A thought for the next Democratic Federal Administration

Leapin' for Obama
Originally uploaded by Delta Niner

(From something I wrote on an email list)

Well, Obama lives in the City of Chicago and he must be familiar with density. I hope the connected types are trying to get decent people in his earshot.

Umm, I think we want to be sure that we don't get someone in as asst. secretary at HUD who was as terrible as the guy who spoke at the CNU in DC in what, 2003? Sure he had a hard act to follow in John Prescott, but he was pathetic, and many of us, at least 1/3 of the audience, walked out during his presentation.

HUD could become more than just housing and urban development, but planning-oriented, in an innovative way. Like the model codes from the Dept. of Commerce in the 1920s, there is a role for the federal govt. to play in encouraging quality sustainable land use and transportation planning, linking transportation and land use planning far more closely than is done today.

To use the example of Mitt Romney's Office of commonwealth development in Massachusetts, which linked I think four state agencies in more coordinated ways and provided incentives to local jurisdictions in return for their making better land use and transportation planning decisions, the US Departments of HUD, Commerce, Transportation, EPA, and Energy are a logical "cluster" that could be organized into a cluster of fellow traveling agencies and coordinated far more than is done today.

If somehow such coordinated planning and operations were the only accomplishment of the next administration, that would be an incredible accomplishment.

Note I am not saying that these agencies should be amalgamated. Size isn't better, as we all knew even before the Dept. of Homeland Security was created.

But coordinated, just like it's done in a city government, or in some states.