to their communities comes with a downside – namely, leaving out people who don’t use or have access to the Web. While the so called “digital divide” has been steady closing, as of November 2009, the FCC estimates that 22 percent of Americans aren’t online. And among certain groups, such as lower-income households, Hispanics and African-Americans, and especially seniors – the percentages without Web access are much higher (less than half of Americans over 65 use the Internet).

Why the disparity? Cost remains an issue for lower-income households, and in a few areas (mostly rural) broadband access is still hard to come by. Other non-adopters simply don’t see the value in the Internet, or are hesitant to use it for fear of falling victim to identity theft or fraud. To address these issues, some cities have tried creating free municipal Wi-Fi networks (to mixed success), and the Federal government has promised millions to expand broadband access in rural areas. Digital literacy training programs have sprung up in communities across the country to help seniors and other reluctant adopters get comfortable with using the Web.

In the meantime, there are alternatives technologies that cities can use to reach populations that may not have a computer and Web access at home. For example, the FCC report shows that while only 59 percent of African-Americans are Internet users, 75 percent send and receive SMS messages on the mobile phone. Hispanics use SMS messages at a similar rate (compare that to only 63 percent of whites). With even the lowest cost cellular phone plans are starting to offer web access, mobile phones offer a growing opportunity for cities to reach traditionally underrepresented groups (not to mention all the digital elite with their iPhones).

Some cities have already begun to experiment with SMS messages as part of their outreach efforts. The City of Minneapolis uses SMS messages to alert residents when a snow emergency is declared. In Los Angeles, the Hollywood Property Owners Association is using SMS messages to alert residents about traffic jams and transit delays in the area (full disclosure – I was a consultant on this project). And abroad, cities are using SMS to send alerts when a parking meter expires and vote on discretionary capital projects in municipal budgets.

As cities move forward with new media engagement and communication tools, there’s no ignoring the fact that not all citizens are able to go online. While web tools can offer advantages for cities and residents alike, traditional printed notices, in-person public hearings, and paper comment forms will still have their place for years to come. That said, cities who can embrace a full range of technologies such as SMS messages and mobile web access may find that they are able to include residents who have been traditionally excluded from both offline and online channels.

- Journalist: “How much is a return ticket between Paris and Mantes?”
- Candidate: “I’m not sure…”
- Journalist: “Well, €15.80. How many trains are there between Paris and Mantes per hour?”
- Candidate: “I don’t know at all…”
- Journalist: “You still don’t know, even though you want to become president of the region?... If you don’t know that, you’re not going to become president.”

It was an unfair question posed by a 12-year-old “journalist:” Mantes is the 45th-most-populated city of Ile-de-France, the region in which Paris is located. It would be hard to expect anyone—even someone running for the Presidency of the region—to remember the cost of a train trip there specifically.

Yet the video of the interview with conservative candidate Valérie Pécresse has been making the rounds nonetheless, along with a similar interview in which current socialist Ile-de-France President Jean-Paul Huchon, running for reelection this year, fouls up when asked the price of a metro ticket.

The regional elections in France, to be held later this month, are serving as something of a primetime event for transportation discussions in the 12-million-person Ile-de-France, one of 22 regions that hold a status in the governmental structure similar to that of American states. Throughout the campaign, there has been a focus on the role of transportation improvements as key to future of the region—and candidates from far left to hard right have been falling over themselves to promote transportation improvements in France’s most populated and wealthiest region—and its most transit-dependent.

The three major parties—the socialists, the conservative UMP (of which French President Nicolas Sarzoky is a member), and the ecologists, each have announced that they would pursue fare reductions even as they invest in major new capacity upgrades in new rail and bus lines, though the details vary substantially. The substance of each campaign’s position statements on mobility is extensive.

Transportation is the most important issue in the campaign for control of the region. Whether fares go up and down, whether a new line is built or not—these are political questions in France. Their answers will be decided by the people through democracy: during his last mandate, President Huchon began construction on seven tramway lines and three metro extensions, all projects he had promised before he was elected.

