Transcript How Recent Federal Policy Supports Metropolitan Collaboration Jennifer Bradley Senior Research Associate Buffalo, NY June 18, 2009

How Recent Federal Policy
Supports Metropolitan Collaboration
Jennifer Bradley
Senior Research Associate
Buffalo, NY
June 18, 2009
Overview
I
Why do metro areas matter to economic recovery and
prosperity?
II
How well does ARRA empower cities and metro areas?
III
How are metro areas beginning to respond with regional
action and creativity?
IV
What are emerging opportunities in the federal budget?
Long-run economic growth depends on investment in
the drivers of prosperity
Innovation
Human
Capital
To prosper, the U.S. must
leverage four key assets
Quality
Infrastructure
Places
+ Governance
Our country’s 100 largest metro areas hold the bulk of
the assets of the U.S. economy
65%
74%
78%
79%
92%
12%
Land Area
Population
Source: Brookings analysis of U.S Census Bureau,
BLS, and, BEA data
College
Graduates
Patents
U.S. Air
Cargo Weight
Public Transit
Miles
These metro areas collectively generate 75% of U.S. GDP, and
will drive our economic recovery
The Great Lakes states are metropolitan states
% Population in metro areas
% Metro share of state GDP
isc
on
sin
*
W
lv
an
ia
Pe
nn
sy
Oh
io
M
iss
ou
ri
Ne
w
Yo
rk
**
M
in
ne
so
ta
M
ich
ig
an
a*
Io
w
In
di
an
a*
Ill
in
oi
s
Ke
nt
uc
ky
*
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
* In these states, the smaller metro areas, rather than the metros in the top 100 nationally, are what make them “metro states”
** Greater New York City alone counts for 64 percent of the state population and 76 percent of state GDP
Source: Brookings Analysis of Census and BEA Data
Overview
I
Why do metro areas matter to economic recovery and
prosperity?
II
How well does ARRA empower cities and metro areas?
III
How are metro areas beginning to respond with regional
action and creativity?
IV
What are emerging opportunities in the federal budget?
ARRA was conceived to respond to a crisis—one of the worst
economic contractions since the Great Depression
As it was signed in February:
• The nation’s unemployment rate hit 8.1
percent
• GDP was announced to have fallen more
than 6 percent in the fourth quarter of
2008
• Job losses had exceeded 600,000 for the
third consecutive month
From the very beginning, an insistence on swift action
characterized the debate
“If we do not act boldly and swiftly, a
bad situation could become
dramatically worse.”
-President Obama, January 24, 2009
ARRA balances tax cuts, investments, and aid
Help for those
most in need
16%
Tax cut stimulus
32%
Aid for states and
localities
18%
Green
investments
11%
Source: Center for American Progress
Investments
(highways,
transit, health,
education, etc.)
23%
Annual spending, in billions
A substantial portion of the stimulus funds must be spent
within the next two years
$400
Green investments
Other investments (highways, health, etc.)
$300
Aid for states and localities
Help for those most in need
$200
Tax cut stimulus
$100
2009
2010
2011
Source: Center for American Progress
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
But is speed the correct goal?
While we think that
crisis breeds innovation,
the speed with which
ARRA was enacted had
the opposite effect at the
federal level
SLOW
PROCEED WITH
CAUTION
ARRA is business as usual … at warp speed
Thus, it’s not surprising that ARRA is disappointing from a
metropolitan perspective:
• Inherent anti-urban bias
• Narrow definition of accountability
• Categorically siloed programs
• Proliferation of recipients
Especially troublesome will be the typical mix of siloed money
flows and rifts between key actors
Department of
Transportation
Federal Highway
Administration
Highway
Infrastructure
Federal Railroad
Administration
Intercity
Rail
Federal Transit
Administration
Transit
Capital
Amtrak
State
Department of
Transportation
State Rail
Program
Metropolitan
Planning
Organization
Transit
Authority
Local
Executive
Especially troublesome will be the typical mix of siloed money
flows and rifts between key actors
Department of Labor
Employment and
Training Administration
Adult, Youth, and Dislocated
Worker Job Training
Community Service Jobs
for Older Americans
Job Training in
Renewable Energy and
Emerging Industries
National NonProfit
Organizations
State
Agencies
Workforce
Investment
Boards
State Agencies
Local
Government
Agencies
Local NonProfit
Organizations
Local
Executive
Workforce
Investment
Boards?
