Citiwire.net

Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on Hybrid Taxis, William Stafford on Japanese emergency training

2010-03-07T15:42:58Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! Do American cities have a lot to learn from overseas innovations? For big-time proof, check Bill Stafford’s column — how Fukuoka and other Japanese cities train citizens to deal with earthquakes, fires and a broad range of other emergency situations. Bill’s point — how much we spend on anti-terrorism, compared to far more immediate threats to our lives and safety, is especially well taken. … My column, on the struggle of New York and other cities to move their taxi fleets to less polluting hybrid vehicles, touches on a classic issue of “cities rights” in our federal system … and the public interest.” -- Neal Peirce

Hybrid Taxi Fleets: Why Not — Now?

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, March 07, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON — Why in the world should Congress be considering a “Green Taxis Act”?

It’s because New York — plus Seattle, Boston, San Francisco and several other cities — want to switch their taxi fleets over to all-hybrid vehicles. But they’ve run into a big legal snag, and Congress may have to come to their rescue.

Switching cabs to hybrids promises some potentially stunning gains.

Take carbon emissions. In New York City, taxis alone account for 1 percent of total carbon emissions; switching them to hybrids would be the equivalent of taking 35,000 cars off the road.

Second, there’s gas consumption. A standard taxicab such as V-8 powered Ford Crown Victoria gets about 14 miles to a gallon of gas. But some hybrids, running on a combination of gasoline and electricity, get as much as 36. The hybrid advantage is especially high among taxis because they so often find themselves idling or creeping along in traffic, generating pollutants all the time. Hybrids just don’t need internal combustion energy in that situation.

Citizens’ Emergency Training: Fukuoka’s Global Model

By William Stafford

For Release Sunday March 07, 2010
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Do you know the best survival strategies when an earthquake hits? Would you know how to prepare for a tornado, lean into hurricane-force winds, escape from a smoke-filled room? If fire hit your home, would you know how to use that fire extinguisher you bought years ago?

The earthquake in Haiti, followed in close order by major seismic eruptions in Chile, Okinawa and Taiwan, should be a wake up call for a re-examination of readiness across the globe. We Americans should learn to be a little less obsessed with terrorism, much more about preparedness. The reality is that an earthquake or monster storm or wildfire epidemic could spell disaster for many more of us.

There’s a lot cities can do about this. And I got my first clue sitting on a plane to Fukuoka, Japan, as part of my work organizing the annual international city study missions of the Trade Alliance and Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. The city, I discovered in my reading
materials, listed a disaster training center as a tourist attraction.

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Our mission... to reflect a new narrative for 21st century cities and regions. Leaving behind the 20th century pattern of cheap energy, endless automobility, burgeoning suburbs, threatened inner cities. To a challenge-packed 21st century: energy prices headed north, perilous carbon emissions, deepening have-have not divisions. The weekly release includes Neal Peirce’s column for the Washington Post Writers Group, as well as a guest column by one of the seasoned urban professionals in the Citistates Group.

Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on TIGER Grants, Mary Newsom on Sustaining Planning Efforts

2010-02-28T13:18:33Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! We have contrasting good/bad news columns this week. My column focuses on the upside–the breakthrough potential, for efficiency, smart investment–in the new TIGER transportation grants. But our Associate Mary Newsom’s has a sad story of “smart growth” aspirations gone awry in Charlotte, N.C. orbit. Mary sees changing officeholders and politics as factors; I’d add the very nature of our economic system with its tilt toward spread development and land exploitation. … And for metro area watchers, check the Citistates Group home page for an alert on the Urban Institute’s new Metro Report Card.” -- Neal Peirce

Bridges to Somewhere: New “TIGER” Program’s Bite

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, February 28, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON — Nicknaming a federal grant-in-aid program TIGER may seem an anomaly: federal disbursements, normally loaded with rules, regulations and complexity, rarely get called bold or ferocious.

But the government’s historic knee-jerk preference for roads gets a nip–maybe a deep bite–in the Transportation Department’s just-announced $1.5 billion in grants to states and cities under the “Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery” program–or TIGER.

As Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood explained to me last week: “TIGER is our opportunity to say to folks that we know you’re trying to do innovative and creative transportation things that never really fit our official formulas or program silos. This program is your opportunity to show you’re the innovators around the country.”

