Last week, Manhattan Institute Scholar Heather Mac Donald wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post calling out Senator Obama for failing to embrace "accountable, data-driven policing" in outlining his urban agenda to the U.S. Conference of Mayors last month.  Ms. Mac Donald cites such policing as one of the primary reasons for New York City's comeback in the 1990s. (Data-driven policing seems awfully like racial profiling, to me.  Oh yeah, Ms. Mac Donald wrote "The Myth of Racial Profiling" a few years back.)

Last Wednesday, I saw John Edwards speak at the Yorkville Common Pantry, a food pantry and soup kitchen in Harlem.  After walking into the building, I found myself in the back of a small press conference, just a few feet from Edwards.  The beginning of the press conference started out as expected -- he talked about Half in Ten, his anti-poverty campaign to reduce poverty in America by half within the next ten years, and praised the food pantry for their work in New York City.  But after his five minute speech, when it was time for questions from the press, the subject quickly turned away from poverty.

Although Edwards tried his best to talk about poverty, the press just didn't seem to care.  Instead, their questions focused almost exclusively on the presidential campaign.  If Obama offers you a position as attorney general, will you take it?  Is it mere coincidence that you're in New York City within 48 hours of Obama and Clinton's joint appearance here?  Do you think that Obama is moving towards the center, and do you support that?

Senators Obama and McCain plod along through political realignments, off-the-cuff slips of true feelings, and downright "disgraceful" remarks.  Congress balks at upholding even the most basic civil liberties, procrastinates on housing legislation, and puffs its chest with short-term fixes to a long-term oil problem.

Do you like what you see?

The U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting kicked off in Miami today with workshops on digital literacy, women mayors, and, yes, catastrophic storm recovery tools to replace downed trees.  The Conference sets the mayors’ collective policy agenda and is an effort both to attract national attention to urban issues and to encourage federal policymakers to develop a national urban agenda.

Senator Obama has agreed to address the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami later this month.  But will Senator McCain accept his invitation?

"when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy.  A sidewalk is a symbol of equality." - Mayor Enrique Peñalosa

Suburban living embodies the compartmentalized, modernist understanding of man and nature. When we consider a suburban dwelling, we often see it in isolation from its social, physical, and environmental surroundings. Each house is a world unto itself complete with the symbolic markers of "nature" and the creature comforts of "civilization." Suburban living minimizes random encounters with other people and with nature. All aspects of life occur in private whenever possible (including transportation.)  Despite the superficial trappings of greenery, the suburban environment is sealed of from nature, both in its wild and urban incarnations.

"The presidential candidates should shoot straight.  Cities are the key."

"We need to imagine just what a clean, safe, efficient, dynamic, stimulating, just city would look like concretely – we need those images to confront critically our masters with what they should be doing – and just this critical imagination of the city is weak."
                       
– Richard Sennett, "The Open City"

City dwellers and rural citizens share something in common.

The other day atrios linked to this

Some suburbanites might not easily understand what has made John and Flossie Gallagher stay in their Harper Street rowhouse for more than 40 years. Or why 30-year resident Pat Hill spends a good part of her time tending the corner garden oasis she and other volunteers rescued from "dump" status.

They might understand why the Gallaghers and Hill have stuck it out, but it would be harder to comprehend why Suzi Nash or Kendra Gaeta or Matt Wanamaker or Evelyn Sheared - all of whom are young enough to be my children - would choose to live in a rowhouse neighborhood where nonresidents think it's OK to relieve themselves wherever they choose.

...

City living isn't easy. It never has been.

and atrios commented:

I think it's pretty easy. Obviously some neighborhoods are more problematic than others, but still.

Gas prices are rising and the politicians are worked up into a tizzy.  John McCain and Hillary Clinton want to defund the Highway Trust Fund to create a temporary gas tax cuts.  Barack Obama wants to invest in alternative fuel.  Everyone is wagging their fingers at the evil oil companies for the rising prices.

I won’t defend oil companies anymore than I will defend the New York Yankees but I have no patience for hang-wringing over gas prices.  Frankly they need to go higher.  I don’t give a good God damn about the single mothers or college student the politicians will drag up on stage in a pathetic attempt to humanize a problem that is our own fault and no politician dares to offer a real solution.

Philadelphia Mayor Nutter and MayorTV challenged the presidential candidates to talk about urban issues in Pennsylvania.  They balked.

The following diary has been written by Ms AAF, who is currently going through her post-grad psychology master and has little time to squander on the tubes (though she patrols this site and mine) and having read her latest essay, which fits nicely with today's world food crisis, I have persuaded her to let me post it here, unabridged and link-less. Be gentle or I won't be allowed back into the house!

The developed nations of the North, and especially the USA, as the biggest economy in the world, directly and through the institutions under their control, have dominated the world economy in the 20th century. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, the poor neighbors/cousins of the USA. Latin American cities in the 20th century developed along the lines of the North American model of a high-priced downtown business district and sprawling suburbs. Due to this sprawled layout, North American cities themselves are largely car-dependent, although here the affordability of modern technology leads to the pollution being less intensely felt by the cities' inhabitants.

Or perhaps I'm an embittered one because I write about soaring food prices, organic farming vs the evils of Monsanto, impending catastrophes like a global shortage of water, the inanities and futility of wars so yes, I suppose I am an elitist since I care about our planet, as does the Senator from Illinois. The news we get in Europe from the US Primaries are somewhat farcical and anathema to our own expeditious political system: we elect a new head of State within weeks, not years. I would be the first one to concede that it may not be the best system either (look at the Italians, they've returned the gangster to power), but then again we don't have that much time to dwell on the avalanche of moronic pronouncements from the wingnuts ad infinitum. Ignore the clamoring repukes, elect Obama and get on with it. We are all elitists and proud to be!

As a fellow elitist, I'd like to report some news on the bees and the scent of flowers and why it's important politicians worldwide should take global warming seriously, not just paying lip service as many seem to do.

Fiction has its advantages over reality.  Fiction, writes Mark Bowden in the Atlantic Monthly, "...frees you from the infuriating unfinishedness of the real world. For this reason, the very clarity of well-wrought fiction can sometimes make it feel more real than reality."  David Simon, the producer and creator of the HBO series The Wire, has created this kind of larger-than-life fiction in this television show about the urban realities of the city of Baltimore.  By delving into the gritty details of the city's characters, institutions, government, and culture, Simon paints what several have called a Dickensian portrait of the urban narratives of the city.  Simon, by creating his own fictional urban vision, has illuminated many of the problems facing reality.

Housing subdivision near Union, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. Image from the Wikipedia.



Image from an advertisement for LG washers and dryers published in "House Beautiful" magazine in 2007.

One of the advantages to urban living is the opportunity to own (and hence throw away) much less stuff.

I'm certain some of you can relate to this:

I drive about 20 miles to my office, which is located by the side of a freeway in a suburban "edge city." I sometimes walk to a sub shop for lunch, but it's an arduous slog along busy four lane streets that sometimes have sidewalks, and sometimes don't. To get just about anywhere from my office requires another car trip.
Next Car Debate: Total Miles Driven The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2008