Next Guv...What's Your Metro Strategy?

The Detroit Free Press’ recent editorial invited candidates for governor to offer clear plans for strengthening urban areas and accelerating cooperation across community lines. Mike Cox, who is seeking the Republican nomination for Governor, answered today with an op-ed comparing Detroit to New York City (and himself to Rudy Giuliani) that is so riddled with faulty history and economics that you wonder if the Attorney General knows much about either city.  And calling on Detroit to emulate NYC while later prescribing the Far Right’s pet panacea of tax cuts displays logic worthy of one of those hot pretzels that, along with very high taxes, New York is famous for.  

Rather than focus on New York City or its failed presidential candidate, Michigan would do well to look at cities and regions across the country that are leaping into the 21^st century economy. Those places, from Minneapolis to Boston to Washington, DC are distinguished by the regional decision-making and smart investments in infrastructure and technology. What does this mean for Michigan? A smart urban strategy is really a metro strategy that recognizes the interdependence of our urban and suburban communities and the crises we all face. If you live in Madison Heights and are fortunate enough to have a job, there’s an 80% chance that you work in another city and quite possibly another county; the same holds true in most communities.  Nearly 70 cities in Michigan could slide into bankruptcy this year. Vibrant cities like Royal Oak and Sterling Heights are being forced to make dramatic cuts in essential services. Individual cities cannot and should not be expected to weather this situation alone. It is time for leadership in Lansing that recognizes that the lives and livelihoods of Michiganders cut across government boundaries.

The next governor and legislature should come together around an agenda that prioritizes reinvestment in older communities’ and rewards groups of cities, school districts and other public entities that devise innovative approaches to sharing services and attracting public and private investment to their area. Lawmakers in our region must provide collective leadership by coming together in a bi-partisan Southeast Michigan Caucus that becomes a voice for regional solidarity and a vehicle for a new direction in state policy. Those who seek state offices should be asked to articulate a clear vision for leveraging the metro reality of our economy.

First it was Campaign Finance, Now It’s America’s Waters

Not satisfied with enabling corporations to flood America’s political system with money, the Supreme Court has overturned decades-old interpretations of the Clean Water Act to allow many of those same corporations to flood our precious waterways with poison. Not only is this a threat to the water we drink but it has the potential to do great harm to Michigan’s economy by fouling fisheries and beaches and preventing us from leveraging one of the state’s greatest assets – our abundance of fresh water. For me, this is especially galling because as a young Congressional staffer in 1992 I had the privilege of drafting legislation, which became law, to strengthen the Clean Water Act. Later that year my boss at the time, U.S. Representative Nita M. Lowey, was honored as “Legislator of the Year” by the American Planning Association, because of legislation I helped her develop designed to strengthen financial support for the CWA and create thousands of good jobs by investing in the nation’s water infrastructure.

Instead of nullifying laws that protect our waters, health and quality of life, we should be working on cost-effective strategies to prevent pollution and enable more people to enjoy our beaches and waterways. If we do this, metro Detroit can leverage its inland lakes, Detroit River and Lake St. Claire as destinations and job generators the way Chicago and Toronto maximize their waterfronts.

Article on Supreme Court decision

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