New Geography

Tag: Obama’s America

  • Whatever Happened to ‘The Vision Thing’? Part II

    More than two years ago (March 2009, to be precise), New Geography published an article I wrote, entitled Whatever Happened to ‘The Vision Thing’?. It began:

    When I was in elementary school, I remember reading about the remarkable transformations that the future would bring: Flying cars, manned colonies on the moon, humanoid robotic servants. Almost half a century later, none of these promises of the future – and many, many more – have come to pass. Yet, in many respects, these visions from the future served their purpose in allowing us to imagine a world far more wondrous than the one we were in at the time, to aspire to something greater.

    I am reminded of these early childhood memories not because I lament the loss of my flying car (although it would come in handy every now-and-again in fighting the Washington, D.C. rush hour gridlock) but because, with all of the rhetoric about change and hope, the Obama Administration has failed to articulate a strong, singular vision for what the future of America and the world can and should be. While some would argue that now is not the time for grand visions for the future but, rather, for hunkering down and muddling through these desperate economic travails, the fact of the matter is that at least part of the cause of continuing economic decline in this country, and in many other developed nations as well, is a lack of confidence in the future.

    I am now deeply troubled, as I always am when I have had such an epiphany, to report that clearly no one listened to me. As of August 2011, fourteen months away from what promises to be perhaps the most polarizing Presidential election in our Nation’s history, we are farther away than we have ever been from having a shared national vision for the future of our country.

    The current crises impacting the United States — record-high, persistent unemployment; a potentially ruinous national debt as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product; extreme volatility in the equity markets; a growing gulf between the “haves” and the “have-nots”; etc.; etc; etc.— are as much reflective of a crisis of confidence as they are of structural problems with our economy. And the increasingly toxic discourse between opposing factions within Congress, fueled by pundits and talking heads on cable news programs, talk radio, and the blogosphere, is in part a reflection of the axiom that nature abhors a vacuum. However, everyone is talking about treating the symptomology rather than making the patient better. No one wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room: That we are wandering aimlessly through an increasingly competitive world economy.

    So, what do we want to be when we grow up, America? We are, hopefully, coming out of the downside of an unsustainable economic model, premised on unrelenting, annual growth in the value of all asset classes, which fueled unfettered consumer behavior (“consumer confidence on steroids,” one could argue), and the misguided belief that we are and will always be the greatest nation on earth no matter what. Consequently, we need to decide what kind of America we envision for our future.

    We used to be builders of things, and did that better than any other industrialized democracy. Now we have to compete with the manufacturing juggernaut that is China, unfettered by our democratic and human rights principles and the inherent limitations of a free, capitalistic society. We want to maintain what is still (at least arguably) the highest standard of living in the world, but we don’t want to pay for it through the price of goods produced on our own shores. We are clinging for dear life to the outdated notion that we can enjoy inexpensive goods made by people who live on one-tenth or less what the average American earns, and still continue to have job and income growth. So we need to make the transition from being the largest consumer of goods in the world to once again being a country that does things; big things. The question is: What things? I guess if I could answer that question, I’d appear in an incredibly unflattering picture on the cover of Time magazine right now. But I can at least pose it.

    The political arguments that were brought into sharp focus in the debates over the federal budget and raising the debt ceiling might have perhaps brought more light than heat to bear on our economic problems had they been conducted within the framework of how our future as a nation should be shaped. The appropriate size of the federal government, for example, can only be reasonably determined once we’ve agreed as a nation about what role we want government to play in shaping our future.

    Runaway capitalism — which conferred benefits very selectively, albeit very handsomely, on a small percentage of our population—has proven to be both a very destructive force (e.g. the mortgage meltdown; the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster; etc.), as well as one that requires governmental intervention when it goes awry (e.g. the TARP program; the Federal Reserve Bank’s interventions in the marketplace; various federal foreclosure prevention programs; the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; etc.; etc.; etc. ad nauseum). Absent such a framework for the future, the national debate has been the victim of an increasingly acute form of intellectual paralysis: The short-term mindsets of our elected officials and the voters — tied to the two-year election cycle — force debate on inherently inadequate, short-term solutions to substantial, long-term problems. Because we have no shared vision of the country’s future, against which short-term solutions might be measured, there are no metrics for productive discourse. Hence, our so-called “leaders” argue in reliance on their “principles,” rather than with a broader view toward implementing the future we want to see.

    Things will only continue to grow worse, and much more polarized (although that’s truly frightening to imagine), unless and until we agree, as a nation, that there are some fundamental issues about our future that need to be addressed… and resolved. Creating jobs in a vacuum is a fool’s errand; so is cutting spending on existing programs when we should be deciding what kind of programs we want and need. The appropriate size of the federal government, how much money needs to be raised in terms of revenue (and from whom), and how those revenues should be efficiently spent, can only be determined with certitude in the context of where we want to go — and how we want to grow — from here.

    I no longer harbor any quixotic notions, as I did two-and-a-half years ago, about the President stepping forward to articulate a bold vision for America’s future: But somebody sure needs to … and soon.

    Photo by Severin St. Martin(Sev!): “Kes has a Vision”; North Shore, Lake Superior

    Peter Smirniotopoulos is a national expert in urban redevelopment, housing policy, and project and public finance. He is the founder and principal of petersgroup consulting, a real estate development and finance consulting practice based in the Washington, D.C. area, which serves the public, private, and non-profit sectors throughout the U.S. He is a former Faculty Member in the Masters of Science in Real Estate program at Johns Hopkins University.

  • Millennials Have the Answer to the Country’s Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

    America is about to enter a presidential campaign that promises to be filled with divisive rhetoric and sharp differences over which direction the nominees want to take the country. This will be the fourth time in American history that the country has been sharply divided over the question of what the size and scope of government should be. Each time the issue was propelled by vast differences in beliefs between generations that caused the country to experience long periods of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD), before ultimately resolving the issue in accord with the ideas and beliefs of a new generation.

    Every eighty years America engages in this rancorous, sometimes violent, debate about our civic ethos. The first occurred during and after the Revolutionary War and resulted in the most fundamental documents of our democracy: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

    The second took place during the Civil War. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments codified the outcome of that debate — this time in favor of the federal government asserting its power over state laws when it came to fundamental questions of personal liberty and civil rights.  It took the Civil War and a massive increase in Washington’s power to accomplish the end of slavery, although it would be another century until the rights of freedom and equality were fully extended to African-Americans. 

