What should a domestic Marshall Plan/21st Century New Deal look like?

A number of Midwestern mayors wrote an op-ed published in the Washington Post, "Eight mayors: We need a Marshall Plan for Middle America," about the need for an economic revitalization program for their section of the Midwest, the Ohio River Valley.  

(After WWII, the Marshall Plan was launched as an economic revitalization program for the war torn nations of Europe.)

Making the point that the region is forecasted to lose 100,000 jobs in response to the decline of the fossil fuel industry--oil was first discovered in the US in Pennsylvania, and the region is a leading producer of coal and oil and natural gas by fracking.

From the article: 

According to our research, taking advantage of our community assets, geographic positioning and the strengths of our regional markets can help create over 400,000 jobs across the region by investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency upgrades to buildings, energy infrastructure and transportation assets.

Also see "There's no better time than a crisis to think big, industrial-state mayors argue," Crain's Cleveland Business.

Then again, there is a similar piece from 2009, by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, but more broadly focused on the Midwest.   

But as far as cities go, the issues of Midwestern cities like Youngstown or Pittsburgh aren't different from those of Baltimore or St. Louis, Stockton, California or Tacoma, Washington. 

In short, a domestic Marshall Plan/New Deal needs to be applied nationwide.

To me, the much derided "Green New Deal" should be one leg of such a program ("What Is the Green New Deal? A Climate Proposal, Explained," New York Times).  From the article: 

Introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, the proposal calls on the federal government to wean the United States from fossil fuels and curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. It also aims to guarantee new high-paying jobs in clean energy industries.

Hoover Dam, Nevada, constructed between 1931 and 1936.

Speaking of the New Deal, it's a much better example and perhaps more relatable than the Marshall Plan, because it was a US-centric program.

Certainly New Deal programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps, WPA, PWA, the Tennessee Valley Authority and rural electrification initiatives--not just creating the ability to deliver electricity to individual homes and businesses, but the building of hydroelectric facilities in the west like Hoover Dam and the creation of the Bonneville Power Authority demonstrate that the nation has been able to act in the face of great need.

Note that the categories below are not mutually exclusive. 

Reorganizing the federal government's approach to both cities and rural areas.  After the Obama election in 2008, I wrote about reorganizing HUD and related programs, recommending the transformation of the agency into a Department of Cities and Regions as a better way to focus on the needs of cities, and about reorganizing USDA and related agencies in a similar fashion as a better way to focus on rural needs beyond "growing more food."

-- "Metropolitan Revolution (book review)," 2013
-- "Resurging cities, resurging metros, the impoverished and the Metropolitan Revolution," 2013

Poverty, the precariat, neoliberalism and globalization. Neoliberalism--the idea that the market is always more successful than government action--might have been an okay paradigm if it hadn't been accompanied by a reduction in government supports simultaneous with an increase in economic and social vulnerability.   

Instead of developing new supports in order to help people succeed in a neoliberal economic environment marked by Social Darwinism--survival of the fittest, we reduced the availability overall, and didn't develop new approaches to match different and more difficult circumstances ("The dangers of a 'winner take all' economy," Maize Magazine).

In short, when people needed more help, we provided less.

Globalization has limited intra-national labor market protections, pushing down the value of labor in high wage countries like the US reset towards the prevailing wage in low cost countries--India, China, Mexico, etc.

Manufacturers either moved their operations overseas, to lower cost or non union areas within a nation,  and/or have significantly reduced wages, like how Caterpillar bought a locomotive manufacturing company from GM, closed the higher wage Canadian plant, relocated all production to a plant in Illinois, reduced wages across the board, and later threatened to relocate the plant to a Southern non union state ("Electro Motive Diesel considering leaving La Grange facility," West Cook News).  Boeing's been doing the same thing, moving production from high wage Metropolitan Seattle to nonunion states in the south and midwest ("Boeing to move 787 production to South Carolina in 2021," Reuters).

Outsourcing is a related phenomenon.  Companies reduced the number of direct jobs by contracting out various functions and the labor necessary to perform those functions.

Replacing labor with capital.  Plus replacing workers with capital--machines, equipment, computers, software applications, etc.--also reduces employment more generally and depending on the business sector, can reduce wage income for many, while improving outcomes for some.