It’s hard to think of a similar situation occurring in the United States. When was the last time a gubernatorial candidate announced her support for a transit fare reduction in her state’s biggest city, only to be outmaneuvered by a rival on the other side of the table with a bigger plan? When was the last time an American elected official laid out a pages-long tract documenting how he would decrease transportation costs even while promoting more transit offerings?

Why isn’t transportation a bigger issue in U.S. elections, anyway?

One clear explanation is that French regions have few other mandates outside of transportation: fully one-fourth of Ile-de-France’s budget goes towards roads and transit. Meanwhile, decisions about how to spend on operations and capital projects are made politically at the regional level, not by independently-run transit agencies. Moreover, economic and social activity in French regions, unlike in most U.S. states, radiates around one or two significant urban hubs; this means that the electorate cares about how people get around in their region’s central city—and they have a motivation to respond to problems.

The comparison with France is especially brutal now because of the effects of the global recession. Many American cities are likely to see huge transit service reductions and fare increases over the next few months (Atlanta alone is likely to see a 30 percent cutback), but few politicians are willing to stand up to maintain transportation offerings, let alone increase them. In other words, there is no political will to spend more government dollars on backing better mobility.

Meanwhile, French politicians, despite their economy’s own problems, are promising major improvements. That’s because they have to if they want to get votes. Whereas people in France expect their regional leaders to fight for better transportation, for the most part Americans have no such expectations from their governors—and cities are usually too poor to make much of an effort either.

And indeed, trying to make an American electoral campaign “about” transportation is probably an unlikely proposition: most states are too big for gubernatorial candidates to get interested in local traffic problems, while most cities are too small to handle mobility issues at the metropolitan scale.

But in many ways this results from the American push to separate transportation from politics, a years-long effort kindled by the progressive movement whose primary result is a disassociation between the voters’ will and actual policy change. By putting control of local transit, for instance, in the hands of unelected “non-partisan” authorities, politicians have created instruments for independent decision-making… but also powerless punching bags poorly supported by elected officials who claim they have no power over them. To whom are such organisms accountable?

In other words, there’s no political figure taking responsibility for transportation improvements. So we don’t talk about the issue during campaigns.

One way to inject transportation into politics, then, is to force decision-making into the hands of politicians. If governors or mayors had to sign off on fare increases or service reductions in more instances, there would be more to discuss about transportation in American elections—and we might actually see improvements in our daily commutes as a result.

In short, broadcast channels desperately want to mimic cable-only channels like ESPN. There are two interrelated reasons for this. First, only about 10% of the American public watches TV over the air today. Second, in addition to advertising sales, cable networks have a revenue stream that broadcast networks lack: Cable providers like Comcast must pay to carry these channels – $3.65 a month, per subscriber, for ESPN, for example. In other words, today it is much more valuable to get paid by a cable operator for your channel than it is to have access to all American homes over the air instead of just 90% of these homes via cable or satellite.

Nobody should be happy with this situation. Broadcasters don’t have the Midas touch anymore. Most consumers do not watch local channels over the air. The government gets nothing in return for granting free broadcast licenses. And the quality of local TV news is shockingly poor. There has to be a better way to utilize the precious radio spectrum that TV broadcasting occupies.

Sure enough, the FCC and academic types have begun discussing broadcast spectrum reallocation. If the spectrum was repossessed from TV broadcasters, educated estimates suggest that it could be auctioned off by the FCC – following recent precedent – for approximately $100 billion. The spectrum could be productively used by new owners to provide and improve mobile technologies: more wireless bandwidth could open the door to a host of new, transformative technologies like long-distance mobile medical monitoring and also improve the functioning of devices we already have, like smartphones. Meanwhile, mandating that the existing local broadcast networks be carried – and compensated – by cable providers would please their owners. And, part of the auction proceeds could be dedicated to getting some kind of basic cable for the 10% of Americans who currently watch TV over the air. Add it all up and broadcasters, consumers, and the government all win…

But wait, there’s more! In fact, there are billions and billions more. Perhaps $97 billion more, because providing basic local TV of some sort to the folks who don’t currently have cable should cost less than $3 billion. Of course, this $97 billion could go to plug one of the many holes in America’s budget. Since radio spectrum is a shared public good, this seems fair.

