Welcome to Citiwire.net! My column’s generally been very positive about the Obama administration’s approach to metro and urban affairs — an incredibly positive shift from the studied disinterest of the Bush presidency. But the Obama crowd made a really serious error this past week, boycotting the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting because the a firefighters local union, in a bitter (and apparently very personal) dispute with Providence Mayor Cicilline and the city government, chose to throw up a picket line. So a major opportunity for some 100 administration officials and the nation’s top mayors to confer on survival and rebuilding strategies was lost. Even worse, as my column suggests, a horrendous precedent — picket lines stopping meetings of elected government officials — was set. My column explores a way the administration might escape the dilemma it’s created. … Citistates Associate Roberta Brandes Gratz, in this week Citiwire column, attacks the increasingly voiced proposal of massive demolition of troubled, often partly deserted neighborhoods in troubled cities. Just another way to our worst urban renewal era failures, she suggests.
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