Metro Policy

Ed Glaeser rightly bemoans the presidential campaign's lack of interest in big city issues. Ryan Avent says "voters must be the ones to demand more urban policy proposals from the the candidates" and wonders why they don't. I think it's more a question of the voters who care about these things not living in the right places. Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire nor South Carolina includes a substantially sized city. What's more, at the moment we're in a dynamic where general election campaigns don't seriously target California, New York, Illinois, or Texas but those states contain the bulk of our biggest metro areas.

Insofar as states like Florida and Virginia get targeted, you might see candidates trying to take on transportation and planning issues that have salience in those places, but realistically it's hard for big cities to figure on the agenda in a big way when New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and the Bay Area are all off the table in electoral college terms. On the other hand, presidents don't really write the laws -- congress does -- and the House Democratic caucus is full of leaders and chairpeople from in and around large metropolitan areas. Given a sympathetic president to sign things they write they could probably do a lot of good. On the other hand, the Senate is structured so as to largely disenfranchise urban America, so maybe we're doomed.

Photo by Flickr user BryanSereny used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

"On the other hand, the Senate is structured so as to largely disenfranchise urban America, so maybe we're doomed."

I was wondering if you'd ever figure this out.

Posted by Petey | January 5, 2008 2:48 PM

Yet somehow or other New York, California, and Texas retain just a little influence on national affairs...

Posted by otto | January 5, 2008 2:56 PM

Yup. The one possible workable way to alleviate that very seriously deformed limb that has always existed in the American democracy would be a Constitutional amendment allowing any state to split itself into smaller ones WITHOUT permission from Congress -- a right Texas, uniquely, already has (as a precondition of its agreeing to join the Union). The crapola argument we so often hear that, in a fairly apportioned Senate, "the big states would pick on the small states" can hardly be applied to that one, which means there's a (very) slim chance it might make it through.

As for the early primaries occurring in rural states: we have an unavoidable clash there -- kicking off the primary campaign with small states is the only way to give underfunded or obscure candidates a chance to get properly known by the American public in general. And the only small states I can think of that aren't disproportionately rural are Rhode Island and Delaware.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | January 5, 2008 2:59 PM

Remember, also, to Broderella and the DC brothel, urban politics is not 'real' politics. The only real politics takes place between visits to the Bumfuck Diner and Grill.

Exception: NYC mayoral politics. Which is odd. You have to wonder whether that's partly because the Villagers generally treat their home city's government as, well, beneath them.

Now, big city politics can be local machine politics, which makes them of limited relevance on a national level, but that's no excuse to ignore urban politics in broad terms. There's still the perception, I think, that cities are 'where Those People live', and Obama may avoid dwelling on the nitty-gritty of Chicago urban policy/politics on the campaign trail for that reason. (Within Chicago's city limits? About the same population as Iowa or NH.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 5, 2008 3:01 PM

This is an interesting take on an issue that I come from at an opposite (i.e., rural) perspective, MY.

It's undoubtedly true that places like Harlem, Dorchester, and Chicago get scant notice from the chattering classes -- but they also really ignore vast swathes of the rural parts of the country. And so, I would say, do the blogospheric forces of both the Left and the Right. With the exception of the obligatory ethanol (good only for the corn belt) nod and other agricultural absurdities, very few of our Very Serious People could give a damn about the increasing poverty and ghetttoization of the hinterland. The Great Plains are below 1890 levels of population, meaning that the "Frontier" of Frederick J. Turner is open again. Across the country, the young and talented are fleeing their rural roots for lives in the megalopolises, all too often replete with isolation, anomie, and utter detachment from nature.

Indeed, both the core metro areas that act as economic entrepots and the outlying rural areas that act as food producers and store-places of ecological capital (e.g., the 20th Century reforestation of N. America has acted as a huge carbon sink) lose out in the national narrative to the viewpoint of affluent suburbs.

I don't expect you to have much sympathy with my Jeffersonian agrarianism, MY, but it's not just the urban areas that are suffering neglect. If anything, it's worse for the country.

Posted by Ben Cronin | January 5, 2008 3:01 PM

" the obligatory ethanol (good only for the corn belt) nod and other agricultural absurdities, very few of our Very Serious People could give a damn about the increasing poverty and ghetttoization of the hinterland."

