The Citistates Group

AKRON — Why would a meeting here February 17 about northeast Ohio’s economic future be covered the next morning in the New York Times? The obvious answer: something very unusual happened.

Twenty-eight charitable foundations launched a $30 million commitment to take the lead in steering northeast Ohio to a better economic future. In grants ranging from $100,000 to a leading $10 million pledged by the Cleveland Foundation, the Fund for Our Economic Future has two-thirds of its pledges in the bank.

It’s uncommon enough for a large group of foundations in one region to engage in a large-scale collaboration; but this one seizes a leadership role that usually falls to business or to government. Well, business leadership in the Cleveland to Canton region is busy re-grouping these days and local governments don’t see any loose change in their revenue futures. And help from the state? Forget that. A legislature still rural-bent loves to loath the state’s northeast corner.
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Empowered to set regional transportation priorities and allocate federal dollars for road and transit projects, the nation’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) wield tremendous power. But are all of them accountable? And particularly, is their membership stacked to favor suburban interests — thus darkening inner cities’ and inner-ring suburbs’ hopes of revival?

A new lawsuit, in Detroit, alleges that’s just the case– that the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments has consistently squeezed transit funding and built sprawl roads. One result: Metro Detroit, according to Myron Orfield’s research, has consumed land over the past three decades at 12 times the rate of population growth, while the national average for the 25 largest metro areas is 2.5 times.
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Peter Kenney is the last person in America you would expect to have volunteered to serve in Iraq. He’s way past the age of military service, a long-serving public official active in local and regional affairs in the Denver region, a much sought-after consultant on linking better neighborhoods to better governments — and, a certifiable homebody. Has roots, likes them. But Peter is in Baghdad.

Other Americans are there to restore security or oil flows, to rebuild bombed-out streets, sewers and buildings. Peter’s a key member of a RTI group with a USAID contract to build something Baghdad citizens never had — local government as working democracy. He’s been there since last summer, surviving hotel bombings, fast journeys through narrow streets in Chevy Tahoes, and several combat-style airport arrivals and departures.

His biggest obstacle, ironically, may be American discomfort with democracy.
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