"Mayors' 10-point Plan '08" is latest report from the US Conference of Mayors and begins by strongly stating the case for the why cities and metropolitan regions are so important:
Led by America’s mayors, America’s cities drive our national economy — the strongest national economy in the world. Metro economies now account for 85 percent of national employment, 87 percent of labor income, and 86 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Of the largest 100 international economies in the world, 42 are US metro areas.
So why does it seem like the federal government has ignored cities for the last 8 or so years?
It's true. I'll admit. City living isn't for everyone. Some folks just can't live close to other people. And that's fine. They've decided that in exchange for having to use their car to go anywhere, to live in often architecturally dull houses, to spending their leisure time at the movie theater in some nondescript strip mall, they'll enjoy vault ceilings, a backyard with a pool, deathly quiet nights and 4000 square feet of living space. I'm not going to judge. A lot of those things appeal to me too, especially the pool and the high ceilings.
But it's not too much to ask that the federal government not ignore the 28% of this nation's population who live in cities of 100,000 people or more. And that's precisely what the U.S. Conference of Mayors wants.
Some of my favorite suggestions:
1. Making an "Energy Block Grant" the number one point in the plan. The federal government has totally dropped the ball on this so they may as well shift some funding to the folks who are actually trying to end the dominance of foreign oil.
2. Infrastructure (5th Point). While addressing the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Congressional Urban Caucus Chair Chaka Fattah, makes that point that we are spending $10 billion per month on the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the 10-pt. plan points out that the American Society of Civil Engineers has said that this nation needs to spend $1.6 trillion on infrastructure. Remember that bridge in Minnesota? It's the reason I take the Walnut Street bridge now when I cross the Schuylkill and not the South Street Bridge. Cities can't afford to be fixing bridges all by themselves and city residents aren't the only ones using those bridges.
It's also flat out embarrassing that other countries are eating our lunch when it comes to our telecommunications and internet infrastructure.
3. Competitive workforce (Point 6). Speaking of embarrassing, it's embarrassing that our nation seems to be getting dumber and dumber compared to other industrialized countries. So many cities (and states) are still trying to hold on to jobs that are long since gone because they don't have the imagination to envision what the next jobs will be. Calling for investment in training for "green jobs" is at least a step in the right direction.
As we transition away from covering mayoral politics and broaden the coverage of this website (and eventually rename it) and its blog, we're going to want to focus on the issues facing this entire metropolitan area and how governments at all levels - federal, state and local - have been handling these issues.
Ohhh... did I just drop a hint of things to come? Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, read the report and get a healthy dose of what the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution is serving.
Have a good weekend everyone.
Comments (13)
I read the Mayors' Ten Point Plan, and I really think it's a shame there's not more balanced, less partisan ideas.
For example, in order to do the Energy Block Grant programming well, there has to be some take as well as give. Instead of having 2 or 3 points covering housing, housing, housing, and more housing funding, which is obviously not working here in Philly, let's allow the housing fund cuts on HOPE and use the money for new ideas.
What's insane is doing the same thing over and over when it isn't really working, and the market provides affordable housing. Even the most liberal thinker (so long as they are not elected) will admit that rents and home prices, property taxes, and home related costs are the lowest of all the large NE cities, if not all of the large cities period.
It just hurts the Democrats to keep doing the SAME thing OVER and OVER and OVER. HOPE I, HOPE II, HOPE III (scandals on where did the money go), HOPE IV, HOPE V, (scandals, fines, court cases on was the money used to build homes or was it used to kick back lucrative housing funds to low performing, closed records, nontransparent "affordable housing builders" who deliver a block of low income housing voters and a hefty "consideration" for the pols "most interested" in "building affordable housing" (i.e. kicking back a contribution to the local Democrats courtesy of the federal dems and the conservatives who need votes).
Come on folks. This is not anyone's definition of good government.
Thanks for posting this 10 point plan online, because now I'm certain I'm voting for McCain.
I want to stay in the city, and giving PHA more money to hold lots it does nothing with, or Universal more money to build market rate housing at a cost of 3-4 times what the private market charges, in neighborhoods where the private market is building houses just fine, is a waste and CRIME.
This money should be going to groups that are building housing for seniors only, the disabled, the crisis homeless people, and NOT the pet voting block of the local corrupt, lax, lazy poster child for why Philly Dems are ruining it for Democrats everywhere.
