(00:00:00) Minnesota especially the Twin Cities has long prided itself on its quality of life the weather May get fairly brutal from time to time. But otherwise, this is a great place to live at least that's the common sentiment you here, but some critics suggest that all is not so Rosy anymore Twin Cities metropolitan area for example is thought to be one of the most racially and economically segregated areas in the nation and critics argue that eventually this concentration of poverty will not only Doom the central cities of Minneapolis and st. Paul but drag down the suburbs as well. There have been efforts at the legislature to deal with this issue to open up the outer ring suburbs to the poor by making affordable housing available in the suburbs, but those plans have run into stiff opposition from Suburban legislators and yesterday for the second straight year Governor Arne Carlson vetoed an affordable housing bill. Today. We're going to spend the hour taking a look at this issue and what if anything should be done about it our guests here in the studio is David Ruskin former mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico Who suggest that one way to help the city's is essentially by eliminating the suburbs Russell wrote a book last year called cities without suburbs that is getting a lot of national attention and he's in the Twin Cities to speak at the University of st. Thomas has town and gown Forum this evening. Also joining us by satellite is another former mayor former st. Paul Mayor George Latimer who is now a top official with a Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington mayor's Rusk Latimer. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Gary. Appreciate it David Ross go now somewhere in one of the Articles you wrote you characterize the Twin City area as being infected. Now, what did that mean? What (00:01:40) is I think that you've had a history of quite strong and viable Central cities here Minneapolis. And st. Paul have been through most of these decades since World War Two a livable communities. They've been economically very viable, Minneapolis. Still is the the only city in the country, which has not been able to expand its boundaries which still maintains a Triple-A credit rating which represents a certain recognition of its of its fiscal Health, but particularly over the last decade there's been a growing concentration of poor people in the whole region both in Minneapolis. And st. Paul and and buy that that's the infection that I mean that that's the problem that is dragging down so many cities and so many regions elsewhere in the country and you've also had the spread of these problems to some of your older inner-ring suburbs Columbia Heights Brooklyn Park Etc concentrated poverty is the is the issue that kills cities. It's not transportation problems. It's not environmental problems fundamentally. It's when your it's not when your physical geography gets out of whack. It's when your social geography It gets out of balance and you've got then Rising problems of crime and dependency unemployment in the heart of the city which which gnaws at the vital core of the whole metropolitan area. That's what I mean by infected. Your these are these are sent have been healthy cities that are in some now sustained decline they're weakening and they're far from being the Detroit's and the Cleveland's and the hartford's of the country, but they're trending in that direction and it's a Troublesome thing (00:03:36) agree with that are Lattimer. (00:03:39) I agree with it so much that given the violent agreement that I have with a David. I wonder what I'm doing here, you know, and if in this kind of cop alized age of pro and con it'd be nice to hear someone who would deny the patterns. Which David has written about David and I go back to 76 when we were both mayor's he was smart enough to leave earlier and then he wrote a book the book which I read in manuscript form. Last winter has stood up under scrutiny. I and I think it's the reason I think that has to be said it probably won't be said by David but it's got to be said for this reason in the book David Rusk sets out 10 or 15 propositions based on all of the all of the research that he's done and I hear a lot of argument in Minnesota and around the country about how to solve the problems. I have not heard anyone successfully challenged the reality of his propositions, which has to do an end. It's being confirmed by other literature's. Well a little bit after David's book A book was called American apartheid. Written by Denton and Massey which lays out in graphic detail that the segregation by class and color in America is not an accident. It's not even just an action of choice or custom that it is the effect of many many years of public policy as well as overt acts by public bodies at every level. And therefore we're going to have to face up to the fact that continued over concentration of poor people is in fact a parallel to the nation and people don't want to hear that message and I don't know why David rough gives so popular because mayor's like me who want so badly to make the whole difference working in a local community and let the rest of the world go by to want to hear him tell us that it's not going to work and the people who are not in the central cities don't want to hear it and that's the reason Governor Carlson vetoed the Because people are threatened by the (00:06:02) effects. Well, Governor Carlson says that the reason he vetoed that bill is not that he disagrees with the theory that people should have a choice to wear as to where they live and I access to jobs and so on but that what this approach amounts to is coercion that you're forcing people to do things that you would be much better off getting them to participate in these programs