Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, this month asked Rhode Island business and community development leaders to look at a United States map in a nontraditional way. Focus not on the 50 states, he said, but instead on the network of metropolitan centers and their connecting infrastructure.
The United States is a first-class country with a “third-class infrastructure,” he said in his keynote speech at Grow Smart Rhode Island’s Power of Place Summit on May 2.
Part of the solution that Katz hinted at would be for the United States to create a more cohesive relationship between federal and state governments to efficiently fix that failing infrastructure, including the highway system, which is causing a disconnect among the nation’s 363 metropolitan areas, of which Providence is “one of the critical ones,” he said.
“Metropolitan economies are really the engines of national prosperity in the United States,” he said. “And our nation’s ability to grow and prosper is really at risk unless these places are healthy and vital.”
Along with those infrastructure problems, the United States should try to reduce patterns of urban sprawl, which Katz said could be a critical issue in discussing a “broader mission” for the country in the upcoming presidential election.
The population of the United States is expected to grow by 120 million by 2050, which could cause the country to build 213 billion square feet of housing, he said.
In a panel response, Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline said that Rhode Island is a microcosm of those issues that the federal and state governments face. “We have a set of policies in this state that are, in fact, undermining the strength of the cities,” he said.
One of those issues for the Ocean State is the transit system, which Cicilline said needs to be invested in to boost the economy, environment and quality of life in the state. “We have to make investments, I believe, in street cars, light rail and the ability to really move people around in the metropolitan area,” he said. But the state’s funding model now better supports suburbs better than the Providence metro, he said.
“So we not only aren’t getting the right investments from the federal level in this transit system, but we don’t have the policies at the state level to fix that,” he said.
The panel response – which included New Economy Strategies CEO Richard Seline, Grow Smart R.I. Executive Director Scott Wolf and Denise Barge, executive director of Minority Investment Development Corp. and the R.I. Coalition for Minority Investment – focused mostly on programs needed to create what Gov. Donald L. Carcieri called an “attractive” Providence metro to draw businesses here.
Economic drivers and place-making tools are important to the state’s future prosperity, but, because of state budget deficits, certain programs have to be trimmed now and “resurrected” in a form that will work in years to come, said Carcieri, who was part of the panel.
But Wolf pointed out that Carcieri’s Supplemental Budget FY08 – released in January – proposed retroactive cuts the Historic Preservation Investment Tax Credit program. “Those of us who really think this is a critical economic and neighborhood revitalization engine are fighting with one hand tied being our back, because we’re fighting against false presumptions” that the program doesn’t produce returns, he said. The General Assembly last month passed a bill, which Carcieri signed into law, cutting the credit from 27.75 percent to 22 percent for any project that wasn’t completed during 2007 and only allowing already-approved developments to receive the credits.
Along with boosted infrastructure and creating quality places, Katz emphasized the need for states to create innovative economies and increase through education their “human capital.” With its universities and the move toward a “knowledge-based” economy, Rhode Island is already headed in the right direction, said Katz, a Brown University alumnus. After graduating from Yale Law School, Katz found his way to the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that’s studies public policy.
Barge said she’s not sure where the growing Hispanic and minority community, many of which run “mom-and-pop” stores, are going to fit into that new economy. Both she and Cicilline said that bettering the education in the state’s dense metropolitan areas is a growing need.
Katz said that if Rhode Island and other metropolitan areas are going to move forward, state policies will have to be created with federal policies in mind. “I think this state, in collaboration with the national government and … cities and towns, really needs to settle on a trajectory to restore the core,” he said. •
The Brookings Institution – founded in 1916, as the Institute for Government – is a nonprofit public policy organization. To learn more, visit www.brookings.edu.
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Grow Smart Rhode Island is a nonprofit alliance of leaders from the business, labor, academic, environmental, housing, development and other sectors, whose aim is to promote sustainable and prosperous growth and development. Additional information is available at www.growsmartri.com.