For example, microcomputers have eliminated secretaries, spreadsheet software has eliminated bookkeepers and accountants, and a typical automobile manufacturing plant has one quarter of the number of employees compared to 1970.

It bugs me to no end when Republicans lambaste cities and Democrats for failure, when those failures have been produced by economic dislocation having zero to do with the decisions of locally elected officials.  (Book review, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor by William Julius Wilson, New York Times, 1996).

What to do?  To assist labor in such conditions, we should have done two things.  First, create a national health care system independent of employment.  Second, invest in education at all levels.  Not just traditional "book learning" but trades too (our plumber in DC makes as much money as good lawyers).  Retraining.  Self-improvement, etc.  All types.  And less expensive access to education too.  I don't know if that should mean "free."  (More about "free" education in another proposal.)

Components of a New New Deal/Domestic Marshall Plan

1.  Real national health care and a public health system.  The pandemic is further proof that the way we organize and deliver health care is flawed.  Tying health care to employment fails in recessions, when unemployment rises catastrophically.  

It's even worse when government makes decisions based on ideology and politics rather than on science, evidence, and need ("Blaming the victim vs. blaming the system: Federal officials blame pandemic deaths on poor health practices of individuals").

• Health care provision needs to be independent of employment.  Ironically, I thought that was going to happen in the late 1980s, because US manufacturers--especially Michigan based automakers, were less competitive relative to foreign firms because they provided health care and pensions to their employees, and their competitors did not.  
• Health care needs to be reorganized to focus on health and wellness, not just sickness.  This is true for both urban and rural areas.  So much of chronic disease is lifestyle related--a function of behavioral choices.  I've written about moving to a wellness paradigm in terms of cities ("Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River," "A glaring illustration of the need for comprehensive health and wellness planning in DC: Providence Hospital") but the principles are universal.  
• Health care needs to better integrate public health with health and wellness, not just sickness care.  This goes double for public health ("More communities need to integrate health care and public health programming").  The US response to the coronavirus has been a disaster is so many ways.
• A rural hospital network needs to be developed independent of the profit motive.  Even before the pandemic, rural hospitals were closing at a rapid rate ("Getting Health Care Was Already Tough In Rural Areas. The Pandemic Has Made It Worse," NPR).  Rather than let hospitals close, states and the federal government need to step in and create a rural health care system.  Pennsylvania ("EIGHT MORE HOSPITALS JOIN PA'S RURAL HEALTH MODEL" HealthLeaders, "Can we heal rural health? All eyes are on Pennsylvania’s bold experiment," Philadelphia Inquirer) and Mississippi ("What can Mississippi learn from Iran," New York Times) are examples where the states are addressing this.
• Urban health care networks may need to be backstopped also.  Hospitals are closing in major cities like Philadelphia ("Tower Health’s financial condition called ‘precarious’ in credit downgrade to ‘junk’ status," Philadelphia Inquirer), Baltimore, New York City, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. The pandemic has proved the need for slack resources.  But the health care financing system prioritizes efficiency and minimizing redundancy.  Providing extranormal financial support to keep urban hospitals open should be an option, but as part of a reconfigured and rearticulated health and wellness system ("On brink of disaster, Jackson turns profitable thanks to visionary CEO," Miami Herald, "More communities need to integrate health care and public health programming") .

2.  Responding to urban poverty.  I've written a bunch about equity planning, social urbanism, and new and integrated approaches to addressing multi-generational poverty in cities.  

Social urbanism is an approach, pioneered in Medellin, Colombia that invests in community infrastructure such as libraries, schools, parks, and transportation access as a way to (re)build social inclusion, public safety, and economic opportunity.

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017
-- "Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany," 2019
-- "Social urbanism and Baltimore," 2019
-- "Equity planning: an update," 2020
-- "Basic planning building blocks for "community" revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged," 2020
-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts," 2020
-- ""Utility" infrastructure as an opportunity for co-locating urban design and placemaking improvements," 2020

Co-location of programs and services should be a priority.

Slide from a presentation by David Barth and Carlos Perez.

3.  Investing in rural social infrastructure.  It happens that the field of community development is in part derived from the rural economic development function of agricultural extension programming ("Community development in America: A history," Sociological Practice).  I recognized in college that the work in community development is equally applicable to either rural and urban settings in most cases.

