Live From Washington, It's Urban Affairs

The president’s pet project for American cities finally gets off the ground. Can it stand out in a crowd?

By: Dayo Olopade | Posted: July 29, 2009 at 6:20 AM

Photo via Flickr user fotographia79

After weeks of uncertainty and anticipation, the White House Office of Urban Affairs has rolled off the assembly line. The office is designed to facilitate and coordinate programs that improve the lives of city dwellers, from the food served in urban classrooms to the bolts that gird subway lines.

President Barack Obama has finally addressed what had been a prominent pledge during his campaign, to “stop seeing cities as the problem and start seeing them as a solution.” Via a combination of city-centric forward planning in the 2011 federal budget and Recovery Act projects already underway, Obama plans to enact “a vision of vibrant, sustainable places that provide our children with every chance to learn and to grow, and that allow our businesses and workers the best opportunity to innovate and succeed.”

The crowd at the rollout of the office spoke to the multifaceted mandate it has been given. From Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to green jobs adviser Van Jones to drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, the White House gathering underscored the ambition of the Urban Affairs office. “This is a full-court press,” said Adolfo Carrion, the Bronx borough president turned director of the Office of Urban Affairs, speaking for the first time in public about the office. “We need to run on two tracks. We're dealing with a current crisis, and we also have to look at long-term events.”

It’s this tension—between a national mandate and Washington bureaucracy, sweeping ambitions and desperate immediate needs—that defines the office’s unique challenge.

The White House has certainly faced its share of criticisms about the office’s efficacy and the authority of Carrion, who reports to senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Carrion doesn’t have oversight over any of the Cabinet secretaries or agencies that deal with urban affairs, and the office's mandate still does not include either funding or regulatory authority—but it may have something else more valuable: a place at the White House agenda-setting table.

Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who has worked closely with Carrion, stressed that Carrion’s White House perch is crucial. “There has to be this kind of work between agencies and the coordination between the White House—otherwise we’re not going to be successful.” Another senior administration official likened Carrion to a conductor: “His job is to make sure he knows who is playing what instrument, and that they are all playing at the same time,” the official said.

Carrion echoed some of Jarrett's reflections on the need for an office of urban policy in the first place. "Local government officials feel like there is a disconnect between the national government and local municipalities," he said. “There is too much noise and too many bottlenecks in the way." Marilyn Katz, a Chicago businesswoman and developer who was among those at the stakeholders meeting before the president's announcement, adds that, "It took us seven years to get [Bill] Clinton to come to the South Bronx to see that cities could change." However delayed, the sudden attention from the first urban president and his largely urban senior staff is very welcome.

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Interesting article

dubbyd

This article is very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing .

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Posted: Tuesday, October 20, 2009

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Posted: Sunday, August 23, 2009

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Posted: Sunday, August 09, 2009

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Posted: Saturday, August 08, 2009

I would love to see a

FL86

I would love to see a renaissance in some of our more troubled cities, but my sense is that this whole initiative will be a huge flop. Part of the problem with the worst cities is the unbelievable level of corruption in local government that siphons off tax dollars to political cronies. From personal experience I can testify that DC is run like a banana republic, and should be a national model of how not to do things in a major city.

As for stuff like sex ed, here's a newsflash: teenagers have been fooling around with each other since time immemorial, but only in the last 40 years or so have out of wedlock birthrates gone through the roof. The problem isn't that they don't have enough demonstrations on how to put condoms on bananas, its that the consequences of their behavior carries little social stigma anymore. Same with criminal activity and low educational achievement - people spend more time making excuses for this kids than holding them (and their loser parents) accountable.

In my mind, focus on improving cities' transportation and infrastructure to facilitate business, but forget the social programs because they don't work and can't work so long as the culture too many urban residents live in persists as is.

Posted: Monday, August 03, 2009

Flushing money down the toilet?

arachne646

mnc2597: A friend of mine's last job was teaching in an urban high school like that (not new). It's hard to know where to start, but concluding "there is simply no hope" when we've tried one intervention, of putting the old school in a nice new box, is premature. And certainly, putting more dads in prison, will not make them any less necessary in their children's lives--how would you like your son-in-law locked up for his music and style choices?

Money spent sooner--on sex education kids can take seriously, because it answers their questions, and easy access to medical care and condoms to take in school for all kids--not just urban (love the code word). Medical care and good food stores and good housing--not just gentrification--to have room for people in the cities when gas is $1.00 and rising next time. Urban gardens, etc. If cities are a waste of money, then we can't fix our world. Let's try.

Posted: Friday, July 31, 2009

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firemite

how cum there ain't no white peoples in the black caucus in government??

maybe this is the problem!!

Posted: Friday, July 31, 2009

A Good Sign

I'm glad this administration has finally acknowledged a truth that other administrations have not: that the economic core of this country is its cities and that a majority of this country's citizens live in cities. Too long have government policies aggressively promoted suburbanization while ignoring the needs, and blatantly discriminating against, large urban areas. Kudos Obama.

Posted: Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Re; flushing money down the toilet

sportlock

Question..... Would you personally care if the government was flushing money down the toilet, if you have no intentions of paying into a system that funds the money?

Thats the problem

Just had a customer, 28, disability for her and her 4 kids, section 8 housing, welfare, works under the table.

How much do you think she cares about the governments spending practices? Not a dime comes from her, but $3,800 a month is paid to her.

Posted: Wednesday, July 29, 2009

What a joke, no regulatory powers, no budget.

QuietThoughts

Can you say another useless buracracy?

Posted: Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Live From Washington, It's Urban Affairs

The president’s pet project for American cities finally gets off the ground. Can it stand out in a crowd?

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Live From Washington, It's Urban Affairs

The president’s pet project for American cities finally gets off the ground. Can it stand out in a crowd?

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Slate

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