infrastructure

InfrastructureUSA.org has launched!

We encourage citizen dialogue about civil infrastructure — all infra areas, any topic and every viewpoint. As we launch this exciting new initiative, we’re heartened by the enthusiasm and support for our mission already demonstrated by a broad spectrum of people and influential organizations from across America. Consider these insights from three of the leading nonprofit organizations focused upon infra issues:

• The Urban Land Institute argues in a recent publication that our nation is approaching “a pivot point for overhauling its dilapidated and outmoded infrastructure.”

• The Regional Plan Association’s America 2050 initiative notes that “America’s response to the dual challenge of meeting its growing energy needs and responding to the threat of global climate change will define its ability to compete globally in the 21st century.”

• And a recent national survey by Building America’s Future finds that “Fully 81% of Americans are prepared to pay 1% more in taxes to rebuild America’s infrastructure.”

What these reports all have in common is that they are all available at InfrastructureUSA.org. As an independent web site, we don’t agree or disagree with any of their conclusions, but we’re indebted to these respected think tanks (and others) for providing their perspective on some of the major infra issues. We’ll continue to turn to experts like these, and hope you’ll join in the conversation with them.

Then there’s The Infra Blog, where we’ll regularly go out of our way to poke and prod and try to generate thoughtful debate. Special thanks to Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, our first guest. You should find his comments quite direct. Most importantly, Show Us Your Infra is your opportunity to share your stills, video and stories about local and national issues. Go there. Contribute your information and ideas. InfrastructureUSA.org needs to hear from you. Plus, our first Infra Poll question is now open for voting.

There’s much, much more coming soon to InfrastructureUSA.org, including original Infra Films, national public opinion research and a contest or two. These are early days. Exciting, but early.

Right now...we hope you'll join in the conversation

The dialogue is now underway!

Back in December, when the Presidential Transition was just beginning to ramp up, I wrote two pieces about the current state and future of progressive youth organizing:

• Framing the Youth Movement
• Where Do We Go From Here?

These were pretty high level, 30,000 foot views. Today, having finished the transition period, I want to talk a little more specifically about what I think the youth organizing space needs to accomplish in 2009 and 2010 in order to push this "movement," (such that is one) forward beyond the electoral work that has primarily defined us for 4 years. These are the four main themes that I think need to define our work, and this is where Future Majority will likely focus its efforts in 2009:

• Spread Internal Policy and Lobbying Expertise: What little institutional knowledge the youth community has when it comes to moving legislation is locked up in a few orgs with professional lobbying staff (USSA, PIRG, maybe Energy Action). We need to create a mechanism to unlock and spread that knowledge out to the rest of the community. Furthermore, we need to grow our organizational and personal social networks on the Hill and find allies who can guide us through the process, sponsor bills, and give us greater entre into DC. It was my hope that the White House Youth Liaison might in part be an ally in this process, but at this time the transition is completed and there is no word from the Administration as to whether or not such a position will even be created let alone staffed with someone who will be a competent and forceful ally.
• Resist Issue and Age Silos: A framework needs to be created under which youth organizations working on different issues can endorse and support each other. We are strongest when we act together and demographically speaking the vast majority of Millennials are going to be on the same side of a number of issues. It's widely recognized that siloization of issues in the progressive movement was detrimental overall, we should recognize that and be conscious not segregate ourselves along issue lines. Likewise, our work shouldn't be separate from the work of "older" progressive organizations. Progressive campaigns should all have youth-targeted components and rather than run our own programs, we should be running the youth-targeted pieces of these larger campaigns.
• Voter Registration Reform is a Game Changer: We are all excited to make headway on major issues like climate change, green jobs, education funding, and restoring civil liberties, but our success in all of those areas in part depends on high levels of youth participation at the polls. Maintaining those levels of engagement is a resource intensive endeavor that never stops. It sucks up millions of dollars and thousands of staff hours per year. Automatic Universal Registration with an Election Day Registration fail-safe, as proposed by Rock the Vote, could potentially guarantee that 2008 is not the last time we see 53% turnout or higher among youth. It would also put dozens of youth groups effectively out of the voter registration business, saving millions of dollars a year that could instead be spent on GOTV, issue campaigns, and leadership development. That would change the youth organizing space in profound and fundamental ways, I think perhaps for the better. I would like to see some form of AUVR and EDR passed during this Congress, and get all youth groups out of the voter reg business by 2012.
• Reform the Democratic Part(ies) and Party Committees: As I've noted many times, Obama's engagement of young voters remains the exception, not the rule in Democratic politics. We've had a lot of great rhetoric from Howard Dean's DNC about the importance of young voters, but very few campaigns or state parties took that to heart, and Dean's words never translated to a stronger, better resourced youth infrastructure within the Democratic Party. The best that could be said of Dean's tenure with regard to youth participation in the party is that we saw the creation of the Youth Council, and entity that is still getting its legs and fighting for power, and we saw a higher number of youth delegates at the Democratic convention, something more attributable to Obama's candidacy then to any policy or program instituted by Gov. Dean. The argument for greater inclusion of youth within the party structure, and the codification of youth outreach and engagement as a sound strategy practiced by the state parties and party committees has never been stronger. Over the next 4 years we are going to need to make that case so that the Democratic Party does not squander the opportunity of a generation. This is another area in which I hoped a White House Youth Liaison would be helpful. At the moment, it seems as though we'll need to just wait and see what Jennifer Dillon O'Mally and Mitch Stewart, respectively, do now that they are officially in control of the DNC and Organizing for America.

