“Americas national economic crisis is also a metropolitan crisis, because metropolitan areas are the true engines of the national economy. Home to 65 percent of the U.S. population, the largest 100 metropolitan areas alone account for three quarters of the nations gross domestic product (GDP)…Strictly speaking, there is no single U.S. economy, but rather a tightly linked network of metropolitan economies. And that is why it matters intensely how well efforts to revive the nations economyincluding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)empower metropolitan leaders to marshal their given resources to boost prosperity. To produce real prosperity local leaders require rich stocks of the fundamental drivers of productive growthkey innovation inputs, cutting-edge infrastructure, abundant human capital, and quality places. But metropolitan actors also need the discretion and power to aggregate, link, and coordinate those drivers to maximize their impact. Therefore, it is a matter of both national and local concern to consider how ARRA, aka the stimulus package, will affect U.S. metropolitan areas, and to assess how easilyor notits multiple funding flows may be utilized to bolster metro efforts to get the economy moving. This report probes those questions by providing an initial overview of the intent, approach, and content of ARRA from the point of view of metropolitan America.”
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