The New Metropolitan Agenda


CED proposes to undertake a project on "A New Metropolitan Agenda." This project will develop a set of recommendations for balanced economic, social, and fiscal development within metropolitan areas. This project, a sequel to CED's 1995 Rebuilding Inner City Communities, will focus on metropolitan reform in the context of larger regional initiatives. In spite of claims of urban revival in the 1990s, the dominant trend is still continued decentralization of jobs, middle-class families, and tax base from many central cities. In particular, low-density residential and commercial development has created severe workforce, housing, transportation, and environmental problems. In addition to the well-known environmental and social effects, suburban sprawl may have implications for the long-term competitiveness of businesses.

The new CED policy statement will lay out the problems and consequences of sprawl from a business perspective, and develop two distinct sets of recommendations. The first set of recommendations will outline a business-informed public policy agenda for metropolitan reform. The second set of recommendations will discuss strategic business decisions of individual firms that would offer a remedy to the ills of sprawl. Some American corporations are now playing an important role in addressing these issues in their individual corporate strategies and by acting collectively to change existing policies. CED's policy statement should be useful in mobilizing other businesses to join them.

This project will be chaired by Pres Kabacoff, President and Co-Chairman, Historic Restoration, Inc.