Centre for Cities

White House Office of Urban Affairs

Last November, just after he won the presidential election, I reported on Barack Obama's plans to set up a White House Office of Urban Policy.

It's now called the Office of Urban Affairs, and is headed by little-known Adolfo Carrion - former two-term Bronx Borough president.

The Office itself has just five core staff, but is plugged into the much more powerful Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council and Office of Management and Budget.

During its first few months, the Office has been criticised for not doing much. Meanwhile, 48 states face the prospect of budget deficits totalling $166 billion in the current fiscal year that started on 1 July - despite the massive fiscal stimulus passed in Feb.

This week, Obama held a day-long urban policy roundtable at the White House - which has given the Office a much-needed boost.

One of the aims of the new Office is to help co-ordinate and streamline all the different federal agencies and multiple funding streams targeted at US cities. Sounds a bit like our Total Place Initiative - but slightly larger.

Yesterday, Obama announced an inter-agency review of how the federal government approaches and funds US cities. Cabinet secretaries (including HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan) will be dispatched to various cities over the coming months - including Philadelphia, Denver and Kansas City - as part of a "national conversation" on urban policy. They will pick up the best examples of "regional collaboration and integrated policy-making", and use them to re-shape federal policies and funding streams.

Obama said, "We're going to take a hard look at how Washington helps or hinders our cities and metro areas". And echoing the work of Brookings Metro Policy Program, he highlighted that the US is more urban than ever before - its metropolitan areas are now home to 85% of all jobs and 90% of economic output.

You might have seen his speech - it's the one where his teleprompter collapsed. See his full speech here - the teleprompter goes about 3:30 minutes in...

President Obama

A day of mixed fortunes here in Washington. Totally fantastic slice of history, but here's the nearest I got to it..!

Crowds started to gather around 3am. By the time we got to the Capitol, over 1 million were standing on the National Mall - and a million more were stuck outside.

But it's still brilliant to be here. The speech was momentous. The whole atmosphere is huge. And I did get to see Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi, at the Green Inaugural Ball last night - very fancy.

PS The speed of the transition is quite something. A couple of hours after handing over the presidency, George W was on his way back to Texas. Don't think he'll be back in DC for a while...

Obama concert

Today's Obama concert was fantastic. I was about a mile away from the Lincoln Memorial, with half a million people. Barack was a tiny dot on the horizon - and so were Beyonce and Bono. But it was still brilliant to be there.

Washington DC has turned into one big party venue. The Capitol is all dressed up with stars-and-stripes bunting. Obama merchandise is on sale everywhere. And there's a real sense of history in the making.

I'm staying with my friend Matt, not far from the Capitol in the North East district of DC. In 1968, this was one of the areas that rioted after the assassination of Martin Luther King. And it was one of the last areas to redevelop in recent years. It's still got some serious crime issues, but is relatively affordable and less scary than it once was.

Here is Obama's pre-inauguration interview on CNN today. And here's the President-Elect's website.

Mr Finch goes to Washington

I'm off to Washington tomorrow, for the Obama inauguration. Am going to the Green Inaugural Ball on Monday night - Al Gore will be there, plus quite a few celebs. Leonardo, perhaps? Before that, there's a big concert at the Lincoln Memorial - with Beyonce and U2. And on the Big Day, I'll be watching President Obama make his way back to the White House. Can't wait.

As I reported in November, Obama is setting up a new Office of Urban Policy at the White House. Adolfo Carrion will head up the new Office - he's been Bronx Borough President for the last few years. It's not yet clear what the new Office will do, but I'll keep you posted.

Another New Yorker, Shaun Donovan, is going to be the new Secretary for Housing & Urban Development. Donovan was formerly New York City housing commissioner. He will be looking to revive HUD's fortunes, after it was effectively sidelined under the Bush Administration.

Meanwhile, Will Straw at the Center for American Progress has just published this article on UK innovation policy - it includes a nice summary of UK policy under Labour, and namechecks recent work by NESTA and others. Our own Chris Webber also gets a mention.

And after Gordon's New Deal-esque promise to invest more cash in our infrastructure, here's a memo from the Brookings Institution to Obama, calling for massive new investment in US infrastructure, skills and innovation.

Former Brookings senior fellow, Peter Orszag, is to become the new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget - one of the most difficult jobs in the new Administration. He will inherit unprecedented and soaring budget deficits, which are set to exceed 8% of GDP in the next year or so. After the imminent Obama stimulus package, Orszag's job will be to return the US finances to some kind of balance over the next 4 years. Not easy.

White House Office of Urban Policy

Two days on from Obama's stunning victory, here's his Plan to Stimulate Urban Prosperity.

