Larimer Square Denver, Colorado denver.org |
Can the suburbs and cities learn to work together? It sounds strange but two cities are showing that both places can work together. Nancy Cook of The Atlantic recently wrote "When Cities and Suburbs Work Together," which looks at how Denver, Colorado and New York City, New York have found a way for both places to stop competing with each other and learn to focus on achieving economic goals.
The city of Denver was not always a model for economic development. Following the oil bust in the eighties Tom Clark, the chief executive officer of the Metro Economic Development Corporation remembers, the city auctioning off office space for mere cents per foot. In their book The Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley wrote, And the state budget was in such dire circumstances that the government stopped funding prominent cultural institutions like the Denver Art Museum and Denver Botanic Gardens.
Denver Art Museum North Buildin Gio Ponti 1971 flickr.com |
Denver Union Station en.wikipedia.org |
Denver's success demonstrates the importance of cities, suburbs, and rural areas coming together to meet the challenge of economic development. However, despite the benefits, this type of urban/suburban/rural area collaboration is rare. More typical are localities competing with each for the next big economic projects-whether through tax breaks, government subsidies, or changes to zoning ordinance. Jennifer Bradley continues, It really is still so hard for people to look beyond the one big deal in the pipeline. One case in point, the states of Kansas and Missouri are notorious for the their "economic border wars"-vying for companies based in the Kansas City area.
Denver in the winter Charles Johnson flickr.com |
People are moving from 'Let's build an industrial park and hope that somebody locates here' to 'What are our true competitive advantages and assets and how do we leverage them?
In the growing global economy, cities, suburbs, and localities are not only from competition from nearby cities or states but also other countries competing with lower wages. This is why a small number of cities, such as Denver, have seen the positives of regional. It's best to look at what makes sense to make the economy of the metropolitan region function effectively, said Christopher, vice president of research at the Regional Plan Association, an independent urban research and advocacy group concentrated on the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut Tri-State area. Mr. Jones continues, If you're not doing that, you're just moving pieces across the table-they could just as easily move back in the direction instead of creating lasting value and productivity.
New York City housing project stvinc.com |
For the above stated reason, regions from Denver to New York City and their attending suburbs as well as rural communities in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kentucky are banding together. Rather than just offer up the best or highest tax breaks, local governments, planners, private business people, and developers are working on ways to promote their regions as authentic and unique. From all the brainstorming activity, "they build up the local economy around those attributes." Can anyone say historic preservation anyone?
In New York, setting aside the urban/suburban/rural competition can take the form of working together to bring more technology companies and engineering firms to the city, which will aide the surrounding areas through job creation. The word you might be thinking of is agglomeration. For example, Ms. Cook cites the example of "a county of 100,000 residents in Iowa, it means banding together with neighboring rural areas to bolster local agriculture." According to Amy Liu, the co-director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, People are going to push for regional approaches because the economy is regional...Even if you are a mayor in an urban core, your residents still need to find good-paying jobs wherever they are. This means commuting from home to an nearby suburban, town, county for work.
Fresh Meadow Queens, New York queenscrap.blogspot.com |
Although cities are not as bad off as they used to be, the collaborative efforts between the suburbs and cities still remains a genuine obstacle to regional economic development. Ms. Cook points to the tensions in Ferguson, Missouri, "which suffers from poor economic fortunes and racial discrimination, while other areas of St. Louis prosper." Christopher Jones sums it up succinctly, The city versus the suburbs is a difficult barrier to overcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment