Sometimes, even after slogging through a 19-hour workday, Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell still can’t rest easily. Not when he knows that 10 minutes from his city’s center are neighborhoods in which finding decent housing is a struggle, and a good job is nearly impossible. And not when he knows that thousands of city children lose hope for their future at age 13 or 14, when they should be full of optimism.
At these times, he remembers the ‘Serenity Prayer’ and forces himself to accept what he cannot change. At least not yet.
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”There’s no way you’re going to change everything,” Rendell told students and professors gathered at Brown University last week. “It’s a very difficult thing to come to grips with.”
Even if they cannot change everything, Rendell urged students to go into public service. They need not become a district attorney – as Rendell was in Philadelphia before he became mayor – but they should still contribute. Teach people to read. Volunteer in the neighborhood. Put four or five hours a week into public service, he said, and see how that makes you feel.
His remarks came in the context of a speech on remaking cities, and what citizens, politicians, and business can do to lift them out of decline. He was at once optimistic and pragmatic.
Rendell, who is at the end of his second and last term as Philadelphia’s mayor, has plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Experts nationwide have lauded him for hoisting his city out of a more than $200 million structural budget deficit when he took office in 1992, and a cumulative budget deficit that was projected at $1.4 billion at the end of his first term.
He did it by finding ways to increase revenues while saving money. New collective bargaining agreements with non-uniform city workers saved nearly $400 million over four years. Improved tax collecting and fee structuring boosted revenues by $70 million, while renegotiating city leases and contracting out the provision of 17 municipal services helped save millions. Such programs helped the city balance its budget and wipe out its projected budget shortfall.
But none of this clouds Rendell’s views. Despite their rebound of the past decade, and despite the surging U.S. economy, American cities are in trouble. Anyone who doubts that is deluded, he said.
”Anyone who thinks American cities are ‘back’ is, in my judgment, sadly delusional,” he said.
With population plummeting in cities nationwide, urban areas are now repositories for society’s problems. The most vulnerable people, the poor, the illiterate, and those with little or no job skills now inhabit cities. And this is happening at a time in which cities have lost their political clout, to the point in which Rendell said he no longer hopes for aid from the Pennsylvania State Legislature. Instead, he just hopes it doesn’t hurt the city.
”I just want them to leave us alone,” the mayor said.
Rendell was equally critical of the federal government, charging that the Congressional debate over how much of the federal budget surplus to give back in tax cuts is misguided, and that government should use that money to solve some of the problems confronting U.S. cities. Instead, lawmakers are content to play politics and make moves designed to help themselves and their party in the next election, he said.
Four steps would change things dramatically, Rendell said. First, while the U.S. government has “Empowerment Zones” and other programs designed to give businesses incentive to move back into cites, these programs do not go far enough. Empowerment Zones, he said, do little more than encourage existing businesses to stay where they are. What Congress must do is make business an offer it can’t refuse, Rendell said, making tax cuts so attractive that companies will flood back into urban areas. Jobs are the key to urban revival, he said.
Rendell also charged that the federal government’s census programs grossly undercount the population of cities, reducing their political influence. That has to change, he said.
Meanwhile, the suburbs, where many former city residents now live, should share the burdens of the cities. Cities are the cultural center of their regions. The suburbs benefit from their existence, he said, and should therefore help cities deal with their problems. Such ‘regionalization,’ as Rendell called it, is taking place around Minneapolis and St. Paul, where revenues raised from new development in surrounding townships go into a pool that is distributed regionally.
Finally, business must step in. If the 1,000 largest U.S. companies got together and decided to move significant portions of their business into cities, it would have a dramatic effect, Rendell said. General Motors’s decision to move its headquarters back to Detroit – and the subsequent revival of the city’s downtown – is an example of this, he said.
But given the current political landscape, Rendell said he’s doesn’t expect any of this to happen. But he added that he will continue to fight for these kinds of changes and that speeches such as this one – part of the university’s John Hazen White Sr. lecture series on current political issues – will help.
”I believe we can change this,” he said. “And I am a fighter.”
Students peppered Rendell with questions that ranged from his views on the federal Community Reinvestment Act to his reasons for allowing a reporter to follow him around for four years while researching a book – “A Prayer For the City,” by Buzz Bissinger – about the city’s redevelopment. He was often animated in his responses, charging that the Community Reinvestment Act – which requires banks to lend to all parts of their constituencies, consistent with sound operating practices – should be extended to all businesses, not just banks.
Rendell also noted that mayors everywhere are criticized for developing their downtowns while ignoring their neighborhoods. Those critics miss the point, he said. The two cannot be juxtaposed because many neighborhood residents work downtown. He added that cities must pursue “low tech” jobs just as fervently as high tech jobs, since a significant portion of their populations will never be qualified for high tech positions.
Despite his frustrations and disappointments, and the toll public life takes on one’s private life, Rendell adamantly encouraged students to go into public service – even if the salary is not lucrative.
”You can see the quality of people’s lives improve directly from what you do,” he said, describing what he likes best about his job. “If you (choose) your career by how much money you’re going to make, I think you’re going to be unsatisfied.”
