• Rep Brian Higgins [NY-27]
• Rep Betty Sutton [OH-13]
• Rep Charles A. Wilson [OH-6]
• Rep Earl Blumenauer [OR-3]
• Rep Jim Gerlach [PA-6]
• Rep Dale E. Kildee [MI-5]
• Rep Marcia L. Fudge [OH-11]
• Rep John D. Dingell [MI-15]
• Rep John A. Boccieri [OH-16]
• Rep Zachary T. Space [OH-18]
• Rep Eddie Bernice Johnson [TX-30]
• Rep Daniel B. Maffei [NY-25]
• Rep Thomas S.P. Perriello [VA-5]
• Rep Dennis J. Kucinich [OH-10]
• Rep Maurice D. Hinchey [NY-22]
• Rep James L. Oberstar [MN-8]
• Rep Steven C. LaTourette [OH-14]
• Rep Allyson Y. Schwartz [PA-13]
• Rep Michael R. Turner [OH-3]
• Rep Chaka Fattah [PA-2]
• Rep Michael F. Doyle [PA-14]
• Rep Laura Richardson [CA-37]
• Rep John Conyers, Jr. [MI-14]
• Rep Marcy Kaptur [OH-9]
• Rep Joe Sestak [PA-7]
• Rep Steve Driehaus [OH-1]
• Rep Steve Cohen [TN-9]
• Rep Russ Carnahan [MO-3]
• Rep Gwen Moore [WI-4]
• Rep John B. Larson [CT-1]
• Rep Robert A. Brady [PA-1]
• Rep Mary Jo Kilroy [OH-15]
• Rep Elijah E. Cummings [MD-7]
• Rep Rush D. Holt [NJ-12]
• Rep Tim Holden [PA-17]
• Rep Christopher P. Carney [PA-10]
• Rep Michael A. Arcuri [NY-24]
• Rep Mike Quigley [IL-5]
• Rep Linda T. Sanchez [CA-39]
• Rep Paul D. Tonko [NY-21]
• Rep Louise McIntosh Slaughter [NY-28]
• Rep James R. Langevin [RI-2]
• Rep Micheal E. Capuano [MA-8]
• Rep Paul E. Kanjorski [PA-11]
• Rep Al Green [TX-9]
• Rep Luis E. Gutierrez [IL-4]
• Rep Nick J. Rahall [WV-3]
• Rep Timothy Bishop [NY-1]
• Rep Jesse Jackson, Jr. [IL-2]
• Rep Mark Critz [PA-12]
• Rep Albio Sires [NJ-13]

We thank all of these representatives for their support. If your representative is not on this list, write a letter today expressing the need for this bill and asking him/her to become a co-sponsor.

However, Kildee most likely understand the reluctance of some people to accept the fact that Flint is not going to regain its population anytime soon. “A tour of one the hardest-hit Flint neighborhoods just north of downtown shows the depth of the problem: The only occupied house on the block has a spray-painted warning to stay off the yard. Across the street, patches of grass are waist high and strewn with empty liquor bottles and broken glass.” This is the same neighborhood where Kildee’s grandmother lived. And, as Kildee says, “It’s really personal to me.” However, he refuses to remain oblivious to the facts, and facts show that Flint has lost nearly half its population in the last forty years and that the recent foreclosure and recession make it even less likely that it will re-coop its population anytime soon. The approach is gaining traction and other cities like Cleveland, Youngstown, Detroit, and even Philadelphia are beginning to adopt similar strategies.

Click here to read the full article.

The Regeneration Planning Grant Demonstration Program would provide funding to older industrial cities to develop plans to reclaim and reuse their vacant and abandoned property, thus contributing to their economic development and allowing them to recreate themselves as smaller, sustainable, vibrant communities. In order to apply for one of these grants, a city must have experienced at least a 15% population loss since 1970.

Click here to read the full article.

The following quote from a blog posted by Green City Blue Lake sums up the strengths of the conference and what should be done by way of follow up to the conference:

…The conference was a good first step, if only because it brought three disparate regions together to share possible solutions to the problems we all face. Still, next steps are needed, and they involve piling best local practices into regional plans, while coalescing politically into one industrial voice that must be heard–if not feared–in Washington. Because while D.C. and other growth regions could care less about the problems they don’t yet have, what we are as a region is nothing short of the canary in the coal mine, and our realities give us that necessity to build the vision that the rest will have to follow when growth becomes less manifest than restraint becomes destiny.

Obviously, we couldn’t agree more. Now is the time for us to unite as cities that share industrial passes and are currently facing similar challenges as a result of industrial failure. Take the first step by sending your members of congress letters in support of CRSI, which would be the beginning of an older industrial cities national policy agenda (click here for letter samples and advocacy tools).

Click here to read the full article on the conference.

The second article especially highlights the inadequacies of the federal government to enact effective policies to help these cities rebuild and precisely articulates all of the nuances and difficulties. For instance, “…small population leads to a small tax base, which in turn leads to a smaller city government, which leads to a rejected application for Neighborhood Stabilization funds. It really makes no sense.” This quote highlights the inefficiencies of the federal government to both understand and implement policies that speak to the specific challenges these cities face as older industrial cities.

This brings us to the story’s conclusion:

…Not only do we need to fix to [sic] to the way CDBG funds are allocated, demolition caps on NSP funding, and EPA asbestos abatement regulations, we also need a new program specifically designed to help places like Youngstown. Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio has already introduced a bill to the House called the Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act [CRSI], which aims to solve these sorts of problems that Youngstown faces. The bill should it pass, would allocate funds to HUD to ‘make grants and offer technical assistance to local governments…to design and implement innovative policies, programs, and projects that address widespread property vacancy and abandonment.’

