Written by Andrea Batista Schlesinger
The word “recovery” seems innocuous, even positive, but masks a set of decisions that will be made by people in power, decisions that will seem either neutral or inevitable. Yet, in each and every one of these decisions there will be winners and losers. We must learn now what is meant by recovery, what decisions will be made, and how best to leverage our collective power to influence direction and, therefore, the future of our cities.
If history is any indication, the people who are suffering disproportionately now will continue to do so in the recovery. In New Orleans, 10 years after Katrina, predominantly black neighborhoods such as New Orleans East had regained only 60% of their pre-Katrina population, while predominantly white neighborhoods with similar flood impacts had largely rebuilt. One factor in this disparity was the Road Home program, which funded home repairs and buyouts based on pre-storm market value rather than replacement value – leading to similar homes with similar needs receiving different levels of funding that closely tracked pre-existing racial divides. Over time and across crises, these disparities compound: a 2019 longitudinal study found that, between 1999 and 2013, white Americans living in counties that experienced major storms saw their wealth increase by $127,000, whereas black Americans in the same counties lost $27,000 in wealth. Indeed, white Americans in these counties were significantly better off than white Americans in counties unaffected by storms, while the reverse was true for black Americans. These gaps were statistically significant even after controlling for a variety of personal and locational factors.
The phases of virus-related action will be emergency response, stabilization, recovery, and then institutionalization. At each stage, decisions will be made that will have profound repercussions even if they don’t seem to be of great consequence. In the current, response phase of action, communities have finally gotten access to more – but still inadequate – testing. But who gets tested, and how? Until recently, in New York City, arguably the best transit-served city in the nation, 1/3 of testing sites required a vehicle to access; 55% of New Yorkers – and as many as 80% of households in some low-income communities – do not have a car. Cities are letting people out of jail for public health and humanitarian reasons. But why is there no plan for where these people will go for safe housing and access to health care?
Likewise, as we move into the recovery phase: Will environmental regulations be relaxed in the name of securing a return to economic strength? Will recovery require dependence on the commercial banking channels that currently under-serve small businesses, notably those operated by people of color and women? How will cities provide critical public services in the face of mounting fiscal deficits? Who will oversee recovery for local governments? Which projects will local governments put forward for federal funding? What do these financial and governance choices say about the vision for how a city will thrive going forward? More such questions could and should be posed with respect to the definition of essential workers and businesses; timing of lifting eviction and foreclosure moratoria; eligibility of populations to receive aid; and allocation of rent assistance, debt relief, and emergency resources.
The disproportionate suffering of vulnerable and marginalized populations is the result of public policy that has reinforced racism. We see this in the work that is valued (and even, permitted), in the capacity of health care facilities to tend to the ill, in individual health by race before this pandemic, and in the disregard for people living and dying in close proximity (homeless shelters, jails, nursing homes). These people are not visible as individuals; they are only their status.
This makes it all the more important that every decision about recovery must be interrogated, its apparent neutrality closely examined. Federal grantee community engagement requirements have been effectively eliminated, so communities will have to demand opportunities for input and engagement, to insist on more than fancy blue ribbon task forces of elites.
Of course, these same communities have the least amount of knowledge, organization, and power to influence the contours of the recovery. The organizations that serve these communities are already overwhelmed by the work of caring for and tending to those most devastated. There are exceptions, and we are already witness to brilliant organizing from some of our friends and clients, to cite three: LAANE in L.A. has won a right of return for laid off workers if those jobs come back. Pittsburgh United, the Riverside Center for Innovation, and the Economic Justice Circle achieved moratoria on evictions and utility shut offs, secured support for black-owned small businesses, and made it harder for landlords to commence eviction of tenants making complaints to the health department. The Texas Organizing Project, in coalition with partners, won $9 million to assist families excluded from the stimulus package in San Antonio, gained preliminary approval of a $15 million emergency fund in Harris County, and obtained a ruling that all Texans will have the right to vote by mail.
Creating a longer list of wins will require organizations with resources to support communities trying to engage in the recovery process — including learning the alphabet soup that is federal recovery programs, their timelines, requirements and parameters. If my experience is any indication, foundations are still in the emergency response phase, but now is the time to reserve some cash, energy, and focus to zero in on the decisions being made by localities, on their own or as required by the state and federal government for aid, and to make sure that the priorities of the communities that are typically left out are driving what is important. It will be too late for philanthropy to launch an initiative to address what comes of this recovery in a year.