At the same time, since radio waves only carry so far, the spectrum is really the shared public good of each community across the country. Since the advent of broadcasting, the spectrum has been given to TV and radio stations for free in return for the public-service content (local news) that they provide. Doesn’t it make sense to continue leveraging this asset – spectrum – to generate news that communities need?

If the extra $97 billion was used as an endowment to fund local news production from coast-to-coast, the crisis of collapsing local media institutions that our democracy faces could be elegantly addressed. Many details about the right way to distribute the loot come to mind – how much does each community get? who controls the exact distribution? can this be accomplished in a non-partisan fashion? – but if we believe that communities need local media, the idea at least merits further consideration.

Lee Shaker is a research fellow at Princeton University. He holds a Ph.D. from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. You can read more of his work at leeshaker.com.

In July 2008, Living Cities launched the Foreclosure Mitigation Initiative to fund nationwide programming to address the ongoing foreclosure crisis. Their report, “Communities at Risk: How the Foreclosure Crisis Is Damaging Urban Areas and What is Being Done About It” discusses the solutions these programs are implementing in strong, weak and mixed-market areas. The report is unique in that it takes the foreclosure crisis and finds the silver lining, so to speak, by calling for “new models of urban development and sustainability.”  The resolutions the report presents, while practical, are also innovative and concrete.

Living Cities is a philanthropic organization dedicated to improving quality of life and the urban environment in low-income communities. Its members – 22 influential foundations and financial institutions – are intricately involved in the projects they fund and are responsible for a $16 billion increase in overall community assets. (Editor’s note: Living Cities provides financial support to Next American City.)

The report certainly acknowledges the devastating effects of foreclosure: Individuals face a loss of personal wealth, damaged individual credit scores and high stress. Communities with clusters of foreclosed properties are plagued by lower property values, visible physical degeneration, and increased crime. Regions are stunted by a weak economic base, which inhibits investment in areas such as infrastructure, education and the environment. But instead of simply describing the scale of the problem, the report presents some solutions. 

• The first solution encourages a fair and timely turnover of foreclosed properties. Servicers must agree upon an appropriate property price and carry out a timely exchange of the property to decrease decay and crime. An innovative program that abides by these parameters, The National Community Stabilization Trust, encourages servicers to inform cities and counties of any foreclosed properties so community officials can purchase the properties within ten days of the foreclosure. By buying foreclosed properties immediately, government officials can retain the economic value and safety of neighborhood housing.

• A second solution is to increase the amount of available rental housing. The report stresses that quality rental housing is a viable option for Americans who are not yet qualified to buy homes. Specific agreements between tenants and renters can ensure that both parties are comfortable in a renting situation. Tenants might even take classes akin to “first-time homeowner classes” to sweeten the deal and make renting a “bridge to homeownership.” Renting options might also attract occupants to properties that are hard to sell and subject to physical degradation and crime.

• A third solution concentrates on “uncrunching credit.” Linda Warren of Village Capital Corporation in Cleveland, who is featured in the report, suggests that banks “just go back to sound underwriting.” Local banks might also originate loans on the basis of character, rather than capital. Moreover, Americans can reduce their credit needs by developing lease-purchase plans or community land grants.

• Living Cities encourages developers to cut back on rehab efforts while being certain that properties are “safe, sanitary, and decent.” This means that instead of perfecting one house, servicers should use time and resources to rehab a cluster of houses. Ubiquitous and pleasant - but not necessarily perfect - neighborhood housing attracts individuals to neighborhoods and increases property values. The report also suggests that demolition might be an appealing option for foreclosed housing as communities can clear spaces for creative and communal services – parks, urban farms, or city centers.

• Finally, the report calls for transparency of property data and an openness to new, transformative partnerships. Without accurate data, innovative projects are hard to initiate and complete without unnecessary frustration. New partnerships benefit multiple community groups and acknowledge the the inherent complexity of problems like the foreclosure crisis.

Living Cities encourages communities to approach foreclosure with an open mind. Renting must be publicized as a viable and even intelligent housing option. Entrepreneurial community members might come together and start a community land trust – an alternative approach to affordable housing. Or, residents can pool their time and energy to create a common, useable space out of vacant and deteriorating properties. With the tools and advice available in the Living Cities Report, community development after foreclosure seems just a bit less daunting.

