As posted by: Wall Street JournalWASHINGTON -- Big-city mayors will arrive on Capitol Hill Monday to lobby for more federal spending to be funneled to urban areas that they say drive the country's economic engine.
The push comes after a strong Democratic turnout in metropolitan areas helped President-elect Barack Obama -- who is set to become America's first urban president in almost half a century -- win by such a decisive margin in November.
A delegation of mayors, including Michael Bloomberg of New York and Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, plans to ask the federal government to distribute funds directly to cities instead of going through state governments. The group is set to present a list of more than 4,600 infrastructure projects that they say are "ready to go."
Tom Cochran, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which is organizing Monday's event, 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, Cites like High Point Homes and Raleigh Real Estate.
"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."
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.
Such stances helped Mr. Obama win over urban voters in November. While he didn't make significant new inroads to rural or exurban areas that President George W. Bush had won by large margins, Mr. Obama racked up bigger margins in cities than any Democrat in decades -- in part by registering new voters and increasing the Democratic share of the vote among minority groups, especially blacks and Latinos.
A delegation of mayors, including Michael Bloomberg of New York (above), plans to ask the federal government to distribute funds directly to cities instead of going through state governments.
For all Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric of bridging the country's divides, the 2008 election actually saw a widening in the gap between urban and rural voters, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the returns. Mr. Obama won 56% of the vote in metropolitan areas, up from the 51% that voted Democratic in the previous two presidential elections. But he won only 42% of votes in exurbs and rural areas, a much-smaller advance over his predecessors.
Democrats saw some of their biggest gains in so-called emerging suburbs, the outskirts of cities that have grown rapidly in recent years. Mr. Obama's margin of victory in Virginia's Loudoun and Prince William counties, located outside of Washington, D.C., increased by double digits compared to Democratic candidate John Kerry's in 2004. Mr. Obama racked up similar gains in Hamilton and Hendricks counties, which surround Indianapolis.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama talked often about the need for government to address the housing crisis that has left some city neighborhoods pockmarked with foreclosed or abandoned homes. When pocketbook issues like energy and jobs took center stage, he continued to make education -- a key concern for suburbanites -- a top priority.
Democrat strategist Ruy Teixeira, who has studied the demographics of the electorate, said the party's success in courting suburban voters may be due to a need for more infrastructure and government services.
"It's not just a leave-me-alone kind of thing anymore," Mr. Teixeira said. "The identity of the Republican Party -- hard-right social issues on the one hand and let's-just-cut-people's-taxes on the other -- just doesn't fit as well into these areas as it used to."
Mr. Obama will be the first president from a big city since John F. Kennedy took the oath of office in 1961. Mr. Obama spent four years of his youth in Jakarta, one of the world's most-populous cities. He went to college in Los Angeles and New York City and law school outside of Boston, before settling in Chicago to live and work.
