Senator Barack Obama Addresses U.S. Conference of Mayors; Calls for Renewed Dedication to Cities

This is something of a homecoming for me. Because while I stand here today as a candidate for President of the United States, I will never forget that the most important experience in my life came when I was doing what you do each day-working at the local level to bring about change in our communities...

...It's precisely because you're on the frontlines in our communities that you know what happens when Washington fails to do its job. It may be easy for some in Washington to remain out of touch with the consequences of the decisions that are made there, but not you.

You know what happens when Washington puts out economic policies that work for Wall Street but not Main Street, because it's your towns and cities that get hit when factories close their doors, and workers lose their jobs, and families lose their homes because of an unscrupulous lender...

...You know what happens when Washington listens to big oil and gas companies and blocks real energy reform, because it's your budgets that are being pinched by high energy costs, and your schools that are cutting back on textbooks to keep their buses running. It's the lots in your towns and cities that are brownfields.

Now, despite the absence of leadership in Washington, we're actually seeing a rebirth in many places. I'm thinking of my friend Rich Daley, who's made a deep and lasting difference in the quality of life for millions of Chicagoans. I'm thinking of Mayor Cownie, who's working to make his city green; Mayor Bloomberg, who's fighting to turn around the nation's largest school system; Mayor Rybak, who's done an extraordinary job helping the Twin Cities recover from the bridge collapse last year; and so many other mayors around this country, who are finding new ways to lift up their communities.

But you shouldn't be interested in succeeding despite Washington-you should be succeeding with a hand from Washington. Neglect is not a policy for America's metropolitan areas. It's time City Hall had someone in the White House you could count on the way so many Americans count on you...

...The truth is, what our cities need isn't just a partner. What you need is a partner who knows that the old way of looking at our cities just won't do, who knows that our nation and our cities are undergoing a historic transformation. The change that's taking place today is as great as any we've seen in more than a century, since the time when cities grew upward and outward with immigrants escaping poverty, tyranny, and misery abroad. Our population has grown by tens of millions in the past few decades, and it's projected to grow nearly 50 percent more in the decades to come. And this growth isn't just confined to our cities; it's happening in our suburbs, exurbs, and throughout our metropolitan areas.

This is creating new pressures, but it's also opening up new opportunities-because it's not just our cities that are hotbeds of innovation anymore, it's those growing metro areas. It's not just Durham or Raleigh-it's the entire Research Triangle. It's not just Palo Alto-it's cities up and down Silicon Valley. The top 100 metro areas generate two-thirds of our jobs, nearly 80 percent of patents, and handle 75 percent of all seaport tonnage through ports like the one here in Miami. In fact, 42 of our metro areas now rank among the world's 100 largest economies.

To seize the possibility of this moment, we need to promote strong cities as the backbone of regional growth. And yet, Washington remains trapped in an earlier era, wedded to an outdated "urban" agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities and ignores our growing metro areas-an agenda that confuses anti-poverty policy with a metropolitan strategy, and ends up hurting both...

...The stakes could not be higher. Our children will grow up competing with children in Beijing and Bangalore and Berlin. And make no mistake-their governments are doing everything they can to give their countries an edge by investing in regional growth. As Bruce Katz of Brookings has pointed out, China is developing an advanced network of ports and freight hubs, and an advanced network of universities modeled after our own. And Germany has launched rail and telecom projects to bind its major metro areas more closely together. Other governments are aggressively pursuing strategies to unlock the potential of their metro areas. To compete and win in our global economy, we have to show the same kind of leadership.

There's no better place to start than by investing in the clusters of growth and innovation that are springing up across this country. Because what we've found, time and time again, is that when we take the different assets that are scattered throughout our economies-whether it's a skilled workforce or leading firms or institutions of higher education-and bring them all together so they can learn from one another and share ideas, you get the kind of creative thinking that doesn't come in isolation.

And that can lead to more innovation, entrepreneurship, and real economic benefits like new jobs and higher wages. That's what happened in Pennsylvania, where something called Keystone Innovation Zones have led to the formation of nearly 200 new companies. And that's why, in my administration, we'll offer $200 million a year in competitive matching grants for state and local governments to plan and grow regional economies-because when it's working together, the sum of a metro area can be greater than its parts.

And we won't just unlock the potential of our individual regions; we'll unlock the potential of all our regions by connecting them with a 21st century infrastructure. You know why this is so important. You see the traffic along I-95 in Miami. You see the crumbling roads and bridges, the aging water and sewer pipes, the faltering electrical grids that cost us billions in blackouts, repairs, and travel delays. It's gotten so bad that the American Society of Civil Engineers gave our national infrastructure a "D." And it's no wonder, because we're spending less on our infrastructure than at any time in the modern era.

This is putting enormous pressure on the Highway Trust Fund, which can no longer keep up with all the repairs that have to be made. Yet Senator McCain is actually proposing a gas tax gimmick that would take $3 billion a month out of the Highway Trust Fund and hand it over to the oil companies. Well, at a time when the Highway Trust Fund is beginning to run a deficit for the first time in history, I think that's the last thing we can afford to do.

And just the other day, Senator McCain traveled to Iowa to express his sympathies for the victims of the recent flooding. I'm sure they appreciated the sentiment, but they probably would have appreciated it more if he hadn't voted against funding for levees and flood control programs, which he seems to consider pork. Well, we do have to reform budget earmarks, cut genuine pork, and dispense with unnecessary spending, as we confront a budget crisis left by the most fiscally irresponsible administration in modern times.

But when it comes to rebuilding America's essential but crumbling infrastructure, we need to do more, not less. Cities across the Midwest are underwater right now, or courting disaster-not just because of the weather, but because we've failed to protect them. Maintaining our levees and dams isn't pork barrel spending-it's an urgent priority, and that's what we'll do when I'm President. I'll also launch a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years and create nearly two million new jobs. The work will be determined by what will maximize our safety, security, and shared prosperity. Instead of building bridges to nowhere, let's build communities that meet the needs and reflect the dreams of our families. That's what this bank will help us do...

...Let's invest that money in a world-class transit system. Let's re-commit federal dollars to strengthen mass transit and reform our tax code to give folks a reason to take the bus instead of driving to work, because investing in mass transit helps make metro areas more livable and can help our regional economies grow. And while we're at it, we'll partner with our mayors to invest in green energy technology and ensure that your buses and buildings are energy efficient. And we'll also invest in our ports, roads, and high-speed rails, because I don't want to see the fastest train in the world built halfway around the world in Shanghai; I want to see it built right here in the United States of America...

...Now is not the time for small plans. Now is the time for bold action to rebuild and renew America. We've done this before. Two hundred years ago, in 1808, Thomas Jefferson oversaw an infrastructure plan that envisioned the Homestead Act, the transcontinental railroads, and the Erie Canal. One hundred years later, in 1908, Teddy Roosevelt called together leaders from business and government to develop a plan for a 20th century infrastructure. Today, in 2008, it falls on us to take this call again, to re-imagine America's landscape and remake America's future...

...That's where change begins. That's how we'll bring about change in our neighborhoods. And if change comes to our neighborhoods, then change will come to our cities. And if change comes to our cities, then change will come to our regions. And if change comes to our regions, then I truly believe change will come to every corner of this country we love...

...I promise you this: we will not only rebuild and renew our American cities, north and south, east and west, but you and I-together-will rebuild and renew the promise of America.