Sustaining Sustainability: It Aint Always Easy

By Mary Newsom

For Release Sunday, February 28, 2010
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A little more than a dozen years ago, a collection of three adjacent suburban towns in the sprawling Sun Belt region of Charlotte did something extraordinary. After months of public workshops, lectures and community discussions, months of looking at slide shows to choose what kinds of streets, stores, houses and apartments they wanted for their towns, they revamped their town codes. They aimed to discourage conventional suburbia and encourage traditional neighborhood development, transit-oriented projects and farmland preservation.

It warmed the hearts of planners. It drew national attention and awards and, after a couple of New Urbanist neighborhoods were built, busloads of visiting Smart Growth disciples. Writers, including yours truly, ladled on praise. In 1996 I wrote an editorial calling the new ordinances in Huntersville, Cornelius and Davidson, N.C., “a remarkable exercise in local and regional planning” and “a remarkable vision.”

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on "Snow Taxes," Daniel Kemmis on the Mountain States and Climate Change

2010-02-20T11:31:04Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! The idea of a “snow tax” after the deluge of white that hit much of eastern America this winter prompted me to think–Why not? And why not a lot of smarter ways to run government? … And to the West, there’s the question of how Mountain States people will deal with climate change. Our Associate Dan Kemmis, former mayor of Missoula, suggests the adjustments will come, but more from new habits of collaboration around natural resources issues and “livability” causes and less because Westerners embrace climate change science.” -- Neal Peirce

‘Snow Tax’ to ‘Land Use Tax’ — Time to Experiment

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, February 21, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON — The tea party crowd has it dead wrong. We don’t need smaller government, we need smarter government that can look ahead, saving us crises and billions of dollars in the process.

A prime example: this winter’s record-breaking snow storms that left the Nation’s Capital region, due to insufficient snow-clearing equipment, immobilized days on end, at humongous cost to citizens, governments and private businesses.

Appalled at the inefficiency, Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein came up with an intriguing idea: Why not require everyone in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia metro region to sign up for “snow insurance”?

Sure, it would cost something. Homeowners might have to pay $25 a year, businesses an average of $2,500. With the cash, local governments would guarantee no disruption of work or school after snowfall up to one foot, perhaps 36 hours maximum for a bigger storm.

Political Will and Love of Place: The West’s Climate Change Secret?

By Daniel Kemmis

For Release Saturday, February 20, 2010
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“Drought, extreme weather events, catastrophic wildfires, disruption of natural systems” –combined with “longer periods when streams are dry, with serious consequences for wildlife, natural habitats, and water supplies.” That’s the scenario for my region of America in a provocative recent Lincoln Institute of Land Policy report, “Planning for Climate Change in the West.”

And political will to address these challenges? The report notes that the Mountain West “has lagged behind other regions in pursuing aggressive planning strategies to reduce [greenhouse gases],” largely because of a conservative political culture and insufficient political will.

It is true that the region has tended to be politically conservative, and there may well be an above-average level of climate change denial among westerners. But there are also significant historical vectors at work here that could supply the political will this historic challenge demands.

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on Urban Funding, Anthony Flint on the "Green Cabinet"

2010-02-13T05:40:08Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net? What’s the full significance of the Obama administration’s approaches to American cities, linked as never before across departmental lines? At their best, what would they mean for the country? But even as these imaginative policies start to come into clear focus, are the political tides turning against them? Both my column and Citistates Associate Anthony Flint’s columns both touch on those question. ” -- Neal Peirce

An Era of Federal Opportunity for Cities and Regions?

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, February 14, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON — For America’s cities and regions, this seems the worst of times. But take a look at their partnership with the federal government. It’s a rapid turn for the better.

Check virtually any local budget and the dark side slams you in the face. Tax receipts are taking a deep dive while cities’ needs, from sheltering the homeless to employees’ health coverage to storm recovery costs, are on the upswing. With slow recovery in jobs and property values, mayors and county officials will have a torturously tough job well into this decade.

But check the Obama fiscal 2011 budget, together with companion moves the White House is making to coordinate federal assistance to cities and metro regions. There’s a silver lining to these “worst” times.

One example: the budget asks Congress to approve $1 billion for the new National Housing Trust Fund–a key way for communities to fill the yawning shortage of affordable housing for their lowest income residents.

Wishing Green to Succeed–In a Future That’s Red

By Anthony Flint

For Release Saturday, February 13, 2010
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SEATTLE — Members of President Obama’s “green cabinet” were greeted like rock stars by nearly two-thousand believers in a more sustainable future at the New Partners for Smart Growth conference earlier this month.

