Introduction

I've been asked to focus on three things this morning:

First, what does the bubbling of metropolitan activity in the country mean for this Partnership and these regional initiatives? What are the lessons learned?

Second, what can the Partnership for Regional Livability teach the other metropolitan efforts in the country? What can the Partnership teach the federal government?

Finally, what should Partnership members watch in the coming months? What are the major efforts underway that could affect the Partnership's actions?

Lessons Learned from Metropolitan Efforts

So, first, what's happening around the country and what does it mean for the Partnership?

In many ways, the regional initiatives described yesterday reflect the breadth and diversity of the metropolitan efforts taking hold in other regions.

Generally these metropolitan efforts are coming together to (1) curb sprawl and protect the environment; (2) promote reinvestment in central cities and older communities; and (3) provide greater access to opportunity for low- and moderate income families. Taken together, the initiatives described in San Francisco, Atlanta, Denver and Chicago encompass all three goals of the metropolitan movement.

The diversity of issues in these regions and around the country reflect the simple fact that metropolitan areas are themselves distinct.

The factors motivating and affecting metropolitan action differ.

The health of the metropolitan economy -- whether the metropolitan economy is hot, stagnant or anemic.

The demographic pressures on the region -- whether the population is increasing rapidly, staying stable or actually declining.

The state of governance in the region -- whether governance is fragmented or unified.

The presence of a regulatory "hammer" in the region -- the Clean Air Act in Atlanta; the Endangered Species Act in Southern California or Northwest Washington State.

The attitudes of ordinary citizens on issues of growth, quality of life and the environment.

These factors generally dictate the issues that metropolitan areas select for collective action. They also explain why we get a GRTA in Georgia or smart growth in Maryland or land reform in New Jersey. Finally, they explain why reform is "tougher going" in states like Pennsylvania or Michigan or Missouri.

These factors also explain the varied responses and strength of constituencies that are central to the metropolitan agenda. They help explain:

the orientation of the corporate community -- compare an Atlanta (where key corporate leaders have embraced "smart growth") to Northern Virginia (where such leaders are advocating a series of road expansion projects);

the strength of the environmental and conservation constituencies -- compare a Maryland (with its deep appreciation of the Chesapeake Bay) to the Midwest (where the relationship to the environment is less pervasive); and

the engagement of urban players -- compare a Denver (with its formation of a metropolitan mayor's caucus) to a Milwaukee (where the city leaders proudly pursue a "go it alone" strategy).

There are several lessons to be learned from these disparate metropolitan efforts:

First, know your place.

Spend time understanding the basic demographic, market, social and environmental trends that define your area. Spend time examining the political dynamics locally, regionally and in the state. What are your opportunities? What are the points of intervention in the near term? What alliances need to be drawn?

In the end, there are no magic bullets or cookie cutter solutions. The successful regions will be those that are able to adapt smart growth and other metropolitan solutions to their own economic, political and social realities.

Second, embrace information.

The bottom line is that regions differ markedly in how they develop and use information.

In places like Cleveland, Atlanta and Chicago, universities play a key role in shaping public decisions -- through the provision of independent information on trends. In places like Philadelphia and Portland, metropolitan entities play this role.

These resources don't just emerge. They need to built, nurtured, supported and sustained. Their importance cannot be minimized. In the absence of objective information, regions operate without a guidance system and are unlikely to make progress over the long term.

Third, recognize and study best practices.

If you've identified regional workforce as an issue, bring leaders from Seattle and St. Louis in to discuss what initiatives they're pursuing. What has worked? What hasn't?

If you're working on inner city investment, visit the Midtown Corridor in Cleveland where business, government and community leaders are successfully restoring a commercial, manufacturing and office corridor -- against all odds.

If you're grappling with transportation alternatives, talk to the Boston leaders who have embarked upon the largest urban infrastructure project -- the Central Artery Dig -- in the nation.

Bottom line -- don't reinvent the wheel. Someone, somewhere in America is working on problems similar to your own and solutions that might prove instructive if not replicable. Save time and energy and resources by learning from these pioneers and then adapting the lessons learned to your own place.

Fourth, cultivate leadership.

The advances in Georgia, Maryland and New Jersey demonstrate the importance of political leadership to the metropolitan movement, particularly at the state level. The presence of a Barnes, Glendening or Whitman can accelerate the adoption of metropolitan and smart growth reforms by years.