These are what I see as the four main tasks ahead of us in terms of creating greater coherency and power for our movement over the coming years, and adapting to the new power structure in DC and our relation to it. What do you think? Did I leave anything out or misrepresent anything?

Via Marc Ambinder, I found this memo (attached below) from Cornell Belcher - pollster for the Obama campaign and the DNC - to Howard Dean. The memo describes the arc of Dean's tenure as Chairman of the DNC, noting how the political landscape has changed, how the Democrats' new "pluralist majority" arose, and what the DNC must do in the coming years to solidify those gains.

Belcher identifies three main trends behind the Democrats rise to power in 2006 and 2008:

• Democrats eroded the Republican brand on key issues (culture of corruption). This was especially potent in 2006.
• Democrats competed more broadly and successfully in moderate and Republican areas - aka the 50 State Strategy.
• Democrats performed better among a range of demographic groups, notably in communities of color and among youth.

I want to spend the rest of this post focusing on the third item on this list. With a new Democratic Party Chairman taking the reins at the DNC, we have an opportunity to remake how the Party itself engages young people. At this point, that outreach is limited to a severely underfunded College Democrats operation (now facing stiff competition from Students for Barack Obama), a growing, but limited involvement of young people within the party structure itself, and no real mandate to the states to engage youth locally.

As Belcher's memo documents, youth support for the Democratic party - particularly among young people of color who make up roughly 40% of the Millennials - surged this year. Even among young white voters there were significant gains made. However, these new votes primarily benefited Obama in 2008 (emphasis mine):

The surge among new voters of color was incredible. Thirty-eight (38) percent of our new electorate was either Hispanic or African American. It is becoming increasingly clear that the key to sustaining and growing our Democratic majority coalition lies with younger and more diverse voters who are clearly trying to turn the page. Younger white voters are far more open to supporting Democrats than their parents (whites under age 35 broke for the Democratic House candidate by +14 points in our polling), but Democrats must work hard to fully bring home these voters who primarily surged in support of Obama. Our post election poll data shows that Democrats down the ballot left a good number of younger votes on the table as 20 percent of voters under age 35 dropped off after casting a presidential ballot rather than voting for a House candidate. These younger and browner surge voters are, by and large, Obama‘s right now, not necessarily the Democratic Party‘s. If Democrats are to strengthen our majority coalition going into the off year, we will clearly need to reach and engage these voters with some party persuasion. Again, the Party must continue to aggressively build in the off year—the time to let up on the 50 state strategy is not now. We must expand upon it with a particular youth and minority focus.

