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Brookings Institute: Metropolitan Policy Program - 2006 Year End Review:
Ten years since its inception, the Metropolitan Policy Program continues to provide the demographic, economic, and spatial framework with which to understand the challenges facing metropolitan America.
Within that framework in 2006, the program re-emphasized the power of economic prosperity, and prosperity for all, as the unifying goal of reform.
Because big picture, although national statistics portray a rebounding economy, many parts of the country, and many households, are not sharing in that success.
Poverty rates are on the rise in both cities and suburbs, with more poor people now living in suburbs than in cities.
And the very emblem of the American Dream, the middle-class neighborhood, is shrinking as the costs of daily necessities for working families continues to rise.
And as many communities grapple with greater economic insecurity, some are simultaneously dealing with other rapid changes, such as the demands of new immigrants, refugees, and population growth in general (symbolized by the arrival of America's 300 millionth American), the needs of declining older suburbs, and the growth pressures of exurban development on the fringe.
In New Orleans, the Metropolitan Policy Program documented the progress, or lack thereof, in the region's recovery throughout the year via the monthly Katrina Index.
And while most commentary at the one-year anniversary of the storm was focused on the speed (or slow speed) of federal spending and government response, we pushed for a quality economic turnaround of the region, publishing a holistic proposal for a revived, inclusive, and sustainable New Orleans including an elucidation of the proper roles for federal, state, and local government.
To respond, we advocated a state policy reform agenda that linked environmental assets, an innovative service economy, and fiscal discipline into a comprehensive sustainable prosperity agenda for Maine that was comprehensive and grounded in political reality.
Posted on January 4, 2007 06:51 PM
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