Tag: Cities

Institutional Reinvention

Posted on by jabittan
I have written a good amount about the importance and value of institutions. The systems and structures, both formal and informal, that create appropriate venues for discussion and help shape our norms and rules are crucial to our culture and to the development of society and knowledge. In The New Localism, Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak discuss ways in which rediscovering institutions within American cities is leading to a rebirth of metropolitan areas. Large cities are important because they pull people together, unite them around local problem solving, and produce benefits for the entire society to enjoy.  As people have begun moving back to cities and re-creating them to be more livable and social, they are discovering new institutions and new value in places that had been forgotten and previously experienced periods of disinvestment.

 

The authors write, “Placemaking uncovers the inherent value of a community and redefines its potential by integrating its historical identity with contemporary uses. As American cities lost population and dynamism, many of the grand institutions and buildings of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries fell into decline or disrepair. Late twentieth-century place-making rediscovered what still existed and repurposed it for a new era.”

 

This quote provides encouraging notes about reinventing and returning to valuable institutions, and also a cautionary tale about deserting institutions. When we have physical structures in place and enough people to remember institutions from that past which had served us well, we can always return to those institutions and even find new ways to use them and incorporate them into our lives. However, if we chose not to support our institutions and allow them to decay, they can languish and sit in disregard, becoming more of a headache than a valuable tool.

 

I think this is true for any type of institution, be it a physical institution such as a library, or a non-tangible institution such as a value of equality. For various complex reasons (some sensible like finding clean playgrounds for children and some not so wholesome such as new forms of racial segregation) American cities experienced a period of declining populations as (primarily white middle and upper class) citizens abandoned city centers for outlying suburbs. Katz and Nowak argue that this weakened the institutions that had made cities thriving places and had originally helped them grow and develop. Negative stereotypes of city centers persisted and while they may have been economic engines, they were not the cultural and in many ways not the institutional centers they had once been. New Localism is in some ways a return to the institutions of cities that had been abandoned in the past. As cities gentrify (a challenge in itself that is still tinged by racial disparity) they are becoming more attractive places to live, and the institutions which had once served city populations are being reinvented and reinvigorated.

 

We should recognize the positive in this story and celebrate and strengthen those institutions which fuel progress, improve our lives, and help promote equality and democracy. We should look at the squalor that cities and their institutions were put through and avoid throwing many of our modern institutions through those same tortures. We should remember that our suburbs are valuable as well, and support the populations and institutions of suburbs as people begin to move from suburbs and rural areas back into dense cities. This creates a two (or maybe three) front situation in terms of protecting and strengthening institutions, and the lessons we learned from abandoning and rediscovering and reinventing city institutions can help us navigate this new challenge brought about by New Localism.

Cities and Environmentalism

Posted on by jabittan
Cities can look like dirty places with no greenery or living plants among the concrete, asphalt, and towering buildings. At the same time, however, cities can be much more efficient and environmentally friendly than rural or suburban places. I live in the Western US and we expend a lot of energy just to move things from one place to another. A lot of the energy we produce just goes into moving water around. For us to get from our homes to our places of work can require a lot of driving by ourselves in a car. And because the West has so much open space, we have built large neighborhoods with houses spaced out from one another, requiring more concrete for sidewalks, more asphalt for roads, and more copper for electric lines.

 

The amount of resources needed to build suburban and rural connections between people is much greater than the per capita need within cities. As Jeremy Nowak and Bruce Katz write in The New Localism:

 

“The linkage between culture and cities also has to do with environmental sustainability and how its associated values translate into imperatives to re-purpose legacy places. Cities are ideal places for environmental stewardship, which is important to the culture: urban dwellers are not as car dependent as people in the suburbs, and urban life can be more energy efficient. Urban dwellers can use public transportation, walk, or ride a bicycle to work. Thus urban civic activism based on retrofitting the older built environment emerged in concert with an environmental ethos.”

 

I live in Nevada which is a state with a lot of rural space. I live in one of the two major metropolitan regions, but in the smaller of the two and toward the outskirts of town where the suburban starts to give way to the rural. I currently have an incredibly long car drive to work. The people I live around generally don’t seem to be as worried about environmental concerns, or if they are, then like me they may chose to ignore them or to accept living with a feeling of guilt because our way of life is in some ways very costly and resource demanding. The challenge is that it is hard to change and do much about our environmental impact, and we like our space, our quiet neighborhood, and our affordable homes.

