Evaluating the complexities that shape American communities is a necessary process in moving away from policies and practices that have become obstacles; and toward new directions that respond to current challenges and opportunities. Bruce Katz and the Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program released a May 2004 study, A Progressive Agenda for Metropolitan America,  that summarizes results of current patterns of growth, current policies that are obstacles to more rational growth and recommendations for policy changes. Competitive Communities will benefit from connecting policies for housing, workforce, education and transportation. This proposed agenda is presented as a challenge for the next administration. The following are excerpts from this work:
 
 
The Current Situation
“Broad demographic forces—population growth, immigration, domestic migration, and aging are sweeping the nation and affecting settlement patterns, lifestyle choices and consumption trends. Substantial economic forces—globalization, reindustrialization, and technological innovation – are restructuring our economy, altering what Americans do and where they do it.”
 
“These patterns—of racial, ethnic, and class stratification, of extensive growth in some communities and significantly less growth in others—are all inextricably linked. Poor schools in one jurisdiction push out families and lead to overcrowded schools in other places. A lack of affordable housing in thriving job centers leads to long commutes on crowded freeways for a region’s working families. Expensive housing – out of the reach of most households—in many close-in neighborhoods creates pressures to…build…in outlying areas, as people decide that they have to move outwards to build a future.”
 
“The fiscal costs of unbalanced growth are also enormous. Low-density development increases demand for new infrastructure (e.g., schools, roads, sewer, and water extensions) and increases the costs of key services like police, fire and emergency medical…the substantial impact of abandonment in older communities on the property values of nearby homes…the implications of concentrated poverty for additional municipal services in the schools and on the streets. Ultimately, these factors lead to reduced revenues, higher taxes and over-stressed services for older communities.”
 
Federal Policies shape growth patterns
…”Since the middle of the twentieth century, broad federal policies…have contributed substantially to unbalanced growth patterns in metropolitan areas…Federal polices…set “rules of the development game” that encourage the decentralization of the economy and the concentration of urban poverty. Federal transportation policies generally support the expansion of road capacity at the fringe of metropolitan areas and beyond…The deductibility of federal incomes taxes for mortgage interest and property taxes appears spatially neutral but in practice favors suburban communities, particularly those with higher income residents. Federal and state environmental policies have made the redevelopment of polluted “Brownfield” sites prohibitively expensive and cumbersome, increasing the attraction of suburban land.”
 
…Federal policies…rely on states and localities to “deliver the goods.”… Despite the fact that the bulk of the funds for transportation programs are raised in metropolitan areas, federal law currently empowers state departments of transportation to make most transportation decisions… metropolitan areas make decisions on only about 10 cents of every dollar they generate even though local governments within metropolitan areas own and maintain the vast majority of the transportation infrastructure.”
 
Solutions – Transportation & Housing policy changes
“It is time to develop a federal metropolitan agenda that takes account of the new spatial geography of work and opportunity in America…A progressive metropolitan agenda…economically efficient, fiscally responsible and environmentally sustainable. It is also necessary to revitalize central cities and older suburbs and to connect low-income families to broader educational and employment opportunities. 
  
     - A New Transportation Agenda for Metropolitan America -
 
Metropolitan America faces a daunting set of transportation challenges— increasing congestion, deteriorating air quality, crumbling infrastructure, spatial mismatches in the labor market—that threaten to undermine their competitive edge in the global economy. Three reform ideas stand out for federal attention and action.
 
…Continue to expand the responsibility and capacity of metropolitan transportation entities.
 
A “Metropolitan Transportation Fund”…created to provide metropolitan areas with the predictability of resources required for long term planning and the flexibility necessary to tailor transportation solutions to individual markets.
 
…Establish a framework for accountability that includes tighter disclosure requirements, improved performance measures, and rewards for exceptional performance…increase the practical opportunities for citizen and business participation in transportation decision making…funding to experiment with state-of-the-art technologies for engaging citizens in public debates. 
  
       - A New Housing Agenda for Metropolitan America -
 
…Expand housing opportunities for moderate and middle-class families in the cities and close-in suburbs while creating more affordable, “workforce” housing near job centers…federal policies should help regional elected leaders balance their housing markets through zoning changes, subsidies and tax incentives so that all families—both middle class and low income—have more choice about where they live and how to be closer to quality jobs and good schools.
 
…Federal tax incentives should be expanded to boost homeownership in places where homeownership rates are exceedingly low.
 
…Continue…efforts to demolish and redevelop distressed public housing and promote economic integration in federally assisted housing.
 
…Invest more substantially in vouchers…the most cost effective and market-oriented of federal housing programs…enable low-income parents to base their housing decisions on the performance of local schools.
 
…Shift governance of the housing voucher program to the metropolitan level.
 
…Make it easier to allocate low-income housing tax credits to areas of growing employment, not only to areas of distress and poverty.
 
…Prohibit lucrative federal highway investments in communities that have been found in violation of federal civil rights laws or otherwise have engaged in exclusionary housing practices.”
 
Building Support for Change
“This new metropolitan agenda…will require not just new policy ideas but new political coalitions that span jurisdictional, ideological and party lines. Existing local constituencies will have to think differently about metropolitan issues and make connections between policies—housing, workforce, education, and transportation—that are now kept separate and distinct.
 
…Urban policy in America can no longer be exclusively about cities or neighborhoods. It must be about the new metropolitan reality that defines our economy and society and the larger government rules that help shape that reality. The next administration has an historic opportunity to design and implement a metropolitan agenda that promotes balanced growth, stimulates investment in cities and older suburbs and connects low-income families to employment and educational opportunities.”