Full text online:

— A profile of Bruce Katz, founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. You can read the full text here.

— An in-depth look at Cleveland’s massive strategic plan for dealing with vacant land, which has united philanthropies, elected officials and community leaders. Full text here.

— Ideas essays about Los Angeles’s newest subway extension and another about the Census trying to improve its image.

Issue 26 also features:

— A roundtable conversation about urban philanthropy with the MetLife Foundation, the Boston Foundation and the George Gund Foundation.

— An interview with Project HEALTH’s Rebecca Onie.

— A look back at the benefits of the Big Dig.

P.S.—Readers in the Washington, D.C., area can meet Bruce Katz and his Brookings colleague, Amy Liu, at an issue launch party next Wednesday, March 10. For more information and to RSVP, click here.

Why aren’t more communities jumping on the open cities bandwagon? First, many smaller cities and towns lack the financial and human resources to support these sorts of endeavors. In cases where the resources and political will exists, the data sets that smaller municipal governments have to play with aren’t as rich as those found in major cities – making the development of custom applications less useful.

That said, there are examples of smaller cities that are using new media to improve operations in city hall. One shining example is the City of Manor, Texas. With a population of only 6,500 and a municipal staff of 35 employees, this community, located just east of Austin, has set itself up as a laboratory for innovation. One visible example of the community’s willingness to experiment with technology is its deployment of two-dimensional barcodes (known as QR Codes) around town. Using the technology, residents can use their mobile phones to scan a code (say on a sign posted at a city park), and then be taken to an up-to-date web page with information about, say, schedule events and park rules and regulations.

To engage its citizens even more, the City launched Manor Labs, an interactive website that invites residents to suggest and vote on proposals for improving services. What separates Manor Labs from other crowd sourcing efforts is the City’s creative way of incentivizing participation. Each time a resident participates online – either by suggesting a new idea or commenting and voting on the ideas of others – they receive a point, called an “innobuck.” Innobucks can be redeemed for prizes, or re-invested towards making some of the ideas on the site a reality. Once an idea reaches a certain threshold, city officials evaluate the proposal, and decided whether or not to put it into action. So far, five ideas have been adopted from the site.

Of course, it’s not reasonable (or even desirable) to have every town follow Manor’s example. Instead, more focus should be placed on helping smaller cities and towns partner with each other (and with larger cities) to develop standards and tools that will allow all sizes of municipal government to benefit from new media – without having to reinvent the wheel themselves.

Open311 is one such effort. Lead by The Open Planning Project, a New York City based non-profit that focuses on community driven initiatives and open technology, Open311 is a collaborative project that aims to create an open platform specification for 311 services – which cities could adopt to ensure interoperability between their current 311 systems. With such a standard in place, it’s likely that a host of solutions for both cities and residents would emerge – saving cities without web enabled 311 systems the trouble of developing them on their own.

Other efforts at creating standards are being cataloged at OpenMuni.org, a website dedicated to sharing best practices for implementing new technology between cities (also supported by the Open Planning Project). The next step might be to bring cities together to support the development of a platform and applications that they can all adopt, sharing the costs associated with deploying new media tools. Yet however they progress, one thing is for certain. As more of these civic data and application specifications are established, residents in places like Little Rock, Arkansas and Bend, Oregon will have just as much benefit from new media tools as people living San Francisco and Chicago.

This perspective, however, has been vigorously rejected by prolific and omnipresent Chapman University fellow Joel Kotkin. According to the professor, who is celebrating the release of his most recent book, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, and who writes for New Geography and Forbes, the suburbs and the large cities are locked in an intractable battle for supremacy. The elites are fighting to ensure the dominance of their preferred built form and the Obama administration, he claims, is in an all-out “war on the suburbs”—but low-density sprawl will eventually win out.

Kotkin envisions a future in which major American cities will be reduced to impotence and auto-centric suburbs will assure the future economic health of the country. It’s a counter-conventional approach that rejects many of the mores of modern planning, including a call for denser, environmentally sensitive, and walkable communities.