    And in the 1930s, the economic deprivations experienced by most Americans from the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, and the collapse of corporate capitalism, led to support for a “New Deal” for the forgotten man that placed the responsibility for economic growth and opportunity squarely on the federal government. The government demanded by the GI Generation (born 1901-1924) greatly surpassed the conventional views of earlier generations.

    In each case, the resolution of these debates depended on the emergence of a rising, young civic-oriented generation that thought the nation’s dominant political belief system   should contain a strong role for government, overturning the more conservative and limited-government views of the older generations then in power.

    Now, as previously, the highly charged ideological arguments on both sides of the issue generate great agitation and anger among older generations, especially Baby Boomers, who have driven our political life towards ever wider polarization. As a result, the resolution of today’s debate over the nation’s civic ethos is not likely to come from older Americans who seem incapable of and unwilling to compromise their deeply held values and beliefs.

    This time around, the largest generation in American history, Millennials, (born 1982- 2003), that  will comprise more than one in three adult Americans by the end of this decade, are destined to play a decisive role in finding a consensus answer to this critical question.   If the United States is to emerge from this most recent period of FUD, it will have to look to the newest civic-oriented generation, Millennials, for both the behavior and the ideas that will bridge the current ideological divide and spur the country into making the changes necessary to succeed in the future.

    Millennials believe that collective action, most often at the local level, is the best way to solve national problems. Using social media, Millennials are organizing groups like the Roosevelt Institute’s Campus Network, to present a very different vision of America’s future. In this Millennialist future, the idea of top down solutions developed by experts in closed discussions will give way to bottom up, action-oriented movements. This will topple institutions as dramatically as Napster upended the recording industry, or the Arab Spring changed the Middle East.  Just as their parents set the rules within which Millennials were free to exercise their creative energies when they were growing up, the new generation will continue to look to the federal government to set national goals or guidelines, as has long been the view of Boomer progressives.   However, the way in which these guidelines are implemented will not be determined in remote and opaque bureaucracies, but by individuals in local communities across the country. In this way, Millennials will embrace progressive values, but with approaches that may be welcomed by many conservatives.

    In the midst of the country’s current period of FUD, it is easy to despair that the nation will be unable to resolve its divisions and come to consensus about a new civic ethos. But throughout its history, when America has been equally fearful of the future, a new civic generation has risen to foster the necessary transition. In the end, this emerging generation served both itself and the country well. Now it is the Millennial Generation’s turn to serve the nation and move America to a less fearful and less divided future.  

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of NDN and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of the newly published Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America and Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics.

    Photo by kevindooley.

  • The 2012 Vote: A Newly Diverse Center

    Demographic transformations are changing how the American people vote. In 2010, only 15 per cent of Americans claimed to be completely unaffiliated independent voters, while 48 per cent identified with the Democratic Party and 37 per cent with the Republican Party. Back in the 1990s, party identification was at 44 per cent each.

    The Democrats’ advantage is due in large part to Millennial voters, recognised as the biggest and most important new voting cohort in America politics. Sometimes referred to as the ‘youth vote’, Millennials are generally born between 1982 and 2003. The Democratic advantage can also be attributed to an increase in Hispanic voters, who identify as Democrats over Republicans by a 2:1 margin.

    According to a study released in May by the Pew Research Center, of those registered voters in America who identify as Republicans, 14 per cent hold conservative views on most issues, 14 per cent are moderates with liberal views on most social issues, 11 per cent are staunch Tea Party conservatives, 11 per cent are disaffected down-sizers and 10 per cent are free market, small government libertarians. Of those registered voters who identify as Democrats, 16 per cent are solid Democrats (liberal on all issues), another 15 per cent are hard pressed (religious, and financially struggling),and 9 per cent are New Coalition Democrats (positive, minority-rights oriented).

    Many American voters are choosing not to identify with either political party. Unlike the Australian Independent voter, those Americans who reject the major parties, rather than moving towards the fringes, are flocking to the centre of the political spectrum. This has resulted in the centre becoming increasingly diverse.

    Surprisingly, the two independent members of the Senate, Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and former Democrat Joe Lieberman (Connecticut), rather than being centrists, hold strong ideological positions on issues such as the role of government, immigration, and the environment. Their election defies liberal or conservative orthodoxy and challenges the idea of the centering of the American voter.

    Evidence from the Pew report suggests that voters on the Right are polarising. Staunch conservatives are clearly identifiable in polling. These voters take extremely conservative positions on nearly all issues, from the size and role of government to economics, foreign policy and domestic social issues. Most are aligned with Tea Party Republicans in their disapproval of Barack Obama. There still exists a core group of Main Street Republicans, however, they are becoming less identifiable in opinion polls and in national polling.

    On the Left, not surprisingly, Solid Liberals express diametrically opposing views from the Staunch Conservatives on virtually every issue. While Solid Liberals are predominantly white, minorities make up greater shares of New Coalition Democrats, who are distinguished by their upbeat attitudes in the face of economic struggles. This group includes nearly equal numbers of whites, African Americans and Hispanics. Hard-Pressed Democrats are about a third African American. Unlike Solid Liberals, both of these last two groups are highly religious and socially conservative.

    Some American voters like to be considered Libertarians and Post-Moderns. Both groups are largely white, well-educated and affluent. They tend to be secular and are pro-homosexuality and abortion. Republican-oriented Libertarians, however, are far more critical of government, less supportive of environmental regulations, and more supportive of business.

    A survey conducted for the progressive think tank NDN found that a majority of Americans — 54 per cent — favor a government that actively tries to solve societal and economic problems, rather than one that takes a hands-off approach.

    Staunch Conservatives and Main Street Republicans share similar views on the positive role of religion in society (90 and 91 per cent respectively), and that immigrants are a burden on American society (68 and 60 per cent). Staunch Conservatives more strongly believe that governments can no longer afford to help the needy (87 per cent) than Main Street Republicans (75 per cent). In relation to the economy and the environment there are significant differences. Staunch Conservatives very strongly believe environmental laws cost too many jobs and hurt the economy (92 per cent), a view not held by Main Street Republicans (only 22 per cent support the claim). Most Main Street Republicans think business corporations make too much profit (58 Per cent). This view is rejected by Staunch Republicans. Only 13 per cent of this group believes corporations make too much profit.

    Democratic voters, according to the Pew study, are divided over immigration. Solid Liberals overwhelming agree that immigrants strengthen American society. This is a view held by the very few Hard Pressed Democrats (13 per cent). New Coalition Democrats are more in line with Solid Democrats on the question of immigration (70 per cent think immigrants make a positive contribution). Democrats favor diplomacy as the way to peace: Hard Pressed by 56 per cent), Solid Liberals by 89 per cent. There are also significant differences on gay rights and environmental laws. Over 90 per cent of Solid Liberals support gay rights and environmental protections. Among Hard Pressed Democrats, 43 per cent support gay rights and 22 per cent see environmental laws as hurting the economy and costing jobs. Each of the three Democratic voter groups share similar views on the need for improvements to ensure equal rights for African Americans.

    Age is a factor in partisanship and political values. Younger people are more numerous on the Left, and older people on the Right. Staunch Republicans over 50 years of age are the most highly engaged in following government and public affairs (75 per cent).

    How do American voters rank Barack Obama? It’s not surprising that Republicans disapprove of Obama’s job performance and health care plan. The problem for Obama is that he does not have enough support among Democrat voters to counter Staunch Republicans: Among Solid Liberals, only 64 per cent strongly approve of Obama’s job performance.

    Obama’s personal image is positive among American voters, but his job approval rating is low. Doubts raised by ‘birthers’ continue to get traction in American politics. More than one-in-five Americans (23 per cent) say, incorrectly, that Obama was born outside the United States.

    This new portrait of the American voter will challenge both Democrats and Republicans in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election. For politicians on both sides, the challenge is to appease the ideological and moderate wings, each with competing goals and aspirations, and at the same time to ensure that each wing does not break out into disagreements with the other over core principles. The Tea Party Conservatives and Republicans have recently gone to the brink, but managed to pull back ‘for the sake of the Party’.

    Perhaps the answer is in Bertolt Brecht’s quip: “Would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?”

    Dr Scott Denton completed a PhD on Australian elections in 2010. He is an academic at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, who regularly writes on Australian and American elections and electoral history.

    Photo by Ho John Lee (HJL): Vote!

  • Tests, Lies and The Race to the Top

    Obama had his “Sputnik Moment,“ when standardized test scores around the world pointed to the mediocrity of American students in reading, math and sciences. There is now a major mantra coming from Washington to all state capitals: the “race to the top” is on, and it doesn’t include a continuation of the downward spiral of test scores. The new modus operandi: Leave aside achievement throughout the years in high school, the stream of G.P.As., the difficulty of courses taken during the years in 9 to 12, and any creative projects done by students. Base everything on standardized tests.

    When career prospects, prestige, and job security are connected to one and only one criteria — score on a standardized test — human nature is bound to creep in. Baseball players start taking steroids; Olympic athletes try every means to beat the system. Will it happen to dedicated teachers who are working hard to educate our next generation? Will temptation overtake honesty, integrity and ethical behavior?

    The jury is out regarding schools in Washington DC, which was considered a shining star of improvement in math, sciences and reading. Many teachers were given bonuses exceeding $8,000; higher-ups were also rewarded.

    However, the statistical analysis of erased incorrect answers — replaced with correct answers —on standardized tests have created serious doubts in the minds of the general public and of educators. Acting School Chancellor Kaya Henderson has asked the D.C. Inspector General to investigate reports that a sharp gain in some standardized tests scores may be the result of cheating, and members of the press have asked for subpoenas to be issued to get at the truth. Obviously, a thorough investigation is needed.

    Similarly, in Georgia, test scores improved in Atlanta while several officials were indicted and a few resigned. In Indiana, a Department of Education official believes that a test coordinator from the school system copied a test question and distributed it on Facebook. And Texas Education Agency Commissioner Shirley Neeley has launched an effort to catch cheating on standardized tests, not by students, but by teachers.

    The all powerful teachers unions, as well as budget-cutting tea party-influenced elected legislators are all pushing their own agendas. The forgotten question: How will an extreme emphasis on standardized tests affect students?

    India may offer a possible clue. A country of over 1 billion in population, with several million graduating from high school per year (with average class sizes at 50 or larger), the competition to get into most prestigious institutions is extreme: consider 455,000 students attempting to land a seat in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, the globally recognized English language Engineering College, with less than few thousand seats. The competition for good medical and, business schools throughout the country is equally fierce. And remember— all that matters is your score on the standardized test.

    A Mumbai publication recently highlighted the human cost of Indian education “successes”. The statistics draw a bleak picture of elite students in India. About 19 students commit suicide per day, with six of these attributed to the “fear of failure on standardized test,” the sole school selection criteria. Student suicides in India were 6,060 in the year 2008, and increased to 6,761 by 2009. The states with above average literacy, with extreme competition for prestigious education institutes, are number one and two in suicides. Psychologists and education professionals are attributing this to “excessive emphasis” on standardized tests, parental expectations, and social pressure to succeed. Think Tiger Mom!

    The suicide rate is so alarming that the Minster of Law (comparable to an Attorney General) has suggested “decriminalizing” suicide (currently, anyone who survives a suicide is subject to prosecution). The local English language columnist, Gitanjali Maria, observes that “Childhood should be the days of fun, not memorizing equations.” Hone your talents and discover your hidden strengths, Maria recommends, instead of spending every waking moment preparing for the next standardized test.

    The system of standardized tests rarely allows a student to enjoy any subject or to discover the beauty of math or physics. All the knowledge, fun, desire and ability to enjoy and excel is filtered down to one scantron that will decide the zip code you will live in, your bank balance, and whether you will have a good job or just get by. We all need to recognize the difference between a ‘race to the top’, and a race to memorize formula with the sole objective of “fill the correct blank with a Number 2 pencil”.

    Shashi Parulekar is an engineer by training. He holds an MBA, and served as Asia Pacific M.D. with Parker Hannifin Co in Michigan for over ten years. He is a global business executive by profession and a demographer by passion.

    Photo by By Shannan Muskopf, biologycorner: Standardized Test

  • Census 2010: A Texas Perspective

    If you want to get a glimpse of the future of the U.S., check out Fort Worth, TX. Never mind the cowboy boots, but you might want to practice your Spanish.

    Texas is growing explosively and much of that growth is among Latinos.   The latest Census Bureau figures show the Lone Star State grew by 20%, to over 25 million people, recording about a quarter of the nation’s overall growth. The rate of growth was twice the national average. The implications are huge politically, as Texas stands to gain 4 new Congressional seats from this expansion, and Hispanic leaders want in.