voluntarily true or not. True. (00:06:30) Well, one of the things that I found in my research is that the more fragmented your systems of local government in metropolitan areas. The more fragmented the society is by race and by economic class because every little town councillor small City takes upon itself the mission to sort of keep things keep our community just the way it is for people just like us whoever us happens to be and the result is his creation of extreme segregation by income group and with heavy segregation by race or by ethnic group as well. And that fragmented Society ends up hurting the whole metropolitan area the the regions of the country that are going now through the strongest economic growth as we move into the 21st century. Are regions that have their social compact in better order not perfect but better order and which have systems of governance or Arrangements by which they can act more in unison. They don't have to all be one government, but they have to act like one government in key questions. Well, what does Twin Cities area be a better (00:07:49) place if Minneapolis and st. Paul were to disappear and become one place. (00:07:55) Well, I think what you really need and you've got this history you need to recognize those issues on which the governments of the Minneapolis st. Paul region need to act together whether it's by voluntary agreement, which is tough to achieve and tough problems or whether it is because somebody in this case the state government lays down some new ground rules for what is a collective responsibility. I'm not going to suggest that Minneapolis st. Paul are reinitiate a policy of annexation. In that ended basically the turn of the century for these two communities and I'm not going to suggest that you try to organize some sort of Mega government for 200 two and a half million people. I wouldn't wish upon the people of this region the the labor and management practices perfected by New York City, for example, that's no advance. But you do need to recognize that that you are ultimately all one economic unit competing in a global economy and need to share responsibilities. Your own Metropolitan Council has said we are only as strong as our weakest link and that we have a responsibility for dealing with the problem of concentrated poverty on a metropolitan basis. That's your own local Metropolitan Council (00:09:13) saying that now mayor Latimer you were here course surround when the Metropolitan Council was launched and with to much fanfare as a model of regional cooperation, and in fact generally got pretty high marks early on has Falling out of favor, I guess recently. Do you think that the Metropolitan council is the vehicle for this region wide cooperation? (00:09:37) I think they can play that role Gary. Let me go back to your last question so that I be not unfair to the governor you asked is it possible to arrive at change through people choosing to gather and solve their problems together on a voluntary basis? I don't think and and David has made this point, but I want to say it in my own words. I would not dismiss that effort. We have a wonderful tradition in Minnesota. It has suffered terrible erosion. You know, the Metro Council was created through the leadership of a group of Liberal Republicans, or they don't like to call themselves liberal, but the progressive Republicans of late 60s Charley Weaver Albertson. Werner levander, there were a whole group of people and many of whom were Republicans who believed that it made no sense to be fragmented through a hundred and four municipalities to solve all of the problems of the metropolitan area. And it began with that Vision at got high marks. We went astray. We went badly astray. We became more and more fragmented. I have not been back. I understand legislature just approved some changes in the council, but I'm not sure that the changes are the ones we ought to have whatever laws or changes that are made in the housing laws and the rest ultimately you still need to convene folks around the table and if Minneapolis and st. Paul cannot do it, then truly there is not any hope for this nation because we have the resources. We have a decent mix of of income. We have a plenty of space to move in and we have political leadership, which is And large of a high quality, but I perceive in the recent years that the political dialogue has become more vitriolic more those your old man and or all for all against instead of reasoned conversation the suburbs need an assurance that this change which is needed is not going to be foisted on them and that one suburb or another will have to bear any changes that might occur they need and they're entitled to that Assurance people who are moving in the direction of Greater regional growth and Regional balance ought to put aside the rhetoric that if you're living in a suburb, you're somehow materialistic and egocentric. I mean that's nonsense. We all want the same things. We want a decent safe place to live. We want to be able to raise our kids we want to school that the kids can go to and do well that's what we all want and people ought to have Right to make choices, but as a community, we also have a right to make a choice and that Joy thought of be to revisit the kinds of values that created the Metro Council some time ago began the Minnesota miracle in educating our kids and some commitment to raising the universal possibilities of kids wherever they grow up. That's not what's happening right now. I didn't mean to go on quite so long, but let me just give you one statistic that I watched very closely in 1980 st. Paul Minnesota was the lowest of the 50 largest cities in the numbers of people under the poverty line. I kept a close watch on that we had about nine and a half percent of our people in 1980 were