Kotkin’s arguments are premised on the idea that the middle class prefers the suburbs and that patronizing urbanists and city politicians want to force people into dense urban neighborhoods.

What makes Kotkin’s hyperventilating about the evil elites and their underlying aims so bizarre is that on the face of it, he appears to share many if their goals. He wants to transform suburbs into livable, walkable places with town centers and a village mentality. He argues that even if only one-fifth of the one hundred million more Americans expected to join the population by 2050 choose to inhabit the big cities, those old centers would still see significant expansion and improvement.

Kotkin’s suggestions about how to improve urban environments are reasonable: He thinks they need to address “public safety, business climate and political reform.”

On these matters, it’s hard to argue with the professor.

But it is when Kotkin extrapolates a “war on the suburbs” from the Obama administration’s support for improved public transportation and “livable” communities that one begins questioning whether to believe his claim that his interest is simply to work objectively in the interests of the country’s middle class, which he sees as the basis of the country’s wealth.

Kotkin’s writings are filled with the much-repeated myth that the middle class has “chosen” to live in the suburbs and that to design communities in a way that isn’t driven by auto-centric single family houses would be to ignore the desires of all those who have moved into them.

Though his writings espouse strong convictions of the power of modern-day decisions to significantly alter the lifestyle patterns of suburbanites, rarely does Kotkin admit that today’s huge population in the suburbs is no coincidence, either. How can he claim that the middle class simply wanted of its own volition to live at the urban frontier when governments at all levels of the federal system have been over-funding highways, ignoring the needs of inner cities, and putting no price on environmental degradation for decades? Present conditions are by no means a representation of the way things have always been.

But more relevant to today’s political climate, the theory suggests that people like their communities as they are and want them to remain that way: For most Americans, the single-family home surrounded by a lawn on four sides and within reach of most retail, jobs, schools, and entertainment by cars alone is nothing short of the ideal living environment, he claims. Any kind of change brought on by changes in funding by the federal government—be it expanded public transportation access or increased densities—represents nothing short of “a conscious and sustained attack from Washington.”

Kotkin claims that “forced densification”—it should be noted that most federal policies promote just the opposite—“could augur in a kind of new feudalism, where questions of land ownership and decision making would be shifted away from citizens, neighbors, or markets, and left in the hands of self-appointed ‘betters.’”

What fear mongering. It’s preposterous to argue that most people have a clearer say in the development of new suburban communities than the expansion of existing urban ones; the only individuals who have much involvement in subdividing most exurban plots are the developers themselves, while established cities provide clear paths to democracy in land use choice through community boards and civic organizations. Nor does it make sense to suggest that “citizens” and “neighbors” are choosing how they live today when decades of government policy making and resulting funds already made the decision for them.

As evidence for his sense that people simply don’t want to live in communities that fit his suburban standards, Kotkin cites the recent electoral success of Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia as proof that people simply don’t want the smart growth promoted by the “urban-centric regime” that is Mr. Obama’s White House and the Democratic Party around the country.

He doesn’t seem persuaded by the fact that voters seemed to express exactly the opposite intentions just a year and a half ago, voting out sprawl-pushing Republicans in devastating numbers. It does not occur to him that the primary concern of the electorate may have nothing to do with growth patterns at all.

Nor does he seem willing to make the evidently even more shocking admission that Democratic Party policies aren’t all that radical, even compared to those of their Republican antecedents.

The federal government’s 2010 budget awarded roughly three times as much to highway construction as it did to transit system operations and infrastructure. Those funds were basically set in stone when the Republican Congress passed the last transportation bill in 2005, but even the economic stimulus, passed with huge Democratic majorities and signed by a Democratic President, gave $28 billion to roads and $8.4 billion to public transit. It’s hardly the “precious little that will benefit suburbanites, such as improved roads” that Mr. Kotkin maligns as missing from the Obama Administration’s priority list. These facts make it hard to see Mr. Kotkin’s arguments as anything more than partisan rhetoric.

