Greetings!
With this newsletter, the Northeast-Midwest Institute aims to communicate with all those passionate about restoring older cities. Revitalizing older cities is a complex, difficult task that requires cooperation among a diverse group of stakeholders. This job requires re-thinking the way urban centers are planned, and re-building large parts of urban infrastructure so that overlooked, oft-forgotten older cities can be re-claimed as centers of socioeconomic innovation.
In this issue of Re-Think, Re-Claim, Re-Build, the Institute covers issues ranging from Congressionally circulated letters to major agency programs-- all of which could have significant positive impact on our nation's historic industrial cities and towns.
|
NEMW House Coalition Requests Hearing on Vacancy Bill
Bill Takes a Holistic Approach to Community Rejuvenation
|
Co-Chairs of the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition--Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH)--spearheaded a letter to Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-MA), requesting a hearing on HR 932, the Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act of 2009. HR 932, originally sponsored by Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Brian Higgins (D-NY), and its Senate companion S453, introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), would create a new pilot grant program within HUD to assist cities and metropolitan areas experiencing large-scale property vacancy and abandonment due to long-term employment and population losses.
The letter sent to Chairman Frank applauds Committee efforts aimed at addressing the recent surge in foreclosures nationwide, but points out that many communities, primarily former industrial cities, have suffered from decades of population loss, and therefore are confronted with unique issues. Fourteen Members of Congress signed on to the letter. (Click here to request a copy of the letter via email.) |
| Energy Loan Guarantee Program
Opportunity to Re-Tool Region's Manufacturing |
The Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing detailed instructions and requirements for its Loan Guarantee Program, designed to facilitate the financing of commercially available renewable energy production and supply chain manufacturing projects. Although the details are not yet available -(they will probably be made public in August) small and mid-sized projects will be encouraged. DOE has initiated significant outreach to state, regional and local development finance organizations to ascertain their ability to work in cooperation with the DOE in the origination of small and medium sized projects. This program received $6 billion in appropriations to pay for credit subsidies associated with at least $48 billion of loan guarantees included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The program represents a major initiative designed to spur the clean energy technology transition. As with all ARRA-funded projects, these projects must be implemented quickly; guaranteed projects must commence by September 30, 2011. The Institute will send out a link to the guidelines when they are published.
|
|
House Passes High Speed Rail Funding, Lays Groundwork for Infrastructure Bank
Appropriations bill slates $4 billion for rail
|
| Fast, efficient and reliable transportation is vital to the economic prosperity of our nation, and many of America's historic industrial communities possess the geography and the infrastructure for an effective hub and corridor rail network. In a promising move for urban advocates nationwide, the House of Representatives passed the transportation appropriations bill, H.R. 3288, on July 23, 2009, with a vote of 256 - 168. Notably, the spending bill provides $4 billion for high-speed rail and lays the groundwork for the creation of a national infrastructure bank by allowing up to half of the funding to be transferred to a national infrastructure bank. The high speed rail measure brings the total appropriation for the Transportation Department up to $75.8 billion, an increase of $8.6 billion over fiscal 2009. |
Creative Approaches Needed to Deal with Industrial Legacy in Great Lakes
EPA Offices Coordinate and Unite Brownfields Experts to Discuss Great Lakes Remediation and Redevelopment by Greg Lewis, Policy Analyst
|
Older industrial communities- especially those of the Great Lakes region- are saddled with not only a disproportionate number of brownfields, but also with silt-choked harbors and rivers, many of which are laced with contaminated sediments. Swim advisories, fish consumption warnings, and the general negative stigma associated with industrial waterfronts hinder development opportunities and stymie economic growth. Seeking to restore both environmental quality and economic prosperity to the region, EPA Great Lakes Protection Office, EPA Brownfields, and EPA Region 5 collaborated to organize a meeting of brownfields experts, developers, and state environmental officials in Chicago on July 16, 2009. The overarching goal of the meeting, Harnessing the Great Lakes Legacy Act for Environmental Improvement and the Revitalization of Waterfront Properties, was to come up with creative ways to finance environmental restoration and sediment cleanup in Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs). Continued... Click here for entire article.
|
| Contact Your Congressional Delegation: August Recess 8/10 through 9/7
|
The August recess is a perfect time to make arrangements to meet with your Representative and Senators to tell them about your community revitalization successes and challenges. Federal policy does impact your community, but lawmakers need to hear from you if they are to formulate effective initiatives. Look up your Representative's and Senators' contact information and make an appointment to meet with these elected officials this summer! |
|
"Yeah...But It's Detroit": Building A Better Detroit, No Excuses This Time
Personal Essay from U Michigan Student, Gordon Chaffin
|
"Yeah...but it's Detroit." This turn of phrase - common fare to those who call Metro Detroit home - represents the failures of past urban development and the defeatist apathy that now paralyzes urban revitalization. The challenges our urban centers face today are not new, nor have they been adequately met with successful policies or supportive persuasion. Being raised 20 miles north of Detroit and having worked in Detroit - supporting community development - I know this all too well.