under the poverty line and as a result of that in a very aggressive many generation effort for decent housing going all the way back to two to the first mayor's in the Even 40s, we created housing opportunities for people in rough and rough approximation to the percentages of people. We had under the poverty line with all the work that we did through the 80s. Our poverty line population is now leaped from nine and a half or 10 up to 17 to 70 and a half percent in Minneapolis. It has leapt from 12 or 13 and up to 18 or 19 (00:13:55) percent higher than ours. (00:13:56) Now. It is not blaming poor people. It is not blaming suburbs. It is only being honest to say that if we continue the trend in Minneapolis and st. Paul for the next 20 and 30 years that we've just gone through in the past 10 years that we will not recognize our community as a kind of marvelous bright vibrant place that we would want children to be raised in now those are the facts folks and if the people of Minnesota are good as I think they are they'll convene around that and say Alright, what are the strategies and you don't do it at 10 minutes before midnight of the last day on the session the governor the regional leaders. Whoever the new governor is if it's Governor Carlson, it should be him and all the rest of the people on a bipartisan level or they get together and get working. Well before the legislative session these problems are solvable. (00:14:49) We have a number of callers on the line with questions and I want to get to them but I want to ask one more before we do that rather than creating new forms of government and shifting people hither and yon wouldn't be easier just to make sure that poor people have some money and let them live where they want to (00:15:04) live. Well, if if there were put your focus on Housing Opportunity available throughout the region (00:15:13) That if they had the money then they could move wherever they want. All right, (00:15:16) you know, I think I think it's probably fair to say of of the Twin Cities area that if you are a middle class Black Or Hispanic family or Asian family professional background, you certainly can move anywhere in this region you want that that happens. But but there there are certainly many communities which don't take their fair share of low and moderate income housing. There was a strong tradition of doing that in the Twin Cities area up through the 1970s, but that's substantially been lost. And so wherever they're concentrated the poorest folks in the community don't have that kind of range of choice and the government agencies that are helping them don't have that range of choice in which to help subsidize their rents, (00:16:04) but get money but it's not an income does matter Gary you you make a decent point, you know, the the one stroke of his pen. And President Clinton passed what is called the Earned Income Tax Credit, which says to people who are poor and working hard but still poor that they'll get a credit that credit is equal to about 200 billion dollars over the next five years that is well over the annual HUD budget during those same years and I do think that that kind of commitment can make a difference in people to be able to make choices. It can't at first of all we cannot I don't think Americans want to get into the business of of having no limit on a transfer of income. I don't think agree. I think you know, we're a capitalist Society we work because we are capitalist society. And so we're really talking about improving affordability wherever possible improving income as social justice through a minimum wage and things of that kind would require an investment judgments that are made by corporations and in training and education. Atlee only the people can help themselves (00:17:16) our guests today David Ross who has written a very popular or at least a book that's gotten a lot of attention nationally. Not sure if it would be a best-seller as (00:17:26) it is moved into that are hardly up there with John Grisham her Stephen King. I assure you (00:17:31) very interesting book those cities without suburbs is the name of the name of the book and he's here in our Studios former mayor of Albuquerque and joining us by satellite from Washington is former st. Paul Mayor George Latimer who is now a top official with a Department of Housing and Urban Development cities and suburbs is the subject today. Let's go to our first caller. Hi. Yes just in passing. I think that we all have learned by now that even if we are a capitalist society that unfettered capitalism does create problems that the people in the public sector have to address if the private sector will not I wonder if the problem is not so much the concentration of for people in 80s where it's easier to get transportation and employment training and find low cost housing if the problem isn't really the production of poverty itself the the growing distance between rich and poor the growing homelessness and joblessness and if we don't really need to one time, I remember that there was a war on poverty and I wonder if we don't need to look at the causes of poverty and address them and do things like not only the earned income tax credit that may or Lattimore suggested but the negative income tax with Milton Friedman our society cannot continue as your guests a with with one group of people adopting a lager mentality of protecting themselves is John Kenneth Galbraith describes in his book the culture of contentment and another group of people being written off as disposable that is a dead end and I just wonder if their guests don't agree that the real problem is the production Of poverty itself and ending poverty David Rose with the concentration of (00:19:17) well, there's no there's no question that stronger economic growth for the nation would