The Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program consistently produces strong research on urban affairs on a range of topics, in a variety of geographic settings. This week's Washington Post included an opinion piece by the MPP's Director Bruce Katz that summarizes strong state of urban America and identifies broad policy strategies to sustain metropolitan areas.
Thirty years ago, some futurists predicted that the restructuring of the American economy and our technological advances would free and un-anchor us from place, precipitating a mass de-urbanization throughout the nation.
Well, they were wrong. Far from being dead, cities are experiencing a second life, fueled, in part, by their distinctive physical assets: mixed-use downtowns, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, adjoining rivers and lakes, historic buildings and distinctive architecture.
An astonishing 83 percent of the American population lives in metropolitan areas which, together, drive and dominate the economy and house our wealth-generating industries, our centers of research and innovation, our ports of commerce and our gateways of immigration.
[click here to view the full piece on the Brookings website]
Mr. Katz identifies a number of themes that are credited with supporting the resurgence of urban centers, including:
- The ability for urban areas to attract "clusters" of industries that benefit from proximity to one another
- The importance of urban amenities which attract creative-class type workers
- The role and importance of immigration to both city areas and suburbs
I particularly enjoyed the part of the article which looked at opportunities to strengthen urban policy by focusing federal/state/local resources on metropolitan planning and issues.
Filed under Governance, Opinions & Reveiws with 2 Comments
|2 Responses to “Editorial: A Much More Urban America”
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July 27th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
"technological advances would free and un-anchor us from place"
Sounds great! I want to be un-anchored from my suburban office job such that I can live in Minneapolis and telecommute.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:55 am
[…] It occurs to me that an affair with urban policy's recent entry on Bruce Katz's Washington Post editorial, A Much More Urban America, is […]