Among Heartland Homages,
Pols Address Urban Issues

Harlem — The Republican Party's 2008 platform is adorned with a striking image—a graphic of the world covered in blue-black darkness, with the lights of America's cities beaming into the night sky. One patch of brightness emanates from Minneapolis-St. Paul, a region of 3 million people where the Republicans held their convention this year. To the south and west, another ray shines out of Denver and environs, an area of 2 million people that welcomed the Democratic Convention in August.

When they need a place to party or solicit campaign contributions, both Democrats and Republicans turn to America's metropolises. But when it comes to campaign rhetoric, the candidates turn elsewhere—to the "real America" that dwells in the non-urban "heartland." Cities get short shrift on the campaign trail, in speeches, debates and commercials.

But the demographic trends that have landed nearly four in five Americans in combined urban-suburban regions will be hard for our next president to overlook. Thus the two major candidates have—sometimes rather quietly—staked out positions on what to do about the leading challenges facing urban areas.

Barack Obama's Office of Urban Policy would have a director who reports straight to him and would "develop a strategy for metropolitan America and to ensure that all federal dollars targeted to urban areas are effectively spent on the highest-impact programs." That strategy would emphasize not so much cities themselves but metropolitan regions and involve transportation funding, creating business incubators and supporting "innovation clusters." This approach has both political and practical advantages: while inner cities are home to only 11 percent of the U.S. population, nearly 80 percent live in "urbanized areas," which encompass cities and their suburbs. By targeting regions, the Democratic nominee is aiming his policies at more people and his campaign message at more voters. Obama also vows to fully fund the Community Development Block Grant, an essential funding stream for many city programs.

John McCain's campaign has weighed in on fewer policy issues and with less detail than Obama, but the Republican platform does address one city directly: the District of Columbia. "Washington," it reads, "should be made a model city. Two major Republican initiatives—a first-time D.C. homebuyers credit and a landmark school choice initiative—have pointed the way toward a civic resurgence."

The statement's references to education policy and housing highlight two of the many issues affecting cities on which McCain and Obama part company – mostly in traditional ways the parties have tended to differ when it comes to cities.

Home, schools and home schooling

During his second debate with Obama, McCain announced his most sweeping housing policy – his call for the Treasury Department to use part of its $700 billion financial bailout funding to purchase distressed mortgages and renegotiate terms with the borrowers. Obama has derided that plan because it would pay full value for the mortgages. The Illinois senator has said the bailout fund should buy some distressed mortgages, but has said the purchase price must impose some cost on irresponsible lenders, too. He has also called for a freeze on foreclosures.

The Republican platform says that the federal government should "make owning a home more accessible through enforcement of open housing laws, voucher programs, urban homesteading and – what is most important – a strong economy with low interest rates." It stipulates that whatever changes are made to the tax code, the home mortgage interest deduction ought to remain, and adds that "sound housing policy should recognize the needs of renters so that apartments and multi-family homes remain important components of the housing stock."