More essential, though, is the fact that Kotkin fails to acknowledge the positive effects of the policies that he deems anti-suburban. Advocates of metropolitan planning argue rightfully that all parts of a region—from the downtown to the far exurbs—need to be healthy for a region to work well. By simply ignoring the inner city, which Mr. Kotkin seems willing to do, you eventually produce a metropolitan area with no core. Suburban places, by definition, are subordinate to somewhere else, and without a center, the cohesiveness of a regional economy starts to fall apart.

Meanwhile, most suburbs are not made of the middle-class single-family home monotony Kotkin frequently extols: They’re often mixed-use environments with shopping malls, apartment complexes, and industrial zones, just spread apart in ways that usually make them unwalkable. Providing planning tools that can reorient these zones towards pedestrians and transit users does not limit the freedom of suburbanites but rather provides them an alternative to their existing situation, which is defined by a forced attachment to private automobiles, not superior mobility.

This is especially a problem because of the increasing concentrations of suburban poverty. The government has a social obligation to ensure the transportation needs of every member of the population—something it wouldn’t be doing were it to follow Kotkin’s advice. It also has a responsibility to avoid devastation as a result of climate change—an important issue that Kotkin sidelines but which is directly linked to issues of land use.

In other words, the needs of the inner cities and the suburbs aren’t so different, after all.

Why spend so much text refuting the work of an academic whose writings are well read but only mildly influential in today’s political discourse? Because Kotkin’s hyper-sensitive discourse, founded on the pain of the suburban middle class—a sort of silent majority, as he sees it—is not unappealing from a political perspective. After all, the tens of millions of Americans who do live in the suburbs don’t want to feel threatened.

Though Kotkin frequently attempts to downplay his arguments as merely a reflection on the downright suburban nature of much of the United States, his discussion is founded in an anti-urban mindset. As cities finally experience a rebound, politicians will have to promote solutions for them, including improved transit and laws that govern heightened density. The danger in Kotkin’s argument is that suburban dwellers can be convinced that those investments are actually intended to kick them out of their homes and into urban tenements, as Michele Bachmann puts it.

It’s a fear that has little basis in reality. Since when, however, has that mattered when it comes to politics?

On the ground, the do-it-yourself ideology has fallen by the wayside, at least when it comes to hunger and food security. A recent New York Times article noted the decreased stigma attached to food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the increased participation of working Americans in this program. This trend is duly noted in Department of Agriculture statistics: 47% of families receiving food stamps in 2008 were working class, in contrast to 26% of the same population in the mid-1990s. Even Americorps volunteers, recent college grads, are food stamp beneficiaries.

This trend – the working class increasingly taking advantage of non-monetary aid – means that the volunteers and guests at Sunday Night Soup Kitchen are not as different as one might initially suspect.  I struggled for some time to define my friendship with people like Will, a veteran in his forties with an apartment and job but also the lean look of a street-wise alley cat.  I go to Will for advice on my career path (no decision as of yet) or the problem of my dorm room’s thin walls and look forward to his stories on a lifetime of adventure.  He grew up only recently, Will tells me, laughing.  Our friendship is a fusion of minds, not inhibited by race, class, or gender.

But Sunday Night Soup Kitchen is not the incendiary meeting place where revolutionary students and the noble working class discuss the potential for an egalitarian society, nor it is a temporary haven to weather the current global recession.  Working class participation in food aid programs, such as this soup kitchen, is solely the unglamorous but long expected (at least by certain theorists) byproduct of neoliberal economic theories, the current stronghold of American individualism. Adopted on a global scale in the early 1980s, neoliberal theorists and supporters, such as Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping, advocate enhanced individual and corporate freedoms and minimal public sector involvement in the market economy. David Harvey, City University of New York professor, reveals the onerous results of neoliberal policy for the middle and lower classes in his book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, writing, “…the neoliberal turn is in some way and to some degree associated with the restoration or reconstruction of the power of economic elites” (19). In sum, corporations accrued freedom and political influence at the expense of labor and welfare programs were scaled back. 

Economic theories, even when promoted by the acclaimed University of Chicago professor, the late Milton Friedman, are not always accurate portraits of reality. Signing up for SNAP or frequenting soup kitchens is not a sign of self-efficacy or even a direct result of the current economic recession but a prescribed response to a hostile economic environment. Individuals are enmeshed in a socioeconomic fabric that dictates their decisions. At least Sunday Night Soup Kitchen and SNAP still exist. Juxtaposing contemporary economic policy with real life information mandates awareness of socioeconomic trends in our society but also an ability to deconstruct their causes and implications.

