From the Ground Up

As my final blog for the semester, I would like to draw attention to this article that I found today from the Christian Science Monitor. I don't normally read this publication, but its message is hard to ignore given the topic of our last paper. The mostly Latino residents of East L.A. are working from the ground up to establish their community as its own city. Consider this:

"We're gathering signatures to make East L.A. into a city of its own," he tells one woman at a small house just off Cesar Chavez Blvd., named for the leader of the Chicano rights movement of the early 1960s. "We don't have a mayor or city council, so when the community goes to the state capital or Washington to bring back money, nobody is out there fighting for us."

Sound familiar? Of course, they are not taking an us vs. them approach to reaching their goal.

"Latinos are finding they need to rethink city and regional government because they finally have a seat at the table and have realized the table only has three legs," says Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, an L.A.-based Latino policy think tank, and of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. "California is the test tube of America at the leading edge of demographic change. It's like a teaching college for the rest of the country."

By working with policy makers that have an eye for their interests, the East L.A. residents finally feel that their time is due. But they aren't trying to do it alone.

"If East L.A. decides to go ahead and incorporate, it would be a great model for many historically underserved communities," says Phoebe Seaton, program director of the Community Equity Initiative of California Rural Legal Assistance, a project examining infrastructure inequality among 220 unincorporated Latino communities in the state's Central Valley.

"More than 33 years after the last attempt, the political path for East Los Angeles cityhood appears to be more favorable," says Hogen-Esch. "It may be that this time around, widespread community and political support will finally trump economic fears. If so, look out Harlem – here comes East L.A."

It's a great model for showing that change can be effected from the ground up. And for the first time, community residents don't feel like federal policy is holding them back. Power to the people!

Learning from the World

US leaders would do well to check out what's happening across the globe. I came across this article today from Singapore discussing how Regional Governance can help countries overcome financial crisis. Singapore's Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo stated his beliefs that this is true in a speech at the Bali Democracy Forum on Wednesday.

The article states that he used Singapore as an example to illustrate how the government takes a pragmatic approach when it comes to democracy and things like protecting minority rights, and the rule of law. He also called on countries to make realistic adjustments to improve global governance.

He went on to say that The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN is improving regional governance through adoption of the ASEAN Charter, which will begin its implementation next week when foreign ministers meet in Jakarta.

From what I could best tell from the document, the most direct language in the Charter is this, located in the "preamble":

"Committed to intensifying community building through enhanced regional cooperation and integration..."

Ever think we might see charters such as this pop up among states? What about counties... or even cities for that matter? Supposedly we shouldn't need them, but how else can we expect to effect change through regional governance without them? Or at least without some federal mandate calling for them? I think we have a long ways to go...

Regional Governance on the horizon?

Stumbled across this article today from the Wall Street Journal. It seems as though President-elect Obama has a different way of viewing things than his predecessors.

Tom Cochran, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the next administration has signaled that it will coordinate financing for projects for an entire metropolitan area instead of dealing with cities and suburbs separately.

"I am of the opinion, based on our conversations with President-elect Obama, that he gets it," said Mr. Cochran. "You can't just have a transportation system that stops at the city line."

What a concept! City mayors from across the US are heading to Washington to lobby for funds to come directly to them, rather than state government. I need to do some more research, but I wonder what the spending restrictions will be - if there are any at all.

Anyway... here was the next cool part of the article:

"Mr. Obama's transition office is drawing up plans to create a White House office on urban policy, which would report directly to the president, to coordinate funding for cities from different federal agencies. Mr. Obama has pledged to provide new funding for job training, education and grants for local governments and organizations."

So cool, huh? In the arts sector we've been pushing for a White House office on the arts for years. Finally urban policy is getting its due. I don't think it's too late, but they certainly have their work cut out for them.