At least you get massive federal spending on subsidized highways, while we don't get much help on mass transit.

Posted by Petey | January 5, 2008 3:04 PM

to largely disenfranchise urban America !!! really Matt...

let's see - HUD, Medicaid, Medicare, Federal welfare dollars, federal law enforcement spending

Outside of agriculture and miltary spending (people don't seem to want military bases right in cities) can't think of anything that tips to rural america

Highways? you mean to ship things into cities and there suburbs

the onlything that has disenfranchised urban america is the number of felonies commited by urbanites that get's them sent upstate as it were (oh yeah, I'm sure there are leftists who think that prisons are a means to transfer urban dollars to red-neck areas)

And me, I am an urbanite, just an honest one

Posted by Jozef | January 5, 2008 3:06 PM

Petey, I hear where you're coming from, but for the most part, massive federal highway projects are related in some wise to an urban core -- for instance, in my home region of New England, the feds chipped in (rightly, in my view) a ton of money for the "Big Dig" (heckuva job, Mitt!) to revitalize downtown Boston and connect it with its historic harbor, while large areas of northern New England remain stuck with 1920s-era road transport. If you want to drive, say, from Burlington, Vt., to Bangor, Maine, there is no interstate to do so, just old federal Rt. 2 (2-lane). Maybe that's as it should be, but it's not like folks up there are just rolling in federal dollars.

Also, for all the kvetching by urban types, I'm not sure if you realize the severity of Appalachian poverty that occurs relatively close to NYC and Boston and Philly and other big metropoli.

The key to this coming century will be to unite the cities and the country against the carbon-hogging, Rove-voting suburbs.

Posted by Ben Cronin | January 5, 2008 3:11 PM

"Indeed, both the core metro areas that act as economic entrepots and the outlying rural areas that act as food producers and store-places of ecological capital (e.g., the 20th Century reforestation of N. America has acted as a huge carbon sink) lose out in the national narrative to the viewpoint of affluent suburbs."

I wonder if this is due to Eisenhower and the national highway system. Beforehand, there was no real suburbanization on the scale we've seen post-WWII. Before that you had the cities and the country, so one depended on the other for food and vice versa for imports, etc. You open up a third, in-between choice at the same times as the baby boom, people don't necessarily go back to the same rural town their grandparents settled in when they moved to from Scotland or from back East, but to somewhere close enough to the city to commute for work and once in a while see a show. It becomes the American Dream (TM) to live a middle-class existence in the suburbs with a white picket fence and 2.5 children and suddenly you are the world and the political system must serve you.

Posted by Reality Man | January 5, 2008 3:13 PM

What Ben Cronin said.

Further, while Boston is technically not in NH a great great many of NH inhabitants work in/around greater Boston. Indeed, there's a great many of people who have moved to NH because they can't afford to live in Boston...needless to say, the cost of urban living is a pretty big issue to them.

Posted by berger | January 5, 2008 3:15 PM

You want to take a local issue and federalize it, and then complain that the federal structures can't solve a local issue.

Surely, the effected states are more capable of understanding and dealing with this issue than a federal government that includes representatives of lots of constituents from 'burbs, exurbs, and rural areas...Let the people of California decide the policies in L.A. and the Bay Area- they know the issues best, and what's more, they don't have to deal with a recalitrant Senator from a rural state...

Posted by P | January 5, 2008 3:27 PM

"...who think that prisons are a means to transfer urban dollars to red-neck areas"

Aren't prisoners censused where they're imprisoned? If so, that'd make prisons a great way to transfer electoral votes and congressional representation to said areas.

Posted by ThresherK | January 5, 2008 3:42 PM

"The key to this coming century will be to unite the cities and the country against the carbon-hogging, Rove-voting suburbs."

Mr. Cronin,

This was, more or less, the FDR coalition. But then our manufacturing disappeared (please people, don't start yelling at me about how the value of our manufacturing has been consistently going up. You know full well that as a proportion of our workforce and as a percentage of our GDP, manufacturing's been sinking since the 1940s/50s), which destroyed the rationale behind many of the cities in the country, especially in the Midwest.

So the coalition died. It's probably never coming back.

Posted by Greg | January 5, 2008 4:03 PM

Also, I'm aware about all the social issues associated with the coalition's collapse. I just decided to focus on the economic side, since it was a coalition founded in materialist terms, because of the Depression.

