I Don't Believe in Federal Miracles, But Here's What the Next POTUS Can Do

In this series, professionals provide advice for the next U.S. president. What do you want POTUS focused on? Write your own #nextpresident post here.

I have one overriding piece of advice for the next president: Treat our nation’s cities and metropolitan areas as your primary partners in national renewal and progress rather than as a mere constituency group to be placated or ignored.

Cities and metro areas have earned it. Here’s why: 

They are the undisputed engines of our nation’s economy and the centers of our trade and investment with the world. Our top 100 metropolitan areas alone (there are 388 in total) sit on only 12 percent of our land mass but house 66 percent of our population and generate 75 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. 

While Washington is mired in partisan rancor and most states are adrift, cities and counties are also tackling the nation’s most pressing challenges. Louisville, Montgomery County (MD), and San Jose are reducing income inequality by raising the minimum wage. Denver, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma City are using locally generated revenues to build new infrastructure while Broward County, King County, and San Antonio are doing the same to support our youth.  Chicago, San Diego, and Syracuse are enhancing their and the nation’s competitiveness by bolstering advanced manufacturing, exports, and foreign direct investment. 

Cities and metropolitan areas act not via government alone but by harnessing the power of business, civic, philanthropic, university, and government institutions and leaders. In a world in which people operate through networks, cities have emerged as the uber-network: interlinked firms, institutions and individuals working together across sectors, disciplines, jurisdictions, artificial political borders and, yes, even political parties. This is the way complex modern problems get solved, via integrated and collaborative actions rather than the dictates of separate and siloed government agencies.

So how does a new president partner with cities rather than just fight with Congress?

Here are three ideas that won’t add a cent to the federal budget but would unlock private and civic capital in cities across the country.

First, use every tool you have at your disposal — underleveraged data, underutilized credit enhancement programs and regulatory powers, even routine decisions to locate federal agencies — to support cities. Make federal investments in cities and metro areas transparent via geo-spatial analysis and mapping tools, uncovering new economic potential. Realize the full potential of largely unused credit enhancement authority like the Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing program to spur private investment around urban rail stations. Locate satellite campuses of isolated national energy and military labs near urban universities in the cores of cities. 

Second, give cities and counties the flexibility to adapt federal investments in transportation, housing, workforce, education and other domestic areas to their specific needs and local priorities. One size does not fit all in a nation as large and diverse as the United States. One model: the use of City Deals in Britain to devolve power to cities like Manchester and Sheffield, eradicating decades of rigid one-size-fits-all prescriptions and layers of rules and mandates. 

Finally, make city leaders true partners in the running of the federal government. Appoint city-led commissions immediately upon taking office to offer recommendations for making federal agencies city-friendly. Order the Office of Management and Budget to work with cities to pioneer a federalist urban budget, showing how multiple levels of government resources come together to support, for example, disadvantaged children or neighborhoods in each city. Direct the Department of Treasury to work with cities to create to create an easy-to-access data bank for large private and civic investments in cities, augmenting the traditional focus on state and local public finance.  

All these actions can be done without major legislation or, in some cases, even the approval of Congress. Would I like the next president (and next Congress) to do more? Of course. A universal housing voucher would help cities deal with the gap between stagnant wages and rising prices of rental apartments. A boost in funding for existing R&D agencies like the National Institutes of Health and new entities like a DARPA for Cities would catalyze much needed growth in jobs and new businesses. And new credit enhancement tools would unlock private capital for urban transit, energy and water systems. 

Yet I don’t believe in federal miracles, just the affirmative energy of our cities.  

For that reason, I advise the next president to act as the leader of our urban and metropolitan nation rather than as the head of one branch of the federal government. Perhaps working with urban leaders who put place over party, collaboration over conflict and evidence over dogma will ultimately rub off on our dysfunctional national capital.

Watch The Global Metropolitan Revolution, my Hamburg TEDx Talk, based off my book The Metropolitan Revolution.  

More posts on this topic:

• “This Isn’t Crying Wolf: Machines Will Take White-Collar Jobs During the Next Administration”— Martin Ford, author of "Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future"
• “The Next Big Industry That No One Knows About (Not Even the Future President)” — Suzy Welch, business journalist, television commentator
• “Technology — Not Taxes — Can Solve America's Higher Ed Crisis” — Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, Professor at MIT
• “We Need to Figure Out What America Stands for in the 21st Century — and Have a Foreign Policy That Reflects It” — Ian Bremmer, President at Eurasia Group
• “Like Any New Boss, the Next President Will Need to Build a Great Team — and Trust” — Joel Peterson, Chairman, JetBlue Airways
• “America's Healthcare System Needs This from the Next President” — Deepak Chopra, Founder, Chopra Foundation