The questions that communities will need to have the capacity to ask and, as importantly, have the capacity to be skeptical about the first answer they hear from the powers that be, will fall into the following basic categories: Who is making decisions, both formally and informally; what is within the purview of the locality? What is the process by which decisions will be made; on what basis and with what data? When will decisions be made, and, therefore, what are the moments of influence for effective organizing?
Animating my entire career has been the view that those who have access to the tools of power, the levers of policy making, win. This is especially true of the field of economic development, where power consistently tends toward the decisions that maintain racism and solicits gains for those who already have resources. I came to HR&A to work with communities around the country to seize the levers of economic development, so that they can coopt them and deploy them differently. I am up at night knowing that the forces with power are up at night planning for how this recovery can further their interests. Will the next pandemic hit our communities in these same disparate ways? If the answer is yes, we will all have failed.
We Asked 10 Leading Business Support Organizations What They Need to Help Businesses Now. Here’s What They Had to Say.
Written by Bret Collazzi, Olivia Moss, and Steven Reilly
Earlier this week we posted our thoughts on the vital role that business improvement districts (BIDs), downtown associations, community development organizations, and similar groups are playing as a lifeline to small businesses — and challenges they’re facing delivering help where it’s needed most.
We argued that City and State governments, foundations, and corporate donors should leverage CDBG and other available funding to broaden the impact of these frontline organizations by:
- Providing grants for expanded coaching, translation, technology access, and referrals;
- Incentivizing high-capacity organizations to “adopt” nearby districts to plug gaps in support;
- Building a coordinated support network that informs local and national policy.
We shared these thoughts with 10 leading small business support organizations from across the country, posing two main questions: “If you had extra resources, what would you prioritize to bring our Main Streets back?” and “What should Mayors, Governors, and foundations fund to help you help Main Street businesses?”
The 5 Priorities from the Front Lines that follow represent our distillation of their responses. Click on each Main Street recovery priority to see a more detailed version of their observations – in their own words.
- Fund technical assistance to help businesses access funds and adapt to new realities. All 10 organizations agreed that immediate, expanded capacity for technical assistance is essential to helping businesses access emergency funding and rethink their business models, online presence, and operating plans. They offered creative, place-specific takes on how to direct that technical assistance, including leveraging local tech talent to help legacy businesses go digital. Read More →
- Set aside funds for businesses with the greatest need. An unsurprising lesson from the CARES Act was that first-come, first-serve funding programs benefit the most resourced applicants, and one-size-fits-all rules leave out whole industries (e.g. restaurants and bars that couldn’t commit to restoring full employment by late June, a precondition of loan forgiveness under the federal program). Fixing this, according to our collaborators, requires dedicated funds for the hardest-hit businesses, among them immigrant-owned businesses, food and beverage companies, and the underbanked. Read More →
- Leverage CDFIs and other trusted community networks with financial acumen. Congress’s latest relief package would set aside $60 billion for community banks, credit unions, and CDFIs (nonprofit lenders that exclusively serve low-income, underbanked communities). Cities can make an even greater impact, our collaborators say, by recapitalizing CDFIs and partnering with other community nonprofits and faith-based organizations to reach businesses in greatest need. Read More →
- Ensure a safe and welcoming return to Main Streets. Many expect the recovery will be gradual and, at least until there is a vaccine, episodic. In that context, reassuring people that patronage of Main Street businesses is safe will be critical. Our interviewees suggested that public funds be used to activate the public realm in business corridors. Read More →
- Streamline regulations to support existing and new businesses. One of the 10 Guiding Principles to a Just & Resilient Recovery stated that local government must remove barriers to recovery embedded in regulatory functions, especially for small businesses that are more likely to employ lower-income, less-skilled workers. Leadership of front line organizations agreed. Read More →
We’re grateful to the 10 frontline organizations that shared their experiences and their ideas for action: Accion East, Asian Americans for Equality, Central City Association of Los Angeles, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Downtown Vision, Inc., Georgetown BID, Houston Land Bank, Rochester Downtown Alliance, Street Vendor Project, and WHEDco.
As the recovery continues, voices of these organizations and hundreds of others across the country should be front and center as cities, states, and the federal government tackle the urban economic recovery.
HR&A will continue to gather and elevate innovative strategies for economic recovery. Please share your ideas by emailing JustAndResilient@hraadvisors.com.
The following proposed strategies have been edited for length and context and represent a sample of ideas recommended by representatives of the 10 organizations. They do not necessarily reflect the positions of all organizational leadership.
1. Fund technical assistance to help businesses access funds and adapt to new realities.
All 10 organizations agreed that additional technical assistance is essential to helping businesses access emergency funding and to rethink their business models, online presence, and operating plans. They offered creative, place-specific takes on how to direct that technical assistance, including leveraging local tech talent to help legacy businesses go digital.
