Comments on: Cities: The Missing Presidential Campaign Issue*

By: Dr. Olaf Schnur

Dr. Olaf Schnur — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:33:00 +0000

Thank you for this interesting insight into US politicians’ lack of awareness according to the relevance of urban issues! I was quite surprised reading this. And I wonder what Obama will talk about, when he gives his speech in Berlin’s city center in these days… (well, I can imagine ). I’d just like to complement T.H. Culhane’s comment from my (German) perspective. You stressed the fact that in Europe urban issues would be much more promoted. Its definitely not my intention to glorify the successes of European or German urban politics (there would be loads of things to discuss here!), but this point for me is quite obvious. Indeed you can observe a growing focus on cities as a policy field both from the European and the (German) federal level. As you possibly know we have the so called Leipzig Charter (http://www.bmvbs.de/Anlage/original_998680/Leipzig-Charter-on-Sustainable-European-Cities-agreed-on-24-May-2007.pdf) on the European level and a National Urban Development Policy Program on the German federal level since 2007 (unfortunately I couldn’t find an English version of this program, here’s the German website: http://www.nationale-stadtentwicklungspolitik.de). I think these macro-level efforts are quite important to keep the typical structures and the heritage of our cities somehow in our mind, without getting too static or protective in single cases. This determined focus on urban issues will be crucial for further social challenges, if you only think about the expected demographic changes as an example. Of course those programs are quite young, so we have to see what’s going to happen with them in the next few years. But in my opinion this could be a step into the right direction, not only for European countries and cities.

By: T.H. Culhane

T.H. Culhane — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:05:00 +0000

I find your post to be one of the best arguments and important calls for a reframe of the issues and priorities that American political candidates should be focusing on that has been published anywhere. Thanks for saying what needs to be said. Looked at from overseas (Europe and the Middle East, where I live), where urban issues and the role of cities is foremost in almost everybody's mind given the way the built environment is burgeoning (particularly in developing countries like Egypt) it would seem that if America is to maintain any sort of image as a world leader, its leadership should be explicit about its understanding of the challenges of the new urbanism and the possible solutions, particularly since, as you point out, what we do in our growing and ever more consumptive cities has disporportionate global effects. Thanks again for a great read! Hope Obama puts you in his cabinet (along with Arnold and Al )!

By: randall crane

randall crane — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:17:00 +0000

From the "Where" blog, the post "The Urban President"