On a Downtown Train:
Obama is the First Modern Metropolitan President – Good News
for Ailing Cities By Howard Fineman, Newsweek Living Politics
Inauguration day had turned into
night. The mall was frigid and empty,
trash piled against barriers lining the
avenues. I was thawing in the MSNBC
trailer when the mayor of Philadelphia
arrived for a cable hit. Michael A.
Nutter is part of the changing of the
guard symbolized by the new president: he's African-American, Ivy-educated in his hometown at Penn, old
enough to remember Martin Luther
King Jr. and young enough, at 51, to
see himself as a politician, not primarily a black politician. “Today was so
inspiring,” he said.
But Nutter was not dwelling on the
emotions of the day. His mind was on
the recession-gutted budget of his city.
“We cut a billion dollars just last
November," he said. “Now we've got to
cut another billion over the next five
years.” During the transition, he said,
he had spoken to the president-elect
about the plight of the cities, including
his own. “I got our message across,
which is that the cities can be part of
the solution, not just a problem.”
Nutter has reason to hope. As glorious as it was to elect an AfricanAmerican to the presidency, the political breakthrough with more streetlevel significance is that we’ve just
sworn
in
our
first
modern
Metropolitan President. Barack Obama
has the right background to handle
this economic crisis because the pain is
concentrated in cities—in industries
such as banking and finance—and it’s
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Spring 2009
where the revival, led by new energy
efficiencies, might be most easily generated. “He understands the needs of
the cities,” said Nutter.
But meeting those needs won't be
easy. They are vast—a shortfall in the
budgets of cities and their suburbs of
perhaps $50 billion in the next two
years. Cities are facing quadruple
indemnity: falling real-estate values,
declining sales-tax revenue, shrinking
pension funds and skyrocketing social
costs. The Feds and the states pay most
of the freight for health-care and unemployment benefits, but everything
else—from schools to street repair to
fighting crime—is mostly a local
responsibility. In spite of all this, voters,
of course, demand city services and
blame the locals if they don't get them.
“Every other level of government can
kick responsibilities down to someone
else,” says Christopher Hoene of the
National League of Cities. “We can’t.”
Mayors and metropolitan allies
want direct infusions of cash from
the Feds. “If you want to help the
cities, don't send all of the money
through state capitals,” says Marc
Morial, the former mayor of New
Orleans who heads the National
Urban League. “To create jobs quickly, including ‘green’ jobs, give the
money directly.” But metro areas
face another obstacle: a mixed history of handling federal cash. “Block
grants” from the Nixon years are
long gone, but a reputation for corruption, incompetence (and selfindulgent
concrete-pouring)
remains. Rahm Emanuel, the new
chief of staff, alluded to that history
when he met with mayors in
Chicago recently. “He told us that
the new administration was going to
help,” said Nutter. “But then he
added, ‘Don’t mess up!”
Still, politics seems poised to turn
its attention "downtown." A generation ago, after the urban riots of the
'60s, a new ruling coalition emerged
that linked the suburbs with the values of rural areas. We elected
Republicans who rode horses,
pitched horseshoes or chain-sawed
brush, and Democrats who were
reared in the small-town South. All
that has changed: suburban areas,
such as those around Philly, joined
with their cities to support the urban
Democratic ticket.
Now we have a president who
found his wife and his identity on
Chicago’s South Side—a president
who is part of what Gwen Ifill calls
the “breakthrough generation” of
practical-minded black politicians
who are shaped, but not limited by,
their heritage. Rather than touch on
mystic chords of race, Nutter has
kept it low-key in his talks with
Obama. When the mayor met with
him in Philadelphia a few weeks ago,
he gave Obama a memo about how
he's handling the mortgage crisis—
an innovative plan that brings
lenders, courts, sheriffs and borrowers together to prevent evictions.
Nutter hopes it could be a national
model.
Obama's train trip to Washington
began with a rally at Philly’s glorious
temple of public transportation,
30th Street Station. Nutter took the
occasion to pitch the president-to-be
on why his city was the perfect place
to launch new home-weatherization
programs. Nutter has one for the
city's 400,000 row houses that are
“caulk-gun ready.” “I told him we are
a microcosm of America, and that
our location makes us the perfect
demonstration city.” Obama was
noncommittal, but he offered his
congratulations nevertheless. “He
told me he was very happy for me
that I was so proud of Philadelphia,”
said Nu