Rethinking Urban Policy Urban Development in an Advanced Economy (1983) / Chapter Skim
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Policies that seek to improve or accelerate the adaptability of urban areas to these changes should therefore be closely coordinated with policies that affect the performance of sectors of the economy and with general economic policies that strive to influence the overall rate and direction of national economic growth. This coordination requires a framework for national urban policy that is simultaneously concerned with policies that accelerate and broaden the mainstream of economic change and policies that address the problems of adjustment for the people and places left behind by changes in the economy.
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5. Policies that promote investments in urban education systems to improve the basic skills and work habits of new entrants to the labor force and investments in continuing and higher education to develop and maintain a labor force that can adapt more readily to continuing structural changes in the economy and to new ways of working.
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2. There is a particular need for an intelligence system in each urban area to conduct research and provide information that helps local leaders understand economic changes, assay resources, and formulate strategies for local economic development.
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In this sense, urban policy can complement national tax, fiscal, employment, monetary, and international trade policies, which are concerned primarily with aggregate national economic performance, and sectoral policies, which are concerned with the performance of clusters of related industries. Working together, these three branches of policy national, sectoral, and urban are concerned with how much is done, what is done, and where it is done, as closely related aspects of the economy.
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These metropolitan areas provide the most important services for the rest of the system—the "subordinate centers," which are more specialized in consumer services, the production of goods, or military or extractive industries. Because of their greater diversity, the autonomy of their economic institutions, and their strong existing base for development of a serviceoriented economy, the command and control centers have shown greater capacity to adjust to the structural changes in their economies than have the subordinate centers.
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Traditional economic policy has been concerned primarily with the formation of capital in the aggregate. The role for both sectoral and urban policies is to focus national concern on the allocation of capital to economic activities, places, and people in a manner that not only contributes to overall economic efficiency and wealth but also provides for broad distribution of opportunity and avoids unnecessary waste of human and physical resources.
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A system of national and state infrastructure banks could help raise capital for public investment and provide a more flexible form of financial assistance than traditional federal capital grant programs have provided. Basic elements of urban economic development strategy include leveraging available resources, improving capital and operating budgeting, using joint development techniques, using regulations more effectively, improving urban design, and avoiding ineffective incentives, such as indiscriminate tax breaks.
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Making special efforts in higher education for urban minorities, improving primary and secondary education in the urban school systems from which higher education institutions draw most of their students, and developing continuing education programs for the retraining and advancement of professionals, managers, and technicians are all appropriate functions for urban higher education institutions. Effective urban development strategies will require major new investments by individuals, hums, and federal, state, and local governments in the quality of all parts of the education and training system.
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If the public provides assistance to such firms, then there is every reason to expect a return on that public investment in the form of such things as first-source employment of local disadvantaged workers and cooperation in worker education and training programs. Because any jurisdiction facing fiscal crises or default has little capacity for strategic thinking, intergovernmental fiscal transfers should be redesigned to equalize the abilities of states and local governments to pay for an adequate level of services, so that the level of services in different places does not vary so widely.
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The cities classified as command and control centers appear to have advantages over other places in developing effective partnerships, because of the greater autonomy and resources of the corporate officers headquartered there and the greater sophistication of political leaders and public officials. Where local leadership potential is weak, state involvement may be necessary to mobilize public resources and to induce private business leaders to join in a common development effort.
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