Converting Traction in 2008 to Action in 2009: Forging a Metro-Federal Partnership

Just over a year ago, the Metropolitan Policy Program launched its Blueprint for American Prosperity initiative, arguing that 21st century prosperity requires a new federal partnership to leverage the assets concentrated in America’s metropolitan areas.

Amid the incredible tumult of 2008—including the combative and protracted primaries and general election, wildly oscillating gas prices, the mortgage and foreclosure meltdown, extensive job losses and the banking and auto crises—this new federalist paradigm has gained traction across the country.

It is continuing to do so because leaders, both public and private, are increasingly recognizing that infrastructure, innovation, human capital, and quality places—the metro-concentrated drivers of prosperity—must be the building blocks for recovery and for the nation’s long-term future.

To achieve these goals, this must be a metropolitan moment, resulting in a new partnership between the federal government and the regions that drive our economy.

And it must be a true partnership. Just as metropolitan areas can’t go it alone on issues of national import—such as transportation infrastructure, energy policy, and competitiveness—neither can the federal government go it alone without significant input and collaboration from metropolitan America. The stakes are very high. Because of the staggering sums involved, the federal recovery track in 2009 will set our policy course for years to come.

Over a decade of Metropolitan Policy Program work compels a Blueprint approach of marshaling metro assets in concert with a re-envisioned federal partnership, reforming to invest in the future.

Together with you—our partners, colleagues, and on the ground innovators—who helped inform the development of the Blueprint, the time has come to turn traction into action by transforming the metropolitan framework into a vision for governing.

Though the Blueprint partnership to date has made substantial inroads, we will continue to need your support in our efforts to empower local and regional leaders to bolster the nation’s long-term prosperity.

Moving the Metropolitan Framework into Federal Policy Action

Beginning in November 2007 the Metropolitan Policy Program rolled out a synthesis of its decade of research and policy innovation into a coherent whole, largely embodied by two seminal reports (MetroNation and MetroPolicy) that offered a provocative new framework for thinking about our economy, and for advancing federal policy reforms that build on the assets and centrality of America’s metropolitan areas.

Additionally, we published and worked to advance specific, actionable policy reforms in several areas including innovation, cluster development, low-income tax policy, transportation/infrastructure, K-12 education, and energy/environment through the Blueprint Policy Series.

Over 900 people gathered to validate this work at the “Summit for American Prosperity: Washington and Metro Areas Working Together,” held at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. in June 2008.

Summit participants learned more about the Blueprint and the opportunity for major federal reforms, hearing from key Blueprint supporters, including Harvard Professor Michael Porter, Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, as well as dozens of local elected officials, business, and philanthropic innovators.

On the policy front, the Blueprint has gained significant ground over the past year as well:

• As a testament to the experience and innovative thinking at Brookings, Bruce Katz was asked to serve as co-chair of the HUD transition for the Obama administration. Other senior members of the Metro Program, such as Amy Liu, Mark Muro, Rob Puentes, Andrew Reamer, and Steve Crawford served as formal advisors to or advised several agency transition teams. In these capacities, the transition teams, and current staff, are actively considering the program’s ideas on infrastructure, energy and green technology research and innovation, the link between housing and transportation, and Gulf Coast recovery.
• Related, Brookings hosted a roundtable discussion, in collaboration with the Center on American Progress, on how the administration and Congress can stabilize and regenerate the neighborhoods most impacted by the foreclosure crisis. Many of the recommendations from that gathering, summarized in a new Blueprint policy paper, have been included in the Obama administration’s proposed economic recovery package.
• Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) introduced a bill that encompasses the Blueprint’s recommendations on cluster-led economic development and the creation of a National Innovation Foundation. More broadly, as the new Congress convenes, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee included the ideas for a National Innovation Foundation and a federal cluster program in its Fresh 50: Fifty New Policy Ideas for Senate Democrats, and the International Economic Development Council and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities have both endorsed Brookings innovation policy ideas as a part of their recommendations for the 44^th president and the 111^th Congress.
• Karen Mills, a co-author of the paper to create a new federal regional cluster initiative, has been appointed by President Obama to head the Small Business Administration.
• The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) directly referenced the Blueprint’s infrastructure work in their early proposal for renewed transportation funding. That same work is now actively serving as the framework guiding the federal economic recovery package under development.
• In June 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama’s signature address on urban policy to the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual meeting in Miami stressed the enhanced role that our metropolitan areas need to play in our national economy, directly referencing Brookings’ work on the Blueprint.