I call Shelby Township, Michigan home. This middle-class suburb juxtaposed between the richer Sterling Heights and the agrarian Romeo is stomping grounds to the Reagan Democrats, and more relevantly, the epicenter of job loss caused by the recent economic downturn. It isn't quite Norman Rockwell and certainly can't claim to be Metropolis, but Shelby Twp. shares a connection with all Detroit suburbs - we comprehend the problems of urban decay. Ironically enough, Detroit suburbs live and die with Detroit's economic climate all while few Metro Detroiters would ever dream to live there.
Detroit's school system is a mess with astronomically high dropout rates and superintendent administrations that last shorter than the school year. The few private and charter schools that exist get crowded fast and are underfunded. The tax base for the Detroit public school system is small and corruption wastes the little money that is available. Inadequate teachers suffer under intense cultural indifference that de-emphasizes academics. Facilities crumble and textbooks grow decades outdated. In short, anyone who works in the city lives in the suburbs just so their children can receive effective education. When banks offer low-rate mortgages for young families or renovation opportunities in city neighborhoods they receive one response: "Yeah...but it's Detroit."
Vacant properties grow in number by the day and mark the borders of the city. While working at a community development bank (ShoreBank) last summer, I became accustomed to the gradual decline in aesthetic beauty on the sides of roads as I approached Downtown Detroit. The problem is so stark that I would use only the suburb side of border streets while running during my lunch break. Not only does the blighted state of vacant and brownfield properties inspire disgust, it becomes ground zero for drug trafficking, criminal violence, and homeless loitering. Federal brownfield programs are underutilized or unknown to local developers and banks. Ultimately, pitching a vacant land development in the inner city becomes an exercise in avoiding that phrase: "Yeah...but it's Detroit."
It's all about Jobs. And Detroit has been a job creation engine for much of the last 100 years. One could even argue Detroit companies built the middle class that won World War 2. However, Detroit started faltering during the 1960s and has been in a jobs decline ever since. Affluent residents saw better roads, job losses, and - ironically - cars built within the city - all as excuses to leave for the suburbs. Whole neighborhoods left the city and racial tension scared most young families from moving back. The Big Three automakers even ventured far into the suburbs as Detroit became less desirable for housing (There is a former Ford plant 500 feet from my house). Fast forward to 2009 and you're left with the wreckage of the financial crisis. Manufacturing jobs are gone (most have been gone since the early 90's) and government intervention has barely managed to keep the automakers afloat. Detroit is in a self-reinforcing spiral of population loss and job loss. Those who were financially able have moved away and the residents who are left endure disproportionate amounts of poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, and crime. People are working in Detroit now to help but if you ask them to move their families into the city, they'll respond: "Yeah...but it's Detroit."
Urban re-development is filled with Catch-22 paradoxes. Education, job creation, unemployment, aesthetic value, community cohesion and synergy - these are all interdependent and trying to improve one fails because the others hamstring your efforts. As President Barack Obama said recently at Macomb Community College (miles from my home), "[Auto Manufacturing] Jobs are not coming back." So what are we supposed to do now? Detroit has lost its population, its tax base, its job creating business growth, and is often periled by political cronyism. Should Michiganders all move to Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, and Bloomfield Hills if they want to live a safe, successful life? No!
More than ever, Detroit - and similar older cities - need the cooperation of government and private enterprise, of public and private sectors. Economic development professionals on the ground need to have the skills required to navigate the available and constantly improving federal support programs. ShoreBank Detroit needs loan officers who understand the tax credits and loan guarantees HUD and the Energy Department have created. Likewise, federal officials must construct effective, efficient federal assistance programs so local public servants can best revitalize their older cities. President Obama, HUD Secretary Donovan, and others have taken a powerful first step in this direction with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
My parents and their parents have watched Detroit go from a bustling, urban utopia into a decaying, corroded dystopia. I hadn't even visited Detroit more than a handful of times before my summer internship there. If you're a runner, I suggest running the Detroit Marathon. One does not truly appreciate the poor state of the city until spending 26.2 miles running alongside of it. Neither can one appreciate the beauty locked up beneath the Detroit's brownfields and vacant properties without spending some time searching for it. The 1950s Detroit with Hudson's Department Store and Olympia is not going to come back. But I dream of the day that I can take my kids to the top of the Renaissance Center and we can peer out upon a Detroit skyline filled with green rooftops, of wind turbines, and of solar panels. I hope that one day I can be handed an apple at the Detroit Marathon finish - freshly grown at the vertical farm down Woodward Ave. Then I can finally rid myself of that bothersome phrase: "Yeah...but it's Detroit."
|
|
|
We hope you have enjoyed this issue of our "Re-Think, Re-Claim, Re-Build Our Older Cities" Newsletter. It is our goal to provide you with the best policy analysis and up-to-date information about important legislation and programs aimed at helping our region.
Sincerely,
Greg Lewis
Greg Lewis, Policy Analyst
Northeast-Midwest Institute |
|
|
 |
| Images of Success! |
|
Send us your personal photos and short description of successful redevelopment in your community. We would love to be able to spotlight successful brownfield reuse, blight removal, and derelict property rejuvenation efforts with policymakers in Washington. Your older city successes are the foundations of better federal policy!
email us your photos!
|
|
|