We know this in part because Washington, D.C. city planner Harriet Tregoning–who introduced Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ray LaHood, secretary of the Department of Transportation, and Lisa Jackson, director of the Environmental Protection Agency–came right out and called them rock stars and everybody cheered in agreement.

This was a particularly friendly audience, to be sure, and predisposed to like the administration’s plans to bring smart growth and planning to the–gasp–federal level. The gathered planners and local government officials were also a technically knowledgeable bunch. Where else would it be an applause line to say that not only municipalities but regional planning entities could now apply for a particular federal grant program? Or that there are plans to put the “UD” back in “HUD”?

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on Cities Looking Abroad, Jonathan Miller on Commercial Real Estate

2010-02-07T18:05:49Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! The compelling — and growing — case for smart cities to study foreign models gives me a chance to critique my fellow journalists whose attacks on “junkets” actually intimidate mayors and councilpeople who could benefit from learning trips abroad. … Our Citistates Associate Jonathan Miller, a whiz in analyzing commercial real estate nationwide, offers a gloomy assessment on the delayed recession hit of collapsing property values. The only bright light: it can’t last forever! ” -- Neal Peirce

Cities Look Abroad to Prosper at Home

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, February 7, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group

Are we ready to retire the old bugaboo that any American mayor better think twice before visiting a foreign city — that the press back home will pillory him or her for “junketeering”?

Just possibly. “Gotcha” stories about foreign travels are still feared by mayors. But they’re dangerous anachronisms. Our cities’ economies and wellbeing actually require inventive foreign connections. Trade opportunities and enriching local economies still top the list. But new considerations are flooding in — for example the well-advertised global competition for the footloose young professionals, looking for “live” local scenes and cultural diversity.

The hands-down American regional leader on learning from abroad has been Seattle with its array of highly export-oriented firms. For 17 years Seattle has sent sizable delegations (70 or more) of business, political and civic leaders to see first-hand how a major foreign city and region really “clicks.” I’ve personally accompanied three of those visits — to Sydney, Hong Kong and Berlin — and discovered they’re significant eye-openers. Recently Seattle delegations have visited such cities as Fukuoka and Abu Dhabi — hardly our grandparents’ world city list.

Ongoing Drag: Commercial Real Estate

By Jonathan D. Miller

For Release Monday, February 8, 2010
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Here’s the good news: The economy may be turning the corner thanks to a heavy dose of government stimulus. And since March stock and bond portfolios have rebounded and at least house prices have bottomed after a three year freefall.

But lots of problems remain — not just slowness of job recovery. Just check the corner I watch for a living: commercial property. This sector continues to sink, buried in hundreds of billions of dollars in bad loans to overleveraged owners, who paid too much during a frenzied 2004-2008 transaction binge. Representative of these toxic assets, half-built condo projects, see-through floors in office buildings, and papered-over mall store fronts stand on view from coast to coast.

Commercial real estate usually lags post-recession upturns. But continuing declines in office, shopping center, hotel, apartment and warehouse markets strain the nation’s still-fragile banking sector and threaten to temper prospects for sustained economic recovery.

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on State Budgets, William Hudnut on the Obama Urban Vision

2010-02-01T20:15:55Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! How will states ever survive the next years with their gruesome, “structural” deficits. My column cites some possible ways out–politically tough, but reasonable. … Meanwhile, Citistates Associate William Hudnut celebrates President Obama’s continuing–and imaginative–approaches to supporting America’s metro regions and cities. ” -- Neal Peirce

States’ Red Ink Demands Tough New Economies

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, January 31, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group

Swimming in red ink, deficits rolling in as far as the eye can see, what are America’s state governments to do?

The “realists,” notes government reform expert Ted Kolderie, “tell us the only options are to cut and to tax.” Their clear message, he suggests: “With more we can do more; with less we have to do less. We don’t do ‘different.’”

But they’re bitter consequences, especially in a recession. Budget cuts reduce vital services. Increased taxes just take money out of peoples’ pockets, perversely making economic recovery all the tougher.

Raymond Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association, hears lots about the monstrous budget dilemmas the 50 state governors face. The time’s at hand, he believes to “to look at new and different governance models for the delivery of services.”

I asked him for examples and he didn’t hesitate.

The Obama Urban Vision: Can It Come To Pass?