Yet leadership rarely occurs in a vacuum. Constituencies need to provide the space within which political leaders can maneuver. Constituencies also need to reward leaders who are ahead of the pack.

Finally, prepare for the long haul. The Portland experiment teaches us that real, systemic change takes time. Development patterns don't change overnight due to the enactment of laws or the promulgation of regulations. Ultimately, what we are seeking is a fundamental shift in market and political and consumer culture. That kind of change takes a persistent and unwavering commitment from a wide range of constituencies.

To be honest, the smart growth and metropolitan efforts are still "at the shallow end of the pool". I would be hard pressed to say that the recent efforts in Maryland and New Jersey -- to name just two of the more championed initiatives in recent years -- have had much measurable impact on market behavior or political alignments.

So get prepared. We're in for, as Mae West used to say, a "long, bumpy ride".

Potential Lessons from the Partnership for Regional Livability

I firmly believe that the members of this Partnership -- if they follow through with the initiatives discussed yesterday -- will have much to teach not only other metropolitan efforts but the federal government as well.

As we learned yesterday, the members of this partnership are struggling with some of the toughest questions in the metropolitan arena.

How do we build a regional compact on workforce and job access when the statutory framework basically celebrates local and parochial action?

How do we stimulate investment in under served areas without triggering gentrification and displacement?

How do we use transportation investments to support balanced growth and environmental objectives and the smart use of land?

Lets be clear. There are some best practices. But only a few places in this country are tackling these challenges in a systemic and meaningful way.

So this initiative and your efforts are going to educate other metropolitan areas. You are going to put "flesh and bones" on such desired objectives as smart growth, central city reinvestment and access to metropolitan opportunity. You have the potential, in short, to become the best practices that others study and assess and adapt.

You are also going to teach the federal government about how to engage on the metropolitan agenda. I think some of those potential lessons are already emerging.

First, the feds need to take their existing governing and regulatory powers seriously.

The feds help set the rules of the development game through their spending, tax and regulatory policies. Atlanta would not have a GRTA without the heavy hammer of the Clean Air Act. In many respects, the entire metropolitan movement would not be where it is today without the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990 and ISTEA in 1991.

Second, the feds have a large role to play in the gathering and dissemination of information.

The feds already collect and assemble large amounts of data with regard to population and employment trends, market activity and public and private investment patterns. For the most part, they rarely disseminate such information in a way that supports metropolitan identification and coalition building. The possibilities are endless. DOT is already mandated to provide information on the spatial allocation of transportation spending. DOL should be working to document the decentralization of metropolitan employment by sector and place. HUD should help to map the allocation of affordable housing opportunities and investments in disparate regions.

There is strong precedent for the collection and dissemination of spatially targeted information. HUD, for example, has made Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) information available on the web. This tells us where banks and thrifts lend. Why not educate regions about where public bureaucracies spend?

Third, the feds can work with the Partnership to develop and refine new policy directions.

Nick Bollman and others have mentioned the coincidence between the priorities of the San Francisco proposal and the announcement of the Administration=s new markets initiative. Other examples exist in all the sites.

Fourth, the feds can work with the Partnership to change existing rules.

The application of the Partnership lessons will not, in most cases, need to wait for legislative action or new policy directions. Many of the lessons learned can be applied in the near and intermediate term through changes in existing rules. The Chicago proposal, for example, talks explicitly about the need to explore new regulatory tools to achieve clean air objectives. The San Francisco proposal could lead to new thinking about credit enhancement policy as well as programmatic rules. Denver will compel the Department of Labor to consider how to provide incentives for regional collaboration. Atlanta will compel the Department of Transportation to consider how metropolitan transportation entities with enhanced powers fit within the current regulatory scheme.

Fifth, the feds can work with the Partnership to leverage existing investments.

Each region here has discussed their desire to pursue holistic and comprehensive approaches to issues as diverse as workforce and air quality and central city investment. That will mean integrating disparate federal investments and policies to achieve common goals and objectives.

Finally, the feds can use the Partnership to learn some fundamental truths about metropolitan governance.

As the past day's conversation has shown, there is an enormous difference between systems like transportation -- where there is a level of metropolitan governance -- and systems like housing and workforce -- where federal investments have furthered fragmentation and balkanization.

In both kinds of systems, the feds have a job to do to strengthen metropolitan governance -- which the Partnership could help define.