“If our economy is going to have episodic starts and stops for the next 18 months, we can’t just build a bridge to what we had before, because businesses will once again run out of liquidity. Businesses need to have greater cash reserves to ride out the next episode and diversify their income streams so they can generate at least partial income during downturns. How can you shift your business model so you have more work from customers who are still around during downturns? Helping businesses think through their revenue plans requires hands-on assistance but not much money.”
– Accion East
“E-commerce has become even more important, but many business owners have limited digital literacy, don’t have websites, and aren’t active on social media. We have a hub of tech talent in our downtown capable of developing quick solutions. If we created an organized network of tech talent, we would be able to broker connections among individual businesses, helping more businesses stay competitive.”
– Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
“A post-COVID world will be fundamentally different and could impact demand and consumer behavior for years to come. Retailers, and businesses more broadly, will benefit from mechanisms that reduce exposure going forward. For example, will retailers seek leases that set rent as a percentage of sales, and can local governments help incentivize this type of market behavior? Should cities consider structuring real estate taxes as a value-added tax based on rent?”
– Joe Sternlieb, Georgetown BID
“Business owners who can no longer afford to operate should have support to leverage their loyal customer bases and the investments they’ve made in order to realize their company’s value. Otherwise, too many business owners will be forced to close up shop, instead of selling their business to limit losses and even generate some wealth.”
– WHEDco
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2. Set aside funds for businesses with the greatest need.
An unsurprising lesson from the CARES Act was that first-come, first-serve funding programs benefit the most resourced applicants, and one-size-fits-all rules leave out whole industries (e.g. restaurants and bars that couldn’t commit to restoring full employment by late June, a precondition of loan forgiveness under the federal program). Fixing this, according to our collaborators, requires dedicated funds for the hardest-hit businesses, among them immigrant-owned businesses, food and beverage companies, and the underbanked.
“Almost 60% of our small business clients are very low income, earning $32,000 or less a year. Immigrant small business owners were largely excluded from federal aid through PPP because they don’t have banking relationships or payroll documentation from operating cash businesses. Those who are undocumented immigrants don’t qualify for unemployment insurance, so their income has completely evaporated. Many put up their homes as collateral and equity to fund their businesses, and many borrowed from families or leveraged other assets. Without providing assistance to these types of businesses, the economic impact of a business failure will be devastating and widely felt.”
– Asian American for Equality
“There needs to be a separate fund for independent food and beverage businesses. Restaurants and bars are not only being hit especially hard, but they are vital to retaining employees and office tenants in our downtown.”
– Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
“The Bronx has the lowest share of bank branches per household in the United States – how many of the Bronx’s 18,000 mostly small businesses can we really expect to have strong banking relationships? These businesses will continue to be at a disadvantage unless government and banks set aside funds and technical assistance for historically underbanked communities and businesses to access.”
– WHEDco
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3. Leverage CDFIs and other community networks to reach in-need businesses.
Congress’ latest relief package would set aside $60 billion for community banks, credit unions, and CDFIs (nonprofits lenders that exclusively serve low-income, underbanked communities). Cities can make an even greater impact, our collaborators say, by recapitalizing CDFIs and partnering with other community nonprofits and faith-based organizations to reach businesses in greatest need.
“CDFIs have the staff, technology, network, trust, and track record to serve the businesses in greatest need. The fastest way to unleash our potential is to untether us from the immediate need to raise capital. By providing capital or taking a loss position, cities could allow us to serve thousands more businesses – our average small loan is $12,000. It’s not a lot of capital, and it’s easy for the city to assess who performs well: they can track our loss rates over time and judge us on our merits.”
– Accion East
“Even when they’re allowed to reopen, businesses will need significant support to refinance debt, negotiate rent relief, file insurance claims, deal with suppliers, and navigate countless other choices. Our staff is only 25 people. How can we enlist and train CPAs, translators, and other professionals to meet the volume of need?”
– Asian American for Equality
“We need additional financial assistance from government and the private sector in the form of zero-interest loans and grants to help small businesses get back on their feet. Key to the success of these initiatives will be a dedicated fund for CDFIs and LDCs across the city so we can target businesses in low- and moderate income neighborhoods who may have not the same access to credit with traditional lenders. With additional resources, LDCs such as us can partner with CDFIs to provide one-on-one technical assistance directly to our local merchants and business owners in accessing these critical resources before funds run out.”
– Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
“In cities or areas that don’t have a fully developed CDFI ecosystem, deploying resources efficiently will require organizations that have close relationships with area businesses, such as neighborhood social service agencies and faith-based organizations. This is particularly true for the communities that are most in need and don’t have established relationships with financial institutions. Getting resources to businesses quickly may mean creating a more streamlined, flexible flow of funds, so that organizations that are best positioned to scale are aware of, and can access, federal and local resources.”
– Houston Land Bank
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4. Ensure a safe and welcoming return to Main Streets.
Many expect the recovery will be gradual and, at least until there is a vaccine, episodic. In that context, reassuring people that patronage of Main Street businesses is safe will be critical. Our interviewees suggested that public funds be used to activate the public realm in business corridors.
“As the city’s recovery centers on our ability to make our streets and gathering places feel safe and vibrant to workers, residents, and businesses, the public realm is now more important than ever. The City, with the assistance of the state and federal government, needs to invest in upgrades to our public realm infrastructure to further enliven our streets and stimulate our economy. Tactical, flexible shared street and plaza improvements would create more space for people and encourage social distancing. More permanent green infrastructure and curb-less streets would offer respite for workers and residents in high-density business centers like Downtown Brooklyn. BIDs are uniquely positioned to partner with the City and State on creative financing solutions and to pilot new design solutions that enhance pedestrian safety, sustainability, and new technologies.”– Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
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5. Streamline city regulations to support existing and new businesses.
One of the 10 Guiding Principles to a Just & Resilient Recovery argued that local government must remove barriers to recovery embedded in regulatory functions especially for small businesses that are more likely to employ lower-income, less-skilled workers. Leadership of front line organizations agreed.
“Businesses face many of the same regulatory and permitting challenges today that they always face, but in light of the current crisis, relief is even more urgently-needed to streamline government processes and lower barriers to entry for businesses seeking stability and support. Expensive, lengthy, and complex review and permitting processes hinder businesses ability to be nimble and adapt to the current environment, which may be the difference between surviving this crisis versus not and will have a big impact on how quickly our city can recover.”
– Central City Association of Los Angeles
“One big difference that cities can make with no new money is through procurement. Buildings and schools need to be disinfected and cleaned, for example – if cities set aside some portion of this work for small businesses, you’d help these businesses build up their reserves and diversify their income during downturns. Making it easier for small businesses to compete for city contracts would also encourage more minority- and women-owned businesses to get certified.”
– Accion East
“We have to work with cities to consider how we adapt policy, at least in the near term. With the expected spike in vacancy, there is a need to fill vacant storefronts quickly. In Washington, DC, it can take up to a year and a half to receive all required approvals and permits to open a business. If we want to support new business creation and bring activity back to the streets as quickly as possible, a key part will be expediting permitting or allowing a business to operate temporarily while attaining approvals.”
– Joe Sternlieb, Georgetown BID
“Neighborhood business organizations are best positioned to monitor the challenges businesses have encountered as they navigate the web of government regulations, assistance, and recovery issues, and assist in troubleshooting and sharing creative solutions. NYC should appoint leaders in this network to advise the Mayor and Council on the citywide plan for recovery, in addition to key leaders in industry.”
– Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
HR&A is grateful to the 10 collaborating organizations whose insights shaped 5 Priorities from the Front Lines and whose daily work is helping to secure and rebuild communities across the country. They are:
Accion East (Paul Quinteros): Part of a nationwide network of lenders, Accion East offers affordable business loans, complemented by in-depth guidance, coaching, and a support system of peers, mentors, and resources. Accion serves more than 8,500 business and invests more than $10 million annually through its CDFI.
Asian Americans for Equality (Jennifer Sun): Based in New York, AAFE is a non-profit organization dedicated to enriching the lives of Asian Americans and all of those in need. It is a preeminent housing, social service, and community development organization. Its affiliate, Renaissance Economic Development Corporation, is a CDFI.
Central City Association of Los Angeles (Jessica Lall): The premier advocacy organization focused on setting the vision for the future of Downtown Los Angeles, CCA represents the interests of 400 businesses, trade associations, and nonprofits from a broad range of industries that collectively employ more than 350,000 people in the county.
Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (Regina Myer and May Yu): DBP is a not-for-profit local development corporation that serves as the primary champion for Downtown Brooklyn as a world-class business, cultural, educational, residential, and retail destination. It manages three BIDs: the MetroTech BID, Fulton Mall Improvement Association, and Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn BID.
Downtown Vision, Inc.: The stewards of Downtown Jacksonville, Florida, Downtown Vision serves as place managers, connectors, strategists, and activators, dedicated to improving the heart of our city for its 5,800 residents, 55,000 employees, and 11 million annual visitors discovering Downtown’s attractions, natural amenities, restaurants and retail.