And yet, ARRA also invests substantially in what matters
• Directs hundreds of billions of dollars toward bolstering the
economy’s key assets
• Provides impetus for metropolitan collaboration and policy
coordination in some areas
About $335 billion out of $787 billion is directed toward the
key assets that drive long-run prosperity
Other
57%
Innovation, Human
Capital,
Infrastructure, and
Quality Places
43%
Source: Brookings analysis of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Notable investment categories include:
• $50 billion in federal research and development (R&D) funding critical to
innovation activities in local universities, labs, health complexes, and research
centers
• $125 billion in direct funding for education and human capital cultivation,
including billions in funds for incentives to states and $650 million to support
innovative approaches in struggling school districts
• $126 billion in spending on transportation, energy grid, water-sewer, and other
infrastructure
• $34 billion to support energy retrofits of buildings, community development,
inner-city business development, and transit—things that contribute to the
creation of sustainable, quality places in metropolitan America
Other provisions provide an impetus for metropolitan
collaboration and policy coordination
• $750 million for connecting worker training to high-growth and emerging
industries could spur regional approaches to worker training that may bolster
regional industry cluster growth
• $1.5 billion in competitive grants for major transportation projects, which
could provide opportunities to link transportation, housing, energy, and
environmental programs
• $3.2 billion in Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants could be
used for metropolitan strategies to reduce driving and conserve energy in other
coordinated ways
• $2 billion in competitive grants for Neighborhood Stabilization that may
support consortia of nonprofits serving multi-jurisdictional areas hit hard by
housing crisis
Overview
I
Why do metro areas matter to economic recovery and
prosperity?
II
How well does ARRA empower cities and metro areas?
III
How are metro areas beginning to respond with regional
action and creativity?
IV
What are emerging opportunities in the federal budget?
Characteristics of Regional Innovation in ARRA
Regionally, creative solutions often:
• Invest in projects or initiatives that
reflect regional priorities and
realities
• Are multi-jurisdictional or multisector at the regional scale
• Adopt integrated, silo-busting
approaches
• Embrace multidimensional outcomes
(e.g. sustainability and inclusion)
• Embody strong state and metro
partnerships
Categories of Emerging Metropolitan Collaboration
around ARRA
State Driven
MPO Driven
Independent
Collaborations
State Driven: California
California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency
•
Working with 12 regions across the state to distribute and maximize the
impact of ARRA funds
•
Their goal is to “ensure the federal stimulus funds will achieve the highest
economic impact”
•
Each region is encouraged to create a Regional Economic Recovery Work
Plan that supports economic recovery by:
1.
Leveraging resources
2.
Expediting infrastructure spending
3.
Supporting the growth of business and innovation
4.
Promoting workforce development
5.
Enhancing environmental quality
Website: www.bth.ca.gov
State Driven: California
The Bay Area Council Economic Institute
•
Public-private organization charged with developing the 9-county Bay Area’s
economic recovery plan
•
Plan summarizes regional strategies and priorities in transportation, water,
energy efficiency, workforce training, housing market sustainability, science
and innovation, notes which individual jurisdictions or agency proposals best
align with the strategy and priorities
•
All localities can forward their individual plans to the state – exclusion from
the regional plan is not fatal
Website: www.bayeconfor.org/recovery/index.html
MPO Driven: Seattle Metro
Puget Sound Regional Council
•
MPO’s prosperity partnership coalition
created a clearinghouse of competitive
ARRA funding opportunities and regional
project ideas
•
Also convenes regular meetings of regional
stakeholders to share ideas, match
potential regional partners, work on most
promising regional applications for
competitive funds
•
Not a regional application system, and does
not preclude individual governments from
submitting their own grant applications
Website: www.psrc.org/recovery.htm
MPO Driven: Kansas City Metro
The Mid-America Regional Council (MARC)
•
In absence of state leadership, MARC is articulating regional policy
priorities (bi-state, 9 counties, 120 municipalities)
•
MARC is currently developing an ARRA implementation strategy at
regional level:
1.
