“Welcome to Citiwire.net! How can American metro regions organize to push forward (and benefit from) the major export initiative proposed by President Obama and so vital to U.S. economic growth and recovery? My column taps the topic, citing both a new Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program effort in the area, and the pithy observations of our Citistates Group colleague William Stafford, founder of the Trade Alliance of Greater Seattle and a past master of the art. … Meanwhile, Tom Wright (of the Regional Plan Association in New York) describes the birth and amazing 25-year record of the Mayors’ Institute on Urban Design.” -- Neal Peirce
Neal Peirce
For Release Sunday, May 8, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
Will President Obama’s National Export Initiative, his call to double exports in five years, actually make a difference and help to respark our economy?
There’s discouraging news. Congress isn’t providing funding. Fiscally squeezed states are cutting back on their trade promotion offices. The national debate seems to be about the size of government, not how we create the goods and services to compete against such fast-rising world economic powers as the “BRIC” block (Russia, Brazil, India, China).
My colleague William Stafford, who heads the Seattle region’s rather unique Trade Development Alliance, notes caustically:
“Either we get our exports up or our economy won’t come back. We’re still smug, still thinking we’re No. 1.” He describes federal export efforts as little less than pitiful.
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Thomas Wright
For Release Friday, May 6, 2011
Citiwire.net
Let’s take a trip back to 1985, perhaps the peak of anti-urbanism in this nation’s history. Suburbanization was in full force across the landscape. As Dolores Hayden has noted, “by 1980 one out of seven American workers earned a living building, selling, repairing, insuring, driving or servicing vehicles and highways.” Meanwhile, our cities were dealing with the painful legacy of failed urban renewal projects, trying to figure out what to do with acres and acres of bulldozed sites. The Reagan Administration was cutting funding from Community Development Block Grants, mass transit, and other urban programs. And Mayor Joe Riley of Charleston, South Carolina wrote a letter to Jaquelin Robertson, Dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, to propose that they collaborate on a forum to educate mayors about architecture, design, and planning.
Mayor Riley predicted a great revival of American cities, but asked “What kind of cities are being rebuilt?” He proposed that by creating “a program aimed at increasing the mayors sophistication and interest in urban design, we could have a substantial impact on the quality and development of American cities.”
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