Will this come through in time to save Detroit?
The Washington Post is reporting on some policy changes that the Obama administration is quietly implementing:
Quote:
Obama Sets Sights on Urban Renewal
President Obama is putting a new emphasis on revitalizing U.S. cities with a coordinated effort that involves stimulus funding and getting multiple agencies to work together to improve schools, housing and neighborhoods.
The approach is winning applause from local officials and urban thinkers, who credit the administration for quietly beginning the most ambitious new policy for the nation's cities since the Great Society programs of the 1960s. But the plan involves fundamental changes in the way federal agencies dole out assistance to urban areas, making its success uncertain.
"This is way more than an ocean liner trying to change direction," said Angela Glover Blackwell, founder of PolicyLink, an advocacy organization that has consulted with the administration. "This is glacial."
Peniel E. Joseph, a historian at Tufts University, said it appears that Obama is trying to reverse a trend in which urban issues slipped down the national agenda. The president's stimulus plan included at least $20 billion for urban programs, outside of education.
"The stimulus certainly put billions into urban areas, but we are still going to have to see over the course of his administration what this adds up to," Joseph said.
Obama has lamented the historic failures of federal efforts to rejuvenate urban areas, noting in July at a White House urban policy roundtable that "federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development."
In the same way that federal highway spending encouraged sprawl, the Obama administration says more concentrated development can lead to more job opportunities for residents and environmentally and economically viable neighborhoods.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...s=rss_politics