According to Obama, the US federal government has retreated from US cities - something we pointed out in our joint report with the Brookings Institution earlier this year.

When he takes over on 20 January, Obama will refocus the White House on urban issues, with a new Office of Urban Policy.

The Obama Administration will:

• appoint a Director of Urban Policy, to co-ordinate all federal urban programmes
• increase funding for the Community Development Block Grant
• create a $200m federal programme to support innovation clusters
• strengthen community development financial institutions (CDFIs)
• create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank
• create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund
• revive the Department of Housing & Urban Development
• increase the Minimum Wage to $9.50 an hour (by 2011)
• expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and
• make existing buildings more energy-efficient

And those are just the highlights. Our research with Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Programme has set out how the US federal government could learn lessons from UK urban policy on this action plan, including a more generous minimum wage and working tax credit. And our recent report for the All Party Urban Development Group set out a number of practical steps to reduce the carbon footprint of existing commercial buildings.

I'll keep you posted on who Obama picks as his new Director of Urban Policy. Sounds like a great job...

Rory Bremner got onto my Edinburgh-London train this morning. Which got me wondering...how exactly will Rory manage to do Barack? He did a good job of George Bush, and has done John McCain before - but never done Obama (as far as I know). And he can't seriously (or humorously) make himself up to look like Obama. So we may be facing at least 4 years (or probably 8) of Barack-free Bremner.

PS here's Bird and Fortune on how the credit crunch started...

PPS I see that Rahm Emanuel is to be Obama's chief-of-staff. Back in 2002, when Emanuel was campaigning for his seat in the House of Representatives, I was invited to the Clintons' for one of his fundraising parties. He was a Bill and Hillary fan then, but cleverly switched to Obama during this year's primaries.

Obama v McCain

Am back in Washington DC - will be speaking at the World Bank later this week, about Greater Manchester and city-regional governance. The Bank is in the middle of updating its Urban Strategy, and is keen to find out more about our proposals on city-regions - and how cities like Manchester are collaborating with their surrounding towns and cities. More on all that later...

I arrived just in time for the latest Presidential debate - which I reckon Obama won. CNN pollsters today put Obama at 49% and McCain at 44%. And tonight's debate just reinforced that.

• 54% of CNN viewers say Obama did better tonight - only 30% think McCain won it
• 57% say Obama would handle the economic crisis more effectively - only 36% went for McCain
• 65% think Obama is more likeable - only 28% like McCain
• And 57% say Obama is more intelligent

The "town hall" debate came from Nashville, Tennessee. Half the 90 minutes focused on Issue Number One - the economy. But neither candidate said much new. These debates attract so much attention, and millions of viewers - but are too stage-managed, and don't really add much.

The main surprise was the set - which was terrible. Clunky, old-fashioned, more 1984 than 2008. Anchorman Tom Brokaw was stuck behind a schooldesk-type thing, and struggled to keep time. Our own Question Time looks positively space-age by comparison.

The best bit was the "focus group tracker" - a real-time opinion poll of 25 uncommitted Ohio voters - which ran throughout the debate. (The BBC Parliament channel should run one at every Prime Minister's Questions.) It clearly showed that Obama did better than McCain, and is very popular with Ohio women. Every time he spoke, the female tracker went through the roof.

The third and final debate is next Wednesday. McCain will need to do a lot better, or hope that women stay home on November 4.  

Smarter, Stronger Cities

American and British cities are different, but they still face a lot of the same issues - like how to build a competitive business base, develop a better-skilled workforce, and green existing buildings. Smarter, Stronger Cities - a new report from the Centre for Cities and Brookings - says that the US has a lot to learn from UK cities, especially our track record of combatting sprawl and supporting low-income families.

I spoke about this yesterday at Brookings' Summit for American Prosperity in Washington DC. Based on my 10-year experience at HM Treasury and the British Embassy in DC, and the Centre's interaction with Brookings over the past 3 years, we are now convinced that the UK has several important lessons to offer US cities. We now need to encourage a two-way exchange on this, ahead of the forthcoming Presidential election - as reported in the Guardian, Daily Express and BBC Online.

The next US Administration should consider importing these five policy lessons from the UK:

1. National leadership: Our national leaders - from Heseltine to Brown - have championed cities over the last 15 years. By contrast, the Bush Administration has largely neglected urban policy - and its lead urban department, HUD. The next Administration should take a stronger leadership role in support of US cities.

2. Evidence base: Bruce Katz said today that the US federal government is a "fact-free zone". Major funding decisions, on transport for example, are too often taken on the basis of pork-barrel politics. In the UK, we have based much of our policy decisions on a steady stream of independent reviews - on transport (Eddington), housing and planning (Barker) and workforce development (Leitch). The US should take a leaf out of our book, and make more use of independent urban policy commissions.