We also continued to build the Blueprint’s two leadership partner networks—the Metropolitan Leadership Council (with 27 current members) and the Metropolitan Partners network (with close to 100 current members) to continue to refine and inform our efforts.

Grounding Reforms to Metropolitan and State Realities

In keeping with the genesis of the Blueprint as a vehicle for metropolitan innovation, the Metropolitan Policy Program continues to interact on a state and regional level with partners committed to rethinking the federal role and its partnership with metropolitan areas and states.

Unique from other institutional efforts to inform federal decisionmaking, the Blueprint is rooted outside of Washington, informed and guided by local and regional public, private, and nonprofit leaders nationwide.

Over the past year, these efforts included catalyzing engagement in the Intermountain West, where our report examining the unique challenges of the fast-growing regions of Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque has led to renewed interest in organizing multi-state actions for federal reforms in transportation and energy research.

Also our effort at informing a multi-state consensus in the Great Lakes region continued with an economic examination of the U.S.-Canada trade relationship and the Great Lakes themselves.

In Ohio, we convened a 1,000 person event—attended by top state leadership, elected and otherwise—to discuss and refine state-specific Blueprint approaches to Ohio’s many economic hurdles.

And we continue to engage in Maine, where Charting Maine’s Future’s message of “cut to invest” still resonates and resulted in legislative changes.

Closer to home, Brookings’ Greater Washington Research effort engaged and influenced local leaders on the importance of creating a community college in the District of Columbia and how to link public education reform to housing and neighborhood policies.

Informed by Trends and Global Best Practices

Concurrent with the Blueprint effort, the Metropolitan Policy Program remains committed to the research that establishes the demographic and economic playing field where policymaking takes place.

In 2008, this included continued work on working families and EITC data, the Metropolitan Economy Initiative, and our sustaining engagement with the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

The program also believes that government at all levels must measure for results and continue to advocate for better data collection and dissemination.

Additionally, the program has been gathering best metropolitan practices from around the world, including an educational tour of transportation planning and policies in Germany and a recent paper on lessons the United Kingdom’s efforts may have for the United States.

Beyond the Blueprint: The Reform Moment

Over the coming year, as federal policymakers seek to pull the nation out of its tailspin and put us on the road to stable, durable prosperity, we will align the Blueprint’s message of America’s metropolitan primacy with the reality of a stark economic landscape.

But we need not abdicate the long term in addressing the short-term crisis.

Instead, we are advancing policy ideas that, in the short-term, can help reduce the harm of the housing crisis and downturn on consumers and communities, and jumpstart the transition to the next economy, including strategic investments in alternative energy technology; support for “green” cluster development; and stepped-up assistance for communities wracked by foreclosures.

At the same time, long-delayed responses to major issues such as infrastructure, climate change, education, and taxes, along with the ascendance of a new administration and Congress present new opportunities to advance the Blueprint initiative.

There is also a widely recognized and urgent need for the federal government to reform itself to lead in areas that transcend the reach of local action and require national vision; empower U.S. metros to catalyze bottom-up problem solving; and maximize performance in a fiscally constrained environment.

In the coming year we will be focused on catalyzing federal policy adoption, given the new administration, especially in transportation, innovation, small business entrepreneurship, and housing. We will follow the impact of federal economic recovery efforts in metro areas. We will strengthen calls and attention to leveraging human capital and increasing opportunities for low-income workers.

And we plan to start a wave of policy thinking on governance reform, to strengthen the ways that the federal government can empower the vertical federal-state-local relationship while also enabling local leaders to better work horizontally across jurisdictions and program areas.

We will also ensure that metro innovations and practice continues to inform federal decisionmaking, making our partnerships with local and regional leaders essential. And, at the paradigm level, we have more work to do to educate decisionmakers about the role of metro areas in the economy and to show the geographic locations of the nation’s challenges and assets.

But we remain energized and optimistic about the year ahead. In short, it was the power of the local and regional leaders—public and private—that successfully put metros on the political map in 2008 so that a federal-metro partnership is increasingly possible now.

Moving on, the Metro program will unify important updates on our Blueprint for American Prosperity work in this Metro newsletter. Rather than the two newsletters that many of you now receive, our news and progress will be delivered in one succinct newsletter. We hope you’ll find this change useful.

As we approach the challenges of 2009, we welcome your continued thoughts, critiques, and participation.