Georgetown Business Improvement District (Joe Sternlieb): The Georgetown BID is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the accessibility, attractiveness, and appeal of the Georgetown commercial district in Washington, D.C.
Houston Land Bank (Anne Gatling Haynes): Houston Land Bank’s mission is to strategically acquire, dispose of, and steward vacant, abandoned, and damaged properties, into productive use and to catalyze community and economic development for the City of Houston. Its work focuses on improving quality of life for Houston’s historically underserved communities.
Rochester Downtown Alliance(Holly Masek): The Rochester Downtown Alliance is a Minnesota nonprofit working to build a vibrant Downtown community through a series of special events, activities, and initiatives in collaboration with property owners, business leaders, the City, and others with a direct stake in enhanced business and economic development conditions in the Downtown.
Street Vendor Project: The Street Vendor Project is a membership-based project in New York City with more than 1,800 active vendor members who are working together to create a vendors’ movement for permanent change. It advocates for New York’s more than 10,000 street vendors, providing training, education on legal rights, and policy advocacy.
Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDco) (Davon Russell and Kerry McLean): WHEDco is a community development organization in the Bronx, NY, that builds award-winning, sustainable, affordable homes and helps build strong communities, including through commercial revitalization and entrepreneurship programs.
The COVID-19 crisis is far from over, but planning for recovery has begun.
A transformative recovery begins with ideas.
A Just and Resilient Recovery is a new, collaborative initiative to translate those ideas into actions to build a better “next normal” for urban life.
The HR&A community has been at the center of urban resilience, recovery and rebuilding initiatives for decades. From New York City’s fiscal crisis to the Great Recession, the Northridge earthquake to September 11th, Hurricanes Katrina, Harvey, Sandy, and Maria, we’ve helped many different communities weather many different shocks.
Times of crisis are times to come together.
As we’ve worked with scores of clients over the last several weeks to assess uncertainty, take first steps, and prepare for recovery, we’re excited to see a growing desire to go beyond a “return to normal,” to proactively shape a stronger, more equitable, more resilient urban life.
Over the months to come, we will be using this campaign for A Just and Resilient Recovery to share the latest from our team and elevate the ideas and actions that you are advancing to institutionalize transformational inclusivity and innovation in urban practice.
10 PRINCIPLES FOR A JUST AND RESILIENT RECOVERY
Carl Weisbrod shares principles for economic recovery in cities, drawing on four decades of leadership in the City of New York through a wide range of crises. He shares some premises – the promise of cities is not extinguished, diversity and pluralism are cities’ greatest strengths, the COVID-19 pandemic is intersecting with epidemics of inequality – and sets forth the ten concepts that we must all take into account as we advance a just and resilient recovery. (HR&A)
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Sign up to get the latest, get involved, follow our thinking on Medium, and please share this initiative with others working to remake urban life towards a “next normal” that is more just and resilient.
Want to get in touch? Email JustAndResilient@hraadvisors.com
By Carl Weisbrod
In the midst of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, government, civic organizations, and businesses are rightly focused on the urgent humanitarian and health crisis. In bringing major components of our economy to a halt, we have made a value judgment that saving lives is worth the economic damage caused by social distancing.
As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, our attention must shift to addressing the economic crisis. Civic leaders’ strategies to recover urban economies and neighborhoods must be premised on these observations about our cities:
The promise of cities has not been extinguished. Some have suggested that this pandemic will result in mass exodus from cities as the tide turns against density. This perspective is ill informed. Cities are not static. They have always reinvented themselves in response to economic and social change, and they will further evolve in response to this pandemic. Active streets, intellectual cross fertilization, brick-and-mortar retail, face-to-face interaction and all that makes urban life vibrant will return, perhaps to some extent in some new forms. Urban areas will continue to attract and retain people of talent and will regain their dynamism as centers of innovation and drivers of our local, state and national economies. That is the lesson of history, recent and ancient.
Diversity and pluralism – demographic, intellectual and economic – are cities’ greatest strengths. Recovery strategies must be inclusive, allowing a broad range of people to sit at the table to identify solutions that respond to the needs of the diverse residents of our cities – especially including those who often do not have a strong voice.
It is obvious that this pandemic has exacerbated deep inequalities that already existed in our society. The pandemic has disproportionately affected the poor, the undocumented, minorities, and service workers (including medical personnel) – the people who “take the early bus.” Strategies to support urban revitalization must make supporting them a priority. In the best of circumstances, they should help fuel the general economic recovery, not be the victims (once again) of it.
