Apparently surging violent crime, massive tax hikes and insolvent public pensions are bad for attracting new residents...who knew? On the other hand, 364 days of sunshine per year, minimal crime, brand new infrastructure and some of the lowest tax rates in the country seems to be, to our complete shock, somewhat appealing to folks looking to relocate.
Financial innovation is necessary to fund such development, but cities are often wealthier than they think; as the authors note, cities are very good at reckoning how much they owe but not how much they own. To this end, they counsel putting “public asset corporations” to work in developing long-term strategies and capturing public wealth that can be reinvested in making cities better places to live—as increasing numbers of people around the nation and world have concluded they are.
Of great interest to urban activists and workers at the interface of the public and private sectors, with much food for thought for investors as well."
A Conversation and Signing with the Authors: Bruce Katz & Jeremy Nowak
The New Localismprovides a roadmap for change that starts in the communities where most people live and work. In their new book, The New Localism, urban experts Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak reveal where the real power to create change lies and how it can be used to address our most serious social, economic, and environmental challenges. Power is shifting in the world: downward from national governments and states to cities and metropolitan communities; horizontally from the public sector to networks of public, private and civic actors; and globally along circuits of capital, trade, and innovation. This new locus of power—this new localism—is emerging by necessity to solve the grand challenges characteristic of modern societies: economic competitiveness, social inclusion and opportunity; a renewed public life; the challenge of diversity; and the imperative of environmental sustainability. Where rising populism on the right and the left exploits the grievances of those left behind in the global economy, new localism has developed as a mechanism to address them head on. New localism is not a replacement for the vital roles federal governments play; it is the ideal complement to an effective federal government, and, currently, an urgently needed remedy for national dysfunction.
InThe New Localism, Katz and Nowak tell the stories of the cities that are on the vanguard of problem solving. Pittsburgh is catalyzing inclusive growth by inventing and deploying new industries and technologies. Indianapolis is governing its city and metropolis through a network of public, private and civic leaders. Copenhagen is using publicly owned assets like their waterfront to spur large scale redevelopment and finance infrastructure from land sales. Out of these stories emerge new norms of growth, governance, and finance and a path toward a more prosperous, sustainable, and inclusive society. Katz and Nowak imagine a world in which urban institutions finance the future through smart investments in innovation, infrastructure and children and urban intermediaries take solutions created in one city and adapt and tailor them to other cities with speed and precision. As Katz and Nowak show us inThe New Localism, “Power now belongs to the problem solvers.”
What's with that physical barrier called "the wall" on the man-made lines of the border between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico? It's become a highly-militarized zone - The NeoCons are back. New Price tag: $16 Billion Dollar$$$$$$$$$
Charts of the week:
Immigration and Trump’s border wall
Chris McKenna
In “The Wall: The real costs of a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico,” the Brookings Essay published in August of 2017, Foreign Policy Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown analyzed Trump’s claims about illegal immigration and the implications his policies could have on the U.S. economy, crime, and the environment. In advance of a Brookings event on Thursday, January 11, where Felbab-Brown will discuss her essay with Representative Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and Maria Peña, correspondent for La Opinión-Impremedia, we wanted to highlight a few charts on immigration and border security from research by Felbab-Brown and other experts across the Institution . . .
CALIFORNIA, TEXAS, NEW YORK, AND FLORIDA HOST MORE UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS THAN ANY OTHER STATE
As Felbab-Brown illustrates through her profiles of undocumented immigrants across the U.S., immigration is a topic that affects more than just the Southwest corner of the country. The chart (inserted above), which uses 2014 data from the Pew Research Center, shows the distribution of more than 11.1 million undocumented residents living in the United States.
Blogger Take-Away > Policy is cut off from reality: Donald Trump’s immigration problem
IMMIGRATION VIOLATIONS (NOT OTHER CRIMES) EXPLAIN THE MAJORITY OF DEPORTATIONS
As Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow in Governance Studies, noted in her research last fall, President Trump often invokes cases of violence committed by undocumented immigrants in order to legitimize immigration restrictions as a critical issue, although the data do not support his logic.
TRUMP’S BORDER PLAN INCLUDES A MASSIVE INCREASE IN BORDER PATROL AGENTS
Along with building a larger border wall, President Trump has also advocated for a larger border patrol workforce. Kamarck points out that President Obama can be credited for a dramatic increase in the size of the border patrol workforce during his administration. President Trump’s plan would further raise the number of border personal by 15,000, but with a host of practical and logistical difficulties to achieve that goal.
For more Brookings commentary on issues related to immigration, click here, and be sure to register for our event next Thursday.
