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The Planetizen News Brief - 12/11/08

11 December 2008 - 5:00am
Smart City Radio

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

Full Transcript

City budgets are in the dumps as the economic recession continues to affect cities all over the world. In these tough times, cities are looking around for ways to bring in some extra cash. The city of Chicago recently brought in some much-needed money when it secured a deal with a private company called Chicago Parking Meters to lease the management of the city’s parking meters. It’s a 75-year contract that will add more than a billion dollars upfront into the city’s budget. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, about half of the money generated by this deal will go towards stabilizing the city’s finances and balancing the budget through 2012. In 2007, the parking meters in the city provided a net income of about $19 million, but that was at the current rate of 25 cents per hour at most meters. The rates for those meters will quadruple to a dollar an hour next year. With this increase, the parking meter deal stands to be quite lucrative for the private company. But while some citizens may be upset about the rise in prices, others are hopeful that the increases and the privatization will cause people to think twice about driving into downtown.

And as Chicago basks in the fiscal glory of its billion-dollar parking deal, other cities across the nation are finding little relief to get them through the economic downturn. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program is up and running, but many cities on the receiving end of those bailout grants are left wanting a lot more. According to another article in the Wall Street Journal, the distribution of funds has perplexed many cities, with some areas receiving significantly more money for problems that pale in comparison to the problems of other places. The state of Florida, for example, received $541 million from the federal government, while California -- with twice as many foreclosures -- received $529 million. To implement the stabilization program, HUD has been doling out money at the state-, county-, and city- levels, offering big grants to cities like L.A. and Pittsburgh, and also to many states. But some of the hard-hit cities within those states were overlooked by HUD when funds were being distributed. These places will have to rely on their states to hand out the money they need to try to salvage their foreclosure-ridden communities. But with little funding to go out and a long way for it to spread, many cities are left to question how helpful the federal stabilization program can really be.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

Chicago Privatizes Parking

Cities Struggling to Work With Stabilization Funds

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In short, we’ve seen the last of the cheap oil on which we’ve built our economy, our communities, and our daily lives.
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