-- Downtown and Business District Market Analysis, University of Wisconsin Extension

Social "urbanism" isn't about urbanism so much as it is about investing in what sociologist Eric Klinenberg, in Palaces for the People, calls "social infrastructure," which are civic institutions like schools, libraries, parks, and other assets, complemented by programming.  This approach to community investment and reinvestment is equally relevant to rural areas.  

Although too often attitudes in rural areas, focused on "individualism" and fatalism when it comes to community and collective action can make this quite difficult ("In the land of self-defeat," New York Times).

4.  Urban and rural economic development.  Needs to focus on  entrepreneurship and business development, harvesting existing knowledge and material resources and transportation systems.  

A key element is leveragng higher education.  Spokane and Greensboro, North Carolina are great examples of how to do this ("Better leveraging higher education institutions in cities and counties: Greensboro; Spokane; Mesa; Phoenix; Montgomery County, Maryland; Washington, DC," 2016).

But it's not just any kind of education institution that has economic development potential ("Can a coal town reinvent itself?," New York Times, "Lessons from the CNN story on Allentown, Pennsylvania," 2020).  They have to be focused on productive outputs--engineering and technical colleges, scientific research, business development, etc.

And different forms of business including cooperatives and other forms of business organization that focus on keeping revenues and profits circulating locally.

For example, cooperative business ventures are a way to keep retail operating ("Economic development for small towns needs to include the development of cooperative stores," 2014; "The need for a new rural community cooperative movement," 2017) as populations shrink or in communities that have been abandoned by chain retail.

The multi-business Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland and the Push Buffalo and Green Worker Cooperatives in the Bronx energy conservation business cooperative are examples of business forms where the workers are owners.   The Mondragon Corporation group of over 250 worker cooperatives in the Basque Country of Spain is Spain's 10th largest corporation.  The National Co-operative Bank helps to fund cooperative enterprises.

But there needs to be a recognition that smaller communities in rural areas can be harder to help when it comes to economic development in the face of a more integrated world economy ("Small cities struggle," 2017).  

The Massachusetts approach to revitalizing "gateway cities," the once booming smaller cities across the state that had once been thriving manufacturing and business centers, which declined as industry consolidated and moved away, needs to be further developed and applied more widely. 

And there needs to be a change in business recruiting, which is often a race to the bottom in terms of tax incentives and competition between states and cities to land firms ("Tax incentives to attract businesses: Wisconsin's Foxconn debacle," 2020).  

5.  Investment in "Infrastructure."  The Trump Administration said it wanted to build infrastructure, although mostly it proposed loans, the sale of existing assets, and focusing on infrastructure with positive revenue streams ("Trump Administration Infrastructure Program Priority List," 2017). 

But even if the Trump Administration were serious (" How 'Infrastructure Week' Became a Long-Running Joke," New York Times), the anti-government, anti-investment philosophy of the Republican Party made such a program a long shot, because they completely uninterested in the government being a player in infrastructure investment..

But infrastructure shouldn't be seen as either a Republican or Democratic issue.  It just is.  And it's fundamental and foundational for economic success and growth.

While Oklahoma City is a "big city," it is in "flyover country," not coastal.  

Former Republican Mayor Mick Cornett's book, The Next American City: The Big Promise of Our Mid-Sized Metros, outlines a world class approach to a community social and economic infrastructure development program aimed at making the community better and more attractive for business and residential recruitment.  It demonstrates that urban success can happen anywhere and isn't limited to the East and West Coasts.

A domestic infrastructure program should address energy, roads, bridges, transit including ferries, ports, parks ("National Park Service delayed $11 billion in maintenance last year because of budget challenges," Washington Post) etc.

And unlike the Obama era ARRA ("Roads vs. transit and the stimulus package" and ""Chance" continues to favor the prepared road builders"), transportation projects should be multi-modal, whereas too often in the US, road projects fail to include transit, unlike in European countries like Denmark 

6.  Energy and climate change infrastructure.  The proposed Green New Deal is a way to position an infrastructure agenda for energy and climate change.  

The challenge is the investment in legacy fossil fuel production and consumption systems (including sprawl), and the (un)/willingness of legacy companies and governments to shift to new paradigms ("Petrostate vs. electrostate," Economist).