Fumo, Street, Mariano, Leonard Ross, Ron White, all these guys were the bees knees of the federal block grant and the last 10 point keep docile uneducated all in one district so they can vote more me no matter what the FBI says -- all of this Philly crap has to stop.
I have to vote Republican so I can hope to stay in the city and not have to deal with the local "CDC" that is a religious group build "housing" for its constituents, I mean church members, even though these people can actually afford to buy homes in Philly now. It's a sham. It's a crime. Nobody keeps records, nobody wants to keep or see the books.
PHA is a sham with the scattered site housing that has the local drug whores and dealers coming and going in and out. If the paper had the courage to get up from the desk and just pick some random scattered site PHA housing in South Philly, they would see that I'm telling the truth.
Instead, you guys write from the press release la-la land of 10 point plans, and five year plans, and Stalin says we have to say this, oops, I mean the Democrats say we have to say how great these programs are for cities.
It's a lie.
Low income housing pays the least, if any, in property taxes, and that defunds schools. It destablizes equity on those who do pay for schools.
As great as it seems for pols, we can't have an all low income city of people who can barely read and write. Trying to make Philly the hole in the donut is all a federal block grant construct.
We have to let the market work in cities. There is a time to reap, and a time to sow. And we've been sowing this federal block grant stuff all over, and some people are driving some big shiny SUVs. But as for a transformed inner city, somehow that didn't happen until the private market came back on its own when drugs finally ebbed.
Come on libs. You have to see the very city you live in, if you live in it. Income and race diverse neighborhoods work, and fed block grant all one race, all one income neighborhoods are the hot spots of shootings and homicides.
You need all types of people on every block like Philly used to have. The Democratic view of "housing 24/7 every poor bastard for life" is killing Philly.
Some people really really can't afford to live in a 100 year old row house and send their kids to schools that I wouldn't send my dog to, and expect to do well.
How can Democrats claim that they are still HELPING the poor if they are always trying to cram them into the ghetto? Makes for easy voting when you load up the church bus.
Makes for a lot of kids who never see how normal people live of any color, never experience a good school, never dream.
Getting the poor "black folk" out of the ghetto is liberating for everyone who makes it out on their own, but for the Dems, it's still some kind of final solution.
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:02 AM
From the 10 Point Plan -- "Community Development Block Grants improve infrastructure" (like the South St. Bridge, the water lines, the bike lanes, the street upgrades -- oh, oops, somehow those didn't happen).
"CDBG funds a broad spectrum of activities including:
The public housing capital fund, which
ing homeownership opportunities; eliminating slums and blight" (which is why PHA owns 57 properties that owe property taxes to the city, 60% of which goes to schools in desperate need of the money, but somehow, the CDBG didn't get that far).
The public housing "captial fund" pays for land acquisition and legal fees, but PHA owns literally hundreds of blight creating lots now that it has done nothing with. (NTI did clean some of them with money it had to BORROW, where was the CDBG for that?)
CDGB end up funding campaigns for bad pols who get reelected time and time again, leaving reasonable people scratching their heads in Philly.
CDBG provide the funds for the "Affordable Housing PAC" that gives money all over Philly and Pennsylvania. It's a scam.
There ends up being precious little money left -- genuinely effective homeless programs such as Project H.O.M.E have to go begging.
Yet OHCD throws money around never asks for an accounting of what was done with the money in specific telling detail.
This is never a way a business runs. PHA is fighting the simple request to do per project accounting, that shows the costs per each project, a way to manage spending efficiently, and an industry standard.
No, PHA is fighting this requirement tooth and nail, wasting precious time and resources to mount this campaign against normal accounting practices.
I'm not bashing dems, I'm saying this is what holds good Democrats back. The Greens have to become more powerful in Philly, IMO, to get the Dems to stop trying to make every issue about housing funding from the federal government.
We're in such debt now, that even if Hillary was elected (or Obama) that they wouldn't have the werewithal to do what this plan calls for except for the cities in the most crisis, such as New Orleans.
I know the Philly Dems are addicted to the CDBG money ganga, but it seems as though our dealer got arrested. Time to rethink -- do we get a new dealer, or do we make some healthier decisions for the cities we profess to love?
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:18 AM
Did you see the CDBG HOPE funding king, Kenny Gamble, in the Philly Magazine article where he is perched upon a throne, in some kind of bank vault for an office?
Gamble claims that his Universal Companies never was supposed to renovate the Royal Theater. HUHHHHH?