Ten Principles for a Just and Resilient Recovery
Building on those premises, any efforts toward economic recovery, particularly at the local level, will face challenges and constraints. A just and resilient recovery must take into account the following:
- “Recovery” from the pandemic will be gradual; as we have seen elsewhere in the world, the “lockdown” guidelines will decline incrementally and may even be restored to some extent. This crisis is quite different from previous ones in which the “recovery” could start almost at once. We should look to what should be done during the period roughly from the beginning of the relaxation of the “lockdown” period to about 18 months thereafter as we propose strategies for a longer term that includes institutional and permanent reform.
- We must equitably address demographic, economic and neighborhood disparities that have been brought into relief. Too often, government programs and bureaucracy leave out those who need it most. Crisis response should reframe how we are all connected despite demographic and economic differences. In a pandemic, the underprivileged becoming ill has direct negative risk implications for those with more resources and power.
- An equitable response must include finding ways to address the needs of those unlikely to qualify for direct federal assistance, such as the undocumented. This is, in particular, an issue for local and national philanthropies, whose resources in disaster recovery situations often bolster aid provided by government.
- City leaders must recognize that the economic damage will be widespread, affecting downtowns, retail strips, industry, and virtually all neighborhoods. Regulatory relief, support for job retention/creation, and aid to businesses large and small will be necessary. Our cities’ economies are densely woven tapestries. Those areas most damaged will need the most assistance, but making that assistance available will require the resources and tax revenue generated by the rapid restoration to health of each locality’s major economic engines.
- Local governments will have scant local resources. Because cities will experience severe fiscal challenges and are barred from deficit spending, they will need to rely largely on what is provided through various federal programs and what is allocated to them by the states, which will also be resource constrained. Federal resources will be critical to recovery, and how they can be accessed and deployed by localities will have meaningful implications for their effectiveness. In some cases, local and national foundations may be able to make up some of the difference; certainly, their talent and resources will be needed not only to ensure equity but also to fill gaps.
- Coordination between local and state government will be critical. Most federal aid is likely to flow through the states, so local governments need strategies to enable state/local relationships to function in a coordinated fashion, with the states inevitably the senior partners. Given the red/blue divide between many major cities and their states, this will be especially important – and, perhaps, even more acute in some states where the state and local governments have had different perspectives on how to address the pandemic itself.
- We must begin to identify an initial set of projects that can kickstart recovery when new federal funds become available. To avoid delays and to begin the recovery process that communities badly need, local government and its partners must tee up “shovel ready” projects.
- We must remove barriers to recovery embedded in local government regulatory functions. Local governments largely have control over land use, licensing, and other regulations that affect businesses. We must investigate how these regulations can be streamlined, suspended, deferred and/or permanently changed to ease or remove barriers to recovery, especially for small businesses that are more likely to employ lower income, less skilled workers.
- The channels through which recovery aid will be distributed at the local level need to be identified. Locally based organizations are critical partners in pushing out aid to local communities. Leveraging existing entities is often the fastest solution for immediate aid. But new or off-budget entities, such as local redevelopment authorities, may also need to be created to carry out certain functions that require more independence and flexibility.
- Finally, we must identify how major local institutions can contribute to recovery as both resources and intermediaries, and how to leverage and guide them strategically. These include universities, hospitals, and major businesses. For example, banks are processing PPP applications, which may meaningfully increase the speed at which at least their established customers get help, but should not occur at the expense of small, neighborhood businesses – often minority owned – with less well-established banking relationships.
The challenges local governments face in supporting economic recovery will be numerous. Leveraging federal resources thoughtfully, restoring to health major local economic generators, ensuring an equitable response that benefits disadvantaged communities, as well as identifying ways to deploy aid efficiently and effectively are all key. As the public health emergency slowly begins to ebb, we must start planning how we will surmount the formidable challenges to a just and resilient economic recovery.
“If done thoughtfully, New York has an opportunity to … set a new standard for states to address longstanding injustice and inequity, build African-American wealth, and create jobs for those who have been marginalized.”
HR&A Partner Andrea Batista Schlesinger and Principal Jon Meyers co-authored an op-ed in City Limits calling for New York State to pass cannabis legislation that proactively drives equitable outcomes for communities harmed by cannabis criminalization and design policies that advance economic growth and industry development.
Read the full column here.
Learn more about HR&A’s Inclusive Cities practice here.
Local governments are facing difficult decisions and uncertain futures as their communities, and especially those most vulnerable, are being hit with unprecedented health and financial crises due to COVID-19. The Federal government has begun to provide support but navigating these programs is challenging.