address a part of the problem but the environment in which young person grows up is an important thing. I mean every middle-class family knows that the basis upon which you make your choices to where you're going to buy a home where you going to live and to live in a poor neighborhood live in a bad neighborhood is to is to run a high risk of getting overwhelmed by the problems around you. So even when there is strong economic growth, it doesn't reach everybody and all problems. Why is it night now you it (00:19:57) was like they were the same thing poor neighborhoods bad neighborhoods. You equate those two. Are they automatically the same thing? (00:20:03) Well, they in this day and age they've come pretty close to being automatically the same thing frankly there is Rising problems of crime and delinquency and drug abuse and the like associated with a high concentration of poverty, you will find that track statistically on the other hand where poor households are much more spread out throughout the metropolitan area or spread out throughout a city and much more integrated into a middle-class Community those kinds of social problems significantly diminish you have that experience. So here in the in the Twin Cities area you've I've just spent the morning with a Dakota County Housing Authority and and looking at their programs. They their public housing is scattered site. So one house purchased here or an apartment rented there or a duplex somewhere else or rent supplement programs, and they have several thousand poor households poor persons. How did it go Dakota County that are highly integrated into the rest of the neighborhoods? And the the level of social problems is extremely low and it's such as it doesn't really seem to offer any problem to any Community which they live. Now you you folks in the in the Twin Cities, right? You know how to do these things. You really do. I mean, you don't have to look anywhere else in the country for successful models. You have your the success of your own experience, but there seems to be if you will a failure of will the faintness of heart in terms of really getting on with dealing with the regional problems. This isn't third-world poverty in this country or in this area. This is this not a situation where the poor are many and the middle class are few here. The poor are are few in the middle class many out of every hundred people in the Twin Cities area 45 are poor and white and out of every hundred people in the Twin Cities area. For one is poor and black but the problem is the concentration of those 43% of all poor whites and 86% of all poor blacks live in the heart of either Minneapolis or st. Paul. So that the problems of concentration arise and give give rise to to much higher levels of crime and social disruption etcetera. Then then if people were more normally part of a middle-class community, (00:22:42) may I chime in here? Sure, I again am in more or less violent agreement with David Rusk. (00:22:50) I do I always raise our hopes are (00:22:52) George. (00:22:54) I'm sorry, but I do if anything I want to modify by an expansion of what David is saying implicit in what he's saying and explicit what I'm about to say in response to the very thoughtful comment by the last caller is that income redistribution is not going to be the solution toward poverty. It is ultimately the Minnesota dream has always been and it's still right and that is we make it possible for people to learn to grow into strong adults to make good choices to know. Work and that will take care of poverty and so teaching training mentoring caring for our babies that it I know it sounds boring. But that's the best Economic Development policy in the world. And that's really where it's at. That's what we always believed and now having said all that that that's that is a essential now what David Ruskin saying and I think it has to be said is that while we're making those Investments over concentrations of poor kids in schools, and I know this I've known it for 30 years a literature and when I was on the school board, the literature is real clear that we pile poor kids into one school. The outcomes are not likely to be very good and if we give them a more mixed income opportunities, there are better opportunities. I heard Jesse Jackson the other day and I almost think Jesse Jackson is to eloquent because sometimes people think that it's only eloquence instead of a substance, but he made a point. That was very substantive. He gave a lovely story of the first day that he was in public housing as a kid and I think the 30s early 40s and how it was not a step down of the step up and how in that public housing project that was called in North Carolina. I think there was a police officer who lived there. There was a school teacher who lived there and he said the school teachers knew his school teacher and knew his mom and it wasn't possible. He said to lie, they couldn't get away with anything when he was 12 years old. He had to really stick to it and do better. Well, that's a homely story that tells the lesson that all of us learn from each other and that that mentoring and modeling and the raft cannot exist. If you have thousands and thousands of people are desperately poor and out of work in one place. And so that dese concentration is part of it. Do we have to do it in a democracy through choice? Not through social engineering not ordering people out. Of course, do we have Also invest in people where they are. Yes, do we have to give a Fair Hope for someone who's working and poor that somehow they're not going to be destitute as long as they're working hard. We have to do all those things but with it, we also have to talk seriously about giving real choices either through Mobility to work or Mobility to choose for housing for people of all