By: Morena Vattuone
As just another regular person trying to find a way to make ends meet, I’m often disillusioned by what seems like diluted policy “solutions” that really won’t be effective in solving any of our problems. More and more, I’m starting to realize that to wait for government to solve 100% of our problems, is to agree to wait, well, forever. And perhaps the whole notion of government solving everything on its own, is, well, a bit unfair.
The bottom-line is that we have to get involved. It’s not a matter of pulling ourselves up by our proverbial bootstraps, it’s more a matter of coordinating with our neighbors, schools, friends, and family to create a network of people that are looking out for the personal and collective interest—hmmmmm, some may actually call it, the community interest.
Last year the President said to the nation’s mayors at their annual conference, “We need to promote strong cities as the backbone of regional growth….we also need to stop seeing our cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution…strong cities are the building blocks of strong regions, and strong regions are essential for a strong America…”
And on February 19, 2009, Obama signed an executive order establishing the Office of Urban Affairs. This demonstrated that the current administration recognizes cities and metropolitan areas as dynamic engines for our economy.
For the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population lives in cities. By the middle of this century, this figure will likely grow by 37 percent. In the United States, 83 percent of people and 85 percent of jobs are located in the nation’s 363 metro areas. Beyond the numbers, the overwhelming majority of the nation’s assets — airports, hospitals, universities, financial institutions, infrastructure, manufacturing plants — are concentrated in metropolitan regions and generate almost 90 percent of the nation’s economic production.
The President recognizes that the true experts of how to plan for the future prosperity of our cities and metro areas are the people in communities who have figured out how to rebuild neighborhoods, build businesses, educate their kids, make their communities safe, clean up the environment, or come up with the latest technological or scientific innovation, in spite of government.
The President says that “Washington can’t solve all our problems…change in this country comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom up.” President Obama believes that government should serve to support American ingenuity and creativity.
I don’t want this to be a list of Obama quotes. What I do want is for us to acknowledge that although government plays a crucial role in the health of our cities, the onus equally falls on us to do some of the heavy-lifting as well, to help us move past the current economic and social hardships.
Washington certainly can be a partner and catalyst for community-based solutions, instead of a bureaucratic obstacle. Our cities and neighborhoods are places of opportunity, we just need to partner with our local leaders, and one another, to make the changes we want to see.