Coordinating local implementation of grants and link up multi-jurisdictionally
when possible (weatherization; job training; and neighborhood stabilization)
2.
Conceptualizing support for regional projects (public health and health
information sharing; regional traffic management system)
3.
Aligning regional resources to a targeted neighborhood of high distress yet
major assets
Website: www.marc.org
Independent Collaborations: Seattle Metro
Puget Sound New Energy Solutions
•
Fourteen city and county governments and four regional and local utilities
cooperating in advancing the same regional sustainability framework
•
Coordinating investments in energy efficiency, clean mobility, smart grids to
get the most out of the stimulus formula allocations and be better
positioned to win competitive grant awards
•
Specifically, guiding coordination of EECBG applications and competitive
ARRA grant proposals
Memphis
City
and
Independent Collaborations:
Shelby County
City of Choice Initiative
•
Establishing shared objectives
for stimulus spending, 12
priority areas and resources for
reaching the goals
•
Vision of using ARRA funds to
achieve “game-changing” goals in
the priority areas
Southern
Cook
County
Independent Collaborations:
Suburbs (Chicago)
South Suburban Housing Initiative
•
Twelve suburban Chicago communities
coordinating NSP round 1 funding, supported by
MPO, regional non-profit
•
Hired a coordinator for its inter-jurisdictional
housing collaborative to align the policies,
programs, and resources of participating towns
•
Creating, among other things, a unified zoning
code overlay to make things easier for
interested developers.
•
Will use this as a platform for the NSP2
competitive round funding
Metropolitan Collaboration: Common Themes
• Voluntary collaboration
• Prospect of competition spurring
efforts to collaborate, coordinate
• Collaboration filling capacity gaps,
lowering transaction costs
Overview
I
Why do metro areas matter to economic recovery and
prosperity?
II
How well does ARRA empower cities and metro areas?
III
How are metro areas beginning to respond with regional
action and creativity?
IV
What are emerging opportunities in the federal budget?
Emerging Opportunities: Sustainability
HUD’s $150 million Sustainable Communities Initiative to
“integrate transportation and housing planning decisions in
a way that maximizes choices for residents and businesses,
lowers transportation costs and drives more sustainable
development patterns”
•
MPOs, CDBG teams apply for competitive grants to support integrated
regional development plans – cross-border, cross-policy silos
•
Grants for localities to align local zoning and land use rules with larger
regional visions
•
Funds for research and innovation by HUD and DOT
Emerging Opportunities: Innovation
Department of Energy’s $280 million request to fund eight new
Energy Innovation Hubs aimed at supporting “cross-disciplinary
research and development focused on the barriers to transforming
energy technologies into commercially deployable materials,
devices, and systems,” replicating the success of the department’s
three regionally sited Bioenergy Research Centers.
Department of Labor’s Economic Development Administration’s
request for $50 million for a national research and information
center on the geography of regional innovation clusters
Emerging Opportunities: Land Use
Community Regeneration, Sustainability and
Innovation Act, 2009 (Introduced)
Would support multi-jurisdictional or regional approaches to
addressing vacant and abandoned property through:
•
Regional land banks
•
Regional land use plans
•
Networks of green infrastructure
For More Information
Metro Potential in ARRA: An Early Assessment of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Metro Program’s Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Analysis and
Other Related Commentary
Jennifer Bradley
[email protected]
Senior Research Associate
Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program