As we've all seen, the youth numbers this year are amazing, but that 20% downballot drop-off is staggering. Imagine how many close House and state legislative races we left on the table, and what the political map might look like today if Obama had bigger coattails among youth?

Belcher does not see loyalty to the Democratic Party among these newly engaged youth as fait accompli. It's going to take work to convert Obama supporters into Democratic Party supporters. He also correctly notes that young voters are far more persuadable than older voters, to which I would add that it is also cheaper to persuade younger voters, making youth outreach/engagement much more attractive than outreach to older groups from a pure cost/benefit standpoint.

Younger white voters were more secular in their values and closer to the middle on election issues than older white voters (Figure 5). This presents a key opportunity for Democrats, as this younger group will be more likely to side with Democrats on faith vs. secular issues. However, the younger group is to the center on issues, and could swing in either direction on the issues in future elections. The Party must look to specifically build here among these younger whites. Working to move this younger group of voters toward the Democrat end of the issues spectrum should be a strategic focus in our off year work to solidify them for Democrats for the long term.

Middle age white voters were more compelled by the Republican positions on the issues than their younger counterparts. Although senior whites tilted slightly toward the Republicans on the issues, they were much more compelled by religious values than the other age groups. This makes older whites a real tough get unless we continue to undermine Republicans arguments that have largely defined the values playing field.

At the end of his memo, Belcher recommends that the incoming chairman increase resources for the 50 State Strategy and provide a mandate for that strategy to focus in part on youth. I couldn't agree more. Indeed, this is exactly what a number of youth within the party - at the DNC Youth Council, Young Voter PAC, YDA and us here at Future Majority - have been saying for years. However, I would go even further than Belcher. He's right that long-term party building requires a greater focus on youth outreach. But the most effective way to do that will be to make youth engagement part of the structure and strategy of not only the DNC, as Belcher suggests, but also the party committees and state parties. The party committees wield enormous influence in how campaigns are run, and outreach to youth at the local level has to come from the state party and it has to be 24/7/365. It can't come from a national organization parachuting in during the last 8 weeks of an election.

Obama will not be on the ballot in 2010 - or in many future elections - and we need to decrease that 20% ballot drop-off and solidify our gains among Millennials. I hope Governor Kaine, Executive Director O'Malley Dillon, and other incoming senior staff at the DNC heed Belcher's advice.

The DNC is currently asking supporters to welcome Chairman Kaine to the DNC and send him your questions. I recommend that everyone encourage Chairman Kaine to read the Belcher memo, and ask if he will beef up the 50 State Strategy and include a mandate for engaging youth and young people of color.

Update: AdamGreen of the PCCC offers an explanation of the organization over at Open Left.

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A group of former MoveOn.org and labor organizers is rolling out a new cog in progressive infrastructure -- the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

The Huffington Post posted this story, which Chris Bowers picked up at Open Left on Thursday:

Rather than focusing on large, independent expenditures, ala the Club for Growth, it seeks to help progressive federal candidates, such as Tom Geoghegan, by providing them with expert staff, advice, strategy and connection to the netroots. The focus will be on open seat primaries, and progressives who face competitive general elections, but primaries against conservative Democrats might also come into play. From a Huffington Post story today:

A group of progressive operatives from MoveOn and labor circles have teamed with a prominent Internet pioneer to try to give the Sam Bennetts of the world the final push they need -- and send even more Perriellos to Congress. The organization will be the first of its kind exclusively to focus on electing progressive Democrats in congressional elections.
It won't focus its energy on unseating conservative Democrats, but Green, a cofounder, didn't rule out the possibility. Instead, it will prioritize competitive open-seat primaries and help general election candidates like Bennett and Perriello run effective campaigns.

The group's first forays are likely to be in the Illinois district vacated by Rahm Emanuel, who left to become Obama's chief of staff. Green says the group is in talks with a progressive labor lawyer, Tom Geoghegan, in that district. Another potential target: the California district emptied by Hilda Solis, who's been tapped to be labor secretary.(...)

