Urban Policy

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The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include poverty in politics, financial services, and asset poverty.

In downtown Washington D.C., the scaffolds of a $950 million development, the CityCenter DC, are rising. In the place of D.C.’s old convention-center-turned-parking-lot, the new three-block development will include residential units, commercial space, and public parks and plazas. It will be pedestrian-oriented, LEED certified, and gardens will line the rooftops.

America’s air transport system is vital to the economic health of the nation, and to the well-being of every region of the country. Yet across much of America, the air transport system is breaking down as the few surviving airlines simultaneously jack up fares and slash service. This means citizens can’t get where they need to go. And it means large and vibrant cities – including St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Memphis – are having trouble keeping what businesses they have, let alone attracting new investors.

According to the 2011 census estimates, for the first since 1920—nearly a century—cities are growing more than suburbs. A recent study shows 77% of millennials want to live in the urban core. 28 year-old Denver resident, Jaclyn King said, “I will never live in the suburbs… I just like being connected to everything down here—concerts, work, restaurants, all of it.

Every St. Louisan knows the story. A decade ago, the metropolitan region enjoyed some of the best air service in America. But since 2001, the city has seen the number of flights tumble. Every year, it seems, the region's businesses and citizens here have had to make do with fewer seats flying to fewer places.

We're hosting an event this Friday with author and urban historian Michael Katz (also a professor of history at University of Pennsylvania) to discuss his new book, Why Don't American Cities Burn? Devin Fergus, a professor of history at Hunter College in New York, will join us to offer his take on the issues in the book and Reid Cramer will moderate and help link Katz's work to the asset building field.

Look out, Minneapolis and Portland. Long Beach is making its move, aiming to surpass you as America's Most Bike Friendly City. Does that sound odd for a city whose chief claim to environmental fame has been its massively polluting port and offshore oil facilities—not to mention a city that, like the rest of Southern California, has long been in thrall of the car?
 

Thanks to a new partnership between Capital Bikeshare, Bank on DC, United Bank, and the District Government Employees Federal Credit Union (DGEFCU), previously unbanked Washington, D.C. residents now have the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: sign up for a debit or credit card and access a growing regional network of shareable bikes. An announcement from DDOT reads, “The partnership was conceived to promote a healthy and environmentally-friendly form of transit, along with the benefits of financial stability and security.”  In exchange for opening an account with the participating institutions, Bank On DC account holders get a $25 discount off an annual membership for Capital Bikeshare (bringing the cost to $50). While it will be interesting to see if this reduced rate is affordable for the target population, the initiative is an exciting example of creative thinking and cross-sector collaboration.

A new report by the Brookings Institution says minorities are now the majority population in many of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, a demographic development with major political, social and economic consequences for the nation.

The study found that 22 of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas are now “majority-minority,” with ethnic majorities making up more than half the populations in New York, Washington, Las Vegas, San Diego, Memphis and other metro areas. That’s an increase from 14 cities in 2000 and five in 1990.