On Thursday, April 9th, HR&A Partners Phillip Kash and Jeff Hebert, experienced leaders in disaster recovery and resilience, led Federal Disaster Stimulus: A Primer for Local Governments, a webinar highlighting the Federal programs addressing the current financial crisis, including:
• Federal funding streams
• Key programs in the CARES Act
• How local governments can best deploy funding
Watch the webinar here.
Written by Phillip Kash and Jeff Hebert
Communities face two parallel crises because of COVID-19: an unprecedented global public health emergency, and the fastest economic decline on record, including over 6.6 million applications for unemployment insurance for the week of April 4 alone, and over 16.7 million applications cumulatively since March 21, while confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses continue to rise. While our public and private institutions rightfully focus on their immediate attention on emergency response, once we emerge from quarantine, we will need to collectively address the underlying economic and social challenges that made COVID-19 so devastating and destabilizing. A post-COVID-19 world can provide the opportunity to create just and resilient communities that can better weather future events.
Leading a just and resilient recovery
When COVID-19 struck the U.S., almost 40% of American households were unable to afford an emergency expense of even $400. 1 Because of this economic insecurity, the impacts of COVID-19 will be felt most sharply by those already in need of support. A just and resilient recovery will improve the well-being of all community members by addressing underlying inequities. Local leaders have the opportunity to recover stronger from this pandemic by taking a hard look at the underlying issues that contribute to the damage from COVID-19 in their community.
Organizing principles for action
As the immediate threat from COVID-19 subsides, local leaders will shift their focus from emergency response to recovery. While the timeline for recovery is not linear – and health officials indeed have speculated that the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to recur – HR&A has developed a framework to guide the pursuit of a just and resilient recovery based on our work in past disasters.
Public and private institutions, including government, businesses, nonprofits, philanthropies, and community leaders, should organize their efforts around four phases: 1) emergency response, 2) stabilization, 3) adaptation, and 4) institutionalization.
COVID-19 has shown us that our communities are neither just nor resilient. As local leaders start the recovery process, each community will face a choice to either confront the issues that left so many community members vulnerable and our society as a whole fragile, or return to the status quo. Only recovery processes that address the underlying issues responsible will prepare communities for the next disaster.
Phillip Kash is a nationally recognized practitioner and pioneer in resilience planning and disaster recovery. A leading expert on urban policy, Phillip works across the country to address two of the most pressing challenges facing cities today: climate adaptation, economic recovery and housing affordability. His visionary plans provide cities and their partners with strategic frameworks to guide their efforts; programs and policies to inform their actions; and implementation roadmaps that ensure projects are delivered.
Jeff Hebert is a pioneer of resilience planning and community revitalization. He works with cities around the country to develop strategies that mitigate future social, economic, and physical shocks and stresses. He is a national expert in the areas of resiliency, redevelopment, equitable and inclusionary growth, and economic development. Jeff was instrumental in the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina having served Mayor Mitch Landrieu as the city’s First Deputy Mayor & Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Resilience Officer, and as Executive Director of the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority. In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, he served as the Director of Community Planning for the Louisiana Recovery Authority under Governor Kathleen Blanco.
1 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2018.”
Written by Jee Mee Kim and Meg Merritt
Transit agencies are working overtime to solve the near-term operational challenges caused by COVID-19, including shifting priorities to new service patterns and sanitizing protocols. But when the quarantine storm passes, what will our transit future look like in the aftermath of physical distancing? And how can we ensure that transit agencies continue to provide high quality mobility options, particularly for our nation’s most vulnerable populations who are disproportionately impacted by the health and economic crisis resulting from COVID-19?
It is likely that in the near term, American transit will experience lagging ridership recovery due to social distancing norms and a loss of tax revenue streams that fund operations and maintenance. The $25 billion of federal transit support included in the COVID-19 relief package (CARES Act)—the highest of any transit appropriations to date—can buttress operational costs just enough to give affordable transportation options to Americans going back to their jobs and for those looking for work.
This package is a welcome relief in a scary time for transit and a stamp of approval that transit is indeed an essential business. In any economic scenario, functional transit operations are critical to American businesses and upward mobility for the poorest and most vulnerable who rely on affordable and reliable ways to get to work, school, childcare, and basic errands. In a post-COVID-19 world, transit will be a prerequisite to restoring economic health back to our cities and urban communities.
Cities and transit agencies should first focus on targeting their most impacted residents. Despite the infusion of cash provided in the relief package, the funding will not be adequate to restore transit to pre-COVID-19 operations, especially as ridership struggles to ramp up. However, this is the time that transit will be essential to the millions of residents who have lost their jobs. For those whose shuttered jobs reopen, low-wage workers will need transit to get back to their routines. Transit agencies will need to make sure that service is restored across the most impacted communities and explore fare reductions. Cities should ramp up their efforts to improve first/last-mile connections through partnerships and renew their focus on bike, scooter, and pedestrian access to transit.