3. Clamp down on urban sprawl: The UK has seen a national drive to make better use of urban land, via brownfield and density targets. In 1997, around 50% of new homes were built on brownfield land - by 2006, that had risen to 75%. And the density of new housebuilding rose from 12 units per hectare in 2002, to 16 per hectare by 2006. Our planning rules have also directed new retail development back towards city and town centres - reducing the number of car-dependent shopping centres and office parks.

4. Traffic management: London's congestion charge - introduced by Mayor Livingstone in 2002 - has triggered a 35% reduction in commuters travelling by car into the centre of London, and a 24% increase in commuters using buses. Greater Manchester had its congestion charge scheme approved by the government earlier this week. Meanwhile, US cities like Miami and Seattle are considering their own road pricing schemes.

5. Support for low-income families: The UK has adapted and expanded the US Earned Income Tax Credit system, making it more generous and responsive, and paid regularly to low-income recipients. We also have a higher National Minimum Wage (around $11 per hour). This has resulted in a big reduction in child poverty, with 1.8 million fewer children in absolute poverty compared to ten years ago.

I'll be briefing a team of Congressional staffers tomorrow, on our tax credit system - just part of our effort from now on, to promote the good stuff that we can offer the US.

America's rental housing

Homeownership is a fundamental part of the American Dream. But over the last two years, the homeownership rate in the US has fallen back to around 67%, due to the credit crunch and high rate of repossessions.

This is having an adverse impact on the rental market, with a sudden increase in demand for affordable rented housing - during 2007, the number of renter households increased by 1 million. At the same time, the supply of new homes for rent has fallen - completions of multifamily units for rent fell last year to just two-thirds of the 2002 level.

This report from the Joint Centre for Housing Studies at Harvard University sets out the case for an expanded, stronger private-rented sector in the US. So does this book, co-produced by the Joint Centre and Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Programme.

There's now a very live debate here about housing - in particular, how to (1) stabilise the downturn, and limit the rise in repossessions (2) develop a higher-quality, better-regulated rental sector, and (3) ensure that homeownership is maintained as the long-term goal for those who want it.    

As in the US, rental housing has been relatively overlooked in the UK. We are facing some similar demand and supply issues, and need to beef up the "mid-market" that Bob Kerslake is now talking about. Next week, we will be publishing a report - with the Smith Institute - on the future of the private-rented sector. And in July, we'll be publishing a second report, on the wider economic impact of housing markets on urban areas.

Hillary's exit

We landed into a scorching Washington yesterday, just as Hillary was saying farewell to her supporters at the National Building Museum - a rather stunning downtown venue, a few blocks away from the Capitol.

Bill and Hillary held their Inaugural Balls there in 1993 and 1997. And I was there in 2003, during my stint at the British Embassy here, to see John Prescott wow an American audience with his unique oratory...

The Sunday talk shows today - Wolf Blitzer is my favourite - are all focusing on Obama v McCain, and who their running mates should be. Jim Johnson - former CEO of Fannie Mae - is part of Obama's selection team, and will be opening the Brookings urban summit here on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the economy is the number one election issue, especially after Friday's triple whammy of bad news:

• Unemployment rose sharply last month, to 5.5% - the biggest jump in two decades
• Crude oil prices hit a new high of $139 a barrel - petrol is now $4 a gallon, compared to just over $1 when I lived here in 2001-04
• The Dow Jones lost 3 per cent - its sharpest decline in 18 months  

We'll be here all week, finding out more about the state of the US economy - and other issues like business growth, private-rented housing, community colleges and migration. Meetings coming up with some of the top think tanks, including the Center for American Progress and American Enterprise Institute. More soon... 

Centre for Cities off to Washington...

We're off to Washington DC next week, for an urban summit hosted by the Brookings Institution. I'll be presenting a joint paper with Brookings, co-authored by Alan Berube and our own Chris Webber. It will set out some specific UK urban policy lessons for the US - for example, on avoiding excessive sprawl, combating congestion and supporting low-income families.

For too long, we have looked one-way to the US for policy ideas. When I was at the British Embassy in DC (2001-04), a constant stream of Ministers - sometimes three or four a week - would visit, looking at US best practice on enterprise, schools, employment, regeneration, and even volunteering. But there was hardly any policy learning in the other direction - I doubt whether the US Embassy here was organising trips round Liverpool or Birmingham, for their secretaries of state.

In this US election year, we and Brookings will be calling on the next US Administration to engage in a two-way dialogue with the UK, on how to improve the economic performance of American and UK cities. And we'll be encouraging Ministers here to promote the good stuff our cities have done, to a wider international audience.

Apparently, it's 36 degrees there tomorrow...