{"id":9,"date":"2008-10-27T08:38:58","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T12:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/forum\/?p=9"},"modified":"2013-05-20T09:54:51","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T13:54:51","slug":"metropolitan-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/2008\/10\/27\/metropolitan-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Metropolitan President?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There’s a great article in the Washington Post today about Brarack Obama as a “metropolitan\u00a0candidate.”<\/p>\n

(http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/10\/23\/AR2008102302480_pf.html).<\/p>\n

Surely \u00a0Obama does have more of a\u00a0connection to\u00a0cities than any other presidential\u00a0candidate in a long time. What’s interesting though is how the Post paints him as more interested in the appealing to metropolitan regions broadly as opposed to the urban\u00a0core, both because swing voters live in suburbs and because the distinction between suburbs and\u00a0cities is quickly evaporating, as evident by the dramatic increase in suburban poverty. Obama’s regional policies involve an emphasis on infrastructure development a white house office of urban policy that will “goad\u00a0cities within a metropolitan region into working together,” and the\u00a0creation of more\u00a0public-private\u00a0partnerships.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These policy proposals seem fairly broad at this point, but what’s interesting is that it seems like some mayors are finding hope in them. I found the most interesting part of the article to be this quote from the Minneapolis mayor:<\/p>\n

“Mayors like this package partly because, aside from infrastructure spending, it doesn’t cost much in a time of low budgets. Cities need a president who understands that they “are no longer the basket case they are often described as from Washington,” said Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak (D). “The skills we need in a president aren’t the old skills of putting together a benevolent program for communities that will always be disempowered. We need someone who’s done what Obama has done, to go into communities that have been hard hit and understand their assets, mobilize people to help them solve their problems.”<\/p>\n

It appears that big\u00a0city mayors like Obama not only for his\u00a0commitment to\u00a0cities but also for his recognition of region-wide problems and his demonstrated\u00a0commitment to\u00a0community empowerment. If the election does turn out the way many our predicting it will, it will be interesting to see whether these two interests an be pursued from the White House, which has been in the habit of either ignoring\u00a0cities or providing them with grants and subsidies that do not recognize their need for empowerment within a region-wide setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a great article in the Washington Post today about Brarack Obama as a “metropolitan\u00a0candidate.” (http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/10\/23\/AR2008102302480_pf.html). Surely \u00a0Obama does have more of a\u00a0connection to\u00a0cities than any other presidential\u00a0candidate in a long time. What’s interesting though is how the Post paints him as more interested in the appealing to metropolitan regions broadly as opposed to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1950,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1950"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/forum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}