 

People who live in the middle of a city don’t have as many of the same barriers to living a more energy efficient and environmentally considerate life as I do. When car reliance is less pronounced, it is easy to go without a car and decry the damage done by cars to our environment. When you spend less time in traffic and have more ability to use your time, you can engage in more pro-social and pro-environmental movements. Given the state of climate change, this is a positive aspect to cities. People can live more efficiently and be more inclined to advocate for a more environmentally considerate way of life. A shift in what we view as a good life (away from the picket-fence-two-car-garage-and-a-dog-in-a-yard to a life of greater connections in a city with less individual space) is a change in values, and is something that is leading to a revival of city centers and urban societies across the country. As networks and connections matter more and more, living close to people and having more interactions is becoming more valuable than having one’s own space and things.

 

Another important aspect in Katz and Nowak’s quote is the focus on rebuilding and re-purposing. Cities have existing infrastructure that needs to be updated as people move back into and begin to redifine their cities. This gives cities the chance to establish themselves as cleaner and better versions of what they have always been. The way that streets, buildings, and open spaces are used can be reimagined during this transition, allowing them to become more environmentally sustainable and more economically inclusive. This helps reduce the overall carbon footprint of city residents and helps them become places where people can actually live, work, and enjoy their time.

Immigration and City Rebuilding

Posted on by jabittan
I find myself in an interesting position when I think about immigration in the United States. I don’t have incredibly strong or fully informed views on immigration, and I find myself ending up at intersections where competing values push in opposing directions. From an economic perspective I agree with researchers who say that immigration is crucial for our national, and even global economy. From a human rights perspective, it feels imperative that we allow people languishing in terrible situations in foreign countries to have the opportunity to move to the US where their living standards will automatically increase substantially. However, I understand people’s hesitation to change and their fear of outsiders. I don’t want to accept these hesitations and fears, but I know they are real and I see how forcing change and immigration upon reluctant people can have disastrous consequences for society as a whole. I’m not sure how much we should restrict immigration to avoid this backlash, or whether we should just push forward with the immigration our economy needs.

 

What is clear to me is that the United States is not prepared to have this discussion in a reasonable and rational manner at the Federal level. It is my sense that there are more people aligned with the Democrats who are willing to be moderate (as I am) and are willing to compromise on important values such as human fairness, flourishing, and lifting the global poor for what feels like the psychological well being of xenophobic members of the Republican party. I don’t feel the same mindset from people within the Republican party, although this could just be a bias due to my media bubble. My sense is that a feeling of fear has taken root within the Republican party and derailed any reasonable national level discussion around immigration.

 

However, on smaller scales, I think the parties have more parity. In The New Localism authors Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak write, “American cities could not have revived as they have in the absence of large-scale immigration. Moreover, dramatic levels of immigrant entrepreneurship in cities as diverse as Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis are powerful reminders of how cities were built and rebuilt over generations.”

 

On the local level, the individuals who form the parties and drive government, part committees, local businesses, non-profits, and foundations can align on topics such as immigration even though on a national level the same individuals cannot agree. Within the city rebuilding is a continuous process, and compromises don’t have to be absolute and binding forever. At this level, immigration is personal and not abstract, and those who immigrate from outside can bring new ideas, exciting energy, and in some ways a fearless attitude that can help stakeholders align and connect, regardless of their political beliefs. Cities are not static, and this evolving nature allows for a moderate and reasonable discussion around immigration which is helping to fuel the revival of cities and metropolitan areas across the nation. My hope is that  this local level action can percolate upward and help us to have more informed and reasonable discussions on immigration at the highest levels of government in the United States. Sound local governance surrounding immigration with cities and metropolitan regions leading the way can hopefully be a federalist spark to tackle the thorny issue of immigration nationally.

City Strengths

Posted on by jabittan
Cities are incredible organizational units that human beings organically developed long before larger political boundaries and units could be conceived. Cities were the first forms of collaborative human living for our ancestors, before we could think of nations or states. But even though the idea of cities is ancient, they are still dynamic and evolving. In an age where everything is online, where virtual human connections are common, and where goods, services, and products can be obtained from almost any couch in the United States, cities are nevertheless growing. Despite video chat and meet-up software, companies still like to have private offices and there still seems to be value in face to face communication and interaction. Cities, it seems, are here to stay in our globalized and digital world.

