Congressman Dan Kildee: We Need a Smarter, More Sustainable Agenda to Support America’s Cities and Towns

At Mackinac Policy Conference, Kildee Focuses on a ‘Marshall Plan’ Agenda for Michigan’s Older, Industrial Communities

Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-05) today gave remarks during a panel at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference focused on the need for a new “Marshall Plan” for America’s cities and towns.

The panel, “Not Open for Business: Why Disinvestment in Michigan Cities is Hampering Economic Opportunity,” explored Michigan’s broken municipal finance system and highlighted the important role that vibrant cities and towns play in creating economic opportunity. The panel, sponsored by the C.S. Mott Foundation, included Chris Coleman, Former Mayor of the City of St. Paul; Gordon Krater, Partner at Plante Moran; and Anthony Minghine, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Executive Director of Michigan Municipal League. The panel was moderated by Doug Rothwell, President and CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan.

In Congress, Congressman Kildee has led the efforts to develop policy that invests in cities and towns across the country. Congressman Kildee launched “The Future of America’s Cities and Towns” initiative to better align local, state and federal policies with the unique challenges facing older, industrial communities. Over the last year, he has hosted a series of policy discussions around the nation to highlight the unique challenges that cities and towns face regarding infrastructure needs, economic development, housing, blight and jobs in the modern economy. Kildee’s initiative calls for a new state and national strategy on how Congress invests in American cities and towns. Kildee serves as the co-chair of the Congressional Urban Caucus and Vice Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee.

Congressman Kildee Speaks to the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference on his work to bring investment to Michigan’s cities and towns

A transcript of Congressman Kildee’s remarks is below:

“Thank you, Ridgeway [White], for the work you do and for the role that the Mott Foundation has played in this whole question.

“I’m from Flint. Born and raised in the hometown that I love. Of course, we all know about the most recent story around Flint—this water crisis. It would be a tragic mistake, though, if somehow the conversation about Flint or the lesson of what our community has gone through in the last few years was relegated to a story about water or pipes. Or somehow about how a mistake that was made, almost like it was a storm. That would be a mistake. Because the story of Flint is not an anomaly. It seems like an extreme case, it is not an anomaly. The Flint water crisis is a warning.

“A warning about what happens when we fail to provide the essentials of a civil society in a community of people. If it were just an anomaly, we could organize the resources to fix it, and put it on a positive path, and move on to some of the other big questions that we face. But the truth is that what happened in Flint is a predictable result of austerity measures that put the community in a place where it was one mistake away from being in crisis. So as we have organized resources in my hometown around its recovery, one thing we can’t accept is this notion that we should get Flint back to where it was before the water crisis. We don’t want to be back where we were before the water crisis. That was not a good place.

“It was not a good place not because of the decisions that were made locally, although we could always criticize those choices that have been made. But because in the state and really largely across the country, we have abdicated our responsibility for the quality in these older communities, especially older, industrialized communities. We have a broken municipal finance system. We don’t provide the basic elements of a civil society. Think about what we have lost in not just Flint, but in Saginaw and other places, in Youngstown, Ohio and Gary, Indiana.

“We need a national conversation, especially a state conversation about what it takes to ensure that people living in any community have the basic elements of a civil society—police services, fire services, parks that aren’t mowed and maintained, roads, water systems. We are dead last in this state in providing direct support to cities. There is a consequence to that decision. And the consequence is not just felt by the people who live in those places.

“So even if we can’t conjure the moral argument that it is not right to allow a whole community, in this case a city of 100,000 people to live without those basic elements, or elements of civil society that are so minimal that they put that city at risk, even if we can’t conjure the moral argument that we ought not allow that to happen, it is in the interest of the state and the interest of this country that places like Flint and many others are the best they can be. And that starts by making sure that we’re not dead last when it comes to supporting the essentials of a civil society. It is incumbent on policy makers to accept this reality and then do something about it.

“The panel that has been assembled today can get into that, and get specific about what we need to do to ensure that we don’t put another community in the position where it’s one error, one mistake away from being in the crisis that Flint has just experienced.

“Flint is not an anomaly. Flint is a warning. Thank you.”

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