Policymakers urged to zero in on cities

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Nov 7, 2007 | by Suzanne Struglinski Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON -- Salt Lake City and other major metropolitan areas across the United States have the bulk of the nation's population and workers, and the federal government should consider those facts in developing economic policy, the Brookings Institution said Tuesday.

The director of Brookings' Metropolitan Policy Program urged the federal government -- and presidential candidates -- to look at education, infrastructure, housing, transportation and other problems that metropolitan areas face, because solving those issues is key to the nation's future.

"We ... need to change our mental map of the United States, from a union of 50 states to a network of 363 highly connected, hyper- linked and economically integrated metropolitan areas," said Bruce Katz, the Brookings program's director. "We are a metro nation. It is high time to start acting like one."

In the report, titled "Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation," Salt Lake City ranked 45th among the 100 metropolitan areas that make up 65 percent of the national population and concentrate the workers and firms that fuel the economy.

Based on 2005 employment statistics analyzed by Brookings, the Salt Lake metro area had about half of the state's jobs -- 614,482 - - with a population of just over 1 million people. The metro area's gross domestic product was $50.6 million, about 57 percent of the state's total.

The report also noted the Ogden-Clearfield metro area's 205,031 jobs; Provo-Orem with 178,785 jobs; St. George with 49,940 jobs; and the Logan metro area, which spills into Idaho, with 48,399 jobs.

All five of Utah's metro areas make up 91.5 percent of the state's gross domestic product and 88 percent of the state's population, according to the report.

But as these metropolitan areas grow, outdated federal rules can hinder progress, Katz said.

"A metro area can focus on building its economic strengths, but its economy is profoundly influenced by federal monetary, trade, regulatory and investment policies," Katz said. "At a time of great national challenge, where the stakes could not be higher, we need our federal government to be purposeful, deliberate, disciplined and cognizant of the new spatial realities in America."

Tuesday's report kicks off a series of studies that Brookings plans to produce, including one expected next year with more specific examples of how federal rules hold metro areas back from accomplishing better housing, transportation, education and other goals.

"Our federal government is mostly a legacy government, a collection of ossified agencies carrying out decades-old programs and policies through means and mechanisms suited to a pre-Internet world," Katz said. "As a result, our federal government is out of step with rapid change and is failing to leverage those assets that drive, secure and sustain prosperity."

E-mail: suzanne@desnews.coms