So, uh, does anybody in town want to know what the f**k he did with the money he was given by the CDGB/HOPE fed programs to do exactly that? As well as build an "entertainment complex" and build "Bainbridge West" as an affordable housing infill development that ended up being high end houses sold at market rate and lots given to them by the RDA sold to the private market?
So long as Kenny is giving the green stuff to the Democratic City Committee, none of you can claim to be honest and not criticize this practice, of which Universal is clearly not the only offender.
Why do convicted federal money scammers keep getting funds courtesy of Democrats who direct these "housing" agencies?
It's a massively unsupervised, little audited, unquestioned graft-o-rama.
Wake up and do some research waste-of-Ink. You'd help your party do better instead of being its mindless mouthpiece press release reprint venue.
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:25 AM
In fairness to Kenny Gamble, he is certainly not the only housing grant fund abuser in Philly. There are dozens, and he is the one who wrote the catchiest music.
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:26 AM
There are rows and rows of lots that any builder would give their eye teeth to pay full value to buy, paying the back taxes for schools, paying the "bad debt" gas and water bills, except that they are held in limbo by these waste "affordable housing redevelopers" or held FOR these waste nonperformers.
Years at a time, row after row. The city is the largest property tax debtor (it can't pay itself) because it is hoping a white horse will ride in and reestablish these housing block grant programs that end up with little to show for themselves.
Where are all those AA businesses? I just see a lot of asian corner stores and funeral homes. Funny how all that business grant and development training, and housing infrastructure improvement, and small business loans for training yadda yadda ended up with small measurables.
If the outcome is not measurable in science, then the treatment or intervention is proven ineffective on evidence.
So what gives with the mayors? With so little evidence of benefit per dollar spent compared to alternate treatments (private charities, the private market) you can't keep justifying the housing block grants.
Where is the socratic thinker at the Inquirer or Daily News who is troubled or intrigued by this question?
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:33 AM
Take a look for yourself:
/www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/topdelinquents/mailingaddress
Why are the city and government agencies, many funded by the fed block grants, holding so much housing in limbo for so long, creating blight for years, and most critical, NOT PAYING PROPERTY TAXES.
This drives up YOUR property taxes, even if you don't live in the city. You have to pay for this massive city landbanking that is badly run, inefficient, and expensive compared to the alternatives.
What city could hold so much property and do nothing with it for years? Look at the deed record online for one of these properties, and see how long the city holds this stuff.
We have to end federal giveaways in order to end the practice of publicly funded land speculation in politically strategic districts.
If just the RDA allowed private buyers to bid on the property it can't use, it would pay off the school deficit of $33 million in ONE day.
Can we really justify a system that punches such huge, hundred million dollar deficits in property tax payments by holding so much property out of the private market that has to pay in full and on time?
Come on folks, what city does this?
Rank Most Frequent Name Unique Mail Code Total due Total properties
1 REDEV AUTH OF PHILA 19107-3721-1234 $18,218,076.66 893
2 PHILADELPHIA INDUSTR IAL DEVELOPMENT 19102-2100-1500 $5,562,989.53 59
3 CITY OF PHILA 19103-2028-1600 $2,252,836.12 124
4 CITY OF PHILA 19102-1604-1401 $2,042,016.06 534
5 CONSOLIDATED RAIL CO RP 19101-8499-PO $1,564,404.24 15
6 AMTRAK 20002-4285-60 $1,559,178.32 12
7 SEPTA 19107-5233-130 $1,188,574.41 13
8 FARMER PAULINE 19119-2120-6950 $877,363.71 4
9 CONSOLIDATED RAIL CO RP 19103-7044-2001 $854,611.28 3
10 CITY OF PHILA 19102-1617-1401 $829,021.33 193
11 PA COMMONWEALTH OF D OT 19406-1525-7000 $701,601.71 9
12 FREMPONG AGNES 19146-0102-PO $653,907.87 13
13 ROMEL EAST LLC 94104-3503-268 $651,297.88 1
14 READING CO 90040-1572-500 $637,565.25 19
15 SCHWARTZ M & CO INC 19124-4520-4233 $570,851.05 6
16 MEDLEY ELIJAH 19141-0918-PO $511,518.08 4
17 1608 WALNUT STREET A SSOCIATES LP 19102-3116-1411 $482,524.81 6
18 PHILADELPHIA HOUSING AUTHORITY 19103-3014-12 $438,764.08 57
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:40 AM
The RDA isn't getting property redeveloped, it's holding them 893 properties that don't pay property taxes, making your taxes higher no matter whether you live in the city or not.