    A majority of the Hispanic growth came from births to families already living here. While migration from other states and countries contributed about 45%.  

    The Texas story stands in contrast to the Rust Belt states and the Northeast, where overall growth is minimal.   Texas’s Hispanic-fueled growth spurt out-paced the entire countries, helped brace our housing market and our economy.

    A close look at Texas growth reveals much about   American’s home-buying habits. Rural areas got smaller – few want to live in the boonies of far west Texas while it appears suburban areas won over the most transplants.

    But arguably the biggest winner was Ft. Worth, or Cow Town as we call it. Fort Worth grew by a whopping 38.6%, the largest increase in the state, followed by Laredo’s 33%, Austin at 20.4%, and San Antonio at 16%. In contrast the city of Dallas, my home, grew by a scant .8% – a bit deflating to a city all puffed up about a $354 million arts center, a downtown park and greenway, and the $185 million Perot Museum of Nature & Science underway.

    Houston remains the state’s largest metropolitan area but sustained growth of only 7.5%, though Harris County – mostly due to growth in the suburbs – grew by 20%. As in Ft. Worth and elsewhere, Hispanics have been the driver, and now comprise 41% of the Harris County population. The biggest growth took place in formerly rural towns just outside the big cities, one-shop stop farmer’s crossings or granaries.  

    Curtis Tally shakes his head at how fast little Justin, north of Fort Worth, has grown. Subdivisions sprouted up on what was once farmland around his Justin Feed Co. in southern Denton County. From 1891 residents in 2000, Justin has 3,246 today.  

    "We were selling seed for pastures; now we’re selling seeds for lawns," Tally, 74, who has been in business in Justin since 1958, told the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

    If you think that’s amazing, wait ‘till you get to Fate, Texas, 25 minutes east of Dallas on Interstate 30. Ten years ago you would have missed Fate, a town of 500 so small the utility invoicing was done on postcards if you blinked while driving. Today, Fate is the fastest-growing town in the state, with 6,357 residents – an increase of 1,179%!  Residents who live there say it’s far enough away from Dallas to be in the country, but still close to the big city. Fate draws many first time homebuyers who are starting families (home prices range from $50,000 to $300,000) Here’s what Fate resident Tina Nelson told The Dallas Morning News:

    “My kids can go ride bikes all day long and I don’t have to worry too much about where they are,” said Tina. “It’s like the 1950s (here) the sun goes down and everyone’s porch light comes on.”

    On the western side of Lake Ray Hubbard, a few minutes from Fate and slightly closer to Dallas is Sunnyvale, another fast-growing little hick town where professionals are building $2 million dollar homes on a 124 acre family ranch turned into home sites called St James Park. They send their children to a two-year old, $50 million public school with the highest ratings in the state.

    The young man building homes on the 49 two acre estate sites is Jojy Koshy of Atrium Fine Homes. At 31, Jojy holds a masters in business from the University of Texas and tells me, with pride, how his parents immigrated to the Dallas suburb of Plano in 1986 from India.

    “My parents instilled a strong work ethic in us,” he says. “I know this market is challenging, but I believe that if I work longer, harder, and keep our clients completely satisfied, we will have a great business.”  

    It’s the same story across the state. The Interstate 35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio filled in with development as the cities merged closer to becoming one big schizophrenic metropolis. The string of counties along the Rio Grande, anchored by Brownsville and McAllen have been growing, and may be beneficiaries of the crime wave south of the border.   A sharp Dallas Realtor took out an ad in the Monterrey newspaper advertising homes for sale in Dallas and snagged several buyers. Even the wife of the Monterrey mayor moved to a Dallas suburb, escaping the cartel and seeking to be closer to her family here.

    Aside from escaping death in Mexico, what is driving people to Texas? Start with our rising star, Fort Worth. The city has both a cowboy pizzazz personality and a lower crime rate than Dallas. Fort Worth’s arts district has overshadowed Dallas’s for years, and the neighborhoods offer true community – places where the kids can still walk, not be bussed, to school. Rose Bowl winner Texas Christian University is on the upswing, downtown is charmingly vibrant, and an urban renaissance is taking hold on the city’s western edge called West 7th.   

    What are people seeking in Texas? I’d call it quality of life with room for upward mobility: affordable homes with mortgage payments that leave some money for recreation, good public schools for their kids and generally less onerous tax regime.

    Yet with our many gains, Texas faces great challenges. The state has the third-highest teenage pregnancy rate in the nation, which is actually an improvement from last year, when we were number two. There are a rising number of children are living in poverty in Texas. Many of these children may be anchor babies born to illegal immigrants who cross the border to ensure their children and ultimately, themselves, citizenship. In 2006, 70% of the women who gave birth at Dallas County’s Parkland Memorial Hospital were illegal immigrants.  

    Increasingly, Latinos, illegal or not, take those babies home to the suburbs. Texas suburbs are no longer lily-white.  This is true in working class places like Bedford, Texas, outside Fort Worth, where the black population has almost doubled. In affluent Southlake, the population this decade shifted from 95 percent Anglo down to 88 percent.   Looking for a great selection of Asian food? You’ll starve (or go broke) in downtown Dallas. Go north to Carrollton, Texas where you’ll find a 78,000 square foot Super H Mart in what was once a Mervyns department store. Inside you’ll find seven types of gray, fuzzy, Chinese long, acorn, spaghetti, butternut, and kombucha squash eight food stalls said to rival any of those found in Seoul and Singapore, two cities known for their gourmet street food. Manduguk, anyone?

    The new Texans are coming here not just to live, but to dig in economically.  

    In the end, we are seeing the birth of a Texas that is neither the white bread, big hair idyll of the cultural conservatives or the free market dystopia imagined by liberals. It is becoming more diverse, without losing its capitalist energy. With all its blemishes,  the emerging Texas may well become the model for how America evolves in the coming decades.

    Candy Evans is an independent journalist based in Dallas, Texas, She covers Texas for AOL’s HousingWatch and blogs at secondshelters.com.