income groups and that and and I repeat if you look at the numbers of Minneapolis st. Paul it is achievable (00:25:59) back to the phones on the callers on the line. Hi. Hello. My question really has to do with the typical Minnesota nice attitude. There seems to be a prevalent attitude in Suburbia. I happen to live in Minneapolis, but have relatives in Suburban areas, like connect up with a lot of different people and it seems to be a prevalent attitude that it's not our problem. We're in the suburb. There is no poverty in the suburb. It doesn't affect us. It's not our problem yet. I see. I see it as really very Regional problem. Very Statewide problem that if someone is poor and and living below living substandard in Minneapolis, it is going to affect our quality of life as a whole state. Why is that because if my quality of life is lower, I'm not going to have the self-esteem to add to the quality of life in Minnesota. And if isn't okay comment on that I was going to let me just add one other thing isn't the isn't there also a concern that well probably be okay if by dispersing poor people around the neighbor around the region that everybody all boats would be lifted isn't there a real concern that would in fact is going to happen is that all everybody's neighborhood will essentially be dragged down to a lower standard (00:27:33) that that doesn't really happen. If if in the course of pursuing programs of let's call them dispersion weird, you've used it's done in a balanced and even-handed way so that if there's sort of a fair share for example in the Chicago area, it's been a program for more than a decade called the control program where vouchers have been given to public housing households to get out of the projects in South Chicago and go Rent private housing elsewhere in the city of Chicago or anywhere in the six counties that surround Chicago about two-thirds of the households of moved to the suburbs. These are all by the way overwhelmingly black single mother headed households and they have found their that in Suburban situations with better communities better school opportunities better access to job opportunities School graduation rates go up dramatically employment rates go up the wages earned by the households heads goes up and in terms for example of college attendance the rates of kids public housing kids were out in suburban school systems going to college is 7 times that of the public housing kids who stayed in rental housing in the city much less comparing it with public housing kids who were staying in the projects? South side of Chicago, so it's not to say that there won't be occasional problems. Even the doctor's son out in the Dinah it gets involved in drugs once in a while, you know, but it generally the the research shows that experience is that there isn't really a culture of poverty sticks with people and that most poor households presented with better opportunities better circumstances better examples are going to respond and pretty middle-class ways. Mayor Latimer. What do (00:29:35) what is in this for people who live in a suburban community? I mean if if they have a nice place to live and their neighborhood is nice and their city is nice. Why should they care all that much about this problem? (00:29:48) Well, first of all because we are in it together if there isn't anybody who lives Works breathe eats sleeps and dies in one house. You got to move around to live and you're not going to be very comfortable moving around if more and more. Neighborhoods become unlivable in Minneapolis. And st. Paul that's a real practical crude thing. But it you got to deal with it. Secondly the Long Haul the businesses and industries of the suburbs and of the central cities are are going to perish if we continue to have kids growing up without Hope finally only people are going to make economies work. And finally they're going to be a large number of people 20 years from now who are born poor today and how well we do with those people in the next 20 years is going to matter how our economy is over the whole future. I'd like to give a third reason and I care a lot about this and I know it's it's probably no longer very popular, but we raised our five kids and st. Paul and we had the usual heartaches and Agony agonizing enjoy the raising kids and thank God they're all doing well now in her own way each and his or her own way. But I had one son. Who when he got out of Mankato State with offered a job for thirteen thousand dollars. And I said Phil why don't you wait a little bit. That's not much money and he said Dad. It doesn't matter where I start it matters where it at where I end out he then went off to a retail business in Phoenix, and he did very very well and he's doing exceedingly well in Denver right now to end my story to this I went to him and with all the kind of shocked that a father has to see another one of his sons do well. You know, I I I I said Phil, how did you do it you're doing great. I'm so proud of you. How come you're doing? So well and its retail and Phoenix. He said Dad. It's really kind of funny. The other people in the store are kind of afraid of black kids. Now that's what he said. Now that's not polite Minnesota. That's the truth. That's the truth. We're growing up afraid of each other and I'm really glad that whatever problems we might have had as a family in st. Paul. We didn't grow up afraid of people because of their color or because they're poor and that's partly because my kids went to the school's right in Central City of st. Paul. So I'm adding another dimension and that is I pity the person who grows up not understanding and knowing the variety of backgrounds of Rich variety of backgrounds are armed people and not understanding that the poorest kid out there has got just as much possibility in a minute