The PCCC aims to be something of a guiding resource for first-time candidates like Bennett. By helping candidates find good campaign staff and make more effective use of the Internet, the group thinks candidates could save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultant fees. Whereas consultants might charge thousands to record and pump out robo-calls, for instance, the PCCC could show a candidate how to do it in-house, online, for a fraction of the cost.

The PCCC suddenly makes the process of running for office seem much less intimidating for an electoral novice -- a very good thing for many of our potential young elected officials. This organization appears strong, as Bowers notes that it's on track to raise $650,000 this year already. It's also very experienced, thanks to the cadre of former MoveOn.org and labor activists guiding it. For youth toying around with running for office, this is a great tool.

Should this create the positive momentum in attracting young candidates like I think it might, perhaps we can start to fix this problem.

In the last few days, a number of critiques and profiles were published commenting on new/old infrastructure, the campaign(s), and where we're at as a movement. All are worth the time for those looking to get a better birds eye view of the current political landscape.

• Rolling Stone eviscerates the disasterous "No on Prop 8" campaign. In reading the piece, one gets the overwhelming sense that the No on 8 folks ran the equivalent of John Kerry's Presidential campaign to the field and fundraising savvy Bush-like campaign helmed by the Mormans.
• On Tech President, Clinton internet strategist Peter Daou discusses the Revolution of the Online Commentariat, in which he dissects radical changes that occur in politics when information is put (more) equally in the hands of million.
• While the Obama Transition Team continues to innovate, Micah Sifry wonders if the Obama for America team - who met in Chicago this past weekend to devise the future of the movement - is regressing and killing the very openness and grasroots energy that made the campaign so successful.
• Last week, the Alliance of Youth Movements met in New York. Bizarrely, almost no one I spoke to had ever heard of the conference or the groups involved. There are definitely a lot of groups out there claiming to speak for and/or organize youth. Sometime this year we're going to have to build some stronger connections between groups that attend these kinds of conferences and, say, groups that received money from major progressive donors this last election cycle. In any case, some of the conference panels were live streamed and archived. You can view them all here. (I have not yet done so, though the topics look interesting).
• The Washington Post profiles the American Constitution Society. Created to counteract the conservative Federalist Society, ACS is becoming a powerhouse for producing lefty legal thinkers. I'll have to check my copy of Youth to Power when I get home, but I'm pretty sure that David Halperin, the ED of Campus Progress, had a hand in setting up ACS back in the day.
• The New York Times notes that teenagers are getting hit hard by the economic downturn, limiting their opportunities to raise money for school and develop skills to help them in the workplace.

It's funny how much more relevance a "radio" address takes on when it's on YouTube. Of course, it could be that we now have a leader who has priorities that are more in line with ours. Either way, President-elect Obama's address this week is important because for the first time in a long time, we're going to be embarking on a grand effort to improve our country from the inside out.

Today, I am announcing a few key parts of my plan. First, we will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won’t just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work.

Second, we will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways, and we’ll set a simple rule – use it or lose it. If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money.

Third, my economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.

As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m President – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.

In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the internet, we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the internet. That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives. We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year.

What's refreshing about this, of course, is the attention this president is paying to the future. Let's place this next to an example of our current president's lack of vision and stubbornness, when he rebuffed the National Governors Association's request to invest in the nation's infrastructure last February.

President Bush rebuffed appeals from the nation’s governors on Monday to increase spending on roads, bridges and other public works as a way to revive the economy.

Governors said Mr. Bush had told them at a White House meeting that he wanted to see the effects of his economic stimulus package before supporting new measures.

A bipartisan group of governors is pushing for major road and bridge projects as a way to create jobs and foster economic development. But the White House says the money could not be spent fast enough to be of much immediate help.

“There’s no short-term stimulus to the economy for some of these projects,” Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said.

Moreover, Ms. Perino said, the president will not accept any bill that raises taxes to finance such projects. Governors would have more money available, she said, if Congress ended the wasteful earmarking of billions of dollars for specific projects.

One roadblock the Transportation Department tried to put up in order to keep from doing work was the argument that the jobs don't happen fast enough in order for it to lead to any stimulus.