    Photo by Rick

  • The Millennial Mosaic

    Esperanza Spalding, winner of the best new artist award at this year’s Grammys, personifies the ethnic trends reshaping America.  She is a fresh-faced 27-year old jazz bassist whose very name portrays her mixed ethnic and racial heritage as the daughter of an African-American father and a Hispanic, Welsh, Native American mother. Spalding first gained her deep interest in music watching French-born Chinese American classical cellist Yo Yo Ma on “Sesame Street,” a TV program that has perhaps contributed to ethnic acculturation in the U.S. as much as any other institution. Spalding’s formal musical training was originally classical, but at age 15 she decided that her passion was jazz, itself a quintessentially American 20th Century fusion of black rhythms and the melodies of European immigrants.

    The United States has gradually been becoming more diverse for decades, but Esperanza Spalding’s Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003) is most radically altering the nature of that diversity.  The entirely senior citizen Silent Generation (born 1925-1945) is 90% white. Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) and Generation X (born 1965-1981) are a bit more diverse: 17% and 25% non-white respectively.  In contrast, four in ten adult Millennials are either African-American, Hispanic, Asian, or of mixed race. Among all Millennials of high school age or younger, about half now come from what was once called a minority group. Moreover, according to the 2009 Census population estimates, the under 18 population of Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas is majority-minority with Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, and New York poised on the brink of that benchmark.

    In 2008 the Census Bureau made these demographic trends “official” by forecasting that the United States will become a majority-minority country around 2040. By 2050, with an estimated 46% of the population, non-Hispanic whites will still remain the country’s single largest racial group, but Hispanics (30%), African-Americans (15%) and Asians (9%) will together comprise a majority of the U.S. population.

    Generational theory, first developed by William Strauss and Neil Howe, offers important historical insights on what this new majority-minority America might look like.    As we point out in our forthcoming book, Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America, we are in the midst of what Strauss and Howe have defined as a “fourth turning.” These periods have invariably been associated with the most intense social and political stress in US history: the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. Civic generations, heavily populated by the children of large waves of immigrants, are more ethnically diverse than older generations, contributing to the ethnic and racial tensions that have existed during each of these time periods. At the same time, because civic generations are comprised of group- and team-oriented, conventional and institution building individuals, ethnic absorption and acculturation also increases during and just after fourth turnings as each civic generation matures. This is in sharp contrast to “idealist” generations, such as the Baby Boomers, that reject the mainstream culture and often form movements promoting ethnic separatism.

    Ethnic tensions during previous similar generational changes rivaled those the country is experiencing today.  In the run-up to the Civil War, the rabidly anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American or Know-Nothing Party captured close to a quarter of the national popular vote in the 1856 presidential election,and more than a third of the vote that year in all of the states that eventually comprised the Confederacy. In the 1930s, as the civic GI Generation children of the Eastern, Central, and Southern Europeans who comprised America’s last previous great wave of immigrants came of age to help elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, his most virulent opponents claimed that the president was really a Jew named “Rosenfeld” and derided his program as the “Jew Deal.”

    We see similar language in today’s discourse, at least on the fringes. Some extreme opponents of President Barack Obama accuse him of being foreign-born and a crypto-Muslim. In a more obscure way, if one searches Google for the seemingly innocuous phrase, “US majority nonwhite 2040,” two of the first three listings are from racist groups decrying this change and the third is from a liberal group advising the need to “understand” the fears of white people in a rapidly changing America.

    Fortunately civic generation Millennials have many characteristics that lead to ethnic acculturation and absorption The Civil War generation was critical to absorbing the Irish into the American mainstream, in part through the role played by Irish detachments in the Union Army, something that helped the Irish overcome the charge that they were an alien Papist force set on undermining a free Protestant nation.  Similarly, the GI Generation’s Poles, Italians, and Jews became acculturated during and after World War II, in part through their service in the armed forces or in the domestic war effort.  In sharp contrast to the anti-Semitic charges leveled against FDR, commentators on all sides of the political spectrum describe America as a “Judeo-Christian Nation.” Foods like bagels and pizza, once available only in urban ethnic enclaves, became commonplace, sold by pizza chains started by Irishmen and Greeks, or bagels marketed by brands such as Pepperidge Farm.

    In the current fourth turning, America’s newest ethnic minorities will also become acculturated and, in turn, shape the nation’s culture. A 2007 Pew survey indicates that while only 23% of first generation Hispanics speaks English “very well,” that percentage rises to 88% among those in the second generation and 94% within the third. At the same time, researchers at the University of California-Irvine and Princeton found that Latinos tend to “lose” their Spanish the longer they are in this country. This research indicates that although first generation Hispanics bring Spanish with them, by the second generation only a third of Latinos speak Spanish “very well.” By the third generation, that number drops to 17% among those with three or four foreign-born grandparents and to only 5% among those with just one or two foreign-born grandparents. ()  

    And, so as the United States endures the tensions and rancor of another generational fourth turning, it is important to realize that this too shall pass.  Millennials will, as have other civic generations before them, redefine what it means to be an American in ways both more diverse and inclusive than older generations may be able to imagine or appreciate.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of NDN and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of “Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics” and the upcoming “Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America.”

    Esperanza Spaulding photo by Andrea Mancini.

  • The Social Side of the Internet

    Is success in social networking measured by the number of “Friends” you have on Facebook, or “Followers” you have on Twitter, or “Connections” you make on LinkedIn? 

    The jury is still out on how social media and social networking will ultimately play out, but new research shows real benefits are being realized from it.

    A Harris Poll conducted December 6-10, 2010 found, “Social media has opened the door, or more accurately, many doors, to increasingly numerous ways for people to interact with others, customize their online experiences and receive positive, enriching benefits from their activity therein.  In fact, two in five Americans say that they have received a good suggestion for something to try as a result of their use of social media (40%).”

    A generation gap remains, but the mere fact that “Matures” are involved in social media constitutes news.  The Harris study reports, “A majority of Echo Boomers (those 18-33) say they have received a positive suggestion for something to try from their activity on social media (59%), compared to 44% of Gen Xers (those 34-45), one third of Baby Boomers (those 46-64) (34%), and just one in five Matures (those 65 and older) (19%).”

    Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that social media’s benefits to groups are now widely recognized by both Internet users and non-users.  The study, The Social Side of the Internet, was released on January 18, 2011 and can be found at PewInternet.org.  The general findings state, “The internet is now deeply embedded in group and organizational life in America.

