I was recently going through some articles I had saved, and came across an op-ed piece that Deyan Sudjic, architectural writer and director of the Design Museum in the UK, had published in the Guardian newspaper on March 8,2008. The op-ed piece was about the continuing movement of the world's population to cities, but I was most struck by two tangential statements Sudjic made about the nature of cities and those who govern them:
"A city is an a la carte menu. That is what makes it different from a village, which has little room for tolerance or difference. And a great city is one in which as many people as possible can make the widest choices from its menu."
"Politicians love cranes; they need solutions within the time frames of elections and cranes deliver them. But there are only a limited number of problems that are susceptible to this kind of time scale."
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The last stimulus package: 1992
After having the book in my possession for almost 8 years, I finally got around to reading The Future Once Happened Here, Fred Siegel's 1997 survey of social service politics and the fates of NYC, D.C., and LA since the New Deal. Near the end of the book I came across the following passages relating to the federal stimulus package that was contemplated as a means of extracting us from the last major economic recession:
"A jubilant [Mayor David] Dinkins, his own 1993 reelection possibilities seemingly enhanced by Clinton's 1992 victory, waited less than a half day after the election before sending off a twenty-page wish list to the guy going to the White House. He asked for help with everything from infrastructure to the arts...Clinton was never able to give New York much. The president's proposed $19.5 billion stimulus program, based largely on the U.S. Conference of Mayors' 'ready to go' construction and infrastructure projects, was soundly defeated even though the Democrats controlled both houses of congress."
This bit of history gave me some pause. I hope it is not a preview of the fate of the much discussed stimulus package of 2009.
"A jubilant [Mayor David] Dinkins, his own 1993 reelection possibilities seemingly enhanced by Clinton's 1992 victory, waited less than a half day after the election before sending off a twenty-page wish list to the guy going to the White House. He asked for help with everything from infrastructure to the arts...Clinton was never able to give New York much. The president's proposed $19.5 billion stimulus program, based largely on the U.S. Conference of Mayors' 'ready to go' construction and infrastructure projects, was soundly defeated even though the Democrats controlled both houses of congress."
This bit of history gave me some pause. I hope it is not a preview of the fate of the much discussed stimulus package of 2009.
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