• Renewables are key.  
• Improving the resilience and capacity of the electricity grid.  
• Retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency.  
• There's a lot of discussion about the opportunity of "green hydrogen."  
• Transportation remains a ripe opportunity
• Dams and hydropower (last summer's collapse of dams in Mid-Michigan, leading to the flooding of Midland, is an example of under-investment and failed regulation)
• shifting from gasoline to electric and hydrogen powered vehicles ("California’s Ban on Gas Cars Could Go Nationwide — But Still Doesn’t Go Far Enough," New York Magazine/Curbed)

I am particularly intrigued by offshore wind power as a way to make electrification work.  For example, offshore wind off Maine is capable of generating 36x the state's current energy needs ("After Scotland Tour, Maine Hatches Offshore Floating Wind Turbines Plot," CleanTechnica).  Puerto Rico shouldn't be burning oil for electricity, but reaping renewable energy opportunities from the sea.  There are 20+ states with significant seacoast access.

(Better than e-vehicles are a shift to transit and other sustainable modes.)

7. Transit and transportation. There are so many opportunities. 

• Expanding urban transit systems, especially strengthening and extending connections between stations, major trip generators (like airports), bus system improvements including busways, etc.
• Expanding state and multi-state railroad and bus networks (Colorado's growing Bustang network is a model), with a focus on electrification of railroad passenger systems, powered by electricity generated from offshore wind.  (More on this later.  I've been strongly influenced by how railroad services are organized and delivered in Japan, and of course cities like London and Paris.)
• Shifting shorter range airplane travel to railroads.  
• Development of high speed rail passenger services.
• Freight railroad system improvements, especially as a way to "expand" capacity on Interstate freeways by shifting trips from trucks, and to support rural economic development
• Hydrogen fuel networks for long distance trucking.  
• Expansion of ferry and water taxi systems.  
• Opportunities at ports and inter-modal connections with railroads.  
• Canals and barges.
• Metropolitan scale bikeway networks, bicycle parking systems, payroll deduction and loan programs to buy bicycles, and active programming to shift people from the car to the bike
• promotion of e-bikes as a way to support longer distance bike commuting
• Implementing Signature Street urban design programs ("Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces""), low traffic neighborhoods, and pedestrianized districts ("Why doesn't every big city in North America have its own Las Ramblas?" and "Diversity Plaza, Queens, a pedestrian exclusive block") in cities

8.  Water and sewerage system improvements. Many rural and urban water systems face massive upgrade costs to improve water quality and reduce stormwater and sewage discharges into rivers and lakes.  The GAO estimates more than $600 billion in needs over the next 20 years, while the American Society of Civil Engineers says over $1 Trillion over 25 years.

9.  TOD and affordable housing.  Transit oriented development builds higher density mixed use housing and other uses at transit stations.  This encourages transit use and reduces car trips.

Not only is there tremendous demand for new social housing as population continues to grow, as well as a greater diversity of housing types, including Single Room Occupancy, housing the homeless, etc., there is a tremendous backlog of maintenance needs for existing public housing, over $30 billion ("Fixing Public Housing: A Day Inside a $32 Billion Problem," New York Times).

In return for funding, communities should be required to agree to higher density.

Maybe a national program to help finance a wider scale creation of accessory dwelling units in cities.

10.  Broadband/Community broadband.  The pandemic and shift to online schooling has made very clear the existence of a digital divide in both urban ("What the coronavirus reveals about the digital divide between schools and communities," Brookings, "“The cruel irony of the digital divide” in Colorado: Urban poor are left behind even as access, technology improves," Colorado Sun) and rural ("No signal: Internet ‘dead zones’ cut rural students off from virtual classes.," NYT) areas.  

Plus rural areas need faster Internet access to support economic development.

It's possible to create community broadband networks to make signal more widely available, usually involving a mix of public and private resources ("The Dos and Don'ts of Community Broadband Network Planning," Government Technology,).

Relatedly, this Wall Street Journal article,  "Private 5G Networks Are Bringing Bandwidth Where Carriers Aren’t," discusses how businesses are creating their own private 5G networks to cover facilities at a cost as low as $5,000.

It's can be harder to do in rural areas, but still eminently possible, through electricity providers, municipalities, states ("Internet network set to beam into Md.’s rural areas won’t help students this fall," Washington Post), and other entities.  

Cities and nonprofits can seed such systems in lower income communities in urban areas ("Building the People’s Internet," Urban Omnibus).

-- Community Broadband Networks, Institute for Local Self Reliance