by Thomas K. Wright, RPA Executive Director, and Robert Yaro, RPA President
On May 27, 1929, Regional Plan Association released a monumental plan for New York and the surrounding metropolitan region of New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island and the Hudson Valley. The plan argued that for a region whose population would one day reach 20 million inhabitants, strategic investments must be made in "highways, communications, parks and parkways, land uses, bridges and tunnels, housing, airport facilities and other fields."
Only a few months later, financial havoc hit the markets and the United States tumbled into the Great Depression. At the time many critics observed that this was the worst possible time to be proposing what today would be a couple of hundred billion dollars in new investments for the New York Metropolitan Region.
As it turned out, however, it was the best time ever to be making these proposals, because when Franklin Roosevelt began the New Deal and its public works programs, the New York region was one of the few places in the country with plans and preliminary engineering in place for these investments. As a result, most of these projects were completed, over the next decade, financed largely by federal public works funding. (This process was likely also helped by the fact that RPA's Chairman was Frederic Delano, FDR's uncle.)
Now, in 2008, we find ourselves in similar circumstances. Through the collapse of the housing market and subsequent credit crunch, financial markets have stopped borrowing and lending. This does not simply affect the financial-services industry based on Wall Street. Small companies are losing the ability to pay their workers. Homeowners with strong credit cannot refinance their homes, which have lost almost 20% of their value in the past year. College-bound students cannot borrow money to pay their tuition. The circle grows wider and wider, capturing more citizens in a downward spiral.
Fortuitously, the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region has committed itself to perhaps the most ambitious plans for development, preservation and infrastructure since the 1930s. Redevelopment of major urban centers, including not only Lower Manhattan and the Far West Side, but also Downtown Brooklyn, Stamford, Newark and many others, hang in the balance. After ignoring investments in mass transit for two generations, the region has identified over $100 billion of new priority investments - including a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting the Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Terminal, and construction of the Second Avenue Subway - that will provide the capacity for generations of growth and prosperity. These development and infrastructure projects provide precisely the kind of economic stimulus that our region and nation need to get the economy moving - and the same strategies that helped us recover from the Great Depression.
When Congress opts to put more money into infrastructure, both as excellent long-term investment and as a way to dig the nation out of this recession, New York City and the region will have great projects ready to go, ready to be funded.
In fact, New York City has a history of taking big leaps forward in infrastructure construction that stretches back even further than the Great Depression, as curator Laura Rosen pointed out in a 1992 exhibition entitled Steel, Stone and Backbone (and as Streetsblog.org wrote about recently http://tinyurl.com/6ld9az). Rosen detailed how during six periods of financial hardship between 1837 and 1975, New York City built the Croton Water System, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum, the Harlem Ship Canal, the Lincoln Tunnel, LaGuardia Airport, Orchard Beach, the Triborough Bridge, the Independent subway system and other projects.
During these previous financial "panics," our public leaders recognized that bad times are actually a good time to do long-term planning and investing. It puts people to work and helps prepare a platform for future growth when the economy does recover.
Today is no different. As the city, region and nation gird themselves for hard times, they should make ready to invest in vital infrastructure needs, particularly in the tri-state metropolitan region. We are likely to be among the hardest hit by the latest financial panic, and helping us rebound will help the nation rebound, because we have an out-sized impact on the rest of the nation. We produce almost 10% of the United States' Gross Domestic Product with only 6% of the nation's population, living on less than 0.25% of the nation's land area. While politicians like to differentiate between Wall Street and Main Street, in reality distinctions are not that clear. In this region, for example, every financial services job is estimated to produce at least two other jobs.
There has been some concern that any coming recession may lead to a slowing of the region's vital infrastructure construction. But if we pull together as a region, and a nation, it could lead to the opposite occurring, a significant acceleration of this vital work.
Whether the region and the nation pull together and invest in our infrastructure needs will largely depend, of course, on the outcome of the Presidential and Congressional elections on November 4.
Barack Obama has indicated strong support for both short-term and long-term investments in infrastructure, and has endorsed the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank, a federal capital budget and other measures to finance new transportation benefits. The level of spending proposed by Obama will need to be ramped up, however, if we are to make even a dent in the nation's daunting transportation-, water- and energy-investment needs. For example, Obama's proposal to capitalize the national infrastructure bank at $60 billion over 10 years is less than the MTA alone will spend on its capital needs over that period.
John McCain has said little about infrastructure spending, other than his celebrated opposition to earmarks. He has strongly opposed investments in Amtrak and inter-city rail. We can presume that it would be difficult to advance the region's infrastructure agenda under a McCain administration.
In the end, no matter which candidate is elected, a concerted effort will be required to ensure that infrastructure funding is committed, and that it is allocated based on criteria that advance economic and environmental goals.
