Newsletters

As many readers of New Localism know, I have grown increasingly concerned over the past few years about the narrow scope of federal investments that are now flowing through the US. The use of the term “narrow” may seem odd, given the unprecedented volume of federal funding for investments in infrastructure, climate, manufacturing, and innovation. This funding is long overdue and has the potential to accelerate the transition of our economy to a more inclusive and sustainable future.

By all accounts, the post pandemic period in the US is characterized by a remarkable industrial transition. From the Covid-19 pandemic to climate change, the war in Ukraine, and rising tensions with China, macro forces and ample federal investments are prompting the re-shoring of advanced manufacturing and, relatedly, an accelerated decarbonization of the US economy.

The Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) is the largest legislative effort in U.S. history designed to accelerate the country’s transition to an alternative energy and climate future. This Act is remarkable not only for its ambitions but for its disproportionate reliance on tax incentives, a fundamental difference in structure from other Biden era legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. A community hoping to maximize the value of IRA funding will need to organize networks of beneficiaries, intermediaries, and stakeholders in ways that integrate areas of practice (e.g., renewable energy, talent preparation and housing development) that are often kept separate and distinct.

In this time of intense polarization, it is rare to find an issue that both sides of the political spectrum can agree on. But small businesses seem to be one of the few exceptions. President Joe Biden has been a vocal champion of small businesses, emphasizing their importance as “the engines of our economic progress… the glue, the heart, and soul of our communities.” And Senator Marco Rubio, who led the Small Business Committee during the pandemic, has repeatedly emphasized the crucial role that small businesses play in job creation and the overall health of the economy. Despite this widespread support, there is still a critical missing piece: a consistent and robust data platform for small, diverse businesses.

One of the most intriguing questions to emerge in the aftermath of the pandemic is whether the confluence of seismic forces will disrupt the seemingly intractable pre-pandemic concentration of growth and prosperity in a small set of cities and metropolitan areas. These forces include the global health crisis itself but also Russia’s war in Ukraine, rising tensions with China, and the return of nation-shaping industrial policies.

Localities across the country are now all too familiar with the refrain: a lot of money has been made available by the federal government, but getting your hands on it – and putting it to good use locally – is akin to navigating a maze in the dark. In our recent work tracking and analyzing hundreds of federal funding opportunities, we’ve gained a unique look into this maze and how cities are making the most of the moment. In this newsletter, we highlight our new Funding Tracker Tool (developed by Florian Schalliol) and 5 tips for localities to seize the moment.

In March 1988, 35 years ago almost to the day, a high-profile National Housing Task Force released a stirring report entitled A Decent Place to Live. The Task Force, headed by James Rouse, the famed Baltimore developer and founder of the Enterprise Foundation, and David Maxwell, the CEO of Fannie Mae, explored and elevated the nation’s housing challenges and recommended an ambitious 10-point program to provide housing opportunity. Its focus was primarily on federal policy reform, in large part as a response to the dismantling and de-funding of housing programs during the Reagan years.

Last year, the Nowak Metro Finance Lab, Reinvestment Fund, and Accelerator for America published a report: Investor Home Purchases and the Rising Threat to Owners and Renters. The Lab’s report highlighted the disconcerting trends of investors large and small buying up residential properties, changing neighborhoods, and harming homeowners, homebuyers, and tenants. In Philadelphia, Jacksonville, and Richmond — which was the scope of the study’s data collection efforts — the results indicated that investors were most active in distressed neighborhoods: areas with low mortgage lending, low-incomes, and disproportionately large non-white populations. In December of last year, Bruce Katz presented these findings as part of a Housing and Urban Development event on Institutional Investors on Housing.

I was a major consumer of Saturday morning cartoons in my childhood.

My favorite, by far, was Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. The plots were as simple as they were effective. Coyote would chase Roadrunner across deserts and mountains, concocting elaborate schemes to ensnare the fast-footed bird. The schemes always failed, with Coyote usually flying over a high cliff, realizing that he was suspended in midair, looking at the camera with an air of surprise and panic and then plummeting to the bottom of the abyss.

This newsletter has a longstanding affinity for metropolitan and regional thinking and action. As laid out in The Metropolitan Revolution (the 2013 book co-authored with Jennifer Bradley), metropolitan areas and their broader regions have emerged as the driving units of the global economy and the appropriate geography for solving cross-jurisdictional challenges like climate, economic competitiveness, housing, transportation, and workforce. The book extolled efforts in places as disparate as Cleveland, Denver, and Houston to bring governance into alignment with the reality that economic, environmental, and social challenges, alone and together, do not respect artificial, administrative boundaries. For these challenges, the geography of “real world” solutions are metropolitan in scale, even if general purpose local governments and specialized public authorities are bounded and fragmented.