The Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant
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A Policy Story of Continuity and Change: Reflections on the Obama Administration's Metropolitan Agenda Athena Jade Ullah B.A. Political Economics and City and Regional Planning University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA (2007) Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning ARCHIVES in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of iMASSACHUSETTS INSTffUTE OF TECHR O0LVY Master in City Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 2011 @ 2011 Athena Jade Ullah. All Rights Reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT the permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of the thesis document in whole or in part. Author Department of Urban Studies and Planning August 22, 2011 Certified by (} U Professor Langley Keyes Department of Urban Studies and Planning Thesis Supervisor Accepted by Professor Joseph Ferreira //1 Chair, MCP Committee Department of Urban Studies and Planning A Policy Story of Continuity and Change: Reflections on the Obama Administration's Metropolitan Agenda By Athena Jade Ullah Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on August 22, 2011 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in City Planning Abstract President Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009 and within the first month of his presidency, against a backdrop of staggering concerns about financial reform, energy efficiency, and the need to allocate $787 billion dollars of stimulus funds, he began to focus the form and function of metropolitan America as an engine of sustainable economic growth. The early blueprint of this project took on modest proportions, reflecting both his professional beginnings as a community organizer in the south side of Chicago and contemporary planning debates of equitable sustainable development. The scope of this project morphed into a large- scale agenda on metropolitan development. Over the past two years, the goals of the President's metropolitan agenda have held wide consensus within the federal government, which in turn has led to institutional changes in the grant-in-aid system. From the Congressional floor to foundations and prominent think tanks, the support it garnered collectively inspired several organizations to begin thinking across traditional divisions to find their role in sparking the engines of equitable and sustainable economic growth. Notably, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) re-organized its entire strategic plan for FY2010-2015 along the lines of three core themes, namely economic competitiveness, environmental sustainability, and equity. Despite the widespread support behind the president's project and the timely response to concerns of the American people, it is not clear how distinct this agenda really was. This thesis is an exploration of policy history and transformation purposed to address the following question: where did the Obama Metropolitan Agenda come from and how is this effort different from past ones that aimed to achieve similar goals? By understanding the evolution and comparative history of Obama's metropolitan agenda, I explore how the core concepts of comprehensive planning evolved into sustainability; this is accomplished through a policy analysis of the reference document, the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant (SCRPG) program, followed by a comparative historical analysis of federal policy and metropolitan planning from 1949-2010. Thesis Supervisor: Langley Keyes Emeritus Professor of City and Regional Planning Thesis Reader: Lawrence Susskind Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the patience and guidance of my thesis adviser, Langley Keyes and reader, Larry Susskind. I am grateful for the experience at MIT- DUSP, PolicyLink and the unique chance to work through this thesis. Given my involvement in helping to implement a small aspect of the legislation discussed in this paper, I make no claim to complete scholarly detachment. This work evolved from a curiosity in equity and sustainability as well as from my own commitment to the social goals of the Sustainable Communities Initiative. But reflecting on my practice and trying to gain better a understanding on the policy issues in which I was enmeshed has given me an opportunity to explore analytically the legislative history of Obama's Metropolitan Agenda and how this history is intimately tied to the stories of the past and those I once heard about growth and opportunity from many of the Latina women I spent many days working alongside. I hope to explore these ideas beyond this document's last page and work to incorporate the input of low-income residents and people of color to shape the future investments and development of their regions. Table of Contents Prefa c e ....................................................................................................... 5 Intro d uction ................................................................................................. 8 Part One | The Origins and Components of the Metropolitan Agenda.......................11 A. Toward a Metro Presidency B. The Federal Metropolitan Approach C. Bringing the Metropolitan Agenda Together Part Two The Outcome to Obama's Metropolitan Agenda....................................48 A. The "NEW" Path Toward Regional Sustainable Development B. The New Business Model C. Bringing it All together D. National Response to SCRPG program E. How Did the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) Get So Big? Part Three Reflecting On History........................................................................63 A. The Ideals Behind Metropolitan Development B. Comprehensive Planning versus Sustainable Communities C. Intergovernmental Coordination versus Silo Busting Collaboration D. Individual Citizen Participation versus Equitable Engagement E. Policy Recommendations Co nclusio n s................................................................................................... 10 4 Preface Questions regarding the distribution of power and resources were central to my own experience growing up in the East Los Angeles area and the countless hours I spent working alongside my mother as a domestic service worker. The contrast between my neighborhood and the opulence of those areas where we worked initially nurtured a political curiosity about race, regionalism, and environmental justice. The commute to work was always a prolonged vehicular affair, rushing along the highway, witnessing in rapid flashes a widening wealth gap with every mile traveled west. The experience of working as a nanny in the wealthy neighborhoods of West Los Angeles allowed me not only to pay for college but also provided me with a perspective on the inequities in the region and gave me a background from which to imagine alternatives for the countless, mostly Latina women who represented the majority of the domestic service work force. The differences in access to resources, education, quality food, and healthcare were all too stark. In my own transition from a wide-eyed community college student to a budding explorer of theories of change at UC Berkeley to entering graduate school-my concern for these disparities still holds true. PolicyLink is a national research and action institute based in Oakland, CA. Since 1999, the PolicyLink team has been committed to advancing federal and local policies that support economic and social equity by "lifting up what works". To the organization, Lifting Up What Works is their way of focusing attention on how people are working successfully to use local, state, and federal policy to create conditions that benefit everyone, especially people in low- income communities and communities of color. Their practice and experience led them to partner with the Obama Administration's Office of Urban Affairs and the Office of Housing and Urban Development to support policies that connect the work of people on the ground to the creation of sustainable communities of opportunity. In their ten years of practice, PolicyLink has stuck to the belief that those closest to the nation's challenges are central to finding solutions. This belief guided the purpose of my summer work in late May 2010 where I served as a graduate intern for three months with their team of committed regional equity advocates. While on the team, I was given a unique opportunity to work on issues related to the types of regional disparities that parallel the concerns of regional inequity that I had come to understand all too well. My first week on the job was ripe with excitement and challenge. I found myself thrown into the middle of the President Obama's Metropolitan Agenda, one which had risen rapidly soon after his election and which, while not highly visible, was taken most seriously at the local level where I was working. The atmosphere in the office seemed to be buzzing in anticipation of the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant (SCRPG) Notice of Funding Announcement (NOFA). Three months beyond the scheduled released date, the 68-page SCRPG NOFA was made public on June 14, 2010. Everyone from potential applicants and equity advocates to the skeptical politicians were amazed with the NOFA's complexity and ever-expanding criteria, required outcomes, and goals. The NOFA expected all applicants to address-in 25 pages or less-topics and issues ranging from climate change to affordable housing plans, six principles of livability, and furthering