Transit systems will need to bring confidence back to their riders. Many riders may remain skittish about using transit and standing less than six feet between other passengers. Cities and transit agencies may draw riders back by launching marketing campaigns that provide fact-based, real-time information while highlighting the continued benefits of using transit.
The COVID-19 crisis offers an opportunity to course-correct historical underinvestment in transit infrastructure. After immediate operational gaps are covered by the CARES Act, subsequent federal aid should support major capital infrastructure investments. An infusion of capital investment will address the decades of lagging transit infrastructure investment while also providing jobs. According to a 2014 study by the American Public Transportation Association, every one billion dollars invested in transit can yield nearly 51,000 jobs—offering a four to one economic return. This jump-start would allow cities and regions who are already planning projects—and those that would like to—to receive expedited federal assistance and begin environmental clearance and construction.
We may not be able to visualize a post-COVID-19 future while quarantined in our homes now, but eventually we will get back to a semblance of our prior lives. The decisions we make in the coming days will shape a future in which a healthy economy co-exists with clean air and reduced emissions and congestion. Reinvesting in transit can restore our cities and communities, help Americans in most need get back to their jobs, schools, and childcare centers in an affordable and reliable way, and create new jobs to jumpstart the economy.
Jee Mee Kim is a Principal with the economic development and real estate consulting firm HR&A Advisors.
Meg Merritt is a Principal with the transportation planning firm Nelson\Nygaard.
Over the coming weeks, we will share our thoughts with you about the implications of this crisis and welcome any thoughts you may have. Please contact us at info@hraadvisors.com.
HR&A Advisors is actively monitoring the global COVID-19 pandemic. We are focused on delivering high-quality services for our clients and partners, while ensuring the health and well-being of our staff and the communities we serve.
To date, we have restricted all non-essential business travel. Additionally, our offices will be closed out of an abundance of caution and concern for employee and community health, and our employees will work remotely through at least Monday, March 23.
We know that many of our clients and project partners are facing the same challenges and making similar decisions. Fortunately, HR&A is fully equipped to provide seamless and responsive services to you. We will continue to provide project deliverables, conduct meetings via phone and videoconference, and develop alternative methods of engagement to move projects forward. At the same time, we are evaluating what this different environment means for our clients, now and in the future, and how we can continue to help you solve the pressing and rapidly-evolving challenges you face.
Over the coming weeks, we will share our thoughts with you about the implications of this crisis and welcome any thoughts you may have. Please contact us at healthycities@hraadvisors.com.
At the October 2019 International Downtown Association Annual Conference, HR&A Partner Andrea Batista Schlesinger gave a master talk on the contradictions and repercussions of “proud urbanism”, the central theme of the fall summit. Speaking in Baltimore, MD in front of practitioners from downtown organizations, city agencies, municipalities, and private-sector professionals, Andrea, who leads the firm’s Inclusive Cities practice, began with the premise that economic development is not a neutral act and addressed how planning and economic development tools have been actively deployed to create and reinforce racial divides.
“It’s easy to talk about in the context of redlining,” said Andrea, who understands a praxis of inclusive and equitable growth as a former leader in government, think tanks, philanthropy, and political campaigns. “It’s less easy to see in the naming of a community as blighted as a means of evicting undesirables to make way for those who are more desirable. It’s less easy to see in the building of a park downtown that makes clear this isn’t for us in its design, in how it’s policing, in the photographs of it on our websites of who’s enjoying it.”
Equitable economic development is about the questions we ask to understand the impact of our work, posited Andrea, and probing the ways planners and placemakers inherit a legacy of American urban racism as well as the class privilege to shape the places and systems in which we live and operate. (She lays out a three-question exercise to think outside the boundaries of a project in minute 9:50).
Rather than relying on traditional policies that position redistribution at the fulcrum of equitable economic development, Andrea implored planners to consider cooperative investment models and new, unexpected partnerships in black and brown communities. A more effective way to address gentrification, displacement, and other longstanding racial divides would be “[a model] that re-imagines the central function of the development and management of a place as a means of tackling inequity,” she clarified.
Check out her master talk on the fallacy of the downtown growth strategy and the importance of redefining the meaning of success to create better policy agendas that think beyond what they build.
Learn more about Inclusive Cities
Learn more about Andrea Batista Schlesinger
Check out HR&A’s Equitable Economic Development and Mobility Strategy for Grand Rapids