    Pew studied groups and found in part:

    • 68% of all Americans (internet users and non-users alike) said the internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to communicate with members. Some 75% of internet users said that.
    • 62% of all Americans said the internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to draw attention to an issue. Some 68% of internet users said that.
    • 60% of all Americans said the internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to connect with other groups. Some 67% of internet users said that.
    • 59% of all Americans said the internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to impact society at large. Some 64% of internet users said that.
    • 59% of all Americans said the internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to organize activities. Some 65% of internet users said that.
    • 52% of all Americans said the internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to raise money. Some 55% of internet users said that.
    • 51% of all Americans said the internet has had a major impact on the ability of groups to recruit new members. Some 55% of internet users said that.

    Does all this suggest that a shift in communications is now upon us?  I believe the answer is an unqualified yes.  Many experts predict that by 2014 the whole concept of the “new media” and the “social net” will have lost their novelty status as they become fixtures of American business, communications and life.

    Many forward thinking companies are moving aggressively to position themselves for this shift.  They are beginning to purpose their content for real-time, anytime, two-way dialogue. They are building communities around their own content.   American Express is doing a great job at OpenForum using content to build community and establish thought leadership within the small business community.

    Why?  The “social net” represents a paradigm shift for an organization.  It is not as much about the technology as it is about integrating a new way of assembling and distributing information in   more open and accessible way.  This shift needs to be incorporated into an organization’s DNA.  This takes time and a total commitment from the organization.

    When the communications shift happens, those organizations that have staged early will realize tremendous benefits.  Those organizations that have not will face a very difficult and time-consuming process of not only integrating new technologies into their organizations, but also assimilating the cultural changes that are needed to make this process successful.

    The social internet is not a mercurial event, but rather a game changer that will impact every aspect of our lives – something already evident but likely to become more obvious.

    Dennis M. Powell is the founder of Massey Powell which provided content logistics services that help organizations ready their content and leverage it into the social media environment.  He invites all New Geography readers to visit http://socialmedianewslink.com to learn more about social media.

    Illustration by Matt Hamm

  • Why Most Americans are Both Liberal and Conservative

    American politics is consumed by a bitter, at times violent, debate about the overall role of government and specific governmental programs.

    Pundits often frame this divide in terms of geography (red states versus blue states), ethnicity (Hispanics and blacks versus whites), class (rich versus poor), or age and gender. Those factors matter, but seeing polarization only in terms of group versus group misses an important paradox about Americans: Most of us have both deep conservative instincts and liberal instincts.

    This personal inner conflict need not calcify our national divide. Instead, it could form the basis for a new and unifying consensus or civic ethos. To do this, though, our political leaders must build on the quintessentially American politics of today’s Millennials (those born between 1982 and 2003), who prize individual initiative at the local level to achieve national goals.

    Why we look left and right at the same time
    American political opinion looks in two directions – both left and right, or liberal and conservative – at the same time. Social scientists Lloyd A. Free and Hadley Cantril were the first to use survey research to describe and analyze this paradox of public opinion that has always shaped US politics.

    In their book, “The Political Beliefs of Americans” (1967), they maintained that Americans consistently demonstrate a conflict between their general attitudes toward “the proper role and sphere of government,” (which drove the big GOP gains last November) and their attitudes toward specific governmental programs (which helps explain broad American support for “big government” programs like Medicare).

    According to Mr. Free and Mr. Cantril, most Americans have conservative attitudes concerning the size of government, and liberal beliefs in support of programs to protect themselves economically. This leads majorities to favor smaller government, individual initiative, and local control while endorsing major governmental programs ranging from Social Security to student grants and loans.

    Tensions go back to our founding
    This tension has always been a part of American politics. The US Constitution was itself the product of fierce debate in the wake of the failed Articles of Confederation. The ingenious solution the Founders gave us was both a strong central government and equally powerful guarantees of individual liberty embodied in the Bill of Rights. Notably, that solution was largely the product of that era’s young adults, the so-called Republican Generation.

    Still, the Constitution didn’t settle the question of the government’s role in the economy and personal welfare. That wasn’t resolved, at least temporarily, until the Great Depression, when Americans gave their strong support to FDR’s New Deal programs. Again, it was that period’s young adults – the “greatest generation” – that led the new consensus.

    Small government, big programs
    Such consensus, of course, doesn’t erase our conflicting convictions. Even in the depths of the Great Depression, Gallup revealed this conflict between the public’s programmatic liberalism and conservative ideology. On the one hand, large majorities believed that the government should provide free medical care to the poor (76 percent), extend long-term, low-interest loans to farmers (73 percent), and implement the newly created Social Security program (64 percent). By contrast, only a minority wanted the government to take over railroads (29 percent) and banks (42 percent), or limit private fortunes (42 percent).

    In 1964, as President Johnson was announcing his Great Society initiatives, Free and Cantril, using the results of commissioned Gallup polls, determined that within the electorate, ideological conservatives outnumbered liberals by more than 3 to 1 (50 percent to 16 percent). But in those very same surveys, support for liberal government programs exceeded conservative opposition by a ratio of 4.6 to 1 (65 percent to 14 percent).

    Using data from four of the Political Values and Core Attitudes surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center over the past two decades, we confirmed their research. Across four Pew surveys, from 1987 to 2009, ideological conservatives outnumbered liberals by a ratio of 3.5 to 1, but liberal supporters of specific programs outnumbered conservative opponents by a 2.2 to 1 margin.

    In every Pew survey, there were always more conservatives than liberals regarding the overall role of government and a greater number of liberals than conservatives in support of programs designed to promote equality and economic well-being. In effect, the United States is neither a center-right nor a center-left nation; it is, and always has been, both at the same time.

    Not surprisingly, voters who identify as Republicans have tended toward the conservative side of these two tendencies. And Democratic identifiers have leaned toward the liberal side. Although the gap between the identifiers of the two parties has widened recently, during most of the time since Free and Cantril first published their findings, the greatest number of both Democratic and Republican identifiers, as well as independents, has been ideologically conservative and programmatically liberal.

    Moderates driven out
    Today, driven by more liberal attitudes among the Democrats’ young Millennial Generation and minority supporters, and the more conservative beliefs of the Republicans’ older, white base, the leadership of the two parties is more polarized than at any time since the Great Depression.

    For the first time ever, among Democrats in the House of Representatives, the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus contains more members than the moderate New Democrats and conservative Blue Dogs combined.

    Across the aisle, few congressional Republicans are willing to call themselves moderates, and liberals, once a meaningful bloc in the GOP, have entirely disappeared.

