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Cities on the
Rebound: A Vision for Urban America (1998)
by William H. Hudnut III.
Washington D. C.: The Urban Land Institute, 1998
Review by John Stuart
Hall
Cities on the
Rebound offers a brief (174 pages) but incisive
vision for urban America, including specific
strategies for building successful cities and urban
communities in the new millennium. To accelerate
today’s urban renaissance, writes author William
Hudnut III, we must cultivate the practice of “cityship”
—genuine, involved, collegial citizenship in,
stewardship of, leadership for the city.
The recipe
for successful cities of the future is specified
in the book’s six chapters which cover such
topics as:
- Developing visionary
leadership in public and private sectors;
- Welcoming the
information age while providing ways for people
to come together on a more personal basis as well;
- Developing collaborative
strategies to find strength in diversity, partnership,
and citizen participation;
- Thinking and
acting globally, regionally, and locally;
- Reforming existing
institutions to more efficiently deliver services
and effectively cope with critical urban problems
such as security, education, housing, transportation,
infrastructure, and environmental degradation;
- Creating “places
worthy of our affection” by developing vibrant
central cities, limiting “bad” sprawl
and promoting smart growth.
Hudnut does not dwell
on the familiar litany of American urban problems;
neither does he sugar-coat them. Rather, by focusing
on ways cities can achieve their full potential,
this book engages problems at the cutting edge of
real-life conditions and potential solutions. The
bottom line is neither despair nor light-headed
expectations, but rather pragmatic optimism.
Brimming with pertinent
examples, check lists, evidence and resource suggestions,
this book looks forward, not backward. Hudnut does
offer insights from his 16 years as mayor of Indianapolis,
from what he learned in such posts as president
of the National League of Cities, or on such boards
as Partners for Livable Communities or the Alliance
for Redesigning Government. But this analysis is
thoroughly up-to-date, many of its most intriguing
strategic suggestions drawn from a broad sample
of recent books, articles, reports and insights
by a host of experts and activists. It is clear
that Mayor Hudnut has made the most of his recent
tour as Senior Resident Fellow of the Urban Land
Institute, a post that’s kept him traveling
and observing widely through America’s regions.
Highly readable,
crafted for reflection yet tailored for action,
Cities on the Rebound is one of those rare
books that will appeal to visionaries, practitioners,
scholars, citizens and all who care about the evolution
of American cities.
John Stuart Hall
is founder and former director of the School
of Public Affairs at Arizona State University as
well as a Citistates Group Associate.
Special commentary
by Ted Hershberg
Cities on the
Rebound: A Vision for Urban America joins a
growing literature that sees hope for America’s
cities where others see despair.
Recent studies in
this positive genre include The Twenty-First
Century City: Resurrecting Urban America
(Regnery, 1997) by Steven Goldsmith, Hudnut’s successor
and current mayor of Indianapolis, The Wealth
of Cities: Revitalizing the Centers of American
Life (Perseus, 1998) by Milwaukee Mayor John
O. Norquist, and Cities Back from the Edge: New
Life for Downtown (Norman Mintz, 1998) by Roberta
Brandes Gratz.
These authors see
a multitude of evidence that cities are coming back.
Too many people mistook urban America’s painful
transformation from a manufacturing to a service
economy as its death knell. But, the argument goes,
they’re wrong. If you don’t know that
molting is a natural process, you might think the
snake is dying; in fact cities, like snakes, have
simply been shedding their industrial skins and
something new and healthy has been emerging.
Success doesn’t come
easily or inevitably. Yet downtowns are being reborn.
Neighborhood organizations are making real changes.
Cities and suburbs are finding common cause. Brownfields
are being redeveloped, and sprawl is being successfully
resisted. City services are being privatized, and
taxes are being lowered. Urban elected officials
are making tough political choices.
Hudnut, to his credit,
does not ignore the alternative point of view. In
his Epilogue, he cites Ed Rendell, Philadelphia’s
two-term mayor who has led his city back from the
brink of bankruptcy to a new era of growth and excitement
that includes the hosting of the Republican national
convention in 2000, the first such political gathering
in the city in half a century. “The recovery
of American cities is more apparent than real,”
Rendell observes, “more skin deep than systemic.”
Hudnut also cites Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Buzz Bissinger who, in his A Prayer for the City,
refers to Philadelphia’s glimmering downtown
“as a kind of stage set in every city, beyond
which there are acres and acres of despair.”
Rendell said it best
when he observed that, upon becoming Mayor, he inherited
a patient suffering from a gunshot wound and cancer.
He’s successfully addressed the former, but
the patient is still terminally ill with the latter.
My personal metaphor is that most American cities
are on greased skids. What distinguishes one from
the other is the angle of descent. These pessimistic
views are supported by a series of empirical studies
carried out recently by researchers at the Wharton
Real Estate Center. American cities, they conclude,
suffer from three structural problems: a badly eroded
tax base resulting from the exodus of jobs and people
to the suburbs; a mismatch between the cost of the
social problems concentrated within their borders
and resources available to deal with them; and a
misuse of the resources at their disposal.
Keep stressing the
negatives, some argue, and the prophecy will be
self-fulfilling. Keep pointing to the successes,
contend others, and you kill any hope for indispensable
support from outside.
I often wonder how
there can be such ingenuity, energy and passion
to improve cities in the face of debilitating statistics
on race and poverty and the growing education gap.
Then I attend the annual award dinner where delegations
gather, finalists from ten cities for the National
Civic League’s All-American Cities competition,
and I see how much people love their communities
and how determined they are against all odds to
make them work.
What to do? My suggestion
is keep telling the truth — both truths. These
thoroughly dissimilar perspectives reflect that
fact that cities are striking studies in contrast.
To be a healthy urban reformer and activist, therefore,
you have to be schizophrenic. Books like Hudnut’s
provide ample examples and lessons that add to the
arsenal and boost the confidence of the city nuts
among us.
Ted Hershberg
is Professor of Public Policy and History and
Director of the Center for Greater Philadelphia
at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Citistates
Group Associate.
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Last updated
January 23, 2005
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