Stimulate All of America!
By Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director,
The Metaphor Project
http://www.metaphorproject.org/
Facing criticism about continued job losses, President Obama recently announced a "summer speedup" for his stimulus plan. But creating more jobs faster is not enough by itself. We need answers to the following questions too: who exactly will get stimulated, when the rubber hits the road? Why? And how will the way the money is spent alter our common destiny? The answers to these questions will affect us all.(1)
President Obama’s stated goal for the economic stimulus plan was to create a more green and varied basis for a new American economy. But talk of a better balance of industries and jobs just scratches the surface of what a healthier new American economy really requires, say advocates of something called "regional equity" or "metropolitan sustainability."
According to experts in the field like Carl Anthony and M. Paloma Pavel, building regional equity means creating ways to overcome the growing economic, ecological and social damage done us all by sprawl. Suburban flight away from our isolated, cash-strapped urban communities of color negatively impacts newer, more affluent suburbs too. (2) In their soon to be published anthology entitled Breakthrough Communities (MIT Press, 2009), Anthony and Pavel feature a wide range of authors whose successful community organizing strategies have significantly boosted regional equity for everyone. (3) These stories have direct application for the situation we’re in now, with new stimulus money set to start flowing faster. (A companion film, The New Metropolis, will be shown on PBS on in the near future.)
Two examples in particular come to mind. First, there’s the "community benefits agreement," an organizing model that grew out of new funding for improvements to the L.A. airport. The agreement ended up benefiting all members of the surrounding community. Then there’s the "fix-it first" greater Detroit-based campaign. Participants in that project succeeded in channeling federal transportation funds to repair of existing roads and building new public transit systems, rather than funding more sprawl via new roads.
Anthony and Pavel identify a clear and simple model of how all successful regional equity organizing processes work. In every story there is a spiral of increasing effectiveness, that usually starts with people "waking up," and moves on to their "saying no" to forces destroying their communities. Next comes "getting grounded" in the facts about their situation, then "exploring new horizons," (especially at the regional scale). Finally the group starts "saying yes" by becoming proactive , framing the issues right, and seizing new opportunities. (4)
Everyone can benefit from this model and these stories. Widely respected research has shown conclusively that boosting regional equity strengthens local economies in ways that help everyone in the region. (5) In the past, reform of certain national, state and local land-use and transportation policy rules has also been an important part of this success. Some current rules still have the power to seriously damage overall regional prosperity, as well as the economic situation of inner city residents, if they are left unchanged. Right now, with stimulus spending being fast tracked, the rules for its distribution still need a lot of public scrutiny and adjustment. (6)
Moreover, there is no money in the bill for community-based planning. Though the bill’s overall time frame is ten years, the most favored start up period is a very short two years. True, we need to jump start the economic recovery. But genuinely democratic community planning can take longer than that, and is the only way to get lasting economic benefits for all. Too much haste can also lead to funding things that will actually worsen our problems, such as the new highways that breed more new socially and ecologically damaging sprawl.
Most important, stimulus spending rules that really do foster regional equity will help counter that destructive old American myth about everything always being merely a matter of individual responsibility—blaming the victims. That myth has once again been discredited by the way innocent bystanders have been hit by the meltdown’s spread. It’s clear: we’re in this one all together. When the recovery starts showing more signs of life, that lesson will need to be reinforced. Now, more urgently than ever, our future has to be about leveling the playing field, making the rules of the game fair, and seeing to it we have honest umpires at every level.
Our American recovery must be deep and wide, genuinely green, politically broad-based, and above all, morally sound, leaving no one out. We need a lot more from the stimulus package than a bit more prosperity for the few--we need it to redeem some of our best American ideals--equality of opportunity and fair play for all, in every region of the land. Stimulus Package Watchdogs, stand up and bark!
Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the founder and executive director of The Metaphor Project. The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages by "speaking American" since 1996. Many free "speaking American" resources and guides are available free of charge at: www.metaphorproject.org
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Notes:
(1) The phrase "our common destiny" has been found to help foster positive outcomes and reduce conflict among diverse stakeholders in regional equity organizing, says Professor Chris Benner, co-author with Manuel Pastor and Martha Matsuoka, of This Could Be The Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity Are Reshaping Metropolitan America, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2009.
(2) See the Fall, 2008 issue of Race, Poverty & The Environment (Volume 15, #2).
(3) Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis, edited by M. Paloma Pavel, Foreword by Carl Anthony, MIT Press, 2009, Cambridge, MA, 411 pp. This book can be preordered now via the MIT Press website at:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/...
(4) This model is also expressed in Anthony and Pavel’s Compass for Transformative Leadership, available at http://www.earthhousecenter.org under Services.
(5) Manuel Pastor et al., Regions That Work: How Cities and Suburbs Can Grow Together, University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
(6) Four key sources support the statements in this paragraph:
a. "Bringing Home the Green Recovery," a paper available from
http://www.Greenforall.org
b. "Stimulus for Whom?" available at http://www.policylink.org
c. "Economic Recovery for Everyone: Racial Equity and Prosperity,"
prepared by the Center for Social Inclusion, a project of the
Tides Center, available on http://www.scribd.com
d. "The Stimulus: What If We’re Not Shovel Ready?" by Heidi Pickman,
on the blog at http://www.Apolloalliance.org