Brian G. Turmail, a spokesman for the Transportation Department, said highway spending was not an effective way to stimulate the economy because “it takes too long to get the money into projects.”

Rather than asking for an increase in federal highway spending, Mr. Turmail said, governors should seek additional money from the private sector, including pension funds and investment banking concerns.

Obama's answer -- use it or lose it.

We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways, and we’ll set a simple rule – use it or lose it. If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money.

Of course I only really focused on infrastructure in this post, but Obama's overall big-picture and future-oriented thinking on these issues naturally emphasizes civic engagement among youth. You get the idea, with his Facebook/YouTube/MySpace use, that he's serving as America's dad. With a large younger audience listening intently, Obama is teaching us how to put America together again. He's showing us the priorities this country has, and he's investing his time so that when he is no longer around, we know what to do in order to keep this country safe and moving forward. He's not an authoritarian parent; he's one that empowers his family to work hard and do the right thing.

Meanwhile, Perino's/Bush's focus on short-term stimulus speaks volumes. The future is only important to this administration when it comes to some Rovian project to rewrite history. Bush was so paranoid about not getting credit for any long-term strategy that he decided to not do anything, repeatedly rejecting any sensible long-term ideas. No wonder the GOP has major youth issues.

Earlier this week, Generation We, in conjunction with Ruy Teixeira, released an updated survey (pdf) of the attitudes and activities of Millennials in the 2008 election (attached, download at bottom). Covering everything from voting rates to views on the role of government, it reads as a good update to an NPI report that we often quote: The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation.

What sets it apart from most of the analysis of the youth vote that you've read here and elsewhere is that the report, like the book on which it is based, isn't just a primer on youth participation. It's a generational analysis that is concerned with the political power of Millennials now, as they enter the electorate in significant numbers, as well as 10, 20, and 30 years from now, when Millennials will comprise a plurality of the electorate. You should read it (pdf) and bookmark it. It's a great reference guide if you don't want to sort through 6 different data sets looking for information on Millennials.

During their press briefing to release the report, one of the more interesting topics of discussion focused on cohort replacement - the impact that the Millennials will have as they age into the electorate and older, more conservative demographics age out (Read: die).

The voting inclinations of the Millennials, hugely important in this election, could become even more so over time. If Millennials remain oriented as they are and maintain the generational consistency they have shown so far, the simple process of cohort replacement—more Millennials moving into the electorate and taking the place of older voters—will increase the Democrats’ margin over the GOP by an additional two and a half percentage points in 2012 and then by another two and a half points in 2016. That’s quite a shift.

And that shift will definitely be toward the Democrats and the relatively progressive politics they represent, not just toward Obama. In 2008, the 66-32 margin for Obama among 18-29 year olds was not far off the 63-34 margin for House Democrats among this age group. Even more important, party identification among 18-29 year olds, according to data released by the Pew Research Center right before the election, has been running 29 points pro-Democratic (61-32), an absolutely stunning figure. Party identification is the single strongest predictor of how people vote and tends to stick with individuals once they form an attachment early in their political lives. It appears that the Democrats in particular and progressive politics in general will be reaping the benefits of Millennials’ strong political leanings for many years to come.

This is very encouraging, but I just want to issue a word of caution. As a number of panelists mentioned at the press briefing, this swing towards the Democrats didn't come out of nowhere and the progressive politics of Millennials is not fait accompli. It was greatly assisted by the work of the Obama campaign and independent youth organizations reaching out to young people and including them in the process.

As Al Acker, President of the Young Democrats, noted during the panel, youth groups had far less support this year than in previous years. And Obama's campaign is just that - a campaign. We don't know how or if it will translate into a permanent piece of infrastructure. Out of all the state parties in the country, only one - Ohio - had anything even resembling a strong youth outreach component. The party committees (DSCC, DCCC) are still not sold on the idea of youth outreach as a part of their work vital to the long term health of the party. All this as word comes down that the 50 State Strategy, another vital piece of progressive infrastructure focused on making long term gains for the party, may not survive beyond this election cycle.

