Rethinking Urban Policy Urban Development in an Advanced Economy (1983) / Chapter Skim
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9 Rethinking Urban Policy
9 Rethinking Urban Policy
Pages 171-183
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From page 171... ...
National economic development interests may be served best by encouraging fairly rapid adjustments in economic structure. Rapid adjustments, however, can be profoundly destabilizing for the most adversely affected urban economies.
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From page 172... ...
The important issue has to do with the directions that policy should take and the recognition of urban policy as a worthy perspective in making general economic policy. A POLICY FRAMEWORK Neither a pure free market nor a central planning model of economic or urban policy holds much attraction in light of the economic and technological transformation that is occurring.
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From page 173... ...
Such a strategy would include making a modest amount of capital available on a wholesale basis to leverage private investments in urban development efforts that promote economic transition. It also would include some mechanism, such as a national infrastructure bank, to provide leadership for institutional reforms and to undergird local and state capacities to finance and manage the urban public facilities needed to support and serve an advanced economy.
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From page 174... ...
They help build a base for national economic expansion, and they can also provide an important tool for local economic development and employment. Without indiscriminately supporting projects that have little longterm potential for sustaining local employment or making contributions to national growth, investments can be made in the quality of public facilities in ways that materially aid a community in stabilizing its own economy and in providing leverage to build the base required to transform itself.
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From page 175... ...
A substantial cluster of national, state, and urban policies may be required: tax incentives to industries for retraining workers, legislation to require advance notice of major plant closings and to help support industry-employee-community councils to plan for the transition, and planning grants to communities to help them identify alternative sources of employment and to provide for adult, continuing, and vocational education programs to retrain redundant workers. Advance warning of local structural unemployment could facilitate development of other local strategies, such as the creation of jobs clubs, efforts to attract other employers, and better use of transitional public employment programs.
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From page 176... ...
Access to federal capital sources for infrastructure and private development, for example, can reasonably require substantial evidence of public-private cooperation in both longterm plans and specific projects without impairing local flexibility or responsibility in the design and execution of policies and strategies. RETHINKING HOW URBAN POLICY SHOULD BE MADE Federal Policy Processes The federal role can be critical without limiting local or private initiative and strategies.
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From page 177... ...
One of the first tasks of urban area strategists is to develop an intelligence function capable of systematically using information to obtain and keep a grip on local and national economic reality. Independent and reliable information, professional research capability, and linkages to similar institutions in other areas are almost prerequisites for sound planning, necessary course corrections, and effective action.
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From page 178... ...
The state may be able to convince home office executives from other cities in the state to empower their branch managers to play larger roles in community affairs and may also be able to buttress the leadership of local public officials. State involvement is also necessary before there will be broad improvements in public education; the state could provide the resources needed by postsecondary community colleges, training centers, and urban universities to play more effective roles as urban institutions.
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From page 179... ...
Substantial parts of the public facilities system have deteriorated. Fiscal resources are scarce and the revenue base is static or in decline due to economic conditions and prior political decisions.
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From page 180... ...
Nothing that we have discussed is more important to the resilience of an urban area than preparing and maintaining a trained labor force for an increasingly knowledge-centered economy. This demands a heavy concentration of local resources and leadership attention on many aspects of education and training: public schools, technical and vocational training institutions, the transition from school to work, the role of public employment as part of the labor force strategy, retraining programs, the system of higher education available in the area, and the relationship of the higher-education system to the labor force, research, development, .
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From page 181... ...
In manufacturing, there is every prospect that the direct costs of production will decline sharply as a result of using industrial robots, but the products themselves may become more valuable because of the knowledge represented in their design and the design of the systems used to make them. Given all the trends in technology, economic organization, and demography that we have considered, it appears that the growth of the nation's economy and the economic future of American cities and urban areas rest on accelerating the restructuring of the economy and in embracing a role of leadership of an advanced economy.
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From page 182... ...
Ultimately, labor forces must be retrained, education systems vastly improved, parts of the capital stock replaced, and sections of the city rebuilt or renovated to perform new functions. The purpose of concentrating resources on such cities is to make the transition they must undergo smoother and to empower them and their residents to have more choice about their future.
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From page 183... ...
Consequently, national policy must be much more cognizant of its geographic consequences and national urban policy must be integrated into national economic policy so that it can provide a perspective that is now largely missing. As the service occupations increasingly dominate employment and as the changing nature of work demands that more people be trained better than ever before, the nation can ill afford urban areas that lag far behind others.
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