potential at him whether he's black or brown or Asian or whatever it is. It doesn't matter. That's basically what it is to be an American and if in if you grow up and if you live somewhere where you don't ever have reason to have hope for people who are not middle class and white then I feel sorry for you because it's a big world out there and you're And I have to make it somehow and I think it makes a real difference. So it makes a difference personally makes a difference ethically and makes a difference economically. (00:33:01) That's a former Saint Paul Mayor George Latimer who has joined us by satellite from Washington here in the studios David Ross who is written a book called cities without suburbs. Mr. Rusk is a former mayor of Albuquerque and is an advisor in Washington and a lot of callers on the line as we talk about cities and suburbs during this hour here on midday. Let's go to our next caller. Hi. Hi. Yes. I'm calling from Plymouth out here neck Serbia, and I'm just wondering what role you think mass transit plays in helping to overcome segregation. It seems to me that in the Sun the Society of the car promotes segregation. We travel around and isolated self-contained vehicles. And if a Suburban person visits the city at all, they do so in a car they may feel unsafe getting out of their car or Or in not traveling seeing trains, they don't travel with people of other classes and just wondering what role you think mass transit would play in all this. (00:34:02) I think that that mass transit helps a metropolitan area absorb its growth in a denser less spread out fashion. And that's important in the long run that turns out to be more efficient for the whole area in the long run. But I don't think that transportation problems per se are the principal barriers to many poor people being able to get better jobs. I think the principal barriers are barriers of education and skill and then really an absence of personal networks. I mean so many of us myself included get jobs through contacts develop family members friends classmates etcetera and for the middle class those kinds of Contacts lead to jobs and lead to careers for poor people too often. They just lead back into the street and I think that Transportation barriers although important probably ranked third in the list of barriers that must be hurdle to get a good career. Let's (00:35:08) take another caller with a question. Hi, good afternoon. I couldn't agree more with your guest. I moved here from Detroit some 30 years ago. When I saw the the correctly stated apartheid mentality that existed then and still exist in Detroit about to destroy the core city of Detroit and it's now destroyed virtually the second and third and outer tears of their Community. If not physically and economically certainly psychologically. It's a terrible place to even go back to visit and I Since quite clearly personified in the exploitive politics of our governor one of our conservative suburban and Rural legislators that same kind of apartheid mentality this close with a famous statement from Joe Louis who grew up in the Detroit inner city, you can run but you can't hide folks sooner or later. You're going to have to pay the price for a healthy Community get with it. either of you gentlemen care to comment just to come in on Detroit. (00:36:26) I've visited a lot of communities in this country and I've looked at an even more statistics the statistic which I found most shocking about all of urban America. The city of Detroit's share of the metropolitan areas property tax values commercial industrial residential the city of Detroit's share is now seven percent has been such enormous abandonment and disinvestment in the city of Detroit and they still have even though they lost half their population. They still have 22% of the population of the region. So the new mayor of Detroit Dennis Archer is a fine man and a lot of good ideas and his face a situation where he's got 22 percent of the people a third of whom were poor and most of the rest of which aren't very well off and he's got seven percent of the tax base that is a next to Impossible situation. (00:37:24) Now, we have this tax fiscal disparities law kind of attack share the wealth tax (00:37:30) system very very wise and far-sighted. It's really never never would have been (00:37:35) passed today. Whatever would have passed today, but we still got all these (00:37:38) Problems that you're talking about (00:37:39) your problems are less. (00:37:41) No one ever. No one ever claimed when that was passed Again by Republicans. I should remind you back in the early 70s Charley Weaver LED that one and what has happened is that they committed to the post 1973 development in the suburbs of an industrial nature commercial industrial would be put into a pool up to 60% of that would be put into a pool what's happened by the redistribution is that instead of the Citizens League has followed this for years and instead of the disproportion of tax base between the poorest to the richest from 22 to 1 instead. It is 421. So from a fiscal standpoint, the fiscal capacity is in more proportion in the regional area of Minneapolis st. Paul than it is in most other communities. It has worked in that Point it however is merely capacity to deliver Municipal Services it cannot compensate for if you have eight times more poor people. It can't compensate for how much harder it is to educate poor kids. It cannot compensate for the absence of jobs that are available for poor kids and a working parents. So no one ever claimed that the fiscal disparities Act was going to take care of poverty. What a did claim is that the relative capacities of the local government would not be as badly crippled through it and they were (00:39:10) right, you know, the Minneapolis and st. Paul are sliding into problems, but they aren't close to places like Detroit or Cleveland for example per capita incomes in City of Minneapolis are 83 percent that of the suburbs per capita incomes and st. Paul or seven eight percent of that suburbs. Whereas in Cleveland or Detroit per capita incomes are 53 percent of the suburbs in Newark. It's 42 percent in East st. Louis. 