 

In The New Localism authors Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak lay out a vision of new structures of governance that hinge on the flexibility, adaptability, and inventiveness of cities. The authors explain why they think cities are natural and fitting leaders to manage globalization and help drive solutions to the problems that face the entire globe.

 

“The ability of local communities in the United States to become effective problem solvers should not come as a surprise. Cities and towns developed in the absence of any intentional federal urban policy during most of the nation’s history. Historically, city building was more of a bottom-up and relatively chaotic enterprise, involving builders and investors, merchants and workers, civic associations, immigration and immigrant entrepreneurs, and local government. It was never the result of a top-down policy so much as it was a self-organizing market and civic practice.”

 

Top down solutions to problems in the United States have not been super successful in recent years. The most pressing problems we face as a planet don’t have a structure that allows them to be addressed in a top down manner. Cities, however, operate best by adjusting to local pressures, demands, and opportunities. In a bottom-up way, cities are well positioned to respond to the challenges the world faces and to develop new technologies, new trends, and new organizational structures that can respond to threats. The chaotic and constantly evolving nature of cities can lead them to be administratively hard to wrangle and can make many of their decisions appear non-rational, but it also allows them to adapt and coalesce around shared goals that can drive the innovation that the planet needs for progress.

New Ideas and Diversity

Posted on by jabittan
One reason why innovative problem solving and action on our nation’s most pressing problems has moved from the Federal government to local governments is because of the incredible diversity of our nation. Each state has its own unique flavor of any given national problem, making a one-size-fits-all approach to national politics incredibly challenging. Within every state we have a variety of cities and regions. Some areas are densely packed and populated, some areas are incredibly rural, some areas have access to natural resources that help with trade and politics, and some areas have incredible universities that attract global talent for education and possible careers.

 

Managing the diversity of our nation, our states, and the cities and regions that power our country is crucial in a new age of globalization. In The New Localism, Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak write, “New Localism is the locus of problem solving that must by necessity be open to new ideas and a diversity of constituencies.”

 

We have diverse populations across our diverse landscape. Not just the issues that matter most to people, but the acceptable approaches to those problems will also vary across individuals and regions. When we start building our solutions at the local level to match our diverse population, we have to be open to new possibilities that align with that diversity. We must find ways to be inclusive if we are going to manage diversity well, and that will necessitate taking a fresh look at problems we have seen in the past.

 

By incorporating our diverse perspectives, and understanding that seeing the problem and the solution as they have always existed will lead to a shortcoming, we can find the new solutions required by New Localism. Standard approaches will break down because they won’t be able to account for diverse views and beliefs, and they will ultimately leave people out. That will cause friction which will ultimately lead to breakdowns in policies and programs. Incorporating local people who understand local conditions is key to developing new programs, new policies, and new approaches to governance to help our cities, metropolitan regions, states, and ultimately our nation thrive in the future.

Ground Level Problem Solving

Posted on by jabittan
Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak, in their 2017 book The New Localism, argue that problem solving and policy solutions to our pressing problems will not be found at the national level as we move forward, but rather at the local level. Large, established, and nationalized organizations will be less able to take on the problems of our new economy and evolving societies, but smaller, more responsive, and more local organizations and arrangements can address these challenges.

 

The authors write, “problem solving close to the ground rather than policy-making from a remote national or state capital has the tangible benefit of customization. A local solution can be a more efficient use of resources since it is more aligned with the distinctive needs of a particular place.”

 

Cities and states across the nation have competing and conflicting problems. What might be a major challenge in your city may not be a problem at all in another city. The solutions that would work to address a problem in your city might be completely ineffective someplace else. Economic structures, environmental concerns, resources, and human capital will all shape how a problem can be addressed, and every city and metropolitan region in the nation has a different mix of these variables to use to address challenges.

 

Even within a state, conditions can be drastically different from one region or county to another. I live in Reno, Nevada, and we are having major housing challenges as we receive an influx of companies and employees from the Bay Area in California. Our housing challenges, and the resources we have to address our problem is completely different than the problems being faced in Las Vegas. Introducing policy on a state level to address the issues we face in Reno may cause entirely different problems in Las Vegas housing markets.

