Urban Policy

The Jan. 31 Opinion article by Bill Fulton on urban policy offers only partial and one-sided advice to new Secretaries Henry Cisneros (HUD) and Federico Pena (transportation).

Fulton correctly pinpoints the new transportation dollars as critical implementing levers for urban policy initiatives, but he then resurrects worn-out concepts of “suburbs” to support the case for inner-city investment to the implied neglect of outer-city needs.

The point is that the so-called “central city” contains only a small portion of the population and jobs of our Southern California region, and “suburbs,” as we knew them in past decades, no longer exist. The evolving world city contains scores of urban centers that cluster in a dozen or more constellations to form semi-independent metropolises. Forecasts call for continuing rapid growth in these outer metropolises in the decades ahead.

Urban policy, therefore, must treat not only the extreme needs in the inner city, but also must manage investments in the outer metropolises so as to ensure opportunity for all (including present inner-city residents) to access outer area housing, jobs and education. This could occur by requiring a better balance of affordable housing and jobs as a condition of federal infrastructure funding.

A combination of “inner-city” and “outer-city” policies will be necessary to address the social, economic and environmental challenges we face and to realize our possibilities as the preeminent world city of the Pacific Rim.

FRANK E. HOTCHKISS, AIA

Laguna Niguel