As the chart in the sidebar shows, Republicans had the youth vote during the Reagan years and they lost it as they stopped reaching out and talking to young voters. Right now the youngest Millennials are very young. Young enough that Obama's historic election will be a permanent fact of life to them, as natural as computers and cell phones are to those growing up in the last ten years. There's no guarantee that what we did this year will move them to support Democrats or even Progressives without continued investment in outreach - anymore than the youngest of Obama's supporters this year were moved by us "old-hands" pining about the Dean days

Apologies for the light (read: no) posting today. I'm taking care of some personal stuff. Tomorrow I plan to blog about the following stories. I figure you can read them directly now and get a head start:

• Taking on the System and the Prop 8 Protests: Kos talks about his new book and how the Prop 8 demonstrations showed us 1) How demonstrations could be relevant in the 21st C; and 2) How a 26 year old from Seattle used decentralized organizing and put traditional LGBT groups to shame.
• Be + Cause Strategies discusses Obama's win and the importance of infrastructure and organizing.
• Progressive States Network tells us why, even in the wake of a national win, we should continue to strengthen our efforts at the state level.
• Next Gen GOP wants to win back the youth vote. Part I and Part II.
• Amplify Your Voice brings us word of another Millennial elected to office with a little help from Facebook.

In 2004, we had a boom year in youth organizing. Upwards of $40 million was dumped into new organizations and new strategies to engage young voters in the election of John Kerry as President. A year later, in 2005, we saw a huge belt-tightening as, in the face of an unexpected loss, funders pulled back to rethink their strategies. With the exception of a few groups who emerged on the scene that year to become major players - Campus Progress and Young People For - most organizations either closed up shop in 2005 or saw a major belt tightening.

So my question is this: will we see a similar pattern in this coming year? I don't know, but I can say that 2008 is very different from 2004, and that could lead to a very different outcome in 2009 than we saw in '05. What's different?

• The organizations that lasted beyond 2005 are more stable now than they were back then and generally have more diverse funding streams. Decisions by one donor are less likely to affect their ability to operate.
• This year, investors only pumped around 1/4 of the money into independent youth organizing as they did in 2004, and a lot of that was supplemental so those organizations could scale up and do more during a big election. That money may disappear, but won't have a huge effect on operating budgets.
• There were fewer start ups this year due to the fact that we were not starting from scratch - good organizations were already formed to handle a lot of the task of reaching young voters.
• The biggest start-up of all was Students for Barack Obama, which never relied on big donors, but lived off volunteer efforts and campaign budgets. What happens to SFBO isn't about funders drawing down their support, but the will of an Obama administration to create a lasting institution like Governor Dean did with Democracy for America, or find a way to effectively merge SFBO into the Obama administration
• We won. Big time. And everyone likes to support a winning strategy.

For sure we will lose a few small start-ups, but hopefully any new/best practices they pioneered will be taken up by the organizations that do stick around. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I'm not too fearful that 2009 will be Dark Days like 2005 was after the Kerry defeat. Time will tell.

I've recently become interested in urban planning and the impact of the Millennial Generation on its future. I'm originally from an area smack dab in the middle of the rust belt. I've read about and observed the many mid-size industrial cities around my hometown, especially Youngstown, Ohio, struggle with keeping crime under control, working around massive population loss, and selling people on the notion that it is important to rebuild these cities' urban cores.

Luckily, many of these cities are already getting back on track. Youngstown, for example, is being guided by the Youngstown 2010 project, a community-drafted plan established in 2002. Cleveland's downtown got an overhaul in the early 1990s. But there is still more work to be done. In doing this work, we need to make sure we understand what resources these communities need in order to solidify plans like these and put them into action.

Many people might ask why this has any connection with Millennials -- why is it important to rebuild these cities when its citizens have been moving to suburbs for years? Why is it important to invest in these urban areas when those young people fortunate enough to go to school will just move away after school? An article in the Washington Business Journal about the connection between the future of urban planning and its connection with Generation X and Millennials gave me an answer.

