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Urban Affairs and the White House: An Interview with Adolfo Carrion, Jr. - Part Two

12 October 2009 - 5:00am
Adolfo Carrion, Jr.

Planetizen interviews Adolfo Carrion, Jr. He is the first director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs, established earlier this year. The office is tasked with devising a national strategy for urban areas and regions. In this second part of a two-part interview, Carrion talks about about the federal government's new role in urban policy and the importance of regional planning.

Planetizen Assistant Editor Nate Berg sat down with Carrion in Washington D.C. on October 6 to discuss the federal role in the urban planning of America, the interdepartmental collaboration within the Obama administration, and the relationship between America's urban and rural areas. This interview was conducted at "Open Cities: New Media's Role in Shaping Urban Policy", a conference hosted by Next American City and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

The transcript of this discussion is below. The first part of this interview and the rest of the transcript are also available.

Transcript

Planetizen: So it's been touted a lot that the department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation are going to be working more closely under this administration. What role do you see your office playing in that dialog? And, maybe the million dollar question, what's first on your list of things to tackle?

Carrion: One of the first things we've undertaken is this sustainable communities initiative. And essentially it's encouraging transit oriented development, it's investing that transportation dollar with a housing dollar in a way that places people close to mass transit, close to work, in walkable communities, that attract business because the concentration of people are there, it just makes sense. And of course the environmental gains are obvious. When people are spread out over large spaces, there are inefficiencies built into that, and the reverse is true. Let alone that when we do build new housing it should be environmentally-friendly materials and it should have as little impact on the environment as possible, so we have in that partnership DOT, HUD, and EPA, and EPA is applying some very interesting solutions in this area.

How do we do it? We convene the working groups. HUD, DOT and EPA are off and running. They don't need any encouragement right now. In fact, they are really a model for how to create these collaborations and make investments that have a larger return. Once in a while you get the story of a bridge to nowhere or a highway that's going out to a sparse area -- like a certain highway in Texas that will remain nameless – and, you know, you can see that what went into that decision was not efficiency, innovation and the highest return on investment, but what went into that decision was how can we get this done as quickly as possible, and probably there were some political considerations about in whose district this was built.

What we want to get to is, we want to get to build a stronger representative congress that is making investments that make sense. They're our partners in governing this country and so that's what were aiming towards. The voter, in the end, should look at who the players are and say 'does my representative understand these issues? Does my representative represent that group of elected officials that's pushing this forward, or are they an obstacle?' And so that the political currency shifts away from just get something done because it's going to create six jobs, to what's the highest impact certainly beyond my tenure as an elected official. What's good for the people, what's good for the country over the long haul.

Planetizen: Well I think it's one thing to convince congressional representatives that they should think beyond heir specific districts and what's going to get them reelected, but I think it's another thing to put that onus on the people themselves to find importance in these issues, to understand that how my community develops really is going to affect a broader metropolitan region and how can we all work together. What do you think is the best way to get that message across to the American people?

Carrion: This is cultural shift that has to take place, that we're all a part of now. There is a larger appetite and a larger understanding of the shared destiny and the connectedness. It's come to us through the environmental movement, it's come to us through some other public health issues that have demonstrated that we're all interconnected, and that whether it happens in a suburb or in a city, that doesn't mean that it's not going to impact you.

I think that part of the challenge that we face -- and it's entirely appropriate that this interview is in the shadow of just speaking to the new media folks here -- what part of it is transparent, collaborative, participatory government, a broader conversation?

And that's why were out there, talking to not only mayors, council people, state officials, governors, but we're holding town hall meetings and community forums where we bring people together and invite them to talk about what makes sense in Flagstaff. You're landlocked, You're about 70,000, 65,000 people, how do you grow? You've got some affordability issues. You've got some really smart, interesting, innovative stuff you're doing on energy and environmental stuff, but how do you grow the city? And so everybody was part of the conversation. Maybe we should consider vertical growth, and maybe that's more sustainable, so we're really an environmental champion as a city, and we want to be a model for the country. We need to go up. And that's also obviously a shift in the way we envision ourselves in terms of succeeding.

The success for the American family has always been a little patch of green in a house with a pool in the back and a parking pad in the front and a cushion of space around you for privacy. The city is such a dynamic and interesting place, and I think that cultural shift is already taking place. Young people are going back to cities their parents have left and saying 'I value access to my workplace. Give me a decent park. Give me a safe neighborhood. Give me entertainment and good restaurants and all these other valuable things.'

So I think the American psyche is starting to shift somewhat. It doesn't mean that there should be a conflict between rural living and the values and the beauty of that and the tradition, and urban living. And that we can each value each other and we're in this together.

And, for instance, I went apple picking, and I know this is way off, but this past weekend, and here I go, I leave D.C. and in a half hour, 45 minutes, I'm in the hills of Virginia, approaching West Virginia in an hour, and horse country and beautiful farms in an hour and change. But I'm a city dweller. And my kids and I have access to that. And those folks out there have access to what ought to be a healthy, safe, interesting city. And there is an important relationship there that we want to sustain.

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The first part of this discussion and the rest of the transcript are also available.

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