{"id":107,"date":"2008-11-06T15:59:04","date_gmt":"2008-11-06T15:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/the-first-urban-president.html"},"modified":"2008-11-06T15:59:04","modified_gmt":"2008-11-06T15:59:04","slug":"the-first-urban-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/the-first-urban-president.html","title":{"rendered":"The first urban president"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christof at Intermodality blog points out that Obama is the first Urban president<\/a> in modern times, whose home is within walking distance of public transport:<\/p>\n

Obama lives only four miles from the center of the third
\nlargest city of the United States, and his political roots are
\nunquestionably urban. That should not be remarkable in a country where
\n80% of the population lives in metropolitan areas. But our politics has
\nvalued “small town values” and as a result the issues of cities —
\ntraffic congestion, for example — have not been a major part of the
\nnational dialog. But we can hope that’s changing. Many of the places
\nthat helped swing this election — the Philadelphia suburbs, Northern
\nVirginia, Denver — are places that have rail transit, are building rail
\ntransit, or are demanding rail transit. Will that shape the policy
\ndebates to come?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It should be noted that Joe Biden has been a proponent of – and daily
\ncommuter on – Amtrak for decades. I think at bare minimum, grand designs like the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative <\/a>are suddenly on the table, and voters in California already approved Proposition 1A<\/a>, a high speed rail initiative between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The argument for rail is also part of the energy independence argument, as rail is more fuel-efficient per passenger than flying, especially for shorter distances. <\/p>\n

On a more prosaic level, instead of hearing about President Bush clearing brush from his Crawford ranch, we are going to be hearing about President Obama returning home to the Chicago suburbs. As a result, there’s going to be enormous media scrutiny on Obama at “home”, far beyond what Bush dealt with, because of the increased accessibility. In that sense even Obama’s vacations will be working ones, because his largest constituencies are right outside his front door, and more immediate in his face than they are from behind the walled compound at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or out on some country ranch. <\/p>\n

Recall that President Clinton’s offices are in Harlem, NYC – that location has given Clinton a more direct, tangible connection with the issues he fights for in the abstract using his Clinton Global Initiative. The same dynamic of engagement will apply to Obama. It’s important for a President to get outside the Beltway, but equally important they don’t go so far away that they are removed from everything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christof at Intermodality blog points out that Obama is the first Urban president in modern times, whose home is within walking distance of public transport: Obama lives only four miles from the center of the third largest city of the United States, and his political roots are unquestionably urban. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}