Millennials are actually pre-disposed to living in urban areas. Their focus on community and convenience demands a short commute to whatever resource they need in their community. Ask any Millennial who uses the Internet to do research for a school project, chats on AIM with two friends, listens to music, and checks on the score of his favorite team's baseball game all at once -- they like to multi-task; they like productivity.

The most important factor in figuring out where we’ll be living in the future is to look at how we’ll be living. Just as the automobile in the 1940s and ’50s and racial turbulence in the 1960s and ’70s drove their parents and grandparents to the suburbs, look for today’s younger generations to affect what tomorrow’s communities will look like.

Just consider developer Jim Abdo’s successful bet in the late 1990s that Gen X-ers (born from 1965 to 1980) would line up for new places in the city if he helped remake Logan Circle.

“Generation X and Generation Y are putting much more emphasis on life-work balance,” says Adam Ducker, managing director at Richard Charles Lesser & Co., a real estate firm based in Bethesda.

One of the main ways to achieve a better life-work balance, Ducker says, is foregoing a large home in the suburbs and the long commute it carries for a smaller home closer to work. Commuting in exchange for a bigger house was a deal baby boomers were willing to make for their family. For younger generations, that’s not a reasonable trade-off.

As you read, a community re-formed on the basis of convenience is a necessary ingredient in rebuilding our urban areas. In addition, their dedication to the environment is another reason why Millennials might be interested in living in an urban community. An overhaul of the mass transit system would appeal to younger people in this time of high gas prices and environmental concerns.

So where does infrastructure come into play?

Well, the problem with urban redevelopment is that, many times, the projects that are a part of the process get stalled in Congress or other legislatures because they are labeled as "pork." For example, John McCain is on record saying that he will pay for many of his own plans -- like reinstating Bush's tax cuts -- by eliminating the pork from Congress. And while you can already see the problem developing there, McCain adds to it by advocating for a gas tax holiday; this will eliminate the funding for many of the projects involving our nation's infrastructure, further paralyzing development (while not getting any economic benefit).

Bob Herbert wrote a terrific piece for his column in the New York Times about the importance of infrastructure and its tendency to fly under the rader due to its... unsexy... nature.

I sat in on a meeting Thursday as Mr. Diaz and several other mayors, including Michael Bloomberg of New York, met in Manhattan to discuss ways of getting the federal government involved in large-scale infrastructure and transportation initiatives. The mayors are trying to spread the message that investing in a sound infrastructure is essential for continued economic development.

This may seem obvious, but infrastructure proponents are having a terrible time getting traction on this issue. Infrastructure initiatives are expensive, and not sexy. But there are powerful returns on these investments. They tend to pay for themselves many times over (can you imagine New York City without the subways?) and the projects are job creators.

With President Bush on the way out, the burden of leading an effort to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure would fall on either Barack Obama or John McCain. Representatives of each candidate attended Thursday’s meeting but did not participate.

The mayors talked about clogged highways, the high price of gasoline and an air transportation system that seems to get more pitiful by the day. Mayor John Robert Smith of Meridian, Miss., called on the presidential candidates to take a bold, creative approach to the nation’s transportation needs, including substantial investments in railroad infrastructure.

Mr. Smith believes the nation should devote the same level of commitment to developing a first-rate passenger rail system as was marshaled for the interstate highway system in the Eisenhower era.

My whole point in writing about this issue today is to articulate the link between progress for the future (and we have to look at what Millennials will want, since, according to the Washington Business Journal article, they'll be 30% of the population and transitioning to homeowner status by 2012) with the need for infrastructure. Bob Herbert is right -- it's not an attractive issue to talk about, just like it's not fun to sit in construction delays on a highway, but placed in context, it's crucial for our future.

We could have vibrant communities, with small grocery stores, coffeehouses, laundry facilities, movie theaters, drug stores, and apartments all included. We could have a state-of-the-art mass transit system linking these communities in many of our urban areas. We could have a light rail highway set up in the mold of the Eisenhower highway system. But without a focus on infrastructure, none of this will get off the ground.