(From Issue 26, Spring 2010)

(From Issue 26, Spring 2010)

(From Issue 26, Spring 2010)

(From Issue 26, Spring 2010)

The Census Bureau has long had trouble counting Latinos. Robert Groves, recently nominated for Director of the Census Bureau, estimated that about 1 million Latinos (of the roughly 50 million in the country) went uncounted in the 2000 enumeration. Blaming unlisted addresses, households with large families and high mobility rates for the faulty tabulation, many predict that the recession and recent foreclosures in the Latino community will make an accurate count even more unlikely this March.

Determined not to succumb to the odds, however, the Census Bureau and some Latino interest groups are taking steps to ensure full representation. The Census Bureau has vowed to send out 13 million copies of the survey with a complete Spanish translation to households in heavily Hispanic communities across the country. They have also launched a campaign proclaiming the importance of census participation and assuring the confidentiality of all information disclosed. Republicans estimate the cost of the campaign over the next year will amount to several tens of millions of dollars.

This will run alongside the Ya es hora, ¡HÁGASE CONTAR! (It’s time, make yourself count!) campaign, staged by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), in partnership with other Latino interest groups, including media heavyhitter Univision, to encourage Latinos to “stand up and be counted.” And Rep. William Clay (D - MO) who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees Census data collection, announced April 6th that he plans to ask the administration to halt raids over the next year to ensure statistical accuracy. This has been done in other census years, including the most recent in 2000.

Meanwhile, the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders (shortened to CONLAMIC, based on the Spanish translation) is launching its own initiative—one to boycott the census. Encouraging Hispanics across the nation to use census participation as a bargaining chip for immigration reform, CONLAMIC hopes to convince lawmakers to give temporary work visas to undocumented workers and provide easier pathways to citizenship. In some parts of the country, like Phoenix, Latinos are also encouraged to boycott as a way to protest crackdowns on illegal immigrants.

Amidst such conflicting messages, Latinos find themselves in a double bind. On the one hand, pro-census activists point out that census stats are used to allocate federal block grants, which can cover everything from healthcare to law enforcement. With more than $300 billion at stake, plus stimulus money, which also being doled out according to census data, boosting population stats in Hispanic areas could benefit Latinos. Census data is similarly used to determine seat allocation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College. Of the nine states that stand to gain representatives in the upcoming enumeration, at least four of them (Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Texas) have large Hispanic populations.

Advocates stress that the Census does not ask for about immigration status, nor does it request a Social Security number. Using the Census for deportation is illegal under federal law, and no authority can obtain personal identifiable data from the Census Bureau. Nonetheless, opponents argue, Hispanics have reason to mistrust the Census Bureau. A report released by Fordham University last month confirmed that the Census Bureau had forwarded information about Japanese-Americans from the 1940 census to American surveillance agencies during WWII. And again in 2004, the Census Bureau gave the Department of Homeland Security detailed information of Arab-American populations by city and zip code. The Census Bureau has yet to acknowledge its wrongdoing in either case.

While refusing to fill out the census is not a deportable offense (it is punishable by fines between $100 and $500), some worry that increased funding to Hispanic areas would simply mean stepped up raids against illegal residents. Moreover, they argue, increased state representation means nothing if illegal residents have no path to American citizenship. Compounded by frustration that Obama has yet to move on his campaign promises of immigration reform, more Latinos, as well as the ethnic media, are beginning to come around to CONLAMIC’s message.

Census participation is a sticky issue for all of the US’s estimated 12 million illegal residents, but when it intersects with powerful interest groups, it can become an overtly political maneuver. Only time will tell which tactic Latinos choose. Because legal and illegal immigrants have different reasons to participate—or boycott—and with the incentives and disincentives as complex as they are, we can hardly expect a uniform response. Whatever the exact result, it is clear that the 2010 enumeration will reflect political allegiances as much as it does the populace itself.