Obama Creating an Urban Agenda

Throughout their campaign McCain and Palin made frequent references to small towns as “real America.” Aside from the fact that the usage of “real” stigmatizes those not living in small towns, statistically 85% of Americans live in urban and suburban areas.

So I was pretty happy to learn last week that Obama plans to create an Office of Urban Policy.  His approach  is motivated not just by the myriad of problems facing urban areas, but rather a recognition of the important role cities continue to play in the country.  They are political and economic hubs as well as homes of different kinds of people.

Below are my key questions when it comes to urban development:

1. It’s not enough to create low-income housing—where are you going to put it?

Concentrating poverty has devastating consequences on neighborhoods. Additionally, as I have mentioned before, black Americans tend to have low income housing developed in their neighborhoods far more than other groups.  What plan will be created to ensure that economic and racial isolation does not persist?

2. Headstart isn’t working so well—how will you change it?

He mentions pouring more money into the program and expanding it but he doesn’t address how he will qualitatively change the program since it has been documented as being unsuccessful as a catalyst for academic achievement. The gains achieved while in the program are immediately lost once exiting the program. (However, I am all for the child care component of the program).

3. Non-profits are the country’s safety net—where is our bailout?

Non-profits have the unfortunate task of picking up the government’s slack and the cleaning up the mess of whatever social, economic, or political disaster occurs. While our existence is a testimony to the generosity of Americans, we cannot continue to do this work alone and need to be more fully integrated into any policy and development plans.  A commenter wrote at the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

”My proposal is that the SBA be renamed the ‘Small Business and Nonprofit Administration’ and that its mandate be enlarged to encompass the nation’s community-based nonprofit organizations. It makes particularly good sense at an economic time when more Americans will be heading to ‘Nonprofit Street’ for credit counseling, job retraining, food and shelter, housing, legal counsel, and the myriad others services that nonprofits provide to the growing ranks of the most vulnerable in our midst.”

Amen!

I hope Obama spends time looking at the other side of policies and programs we have supported for so long.  He should put the criticisms of policies and programs on the table and try his best to incorporate their solutions in the new Office.  No, you cant please everyone, but we can certainly do better.