Posted by Greg | January 5, 2008 4:19 PM

If so, that'd make prisons a great way to transfer electoral votes and congressional representation to said areas.

Old news.

In spite of Jozef's scoffing, the 90s -- yeah, the Clinton years -- saw massive growth in prison developments in small, mainly white towns. It was seen as a nice little earner: plenty of those developments were privately built.

Spruce Pine, NC, for instance, has two facilities nearby -- one privately built by CCA in 1998, one state-built. Surrounding a town of 2000 people (eight African-Americans, according to the last census) with 2000 prisoners from eastern NC gives you more clout when it comes to state infrastructure funding.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 5, 2008 4:21 PM

Dude, I know. The Wyoming, Michigan, and Maine primaries are hogging all the media attention.

It seems to me that most of money the candidates raise comes from the large urban areas. If urban policies are not getting their due attention, it's not the fault of rural areas, it's because those donors in the urban areas aren't concerned enough about it.

Posted by Just Karl | January 5, 2008 4:44 PM

Re: Constitutional amendment allowing any state to split itself into smaller ones WITHOUT permission from Congress -- a right Texas, uniquely, already has (as a precondition of its agreeing to join the Union).

This is an urban legend. Moreover, parts of Texas were already hacked off when the state joined the Union and became portions of Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado. Even if an agreement was made with the Republic of Texas it is null and void today because A) the Republic of Texas no longer exists and B) The Supreme Court would strike down such an attempt as unconstitutional (and Texas' last attempt to defy the federal government in 1861-65 ended rather badly)

Re: The Great Plains are below 1890 levels of population, meaning that the "Frontier" of Frederick J. Turner is open again.

Not a bad thing, IMO. This area never did have a sustainable ecology for large numbers of human beings. Now if only people in the Southwest would figure that out too.

Re: let's see - HUD, Medicaid, Medicare, Federal welfare dollars, federal law enforcement spending

And anyone remember the Law and Order War on Crime? Maybe we don't approve of it, but it was an urban issue taking center stage nationally.

re: If you want to drive, say, from Burlington, Vt., to Bangor, Maine, there is no interstate to do so, just old federal Rt. 2 (2-lane).

There are a number of situations like that. There is no interstate route from Phoenix AZ to either Las Vegas of Salt Lake City either, to use one example. Even Toledo-Columbus OH does not have an actual interstate route, though US 23 has been upgraded to a freeway most of the way.

Re: Before that you had the cities and the country

But "cities" meant lots of smaller cities. Ir wasn't just Big City vs small town. And some suburban cities were already grwoing when the interstates were built: Clearwater FL, Dearborn MI, etc. Even without the interstates I suspect suburbanization would have proceeded due to two things, one good, one not: A) desegregation and resulting white flight B) the GI bill (and FHA loans) enabling home ownership for large numbers of veterans. Of course without the interstates we might have maintained and expanded the existing public transportation infrastructure.

Re: This was, more or less, the FDR coalition.

I disagree: much of the suburban landscape was heavily industrialized originally, since it was easier to find the land (and lack of regulations) to build large industriual plants outside big city limits. Check out where all the old auto factories were (and some still are) in Michigan: few in Detroit itself, a great many in the suburbs. As for the collapse of FDR's coalition something else wrecked it, as I noted above in another context: desegregation.

Posted by JonF | January 5, 2008 4:47 PM

... a Constitutional amendment allowing any state to split itself into smaller ones WITHOUT permission from Congress -- a right Texas, uniquely, already has (as a precondition of its agreeing to join the Union).

My reading of the Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas is that at the time of admission, Congress could - upon assent of the new State of Texas - carve the territory of the Republic into not more than four States. I also think it was a one shot deal to occur during or soon after 1845, not a card that the players could forever carry in their back pocket.

Posted by cmholm | January 5, 2008 4:51 PM

There are some other fairly urbanized small states. The extreme example would be the non-state of DC itself, which, according to the 2000 census, would rank 50th on a list of states in population and is, of course, 100% urban. Their primary is February 12th.