    Despite these divisions, the leaders of each party must find a way to work together to synthesize both strands of America’s political DNA – a belief in the importance of a strong national community and equality of opportunity as well as a strong desire to limit government’s encroachment on individual liberty – into a new civic ethos that is broadly acceptable to most Americans.

    Millennials can foster a new consensus
    The belief of America’s youngest adult generation, Millennials, in the efficacy of individual initiative at the local level to achieve national goals provides a basis for just such a solution. To once again bind the wounds of internal discord, our political leaders should adopt this approach and successfully appeal to the ideological conservatism and programmatic liberalism of the American people.

    This piece originally appeared at the Christian Science Monitor.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are fellows of the New Democrat Network and the New Policy Institute and co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press: 2008), named one of the 10 favorite books by the New York Times in 2008.

    Photo by Zach Stern

  • Presidential Travel: Around the World in Eighteen Hours

    As a corrective for the struggles of American diplomacy, I am surprised that no one has proposed mothballing Air Force One. The jet of state is almost the perfect symbol of modern presidents, who fly around the world as if on a magic carpet, but come home with little more than passport stamps. In recent months, President Obama has flown to Indonesia, India, South Korea, Japan, Portugal, Iraq, and Hawaii, but, other than for his Christmas vacation, the reasons for any of these trips are a blur.

    The hope is that presidential frequent flyer miles can be redeemed for peace, prosperity, and global harmony. Instead, we seem to have traded the miles for undeclared wars, ballooning national debt, and diplomatic unease. Do the WikiLeaks sing songs of success?

    Not every president has felt the need to adopt the persona of an international courier. Until Teddy Roosevelt visited the Panama Canal, no sitting president ever left the country. (It just wasn’t “done.”) The designation “Air Force One” dates to the Eisenhower administration. In the last thirty years of his life, Thomas Jefferson never visited a northern city. When he traveled in Europe, it was with one servant and his notebooks. But some presidents were more eager to wander.

    During his entire lifetime Abraham Lincoln never left the United States, although twice as a young man he journeyed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, from Kentucky to New Orleans — the future president as Huckleberry Finn.

    To negotiate the Peace of Paris after World War I, Woodrow Wilson spent almost six months in France, where he was greeted by rapturous crowds. On location, he only muddled the disastrous peace at Versailles. (“Making the Hun pay…”) On his return to the U.S., however, he failed to persuade the Senate to ratify the treaty.

    Other presidents have traveled to escape the clouds of scandal. With his popularity ebbing, Warren Harding went on a tour of the Pacific Northwest (avoiding Teapot Dome, Wyoming), and Richard Nixon clogged the streets of Egypt and Romania during the depths of the Watergate scandal.

    John F. Kennedy, before his election, traveled like a foreign correspondent. In 1951 he journeyed, often by car, for twelve weeks, first from England to Yugoslavia, and later from Israel to Pakistan, India, Indochina, and Korea.

    Without a doubt, FDR was the most courageous presidential traveler. He spent countless days at sea, crossing the Atlantic during World War II, when there was the high chance of a U-boat attack. Unable to walk, Roosevelt was often winched from one rocking destroyer to another, in the middle of the rough ocean. He persevered to attend conferences in Casablanca, Argentina, Tehran, Malta, and Cairo.

    Although Harry Truman is remembered for giving entrenched interests “hell” off the rear platform of a private railroad car, what he liked most were road trips. Matthew Algeo’s Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure is an account of how, after his presidency ended, Harry loaded Bess into the family Chrysler and drove her from Independence, Missouri, to New York and Washington, DC. They stayed in motels along the way, and he paid for his own gas.

    George W. Bush always looked like a reluctant traveler, only comfortable shuttling to Camp David or his ranch in Texas. By contrast, Teddy Roosevelt was not just a traveler, but an explorer. After his presidency he embarked on epic journeys across Africa and South America, nearly killing himself up the Amazon River.

    How does Barack Obama fare as a traveler? I read somewhere that he is gracious in his encounters with troops stationed abroad, and that speaks well for his compassion. On his diplomatic missions, though, he seems to travel in circles, and to be impatient with a world not always so adoring.

    In November 2010, he flew from Washington to India, and then to summit meetings in South Korea (which went nowhere). No sooner was he back in Washington than he flew to Lisbon for a NATO summit. A week later he went back to Asia, in the dead of night, this time to Afghanistan. He spent all of four hours there on the ground. Why fly thirteen hours to Afghanistan and miss seeing President Karzai, only to head directly back to Washington?

    Couldn’t his schedulers have doubled up on some of these excursions? After all, it costs $181,000 an hour to fly Air Force One, and millions more for the cavalcade.

    As an international traveler, Obama strikes me as being like many American executives who zip in and out of Europe as though it were St. Louis, and who always need to be back in Washington by Friday afternoon. Obama has made more foreign trips, for his time in office, than any other president. To what end?

    In 2009, Obama went twice to Copenhagen, in the space of about ninety days, first to lobby for Chicago’s chances at Olympic swag, and then to lecture the developing world about carbon emissions. (This from someone who travels with an entourage of about seven hundred, chaser jets, and a motorcade caravan worthy of a sheikh.)

    On his first trip to Copenhagen (for less than a day), the Olympic committee was indifferent to the presidential fly-by, which no doubt disappointed the Daley brothers, who were hoping for some Olympic-sized contracts in Chicago. Some weeks later at the climate change conference, an obviously jet-lagged Obama burst in on the Chinese, jawboned for a while (in the manner of Basil Fawlty), and went back to the airport with little to show for the carbon emitted.

    If global warming is such an important issue, maybe he could have stayed the weekend in Copenhagen? A week earlier he had flown in and out of Oslo. He was there for twenty-six hours, to collect the Nobel Prize, but in his rush he snubbed the Norwegian king.

    Last November, when the president went to India for three days, he took with him six armored cars and about forty planes, not to mention a naval fleet stationed off Mumbai. That’s along with the four chefs, food tasters, helicopter pilots, schedulers, stewards, generals, spin doctors, secret service officers, fifteen dogs, and Washington officials that numbered in the hundreds. The travel costs were estimated at $200 million. You tell me what was accomplished. Maybe he needed the miles to get to Hawaii?

    Photo by http2007 Thierry of Air Force One at the Prima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.

    Matthew Stevenson is the author of Remembering the Twentieth Century Limited, a collection of historical essays. He is also editor of Rules of the Game: The Best Sports Writing from Harper’s Magazine. He lives in Switzerland and travels under the motto that, “A good hotel is never good enough, but a bad hotel is a joy forever.”