 

If you are not going to address problems purely with policy from a state legislature or from Congress, then you need to address problems with local stakeholders and organizations. This includes philanthropic organizations who can back projects that don’t have a clear ROI and would be risky for a government agency to support. Local problem solving also includes local businesses and organizations that can coordinate and align on development goals. Public agencies have a role to play by ensuring that expertise and resources are being used in a way that is consistent with state law and policy. Each group of actors can help coordinate and push different parts of the solutions that individually they could not propel forward. This is what allows local problem solving to be efficient, effective, and innovative in tackling today’s problems.

Why the City-State is Returning to Prominence

Posted on by jabittan
I live in Nevada which is in an interesting state driven largely by two main metropolitan areas: Las Vegas in Southern Nevada and Reno in Northern Nevada. States today are relying on dynamic cities in order to get things done and to jump-start their economies. In my home state, Las Vegas in a tourism driven town that has remained an attractive hub for people looking to get away, have a chance to win some money, and to escape into a desert paradise. Reno has begun to reinvent itself by serving as an extension of San Francisco/San Jose tech companies who need more space and cheaper labor than is available in the Bay Area. Our state is in a sense two city-states that make decisions, interact with private companies, and coordinate citizens for economic growth and development. Government at the state level doesn’t forget our rural communities, but seems to often focus on what can be done to make sure Las Vegas and Reno can continue to grow and develop in the best way possible.

 

One reason why the city-state is becoming a powerful engine in the United States is that the Federal Government is pulling back from is role in making overarching national policy. Part of this is a result of deliberate choice as one political party attempts to reduce the overall impact, size, and function of the Federal Government. As Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak write in The New Localism, “The stated aspiration of the Trump administration to deconstruct the administrative state is ironically elevating the city-state as the locus of problem-solving activity.”

 

The authors write that the city-state has risen in an ironic result of the Trump administration’s actions because the nation’s most dynamic metropolitan regions generally seems to oppose the policies of the Trump administration. In the 2016 election most major metropolitan areas voted in favor of Hilary Clinton and Democrat candidates for other offices. Republican’s who felt left behind in rural areas generally favored Trump and Republican candidates and wanted a federal policy that did not leave their areas behind while focusing on the growth and expansion of dynamic cities. However, by abdicating decision-making responsibility, the Federal Government may be doing exactly that.

 

Decreasing the role of the Federal Government in effect gives cities the green light to take the lead on issues ranging from climate change to biomedical research and we see cities passing ordinances to reduce carbon emissions and encourage more spending and development in technological advancements (in Boston it is biomedical research and in Reno it is battery development). Cities can move fast and offer attractive amenities, tax breaks, and living environments for companies and organizations that want to change the world, a big contrast to the Federal Government that is characterized by gridlock.

 

When the Federal Government takes a hands-off approach, it is American cities, where people live and innovative cities are taking hold, that are able to engage in place-making to develop new structures and institutions. These cities work out the solution to the challenges and problems our country is facing, and then export those solutions from one metropolitan region to another. It is a city driven model of federalism which brings even more irony to the table. The Republican party has long been the advocate of federalism (at a state level) encouraging states to be able to adopt policies without interference of the Federal Government. In the past, these were often policies that maintained traditionalist values, as opposed to the new policies we see from states that address problems that the Republican Party would rather ignore. Federalism has shifted from states to the cities and is spreading in a new way as the Trump Administration creates confusion and incoherence at the Federal Level.

The Location of Power

Posted on by jabittan
Power in the United States, at least the power to actually get things done and make changes, is transforming. National politics exist at such a polarized level that bipartisan lawmaking and any action in general is almost impossible. As a result, political decision making and dynamic policy changes are occurring at a different level of governance, the hyper-local level. From my vantage point, state governments are muddling through as normal, with some big legislation passing here and there in some states, but simultaneously a lot of state level legislation seems to me to symbolic and broad, and often hung up in courts.

 

The New Localism by Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak explores how and why power in American public policy is shifting to the city, municipality, and metropolitan arenas. Dynamic changes and transformations are not occurring nationally, are not occurring in all states, and are not occurring in all counties. Some regions of the United States are growing, booming, and adapting, while others seem stagnant and stuck.

