The Next 'Great Society' Will be Urban

"It is not surprising that urban politics trend left. Cities are more likely than suburbs or rural areas to be home to the people who are least comfortable in George W. Bush's America: racial minorities, gays and lesbians, immigrants, trade unionists, the working poor and the young professionals whose "new urbanist" homesteading has renewed downtowns from Providence to San Diego. Cities also have problems that are not solved by the free market in which conservatives place their blind faith: poverty, violence, decaying schools and NAFTA-battered industries. And at a time when more and more federal spending is being directed toward the military and tax cuts for the rich, old challenges are becoming new crises. Seventy-eight percent of mayors surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors reported increases in the number of requests for emergency shelter in 2004, and more than 80 percent said funding to meet the demand was lacking. The Bush Administration's assaults on funding for community development block grants and transportation and housing initiatives, as well as the additional burdens placed on urban schools by the No Child Left Behind Act, make the prospects for meeting urban needs more daunting than ever."