39% I mean those are those are cities and desperate shape and the fact that their cities are in Desperate shape effects the whole region Minneapolis st. Paul over the last 40 years has has more than doubled as a whole region. It's it's family income. It's real family income its standard of living and that's that's one of the best records in the whole sort of industrial Heartland of the country. It has a but hasn't tripled its income the way that the Nashville's and the Raleigh's and the the Atlanta's and and the Charlotte's and the and the Austin's for example have done and and a part of that picture is that they have paid attention to keeping their Central cities strong their cities our flagships economically for their whole region. They aren't cities that that their Chamber of Commerce directors have to By for the way, you have to Alibi for Detroit or newarker or Cleveland. For (00:40:44) example, although the basic poverty in Atlanta is just about as bad as anywhere. There's that sobering reality. Is that even though the total economy of Atlanta has gone very well. One of the reasons for the Atlanta proper salute Lee has been the appalling fact that the percentage of poor people in Atlanta has gone up during this period of Boom one other point. However that David made earlier that should be underscored about Minneapolis st. Paul the affordability of it. Hmm, you know, I have one of my one of my kids is married lives right near Como Park. It's a great house. They've got a little baby. They're raising their it's you can it's a half a block from one of the beautiful parks in America and the house is about $85,000. You couldn't find many cities. In a livable neighborhood like that near a park like that for that kind of (00:41:43) price. Your cost of living around here is just a little bit over the national average. My calculations say about a hundred and five percent. You're not the Hartford area a hundred and fifty percent 50% above you're not San Francisco area seventy five percent above you've you've maintained I reasonable cost of living around here and that's a strength of the region if if you hadn't done fiscal disparities, if you hadn't had strong fordable housing programs for the suburbs in the 70s. If you haven't done a lot of things that you've done in the past Minneapolis, and st. Paul would be Milwaukee today. They're not Milwaukee. They're much stronger communities, but they're sliding down that same path. (00:42:24) Let's take another caller. Hi. Thank you a little earlier in the conversation. Mr. Rusk talked about suburbs or maybe some suburbs not taking their fair share of low-income housing. That's a phrase that shows up frequently. And in the long the lines if someone's not paying their fair share of taxes and it shows up in education and it shows up in criminal justice. It's been my experience that when a social engineer talks about someone not doing their fair share usually means they're either going to increase my taxes or tell me that I can't do or must do something. Would you please define for me what the fair share of housing of low-income people are housing that a suburb should take and then secondly other than the little program you talked about in Chicago, which is I understand it involved essentially a handful of families. Can you give me a couple of examples where any of the types of programs you Advocate have worked? Okay. First of all, what is what do you mean by fair (00:43:22) share? Well in Practical terms as you look at the suburbs of Minneapolis st. Paul it really comes down to about twice what you've got now which is not an overwhelming number. I mean, you've got good solid start on these kinds of things. But basically if you if you're talking about 8% of the region as poor people, you know, you're talking basically on a 678 % basis region-wide that's not an overwhelming problem here and what would happen if let's say you met somebody set (00:44:00) a target of 8% and and you know, for whatever reason you didn't (00:44:03) meet that I'll give you I'll give you I'll give you an example. This is the gentleman ask for Montgomery County Maryland is a is a wealthy historically wealthy suburban area of Washington DC County government. There is the government there's no municipal government of any consequence 20 years ago Montgomery County was one of the five wealthiest counties in the country 94% white the County Commission had the foresight to say Always going to be a privileged bedroom community of Washington were already developing as a major employment center in our own right and they're going to have to be a range of people different skill levels to work here and by golly we got to make sure that anybody who works in Montgomery County ought to be able to live in Montgomery County County government adopted a policy uniformly for the entire County affected all local areas, which said that of every development of 50 or more housing units single family homes town houses Apartments, whatever 85% will be market rate 10% will be affordable that is sold or rented two people that know more than 80% of the median income for the area 5% will be purchased by our County Housing Authority as a permanent supply of public housing County Housing Authority now owns so much. Public housing and just one unit here one unit there two units over there that they pay homeowner dues to over 200 homeowner associations on an annual basis. They've gone through a social transformation