In other words, the way to move forward and “fix” these cities is to develop and implement place based programs, and CRSI is how these place based programs can be funded.

Click here to read the full article. (It’s really worth it.)

In this chapter, Florida explores the notion of “shrinking cities” and considers what kinds of policy need to be implemented to address this phenomenon. Essentially, he boils it down to the following question:

Should public policy toward hard-pressed, economically strapped cities focus on people, not just by encouraging retraining but also by helping them relocate to places with a better job market? Or should policies focus on places, by fostering geographically targeted reinvestment?

Florida’s answer to this question? “Put people first.” Essentially, he thinks that people need to be able to move to more economically viable areas when their own cities are suffering. As Florida says, “The sad but unavoidable fact is that overall, and with few exceptions, places in the United States and in other advanced nations where the regional economies are based on blue-collar industries are headed for trouble.” Headed for trouble? This statement should read “are in trouble.” This is because the “blue-collar industries” he refers to have been tremendously downsized (just think about the steel and auto industries). But even though places like Pittsburgh, PA, Birmingham, AL, Trenton, NJ, and Cleveland, OH (to name just a few, check out the maps on this site for even more cities) have suffered as a result of de-industrialization, this does not mean that these cities don’t have anything to offer. There are other reasons that people choose to stay in these cities–they aren’t all “stuck” in these cities.

Dan Kildee, President and Co-Founder of the Center for Community Progress and former Genessee County Treasurer, underscored this point at a recent conference hosted by the Cleveland + Youngstown + Pittsburgh Regional Network: he said, “These cities are too important to those who live there and deserve more.” This is why investing in places is so important and why by investing in these places, you would be putting people first.

With that being said, he has a valid point in saying that, “Instead of spending millions to lure or bail out factories, or hundreds of millions and in some cases billions to build stadiums, convention centers, and hotels, use that money to invest in local assets, spur local business formation and development, better employ local people and utilize their skills, and invest in improving quality of place.” Agreed. However, Florida leaves out one vital aspect: these cities need resources to carry out all of his recommendations. How can they “invest in improving quality of place” when there is not funding to do this and even when there is funding, resources are much too scarce to address the long term population loss and disinvestment that have afflicted these cities for the past forty years? This is precisely why legislation like the Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act of 2009 is so important: it provides resources for these cities to develop place based plans to address their challenges.

Click here to read the excerpt from Florida’s new book.

This initiative represents yet another way cities can approach and effectively manage their vacant properties.

Click here to read the entire article.

…A keen awareness of the desperate need in cities across the country to clean up vacant properties and reclaim polluted industrial sites as community assets. The Obama Administration’s proposed $40 million dollar increase for the program is aimed specifically at funding pilot projects that will give disadvantaged communities the resources to create holistic brownfield redevelopment plans.

While the budget still has to be approved by Congress, the initiative the President showed in placing it in his budget is a good sign for proponents of an older industrial cities national policy agenda.

This is certainly a positive development for those who think that our country needs to develop an older industrial cities national policy agenda as it not only indicates that this issue is something that is being considered by the Office of Urban Affairs, but also indicates that the Office has a sufficient understanding of the issue to deliver a presentation on the topic at a global conference.

Douglas wrote about the Forum on the Office of Urban Affairs’ blog. He writes:

…It’s encouraging to know that renowned urban thinkers from all over the world are so interested in this Administration’s approach to urban development, especially the Sustainable Communities Initiative,  a partnership between HUD, Transportation, and EPA. The initiative coordinates federal policies, programs, and resources from these agencies and finally links transportation funding with land-use and the environmental impact associated with development. This fully assists cities, metros and rural areas to build more livable and sustainable communities–so that jobs and commerce are located near housing and recreation, so that folks could get around without cars if they so choose, so that our children have bike paths and parks nearby to run around and play with their friends, and so that we can walk our kids to school and buy groceries without pulling out of the driveway.

These guiding principles behind the Sustainable Communities Initiative are what the Community Regeneration, Sustainability, and Innovation Act of 2009 are all about–and what an older industrial cities national policy agenda should advance. The point is that the current state of our older industrial cities is not sustainable; these cities are currently maintaining an infrastructure that, in some cases, was designed for a population twice the size of the present reality. More and more businesses, recreation facilities, and other commodities have relocated to the suburbs, thus increasing the distance needed to travel for basic necessities.

The Sustainable Communities Initiative should be implemented all across America, but the need for this Initiative is even more acute in older industrial cities because of the prolonged disinvestment and population loss they have experienced. The Department of Housing and Urban Development likes to use the phrase “most hard hit communities”: older industrial cities are the most hard hit communities, and as such, the new Initiative needs to be implemented in these cities first.

Click here to contact the White House Office of Urban Affairs to encourage Adolfo Carrion and Derek Douglas to tell President Obama to place developing an older industrial cities national policy agenda at the top of his priority list.

Click here to read the entire post written by Derek Douglas.

one identifies owners or others who control the property; the other creates a system to ensure that violations get fixed and aren’t handed off from one owner to another.

In addition, owners of vacant properties will be forced to pay a $200 fee.

Although there are people who oppose the law, supporters of the new law say it will deter people from “flipping properties” and emphasize the fact that vacant property experts helped write the law.

It is also important to note that South Euclid is a suburb of Cleveland and that Cleveland is an older industrial city. The fact that 7% of South Euclid’s housing stock is vacant, underscores the fact that the problems older industrial cities are facing are now spreading to their suburbs, thus emphasizing the need for an older industrial cities national policy agenda.

Click here to read the full article.