The following states had lower populations than Iowa in the 2000 census, but had urban/rural splits more heavily urban than the U.S. as a whole (79.0%):

Delaware: 80.1%
Hawaii: 91.5%
Nevada: 91.5%
Rhode Island: 90.9%
Utah: 88.2%

Now, it's not like Salt Lake City or Wilmington are particularly *big* cities, but they are cities nonetheless. Las Vegas is pretty big, Washington DC is pretty big, and the urban populations of Rhode Island and Delaware are on the outskirts of much bigger cities. The point is that small states need not necessarily be equated with rural states.

Connecticut, with a lot of people who work in NYC, isn't much bigger than Iowa, and neither is heavily-urbanized Puerto Rico, but that's probably too far of a plane ride, and they don't get to vote in November, anyway.

Posted by Adam Villani | January 5, 2008 5:24 PM

New Jersey seems to agree and be doing something about it, passing a law that would give their state's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--popularvote0103jan03,0,7777135.story

Maryland has already done this (10EV's), adding in New Jersey means this will be up to 25 EV's total. Interestingly, this legislation already passed in CA (which has 55EV's), but it was vetoed by Schwarzenegger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

Interestingly, all you need is the 11 largest states to agree (which doesn't include MD, but does include NJ).

I think this would be good for the nation. You'd still have the House/Senate to represent rural areas, and this would allow truly transformative Presidential candidates to more effectively campaign on a message that appeals to the WHOLE nation, not just swing states.

Also, it would have kept Bush out of office. Which alone is worth it.

Posted by anonymiss | January 5, 2008 5:31 PM

Whoa, Duncan Hunter actually picked up a delegate in Wyoming. And Romney's 8 that he picked up there actually puts him in the overall lead ahead of Huckabee. It may also be noteworthy that with 91% of the precincts reporting, John McCain hasn't won a single delegate there... I thought the West was supposed to deliver McCain, but perhaps Romney's LDS-ness trumps McCain's Arizonosity.

Posted by Adam Villani | January 5, 2008 5:42 PM

I don't think there is much LDS presence in Wyoming -- Utah, Idaho, N Arizona, E Oregon, parts of California, rural Nevada, but not in Wyoming as far as I know.

Posted by Gene O'Grady | January 5, 2008 6:38 PM

JonF is right, the depopulation of the Great Plains (or the areas W of the 100th meridian) is probably good ecologically, as would the southwest.

But there are lots of rural areas well below their human carrying capacities in other regions; I just used the Great Plains as a pretty obvious example, but one could just as well think of portions of upstate New York, or Kentucky, or wherever.

Posted by Ben Cronin | January 5, 2008 6:50 PM

Exception: NYC mayoral politics. Which is odd. You have to wonder whether that's partly because the Villagers generally treat their home city's government as, well, beneath them.
Someone, please enlighten me. Where is "the Village" and who are "the Villagers"? Wikipedia was no help. I've seen these terms on these boards several times and must confess confusion. Thanks in advance, this lurker likes to stay informed.

Posted by guineapigfury | January 5, 2008 7:15 PM

This map shows southwest Wyoming being pretty heavily Mormon, but the rest of the state not so much.

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/religion/mormon.gif

The LDS factor probably helped Romney some, but not a whole lot.

For more info, see:
http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/geo/courses/geo200/religion.html

Posted by Adam Villani | January 5, 2008 7:23 PM

Transportation is one of the few ways in which Bloomberg would be an interesting candidate.

Posted by digamma | January 6, 2008 1:29 AM

The Des Moines metro area has a population of roughly 500,000.
Greenville, SC has a metro area of about 600,000 and is part of the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson consolidated metro area with a poulation of 1.2 million.

While those aren't big cities exactly, they're big enough to suffer from a lack of transportation infrastructure, including public transit.

Posted by Zxcvbnm | January 6, 2008 6:39 PM

Public transportation actually helped suburbanization in the early days, in that many cities developed "streetcar" suburbs back in the late 19th century. They were denser suburbs than we got with after cars and highways, but suburbs nonetheless.

Posted by Zxcvbnm | January 6, 2008 7:14 PM

Public transportation actually helped suburbanization in the early days, in that many cities developed "streetcar" suburbs back in the late late 19th/early 20th centuries. They were denser suburbs than we got later, but suburbs nonetheless.

Posted by Zxcvbnm | January 6, 2008 7:16 PM

guineapigfury: the "Village" is Greenwich Village

Posted by Kevin | January 6, 2008 9:48 PM