This week, I want to talk briefly about a topic that is not infrastructure, per se, but increasingly intertwines infrastructure, justice, affordability, class, and economic growth--Incusive Urbanism.
Like many terms, inclusive urbanism is dangerously close to the "destined to become meaningless" space occupied by "sustainability" and "resilience." Just like those terms, though, inclusive urbanism saves you a paragraph each time you use it in conversation after the first time. When folks say inclusive urbanism, what they generally intend is that we want to revitalize our cities, but do so in such a way that current and long-term residents have an opportunity to benefit from the revitalization. When they say inclusive urbanism, what they refer to is the challenge of achieving substantive economic transformation while not driving out current residents. When they say inclusive urbanism, what they really mean--at least sometimes--is gentrification without the side effects.
Thursday's On Point with Tom Ashbrook of WBUR, "Can Startups Share Their Big City Success?" addresses this issue. In an interview with Richard Florida, they explore this issue using the term hoarding economic growth. This is the second time this week I've heard something along these lines. The general argument is that there is substantial economic growth and urban revitalization, but these gains only contribute to growing urban inequality. If the upper middle class does not share their gains, the very real economic gains that are accumulating will be hoarded as inequality only increases.
What would you do to solve this problem? How can we keep the urban renewal gains that we are seeing in many of our cities, while empowering residents that have lived through the worst of their declines and now have nowhere to go?
I'm not sure there's a 'good' solution to this problem, but I couldn't help thinking to myself: by the time these tech companies or advanced industries move in, it is too late for many of the current residents. Isn't there a way we could anticipate and prepare the current residents for the skills and capabilities needed by modern industry? I co-teach a course with Prof. Chris Leinberger of the GW School of Business, and he says that an urban area needs an economic reason to exist. Our cities need to anticipate the economic reasons to exist in the next few decades, and begin preparing our residents--from childhood through adulthood--for these changes so that when inevitable economic shifts do occur, those residents that have weathered the storm can be rewarded.
Have you heard some compelling solutions to these problems?