Spontaneous metro policy: Could this be true?

A funny thing happened since the inauguration as city-watchers waited for the Obama White House’s Office of Urban Affairs to take shape.

In effect, the office became less necessary. And for urban and metropolitan America, that’s good news.

Even as he campaigned for president, Barack Obama declared that Washington needed to end its indifference to urban America, to “promote strong cities as a backbone of regional growth” and a competitive national economy.

But most observers–myself included–thought a White House urban office wouldn’t help cities much unless it could wield a big stick, directing federal departments long stuck on their own policy “silos” to start, for a change, working together in field operations to help grassroots America.

It seemed that would be a Herculean task–and one not made easier by Obama’s appointment of Adolfo Carrion, a successful president of New York’s Bronx borough but a man without prior federal government experience, to head the new urban affairs office.

But then an amazing thing happened. From Obama’s Week One, a kind of spontaneous combustion of voluntary cooperation erupted at the top level of departments–especially Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, and Environmental Protection.

The quickly approved Recovery Act, spanning multiple departments, was one catalyst. And the newly appointed Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officials, many veterans of years of work in cutting-edge city and state governments, moved quickly to identify joint approaches–synchronizing, for example, aid for new transit stops and affordable housing, or energy-saving weatherization and revitalizing low-income neighborhoods.

The process wasn’t–and isn’t–perfect. But in an odd way, you can credit Ronald Reagan. By declaring government “the problem,” deauthorizing and/or defunding all the federal programs to aid cities and communities he could, Reagan created an urban policy vacuum. Neither George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush did much to correct it. Increasingly, creative leaders in cities and metro regions realized they had to cope with their challenges, on their own, including innovative cross-border, metro-wide alliances.

Now the Obama Cabinet, including such seasoned urban veterans as Shaun Donovan (HUD) and Arne Duncan (Education), instinctively looks for collaborative ways to address city-region challenges. Like the activist brain trust President Franklin Roosevelt brought to Washington after the Roaring Twenties era of Republican tax-little, do-little administrations, the Obama crew represents a new cycle of activist American governance.

Carrion explains that the new White House Urban Affairs office will jump start a working group including officials from a broad range of departments–even Treasury, Justice, Small Business, Commerce and Labor–whose missions impact cities. And Derek Douglas, a member of Carrion’s team, has been made a member of the Domestic Policy Council, positioned to represent urban issues at the highest White House level.

The big immediate task Obama has handed Carrion’s office is to arrange a series of listening tours to pull Cabinet officials out of the “bubble” of official Washington and into cities and metro areas as they face real challenges. Philadelphia was first, July 23, with Kansas City, Denver and possibly Atlanta upcoming. The idea, says Carrion, is based on the president’s “bottom up approach,” identifying creative local solutions that Washington, in one form or another, can support.

Obama has also ordered–for the first time in 30 years, since 1979 under President Jimmy Carter–a serious interagency review of all federal programs that impact cities. Urban observers anticipate it will be a quality effort because the man in charge will be a top administration intellect, urban analyst and author Xavier de Souza Briggs, Obama’s appointee as director of general government programs at the Office of Management and Budget.

It’s hard to find a mayor or city activist who doesn’t believe these steps, plus the new administration’s collegial, open attitudes, represent an extraordinarily positive turnaround.

Still, stumbling blocks are evident.

First–nomenclature, choosing the name “White House Office of Urban Affairs” rather than “Urban and Metropolitan Affairs,” or simply “Metropolitan Affairs.” The word “urban” suggests to many–especially suburbanites–declining cities to be shunned. But America can’t succeed without supporting the economic engine of its cities and suburbs combined–the metro-wide message that Obama repeatedly underscores in speeches, but somehow bypassed in naming the new office.

A second caveat: Years of denigrating government forced out many talented, committed employees across the departmental landscape. It may take years to repair a hollowed out federal service.

Last: The ground is shifting, with global recession, massive housing foreclosures, growing pockets of suburban poverty, and more immigrants heading to suburbs. And the federal government faces huge, immediate decisions on economic policy, coping with explosive budgets, climate protection, health care and more. It’s likely to be a bumpy ride.

Yet the way those mega-issues get resolved could have a greater impact on cities than any initiatives that are officially labeled “urban” or even “metro.”

The good news: at least we’ve begun to open our eyes to the possibilities of smarter, connected strategies.

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