By William H. Hudnut III

For Release Monday, February 1, 2010
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An Indianapolis-area ex-CEO of a hospital group called me the other day — not about health care policy, but rather regional planning in central Indiana. He wasn’t interested in some way to force unified regional government — to expand the geographic scope of Indianapolis’ Unigov system, which Dick Lugar (now Indiana’s senior senator) founded in 1969-70 and I later led as mayor for 16 years. This ex-CEO’s concern was different: How do we get the region’s top players on the same page when it comes to such critical issues as land use, transportation and housing.

The call was heartening because it demonstrated to me how America’s business leaders are starting to grasp that in this new, mobile, wired age of ours, boundary lines are relatively meaningless and obsolete. And that some are willing to take the lead to create new ways of approaching regional problems–quite far ahead of most political leaders, I might add, who too often are little more than self-protecting institutionalists, or so rigidly ideological that pragmatism has fled them.

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on State Budgets, Robert Lang on "FDR National Airport"

2010-01-25T10:44:07Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! The 50 states’ deep and worrisome budget woes are the topic of my column; next week I’ll take a pass at some of the dramatic (but common sense) economies the states, with enough courage, could effect. … On the lighter side, our Associate Robert Lang makes an irreverent plea to rename Washington’s National Airport for F.D.R.–and LAX for its native son, Ronald Reagan. ” -- Neal Peirce

States’ Fiscal Agony: No End in Sight?

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, January 24, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group

“This may be the most calamitous fiscal year states have known in decades,” reports Rob Gurwitt in Governing magazine, the 23-year old bible on coverage of state and local governance across the continent.

And the coming fiscal year, experts are predicting, may be almost as grim as the states run out of budget gimmicks, rainy day funds and the infusion of federal stimulus money that helped them, finally, to balance their current budgets. The states’ cumulative 2010 and 2011 budget shortfalls may be about $350 billion–a third of a trillion dollars–estimates the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

FDR National Airport

By Robert Lang

For Release Sunday, January 25, 2010
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It may be in bad timing when the Republican Party is now in the assent and so protective of Ronald Reagan’s legacy to argue that Washington National Airport should remove the former president’s name, but that is exactly what I suggest. The reason is not to slam Reagan, who even president Obama acknowledges “changed the trajectory of America.” Rather a name change is needed to recognize the president who created National Airport–Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I can already hear the shouts from the GOP that such a switch would be nothing more than a naked display of power akin to the constant renaming of places that follows regime change in other, less stable parts of the world. Yet the case for “Roosevelt National Airport,” on merit is compelling. Roosevelt’s efforts were instrumental in every phase of the project–from funding, to site selection, to construction, to design.

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on Transportation Needs, Alex Marshall on Dreams of Transit

2010-01-16T16:54:44Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! Does America have the will, gumption, foresight to get its transportation act together? The outlook’s not bright–my column topic this week. But Citistates Associate Alex Marshall reminds us–if we do succeed (finally) in launching high-speed, we should go for top priorities, not just spread the money around politically. And maybe whistle the Highway 66 tune as we go about it.” -- Neal Peirce

Transportation Quandary: ‘Anyone Listening Out There?’

By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, January 17, 2010
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON — Most everyone agrees that efficient roads, rails and air service are vital for our economy and our quality of life. Most of us see that without them, America will have a hard time competing against rising powers worldwide.

So why is Congress stalling? Representatives and senators know well that the federal transportation program expired last September. They keep passing temporary extensions without facing up to core issues–for example the federal gas tax stuck at 18.4 cents a gallon, unchanged for 17 years, despite escalating asphalt and concrete prices.

And why do we keep on paving over more and more of our landscape instead of embracing a “fix it first” strategy? Can’t we make our roads and transit investments match our housing choices in a “post-sprawl” era? Why aren’t regions being told that they had better link roads, rail and available air service for a smarter “intermodal” future?

Choose Your Dream When You Choose To Travel

By Alex Marshall

For Release Saturday, January 16, 2009
Citiwire.net

Well if you ever plan to motor west,
Just take my way, that’s the highway that’s the best.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.

Well it winds from Chicago to LA
More than two-thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six….

Well it goes through St. Louie down to Missouri
Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty.
You’ll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona, don’t forget Winona,
Kingsman, Barstow, San Bernardino.

Won’t you get hip to this timely tip
And think you’ll take that California trip.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.
— (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66, By Bobby Troup, 1946.

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on Transportation Needs, Alex Marshall on Dreams of Transit

2010-01-16T16:48:52Z

Transportation Quandary: ‘Anyone Listening Out There?’