The feds, for example, need to figure out how to extend metropolitan governance in systems like transportation. That could mean capacity building for metropolitan planning organizations. That should mean a more vigorous implementation of the federal power to certify such entities.

The feds also need to figure out how to break down the barriers to metropolitan collaboration in systems where administrative fragmentation is the order of the day.

In sum, this Partnership has the potential to move the ball forward on several fronts. Achieving this potential will depend, of course, on the innovation and experimentation of individual regions. But it will also depend on the maintenance of a learning network between regions and the explicit focus on linking lessons to policy reforms and action.

What to Watch

The movement towards metropolitan solutions and regional livability is ultimately a marathon, not a sprint. As Portland has learned, successful metropolitan efforts require a permanent campaign. There is no let-up. Victories won must be preserved. Constant vigilance must be maintained -- regionally and in the state legislature.

To achieve our multiple goals, we will need to steel ourselves to the reality of a long-term effort.

We will need to stay the course in an environment that is volatile and dynamic and fast-changing. There are fundamental forces at play in America today that will affect the spatial form of cities and suburbs.

The devolution of governance. The globalization of the economy. The emergence and rapid growth of internet technology, ecommerce and ebusiness. The aging of our population. Immigration.

We are just beginning to understand the impacts of these disparate forces. But make no mistake. They are powerful, relentless and will fundamentally shape how and where we live and

In the near term, there are several efforts underway which have promise and need to be leveraged to the maximum.

First, is the engagement by several key constituencies on the issues of smart growth and metropolitan action.

To date, the environmental and conservation communities have done the heavy lifting on this issue -- in regions, in state capitols, at the federal level. They will need to be joined by others if systemic policy reform is going to happen. Local elected officials -- mayors, county executives, local legislators -- are one key constituency. Already, the new head of the US Conference of Mayors -- Denver Mayor Wellington Webb -- has identified smart growth as one of his three principal priorities. His designated successor -- Boise Mayor Brent Coles -- is considered a leader on this issue as well.

Business leaders are another key constituency. There has been some progress among national constituency groups (e.g., the Urban Land Institute) and individual corporate leaders (e.g., Hugh McColl of Nationsbank). For the most part, however, key sectors of the economy continue to engage in "business as usual" -- building new office facilities and residential subdivisions and retail malls further away from the core.

Finally, traditional urban constituencies need to be cultivated. Some groups like the Catholic Conference and the Enterprise Foundation have entered the metropolitan fray at the local, state and national levels. Yet groups like the NAACP and Urban League remain unengaged in these debates.

Second, state actions in the coming years will be central to the achievement of metropolitan objectives.

In the new era of devolution, states have extended their power over development patterns well beyond such areas as land use, taxation, transportation and local governance. They now have firm control over workforce, welfare, a host of other social programs. They are, in a sense, in the drivers seat on growth -- and they can use their powers either to promote alternative patterns of development (e.g., Maryland, Oregon) or keep the sprawl machine on auto-pilot (e.g., Virginia).

The progress made in the past few years has been impressive. The real test is whether the legislative victories won can be translated into real changes on the ground and whether new states can enter the "smart growth" club. Powerful states as disparate as California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri are key states to watch as we go forward.

The final space to watch is the national election The Vice President has raised the issue of sprawl to a new level of public awareness and media attention. As we go forward into the election year, all of us involved in the metropolitan issue need to ensure a few things.

We need to ensure that this issue extends beyond party and ideology. This is not a Democratic issue. In fact, much of the state and regional action is happening in places where Republicans

We need to ensure that this issue is not dumbed down. Language like "smart growth" and "livability" has a powerful resonance in the political marketplace. But these initiatives can also be coopted and used to push reforms that have little systemic effect on growth or development patterns.

We need to ensure that constituencies and the public understand the full role of the federal government in shaping growth. Growth is not simply a local issue, to be left to local zoning boards and the real estate community. Federal policies have powerful spatial effects -- for good and for bad. Those effects need to be understood and explained.

Conclusion

Will Rogers once advised "Why not go out a limb. That's where the fruit is." This Partnership is a testament to a group of individuals -- in government, in foundations, in the private sector -- who have committed themselves to do business in a different way to achieve important societal, environmental and economic goals. This is an exercise fundamentally worth doing -- even if its difficult and frustrating at times.

So good luck. As with all important things in life, stay the course and keep the faith.

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Last updated July 28, 1999.