 

The authors write, “The location of power is shifting as a result of profound demographic, economic, and social forces. Power is drifting downward from the nation-state to cities and metropolitan communities, horizontally from government to networks of public, private, and civic actors, and globally along transnational circuits of capital, trade, and innovation.”

 

The thing about city governments and metropolitan communities is that they can act with a sense of informality that large national governments and bureaucracies cannot. They can be quicker to respond and more targeted with their actions. We are coming out of a period in American history where policies and actions moved upward to the Federal government. Lobbyists moved from small town capitals across the nation to Washington DC, to be closer to the big decision makers. As congress has fallen into gridlock, local governments have taken up action to innovate and re-imagine their futures. New actors come into play at local levels, and connections in both public and private organizations are driving the changes of governance, economies, and communities.

 

It is important that we embrace these changes, but recognize the potential for inequality with these changes. We have to find ways to embrace the new drivers of innovation, knowledge, and development while equitably ensuring that our communities are strengthened and not fractured from this new localism. Metropolitan areas are booming, but they must not become exploitative or this shift in power can become dangerous and further the divisions in our country. In order for new localism to be sustainable, it must also become equitable to bridge the gaps we see in our current politics.

The Scale of Our Pain

Posted on by jabittan
I usually have one of two feelings when I fly into a large city or walk through a large crowd of people. I either feel insignificant and tiny, recognizing that whatever I do will eventually fade into oblivion among a sea of billions of people. Or, I feel proud to be part of an incredible collection of brilliant and capable human beings, each experiencing the world from a unique point of view, each with our own desires and feelings, and all connected by our shared humanity. Regardless of which sensation comes to mind, both help me recognize that what is going on inside my head, the reality of the world that I have constructed for myself, is not the full scope of human experience and is nothing more than just a world inside of me. Whatever fears, doubts, plans, successes, and assumptions I have are not any more real than the same thoughts going through the millions of people that might be living in the big city that I am flying into.

 

Recently, an entry in Fernando Pessoa’s book, The Book of Disquiet, has given me the same type of feeling. In a section of Margaret Jull Costa’s translation, Pessoa writes about pain, and about how our pain can feel so infinite and overwhelming to us, yet at the same time be so small and insignificant within the scope of the universe. In 1933 he wrote, “To consider our greatest anguish an incident of no importance, not just in terms of the life of the universe, but in terms of our own souls, is the beginning of knowledge.” When we start to recognize that we are not the center of the universe and when we can acknowledge that the severity of our emotions and feelings do not make them more real or more important in the scope of the world, we can start to see more objectively and without a filter orienting everything around us.

 

“It isn’t true that life is painful or that it’s painful to think about life,” Pessoa writes, “What is true is that our pain is only as serious and important as we pretend it to be.” Anything in our lives can take on extreme meaning and value. At the same time, anything in our life can be tossed out without care. What we focus on, where we put our attention and energy, and what we decide to be important is what will become our reality. Pessoa recognized this through his extreme self reflection, and from this point he became aware of his own insignificance and how little his thoughts and desires truly mattered to the rest of the universe. Any pain that he felt is simply a pain that he felt at that moment. Any experience he had was fleeting, because he was not a permanent fixture in the universe and not something that overwhelmingly shaped the universe.

 

Seeing this in ourselves and becoming aware of who we are and where we exist in the world is important if we want to do the most good with the time that we have. If we choose to live completely within our own mind, then we risk living in a way where we put ourselves before all others. We will seek more and more and attempt to raise ourselves above others while decreasing the pain we feel. Alternatively, we can step outside ourselves and try to engage in the world in a way that will improve the interactions between us and everyone else. We can try to make the world a better place for other individuals to interact within, even if they are not interacting with us directly, and even if we don’t directly see a benefit to ourselves. The reason to live in this world is because it is a more accurate reflection of the reality we live within. Our brain will only ever perceive so much, and rather than making up stories about what it means, we can live in a world where we try to continually develop a more objective understanding of what we see and experience, so that we can do the most good.

 

Pessoa closes in writing, “Seeing myself frees me from myself. I almost smile, not because I understand myself, but because, having become other, I am no longer able to understand myself.”