in Montgomery County. They've gone from six percent minority to 25 percent minority. They they have four five percent of the population is poor but so highly integrated throughout the county and not perfectly but highly integrated that the school dropout rate. For example in the countywide school system is less than 2% a year and Montgomery County is still one of the five wealthiest counties in America. It certainly is a county that's wealthier than anything around here and (00:46:04) they've got a great bike path to to lighten things up. I I've been biking a lot on weekends and you can bike all the way from downtown Washington right out into Montgomery County and It's all the way to Rockville Maryland. Just beautiful. Now. They what (00:46:21) has happened. There is that in effect county has said our entire county is going to take its fair share of our poor people and we're not going to Clump them in one section of accounting or the other and yet it has worked very well in Montgomery County is a stronger healthier County. Otherwise, I need to guess this manage me mayor and well (00:46:44) very briefly because I got to get this question asked (00:46:47) me go ahead. Now (00:46:47) if we keep talking about poor people poor people and yet one of the things that comes up in your book as a criteria for a benchmark for when cities are are going down the tubes is when minority population exceeds 30 percent now what's wrong with what's wrong with that nothing and accept that if if a group of people let's say African Americans decide they all want to live in the same neighborhood (00:47:14) what our roles wrong with that there's there's a little bit more to it than that. It's a Portion it, you know, for example, if you've if this metropolitan area is as a metropolitan area is five percent minority and the City of Minneapolis is 30 percent minority or 40 percent minority (00:47:35) something's happening and that's happening (00:47:37) because in the large portion of the white population is abandoning that City and then the where where the white middle class is left the black middle class begins to leave soon. So it's not mean Albuquerque's 50 percent minority. But the whole region is 50 percent minority. There's not a disparity between the city and its surrounding areas. So the issue is one of imbalance. One of one of one of disparities caused by the separation of people first by income class and then by by race and ethnicity, (00:48:08) yeah, may I add a couple of things Gary that question you at such a burning in your stomach to ask It talked about the choice what's wrong a folks make a choice. I challenge whether people really have had choices and I would suggest that through a whole lot of public policies and economic policies. We in fact of deprived a lot of people of choice and if folks choose to live anywhere, it's still a free country. That's the first thing I want to say is that there's plenty of evidence and news literature's rampant American apartheid is is there to be read in to be criticized and I think it holds up under scrutiny. The second point I want to make is that I thought David Rusk made a real contribution to this conversation because I really don't think we're going to move ahead in Minneapolis st. Paul Jeff through exhortation or moralism II don't want to be counted as one who wants to preach to my friends who have chosen to live in suburbs. First of all, there are suburbs and there are suburbs right? There are whole Have suburbs as you know of been on your program Gary on the Northern suburbs of Hennepin County and elsewhere in which a lot of the theme indices that were worrying about in central cities are there as well? That's the reason or field legislation has passed a couple of times. It's because there is a growing awareness that we are in this together, but I do want to repeat it's not a question of pointing fingers at people who have done well and made choices and worked hard for those choices it I don't want to be counted as one who says that if you're really good like me you'll do something that isn't my appeal here. What I am saying is that the point that David rough just made is that the proportions of what we can do in Minneapolis st. Paul are so are so small compared to the outcome being really worth making that we ought to sit around make a conversation and do something not blaming not praising not threatening. But just working it out now. I submit that if most folks wherever they live new the percentage of housing units that they have not right now are subsidized and knew that it would not exceed a certain number that most of them are many apathy Paul I think would be willing to support that but I mentioned at the very beginning of this program that folks who made choices and chose to live in the suburbs are entitled to get the kind of assurance that we're not going to be dumped upon (00:50:46) and I absolutely agree entitled to that and the Brilliance of the Montgomery County policies that 5% of every project that's purchased by the Housing Authority is both a floor and a ceiling. Yes. It's a maximum the whole idea is to try to assure balance and stability along with equity and at Works in Montgomery County. It's policy that's being adopted elsewhere in the country those kinds of policies in many different ways have been pioneered. The Twin Cities area just have to remember how to do what you used to do better. Now. (00:51:22) Mayor Latimer. We're going to lose you. It sounds like pleasure sounds like they're already pulling the plug on your satellite there invite me back. Thanks for joining us former. St. Paul Mayor George Latimer by satellite from Washington DC and David Ross. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you very much, Gary David Ross. Who is the author of cities without suburbs?