By Neal Peirce

Choose Your Dream When You Choose To Travel

By Alex Marshall

For Release Saturday, January 16, 2009
Citiwire.net

Well if you ever plan to motor west,
Just take my way, that’s the highway that’s the best.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.

Well it winds from Chicago to LA
More than two-thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six….

Bobby Troup’s bouncy 1946 tune about the joys of Route 66 has its roots in a series of federal transportation bills after World War I and the resulting scramble by state boosters and budding state transportation departments to get a piece of the action.

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on Bloomberg's Administrative Strategy, Bill Fulton on Community Colleges

2010-01-09T09:05:07Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! The Citistates Group is proud to announce that one of its long-time associates–Bill Fulton–has just become the Mayor of Ventura, Calif. This week he writes for us on community colleges. Meanwhile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ingenuous new strategy to get New York’s departments to start acting like the team provided me with a hard-to-resist analogy to the communication problems in the nation’s intelligence agencies.” -- Neal Peirce

Agencies That Won’t Talk: Bloomberg’s Intriguing Answer

By Neal Peirce

NEW YORK — Why can’t humans–intelligence officials, for example–communicate better? And what’s a possible cure?

The close call on an airliner Christmas Day has resurrected and underscored a problem already targeted in the 9/11 investigations: highly trained officers failing to share critical intelligence clues across agency lines.

Why are we repeating the same errors? How do we “fix” the system?

A week after the near-disaster of the Detroit-bound jet, an intriguing remedy–at least a possible answer–cropped up. And not in official Washington, but rather in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s third-term inaugural address in New York City.

Community Colleges: Are New Cutting Edge

By William Fulton

For Release Saturday, January 9, 2010
Citiwire.net

For half a century, Americans have been pounded with the message: “To get a good job, get a good education.” For people like me, who came of age in the Rust Belt in the ’70s, this meant only one thing: Go to a four-year college, get a white-collar job, and get out of the factories. This was a big change from the world of our parents. For them, economic security meant unionized semi-skilled factory jobs. For us, economic security meant bailing from the factory before it shut down and joining the white-collar workforce.

But now it’s 2010, and white-collar jobs aren’t the ticket any more. Every day, more and more college-educated workers in America lose their job to “outsourcing” –especially to India, Ireland, and Eastern Europe, all of which have an abundance of highly educated English speakers capable of doing white-collar work.

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Citiwire.net: Neal Peirce on The World Bank, Gail Christopher on Medicaid Expansion

2009-12-31T14:23:26Z

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! Can the World Bank prove more responsive to the needs of fast growing–and democratizing–world cities? In this Century of the City, is the bank ready to give cities full and thoughtful attention and end its perceived pro-rural bias? The bank’s new cities policy suggests so. … Our Associates took a week off from new columns; we’re pleased to carry over Gail Christopher’s article.” -- Neal Peirce

The World Bank and Cities: Dawn of A New Era?

By Neal Peirce

WASHINGTON — The World Bank is becoming more pro-city. The strategy seems a major departure for an institution that long leaned toward rural areas, many of its governing officials and affiliated governments subscribing to the view that aid to the countryside would somehow stem the massive tide of people moving to cities in search of jobs and opportunity.

The new policy, officially announced by World Bank president Robert Zoellick at a November meeting in Singapore, boldly defines urbanization as the 21st century’s defining phenomenon. Manage the growth of developing world cities well, he said, and the challenges of climate change, jobs, poverty reduction and health can be dealt with proactively, and more effectively.

Health Care Passage: Just The First Step

By Gail Christopher

For Release Saturday, December 26, 2009
Citiwire.net

The best news about the health care legislation now on the brink of congressional approval is that the United States will be making an historic move toward providing care for all Americans at reasonable costs. Some 30 million more Americans will be covered–moving us, finally, toward the universal coverage standards long observed by all other industrialized democracies.

But–when President Obama signs the legislation, this will be a Christmas present very much in need of assembling. The added millions of insurance recipients will provide one of the most daunting management and public administration challenges we’ve ever faced. This is bigger than welfare reform, education reform, even homeland security.

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Our mission... to reflect a new American narrative. From a 20th century of cheap energy, endless automobility, burgeoning suburbs, threatened cities. To a challenge-packed 21st century: resurgence in our cities, but fast-rising energy costs, perilous carbon emissions, deepening have-have not divisions. The weekly release includes Neal Peirce’s column for the Washington Post Writers Group, as well as a guest column by one of the seasoned urban professionals in the Citistates Group.