The New Localism
Photo by Monica Bourgeau on Unsplash
It is crazy to me that cities work. That millions of people manage to live their lives together every day with (mostly) no mishaps. That buildings are powered and watered, streets are cleaned, garbage collected, and that Sam is more or less cordial with his neighbors Jane, John, Peter, Susan and the rest of his floor and building and block. How that all works is insane.
And cities are growing, or at least they were pre-COVID. There might be some adjustments in the numbers now, but the UN estimated that in 2050 almost 70% of the population will live in urban areas. Already in the United States, a country much less dense than similar states in Europe of Asia, 2/3 of the population live in cities in an area that composes of only 3.5 percent of the total land area. The growth of cities may slow due to COVID, but they will remain an important factor of for the lives of billions for years to come.
Why are cities such a big deal, and why are they growing? Authors Bruce Katz and Jeremy Novak think they know. One, cities have always been useful to society due to their natural agglomeration of resources and opportunities. There are more jobs, homes, and opportunities in cities than there are in the country, just because everything is closer. Also, cities have benefited from the rise of the global economy. Bruce and Jeremy state in their book, The New Localism, that “many urban institutions have become more relevant in the global economy. Medical facilities, universities, and other research institutions attract tech startups and venture capital.” Tech startups like Google, Apple, Microsoft have an unparalleled impact on the economy, and rely of the connections and institutions that are only available in dense urban environments. Stanford and San Francisco were a huge part of the creation of Silicon Valley. Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh worked with the city of Pittsburgh to create a similar area of innovation in robotics in Pennsylvania. Boston owes a lot of its success to the fact that there are hundreds of world class universities within a 20 minute ride from downtown.
As cities have grown with the advent of globalism and the internet, so have its problems. Cities, as a combination of private and public space, theoretically should be democratic and equal in its accessibility. Bruce and Jeremy again write “Low income should have access to just as good schools as high income. Unfortunately, that is not the case in many places and erodes shared identity and creates divisions.” Columbia University thrives while the surrounding neighborhood of Morningside Heights declines. San Francisco, while experiencing unheard economic growth from Silicon Valley faces a crushing housing crisis that drove out many people from the city to lower-income areas in the suburbs. A single policy, such as redlining which was popular in the 20th century and still used today, or the construction of a freeway overpass can deny whole neighborhoods of people from many benefits all of the citizens should share.
The burden of fixing these problems falls not to the state or federal government, but to the cities, a problem that Bruce and Jeremy think that cities are well equipped to handle by utilizing a theory called localism. Localism describes a broad range of philosophies but can be boiled down to preference for the local. It can be seen across many different domains, agriculturally in the slow food movement that came out of Italy, socially in the preference for smaller communities over large ones, in business with the idea of small fast companies over large corporations. Politically, it speaks to the devolution of power from federal and state levels to the local levels and redistributing it to the people who actually live in said area. Instead of asking permission from D.C. or Olympia, WA, the city of Spokane has the agency to solve its own problems. This can come from two different areas, the local government, or the locals themselves. In The New Localism, two different types of strategies of localism are used to solve their cities’ problems.
One could assume that to get anything done in a city, they would need to go through the famously inefficient city hall to get approval. Rather, the citizens of the city can do a lot without having to spend 10 years waiting in the chamber of commerce waiting room. Bruce and Jeremy talk of one-way citizens can come together to create change in their communities by bringing business CEOs and institutional leaders-like university presidents and hospital directors, and their combined power together to form collaborations. These groups devise regional strategy and research, create funds based on pooled resources, and then re-invest those funds back into the community, all without thinking about a permit.
An example of this is the Central Indiana Corporate partnership, (CICP), which is composed of 60 of the region’s best CEOs, presidents, philanthropy directors, and other institutional leaders. Free from the bureaucracy of city hall, the CICP has a lot more agency to spur economic growth in the region. Their methods include identifying key points of strength in the region, helping businesses craft business plans to capitalize on said opportunity, then supporting the new venture with help in marketing and fundraising. Collaborations like this better utilize the community’s resources due to its consolidation and fill in the void government was supposed to fill as investors in their communities. Similar ventures have sprung up since. In Cleveland, a similar group of leaders formed the Cleveland Tomorrow Group to revitalize the crumbling city center. In Cincinnati, the mayor encouraged the CEO-led Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation that oversees the re-development of the greater downtown area. Makes you wonder though, why the mayor couldn’t do it himself. What would it look like if cities were able to leverage their power business leaders and philanthropies? Do cities even have enough assets at their disposal to make a worthwhile impact. After all, they aren’t making that type of money. Bruce and Jeremy think they do.
One of the main ideas the book The New Localism promotes is that cities have a lot of underleveraged power at disposal, but this power is too spread out and disorganized amongst a million different authorities to be properly utilized. Land and other assets are divided between airport authorities, parks and rec departments, water and gas agencies, the list goes on and on. While this decentralization prevents corruption it also prevents utilization. Cities can use these assets to grow their city in a process called the Copenhagen method, an idea that came out of the Danish capital to solve a housing shortage in the city. This method involves the creation of a public corporation that is transferred land and other required assets by the government to do its job. The government then goes and rezones the transferred land for commercial/residential use, which increases the value of the land. The corporation borrows based off that that increased value, creates infrastructure (gas/electric lines, access to public transportation) so that the land is more appealing to developers, and sells/leases that land at its increased value to service its debt.
An example of this can be seen in the development of transit villages by my local public rail line, BART. BART has stations in almost every major city in the Bay Area and are surrounded by these huge parking lots. In an attempt to ease traffic congestion and provide additional housing in an area facing a shortage of such, BART began building transit villages where these parking lots stood. To do so, they worked with local government to re-zone the land where the parking was, which then allowed them to lease/sell the land to developers. All this revenue goes towards the continued upkeep of the BART transit system itself, which has been struggling in its later years.
These ideas and methods seem like they should perfectly. I’ll admit that as I was reading this book, all of these sounded like no brainers. However, a city is so much more than an economy. There are a million other factors at play here; how will this affect the community, the identity of the neighborhood, the people who live there. Will the community be able to grow with new development, or will the lack of opportunities force them out like it has done in San Francisco? Will business leaders and University Presidents be able to use their power for the betterment of the community, or will one fall prey to temptation and ruin it for everyone. Race, equitable access, and regional foresight all need to be a part of development and planning. I think the authors were on the right track, they just failed to see past improving the economy.
As cities continue to grow, so will their power. Eventually, the big cities of the United States, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and many others will no longer see a need for state and federal oversight. The people of the city will begin to do what they always used to do before the creation of big states; they will begin to solve their problems themselves.