City States

 

“The Metropolitan Revolution – How Cities and Metros are fixing our broken politics and fragile economy.”

This book by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley is about “…fully realising the metropolitan revolution,’’ it is “a manifesto for change and action.” Set against the backdrop of a fragile economic recovery and a federal government paralysed by partisan division leadership communities in US cities recognise there is no chance of the cavalry coming to rescue them. They are increasingly on their own and if they are to have a future it is going to be created locally.

The book starts with some interesting case studies of how different cities are responding to different challenges. In New York the challenge was to identify a “game changing” initiative which would support and promote innovation. Which would move the economy to be more export oriented; more environmentally orientated and more bio- and software engineering oriented. They concluded that to do this they needed much more science and technology talent.

To achieve this the York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) sponsored strongly by Mayor Bloomberg held an enquiry to answer the question – “Imagine there are no funding constraints. What can or should we do to increase economic activity?” They concluded they needed a new, globally competitive science and engineering graduate campus.  They held a global competition promising to provide land and $100m of infrastructure support. Within a year they had identified a winner, indeed the process resulted in the establishment of 3 new applied technology campuses.

Obviously New York is a global city and the lessons learned there are not necessarily appropriate for a range of second tier cities. Denver provides an example of the tension between different municipalities in Metropolitan areas particular City authorities and suburban hinterland authorities. A history of competition in the Denver region had generated a culture of mistrust and beggar-my-neighbour policies of uncoordinated economic development.

The response to this was led by the newly elected Mayor in 1983 taking the “radical” step of going to speak to the adjoining Adam’s County commissioners about providing some land for a new regional airport. This might seem like a small thing but a process of collaboration was born which resulted in citizens from across the region’s different municipalities voting to support a new airport and to support tax increases to provide a baseball stadium. The key lesson learned by was that by cooperating they could achieve more than by competing. This insight was built upon with the creation of the Metro Mayors Caucus.

There is a much talk of co-operation in City Regions in the UK but, from the Denver experience, a high level of personal trust among key players is key. Furthermore, this needs to be constantly reinforced both formally and informally and a common culture of respect among all the partners.

Northeast Ohio was an area wasting a crisis which the local newspaper was the first to make visible. The Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out the need for a Greater Cleveland economic development plan but the absence of a Greater Cleveland political identity to create it. This case illustrates the problem of dealing with a “messy” problem. A problem which is multi dimensional without clear boundaries. The solution was not discovered in a superhero city leader, rather it was via a series of networks. Central to the process was the role of the charitable foundations in the area. They came together to establish the Fund for Our Economic Future. As the name suggests this was about creating a fund ($30m) to support economic development in Greater Cleveland but more than this they looked at how they could work together through their own procurement, through collaborating on research and promotion to focus all their efforts on the re-establishing the regional economy.  The Fund acted as a centre of gravity for a series of other networks to start to combine and work together with a broad common agenda.

The book makes clear the messy process that the collaboration of networks is but points to genuine progress that has been achieved. Issues like ensuing that innovations developed in the Region’s universities were not simply sold off to the highest bidder to be exploited and profited from elsewhere. A network of incubator units tied to the universities to ensure local exploitation occurred. Networks to support joint R&D activities. Some of these initiatives were common sense but some were radical steps towards collaboration over competition.

The final case study is Houston described in the book as “…America on demographic fast forward…” It has a high and rapidly increasing black and hispanic population. Many of the immigrants coming into the area have very few skills and indeed a large proportion could not speak English. How can this level of demographic change be embraced and a new workforce built is the question they address.

First was a change of perspective on the neighbourhoods containing the new immigrants. Often neighbourhoods of this sort compete with one another to demonstrate how “broken” they are, how much grant aid they need. Believing that “you cannot build off broken” a series of Neighbourhood Centres adopted an approach to neighbourhood surveys of “appreciative enquiry” (it sounds a bit like Asset Based Community Development). This focused on strengths and “…the things that make this areas good.” It then attempts to build from the strengths of a neighbourhood not attempting to simply solve its problems.

Interestingly the not for profit Neighbourhood Centres were united in delivering some $275m worth of services including childcare, language teaching, head start programmes, elementary classes, tax return volunteers, credit unions and much more. By aggregating this diverse range of activities it meant that they were not vulnerable to the withdrawal of a specific programme; they were able to secure economies of scale, employ people on competitive salaries, provide high quality back office research and support functions, and procure more effectively. The voluntary sector in the UK could learn a lot from this approach.

The second part of the book tries to identify some key trends which will likely shape futures of all cities. First is the changing nature of innovation and the implications this has for city design. It is a bit like what you might get if you combined Jane Jacobs with Michael Porter. Whilst new communications technologies have made it increasingly easy and cheap to transmit information it is not as good at transmitting knowledge. Related technology clusters like silicon valley locate together so that they can collaborate over bites as well as bytes. The old model of remote, car access only, science parks, with companies in highly secure buildings doing their secretive R&D in private is changing. Increasingly the costs of R&D are driving collaboration, technologies are finding more crossover opportunities more likely to be identified and exploited when staff from related businesses are physically proximate.

In parallel with these trends are the desires of young bright people to both live and work in lively, well designed, culturally interesting areas. This means that old planning principles of zoning need to be re-thought. Neighbourhoods with a diverse range of uses need to be created so that off line collaboration can be facilitated and indeed promoted. The new innovation districts need to be like Mars bars somewhere that you can work, rest and play.

The growing importance of international trade for Cities is also identified. The authors believe the future is likely to see a global network of trading cities. They recognise that in the past many US cities have been able to depend upon demand from the domestic market. Going forward the competition from elsewhere is going to challenge this. Furthermore the scale of foreign markets needs to be appreciated. Mumbai has a population of 21m and a rapidly growing economy.

Many of the trends identified in this book are ones which the UK has already responded to with earlier learning from the States. Over the past couple of decades there has been the growing focus on City Regions as economic drivers. There have been various policy initiatives to support the development of this model with, among other things, the adoption of a more executive City Mayor model. Indeed Katz and Bradley mention positively the recent City Deal’s agreed with some of the large metropolitan Districts in England. “The Metropolitan Revolution” pushes all this thinking a lot further on.

The issue of resource however, remains a critical difference between here and the US. The ability to develop local responses to the demographic, global and political challenges that cities face requires resource. Lord Hesaltine’s recent Report “No Stone Unturned’ proposed the devolution of c£49bn from Whitehall to Town hall. To ensure this is strongly embedded and subject to appropriate oversight however it could be argued that the responsibility for raising it should be at the same level as which it is spent. Whilst it may not deal with this issue The Metropolitan Revolution is an excellent place to go for some radical thinking.

“The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros are Fixing our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy” Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley, The Brookings Institution 2013.