On May 27, 1929, Regional Plan Association released a monumental plan for New York and the surrounding metropolitan region of New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island and the Hudson Valley. The plan argued that for a region whose population would one day reach 20 million inhabitants, strategic investments must be made in "highways, communications, parks and parkways, land uses, bridges and tunnels, housing, airport facilities and other fields."
Only a few months later, financial havoc hit the markets and the United States tumbled into the Great Depression. At the time many critics observed that this was the worst possible time to be proposing what today would be a couple of hundred billion dollars in new investments for the New York Metropolitan Region.
As it turned out, however, it was the best time ever to be making these proposals, because when Franklin Roosevelt began the New Deal and its public works programs, the New York region was one of the few places in the country with plans and preliminary engineering in place for these investments. As a result, most of these projects were completed, over the next decade, financed largely by federal public works funding. (This process was likely also helped by the fact that RPA's Chairman was Frederic Delano, FDR's uncle.)
Now, in 2008, we find ourselves in similar circumstances. Through the collapse of the housing market and subsequent credit crunch, financial markets have stopped borrowing and lending. This does not simply affect the financial-services industry based on Wall Street. Small companies are losing the ability to pay their workers. Homeowners with strong credit cannot refinance their homes, which have lost almost 20% of their value in the past year. College-bound students cannot borrow money to pay their tuition. The circle grows wider and wider, capturing more citizens in a downward spiral.
Fortuitously, the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region has committed itself to perhaps the most ambitious plans for development, preservation and infrastructure since the 1930s. Redevelopment of major urban centers, including not only Lower Manhattan and the Far West Side, but also Downtown Brooklyn, Stamford, Newark and many others, hang in the balance. After ignoring investments in mass transit for two generations, the region has identified over $100 billion of new priority investments - including a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting the Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Terminal, and construction of the Second Avenue Subway - that will provide the capacity for generations of growth and prosperity. These development and infrastructure projects provide precisely the kind of economic stimulus that our region and nation need to get the economy moving - and the same strategies that helped us recover from the Great Depression.
When Congress opts to put more money into infrastructure, both as excellent long-term investment and as a way to dig the nation out of this recession, New York City and the region will have great projects ready to go, ready to be funded.
In fact, New York City has a history of taking big leaps forward in infrastructure construction that stretches back even further than the Great Depression, as curator Laura Rosen pointed out in a 1992 exhibition entitled Steel, Stone and Backbone (and as Streetsblog.org wrote about recently http://tinyurl.com/6ld9az). Rosen detailed how during six periods of financial hardship between 1837 and 1975, New York City built the Croton Water System, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum, the Harlem Ship Canal, the Lincoln Tunnel, LaGuardia Airport, Orchard Beach, the Triborough Bridge, the Independent subway system and other projects.
During these previous financial "panics," our public leaders recognized that bad times are actually a good time to do long-term planning and investing. It puts people to work and helps prepare a platform for future growth when the economy does recover.
Today is no different. As the city, region and nation gird themselves for hard times, they should make ready to invest in vital infrastructure needs, particularly in the tri-state metropolitan region. We are likely to be among the hardest hit by the latest financial panic, and helping us rebound will help the nation rebound, because we have an out-sized impact on the rest of the nation. We produce almost 10% of the United States' Gross Domestic Product with only 6% of the nation's population, living on less than 0.25% of the nation's land area. While politicians like to differentiate between Wall Street and Main Street, in reality distinctions are not that clear. In this region, for example, every financial services job is estimated to produce at least two other jobs.
There has been some concern that any coming recession may lead to a slowing of the region's vital infrastructure construction. But if we pull together as a region, and a nation, it could lead to the opposite occurring, a significant acceleration of this vital work.
Whether the region and the nation pull together and invest in our infrastructure needs will largely depend, of course, on the outcome of the Presidential and Congressional elections on November 4.
Barack Obama has indicated strong support for both short-term and long-term investments in infrastructure, and has endorsed the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank, a federal capital budget and other measures to finance new transportation benefits. The level of spending proposed by Obama will need to be ramped up, however, if we are to make even a dent in the nation's daunting transportation-, water- and energy-investment needs. For example, Obama's proposal to capitalize the national infrastructure bank at $60 billion over 10 years is less than the MTA alone will spend on its capital needs over that period.
John McCain has said little about infrastructure spending, other than his celebrated opposition to earmarks. He has strongly opposed investments in Amtrak and inter-city rail. We can presume that it would be difficult to advance the region's infrastructure agenda under a McCain administration.
In the end, no matter which candidate is elected, a concerted effort will be required to ensure that infrastructure funding is committed, and that it is allocated based on criteria that advance economic and environmental goals.
@RegionalPlan