Those 893 properties owe over $18 MILLION in overdue property taxes for years!!!!!
That's more than half of what crisis schools in Philly need now. We don't have to beg. We have the money, we have the assets.
PAID owes $5.5 million in OVERDUE PROPERTY TAXES, 60% of which would go right to schools. Why are you paying more, and they are paying and doing nothing with their 59 properties?
Anyone would want to buy and build on these properties -- we don't need PAID to hold on to them to "find" a buyer. Just advertise them for sale or auction.
And the City of Philadelphia owns so much scattered property, that it has the bills sent all over town. The city has 124+534+193=
that owe property taxes just in the TOP TWENTY of MOST DELINQUENT taxpayers.
It's HUGELY irresponsible to bleed schools by having tax scofflaws be the very federal block grant funded agencies and city programs that the 10 point plan is calling for MORE FUNDING FOR.
NO.
END THE MADNESS. SELL THE PROPERTY. The property taxes are paid at closing, meaning a windfall for the city not seen since the Rendell admin.
Come on people. Can you be proud to call yourself a democrat is this is what it ends up being?
PHA owes half a million in property taxes on 57 properties. PHA relies on federal housing monies. What is this telling you?
If we want a good school funding tax base, we have to have taxpayers in it.
These CDBG/HOPE/fed money funded agencies are the opposite of what schools are crying out for -- responsible property owners who pay their share in full and on time.
How can we grow a tax base if we keep trying to have agencies hold this property and not contribute to the cost of their own footprint?
Any interest in covering this obvious flaw in the system, ever? I mean, since you care about good schools, and the money now and in the future is RIGHT THERE DINGBATS!!
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:51 AM
124
534
193
----
851 properties in the TOP TWENTY MOST DELINQUENT PROPERTY TAX OWNERS WHO BLEED SCHOOLS DRY that are OWED BY THE "CITY OF PHILADELPHIA"
ANY FREEKING INTEREST IN COVERING THIS HUGE, OBVIOUS MEANS TO PAY FOR schools where kids are not STOMPING HEADS and using their cell phones to post the video ON YOUTUBE?????
You Philly journalists are the WORST OF ALL TIME. Crying "schools, schools, oh, pity the poor wretches who go to them, lalalalalalala..."
But can you, do you write about the money designated to pay for them that the city isn't collecting and why?
Does WHY the schools suck not interest you? Not PC? What is your brain blockage? I blame the press for letting the city be this bad.
For every stomped kid, every stabbed schoolgirl waiting for the bus who gets wilded, every kid who almost learned enough to start being interested in buying your papers, I say a weak, unquestioning, timid press is to blame.
BOYCOTT THEM.
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 8:58 AM
Boycott the press until they start covering religiously why the city is not collecting the overdue property taxes, but are raising them for those who do pay.
Did you notice, faux journalists, that the city stopped the Tax Delinquency sales altogether? Why?
www.phillysheriff.com used to have 3 sheriff sales a month -- mortgage, tax lien, and tax delinquency. Tax delinquency sales are where the city collects what is long overdue in property taxes by auctioning the property after giving the people a year to pay up.
Didn't notice that? You are all the worst, most wretched, detached, blind, sleeping, narcoleptic press and its the schoolkids, the folks who don't vote for your unquestioned liberal palace of dreams, that suffer.
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 9:03 AM
There's no where else in the world, and less and less, in this nation, where large cities are the holding tanks for low income/no income owners such as city entities, housing entities, or even individuals. Everyone is expected to contribute a sum, a more significant sum, in taxes than the surrounding areas.
In France, the HLMs are outside the city limits. Paris would not forfeit the property tax potential by trying to locate HLMs on property within the city limits. This is the same all over Europe.
These are countries that have generous housing subsidies and provisions. Why not look at what works there? Clearly what they don't do is make set asides for 25% of the population to live where schools are bad, housing quality poor, and crime is high. We can do what Europe does and nurture a city tax base that funds cities well enough to keep them clean, safe, and have schools that produce good citizens.
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 9:15 AM
Why not create policies that encourage the poor to relocated to where the jobs are, and into the counties that are unwilling to pay more for Philly? Let them have more low income residents enjoy those school districts, and everyone wins. It's a triple win.
Philly wins, the low income resident wins, and the counties win in that they see their costs directly.
Posted by Anonymous | January 26, 2008 9:19 AM
What the hell
Posted by Shin Tau | October 14, 2008 6:00 PM
What the hell
Posted by Shin Tau | October 14, 2008 6:00 PM