  • Here Comes Barack Cameron?

    President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were so “like-minded,” according to one Los Angeles Times writer, that they brought new meaning to the U.S. and England’s “special relationship.” Blair’s later embrace of George W. Bush, however, was less satisfying, leading to widespread ridicule that the PM was the Texan’s favorite “lap dog.”

    President Barack Obama shares little of his predecessors’ Anglophilia; he even unceremoniously returned Blair’s gift of a Winston Churchill bust loaned to Bush after 9-11. Yet however much Obama may detest the old Tory imperialist, he might find in Blair’s successor David Cameron a role model for his troubled administration.

    On the surface, the aristocratic, well-heeled Cameron, the son of a wealthy stockbroker and husband to an heiress (he is now estimated to be worth 30 million pounds), might seem a poor match for the self-made community organizer from Chicago. But Cameron’s philosophy — which melds liberal social and environmental concerns with fiscal conservatism — could prove useful to the U.S. president, particularly since Obama’s initial plan (massive expansion of the federal welfare state) has been made moot by the recent election. Cameron’s “One Nation” Toryism offers a model of governmental activism while accommodating anti-deficit sentiment that has grown in both countries.

    But Cameron’s politics share more with Obama’s than meets the eye.  Like the Obama, he is articulate, attractive and young — at 44 he is five years younger than the U.S. president. And he is determined to reshape his party’s image. Cameron represents a break from what we might consider rightist conservatism. Unlike Margaret Thatcher, Cameron reflects gentry, not middle-class, conservative values; much like Obama he appeals more to the well-educated segments of society. Enterprise, the breaking down of class structures and expanding opportunity and ownership do not rank among Cameron’s priorities. The Telegraph’s Simon Heffer suggests that Cameron shares some similarities with Harold MacMillan, who sought to put a more human face of Britain’s notoriously rigid class system rather than upending it entirely.

    Cameron’s Conservatives, locked in a governing alliance with the Liberal Democrats, also eschew the unattractive views, common on the continental right, about immigrants or minorities. These enlightened social attitudes reflect the class consensus of the upper echelons of post-industrial Britain — much as Obama’s social views resonate with the U.S.’ academic, media and financial sectors.

    The big banks represent the most important gentry constituency on both sides of the Atlantic. In Washington the new Chief of Staff, crony capitalist extraordinaire Bill Daley, will strongly reflect their interests. In both countries, the financial services industry has benefited more from government largesse and monetary policy than any other sector. Less than three years from helping sink the world economy, firms in the City in London and Wall Street in New York are minting money and handing out lush bonuses. In London, developers are considering building new office complexes. The restaurants and fancy shops, from the City and Mayfair to the West End, like their counterparts in swank parts of Manhattan, are thriving.

    This prosperity, of course, contrasts dramatically with conditions outside the financial sector. Like the American industrial heartland, areas outside the largely prosperous southeastern U.K. are struggling. Some of these areas, notes Conservative MP Mark Field, resemble “Stalinist Russia” in their near total dependence on government spending. Any significant cutbacks in government expenditures will hit these areas hardest.

    These areas would benefit most from expansive, pro-growth policies that encourage building new plants, research facilities and business services outside London’s swanky precincts. But Cameron, like Obama, seems more interested in promoting “hip” urbanism focused on high-end services, media and cultural exports than in rebuilding Britain’s declining middle-class job base.

    Cameron’s political “green act,” as Heffer calls it, reflects aristocratic attitudes and a keen reading of “focus groups.” Unlike the current crop of conservatives in Washington, Cameron’s Conservatives embrace the global warming agenda about as fully as their Labour predecessors. They embrace all the policies — high-speed rail, pro-density planning policies, massive subsidization of renewable fuel — that remain critical Obama policies.

    Cameron’s Conservatives have even sought to limit the construction of new runways at Heathrow, the country’s main airport, in order to stop what the government has called “binge flying.” Of course, this usually refers to middle-class people taking cheap vacations on low-cost airlines. After all, much higher airfares won’t much affect the financial sector, which can easily absorb them.

    Green land-use policy is also useful to the City, notes the pro-development group Audacity, since it serves to constrict supply and bolster the value of  mortgages by keeping prices artificially high. The U.K. suffers a perennial shortage of homes that already has reached 1 million, a number likely to double in the following decade. No surprise then that British property prices, compared to incomes, are among the highest in the world, particularly in and around London.

    The City, like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, hopes to make a killing on “cap and trade” as well as a host of renewable energy schemes. For Obama, who is anxious to repair relations with big business, green politics represents a potential windfall, bringing him accolades from both the financial hegemons and parts of his enviro-focused “progressive” base.

    Yet a combined policy of fiscal austerity and green regulations could also suppress growth across the broader economy outside the high-end financial and service sector. Opposition to new fossil fuel plants, opting instead for expensive and highly subsidized wind-energy could double U.K. energy by 2030. Faced with competition from developing countries willing to burn coal, oil and perhaps anything flammable, and lacking the hydro-resources of Scandinavia or the nuclear industry of France, British the U.K. will face ever great obstacles in the global marketplace

    Overall Cameron’s policies, notes author James Heartfield, will likely intensify class barriers in Britain. Over this cold, snowy winter as many as 25,000 people have died from exposure, in large part because they cannot afford higher energy bills. Millions of homes, schools and hospitals face winter fuel-rationing.

    Similarly, the Tory resistance to building new suburban housing will not only deprive people of the option of a decent, low-density lifestyle, but it will also strip jobs from the historically well-paying blue-collar construction trades. Under current policies, notes one recent study, prospective homeowners will face “mortgage misery” for the rest of the decade.

    Of course, these policies present political risks.  Conservative poll ratings are up slightly, but Cameron’s coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, who appeal more to centrist voters, are fading rapidly. A year after its resounding defeat, Labour has surged to a slight lead in the polls.

    Yet given the current reality, a Cameron-like embrace of austerity coupled with green policies represents a positive strategy for the Obama Administration. Just as Cameron has sought to redefine conservativism with a humane face, Obama could concoct a modern progressivism that is both green and fiscally responsible.  By 2012, the radical community organizer could well morph into an entirely new persona: Barack Cameron.

    This piece originally appeared in Forbes.

    Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

    Photo Wikipedia Commons