WEBVTT

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I think a lot of us have noticed
that our cities are deeply dysfunctional.

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They're they're broken in our society,
right? You have I think we have a

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candidate who's like a socialist
Islamist who's in danger of taking over

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New York uh very soon right now. And we
we have we have all sorts of problems.

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People can't afford to have kids
in cities the way they're set up. Uh I

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think there's this cost disease
for everything. Like like what went wrong?

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What's going on with these cities? And
and what's what's an optimistic take on

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it, Mark? How can we fix this?

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>> Yeah. So the guy in the guy in New York
is interesting. uh and uh he's you know

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kind of running slight slightly behind
Quuomo for New York mayor but he's

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literally running a platform among
other things of having um city- owned uh

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grocery stores right and so and so
you know the joke is you know he's

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reinventing breadlines you know for the
21st century like you know impressive

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really tremendous tremendously
tremendous platform

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>> um the uh Seattle is another case study
of this Seattle to give you a sense how

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crazy things are the the district
in Seattle the city council district where

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the most Microsoft and Amazon executives
lived live uh elected a a city council

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woman who's who ran a platform
of nationalizing Microsoft and Amazon.

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Um, right. And then, you know, in the
Bay Area, I've got, you know, a thou,

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you know, I I live in I live in ground
zero of dysfunction and collapse. Um,

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and I've got I've got I've got thousands
of stories uh from the Bay Area. Yeah.

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So, like I think there's like a very
fundamental political economy thing

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happening which which is which which
falls out of this sort of economic

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transformation that's happened and this
policy transformation that's happened.

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And so the there's a guy there's
a French there's actually a French writer

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geographer who has I think the best
analysis on this um and who's written a

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great book on it called Twilight of the
Elites and what he basically observes is

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if you look at all the western
countries through this process of sort of

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de-industrialization and financialization
and techn you know sort

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of technology knowledge work you know
becoming preeminent at the high end of

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the economy you sort of have this
pattern where uh basically like in an

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agricultural economy or in a
manufacturing economy you kind of have

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to spread everything out throughout
the country because like natural resources

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really matter and energy really matters
and physical infrastructure matters and

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access to you know trains and all these
things you know really rivers and water

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and so forth really matters but if
you're if you're going to replant your

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the sort of commanding heights of your
economy on knowledge work then what

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you're going to do is you're going
to slam basically all economic growth into

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the cities right because you're which
is what what Silicon Valley has done right

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so you want all the software developers
in one place and and you want them you

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know and they're gonna the good
news is they're gonna eat at high-end

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restaurants and they're going to employ
a lot of nannies but like fundamentally

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they're going to be sitting
in conference rooms you know design

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designing software other and and you
want that to happen in a single

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concentrated place. Um and so what
happens is basically this the cities

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become a magnet for basically two kinds
of people. One is sort of the upper

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class which is to say kind of the you
know highly educated elite in the

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knowledgeable professions uh who make
enough money where they can afford to

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buy you know $3 million houses. Um and
then you've basically got the so you've

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got basically like super expensive
homes and then you've got public housing

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so-called public housing right council
estates in the UK or section 88 8H or

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whatever it is housing here. um where
you've got you know basically public

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housing and so and then and then
the public housing is is is you know is

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basically it's it's you know it's you
know people who are very low paid kind

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of on the you know low end of the service
economy um and then and then and

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then that's the city and and then who's
squeezed out of the city is basically

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right the entire middle class
is squeezed out and just to give you an

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example of this in the Bay Area if
you're a cop or a firefighter in the Bay

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Area and you work in Palo Alto you
commute three hours both ways uh just to

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be able to like have a house and afford
a family right and then of course you

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look what's happening in the cities
and It's, you know, there's there's like

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lots of dogs, there's very few kids,
right? And it's like, you know, what on

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earth is that about? Well, you you can't
buy a house. You you you can't you can't

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you can't have a family. Um you may not
even own a car. Like, how are you going

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to get kids anywhere? But what happens
is from from a political standpoint is

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the cities then are run, right? They're
in in in their local democracies, it's

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these super high-end kind of, you know,
very progressive elites. And then it's

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sort of the clientele underclass, right?

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Um that um you know, of you know,
in the US it's Hispanic immigrants or

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African-Americans. you know, in Europe
it's it's, you know, their, you know,

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their their other kind of clientele
underclass that they've developed in

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places like Paris. Um, and so you've got
this high plus you you've got this kind

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of old political kind of structure of of,
you know, sort of top plus bottom,

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you know, kind of configuration.
What you've done is you squeeze the middle

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and you've ejected the middle out of the
cities into the countryside, but you've

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de-industrialized and so there's no
new economic activity happening in the

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countryside uh for all
the middle class people to do.

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>> This so far is not
an optimistic panel, Mark.

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>> Sorry. [laughter] Sorry.
Let me try to make it optimistic. Sorry.

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Let me try to make it optimistic. Okay,
>> let me try to make it optimistic. These

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are choices. Like these are choices.

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These are policy choices. Like sometimes
the way this stuff gets painted is that

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these are just like impersonal economic
forces or technology forces. And of

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course, you know, I get this a lot.
It's like you idiot, don't you understand

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that? Like, you know, it's it's just
like, you know, manufacturing is old

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fashioned. We have this all this new
stuff. We shouldn't need you know what?

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No, these are choices. Like there were
specific choices made. I So the classic

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choice the classic choice that was made.

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I'll beat since I'm at the Reagan
library, I'll beat I'll beat up on

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Nixon. Um so Richard Nixon the year
I was born 1971 he proposed something

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called project independence. Uh he he
actually visionary visionary president

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he saw the energy crisis coming. Um
and he said it's a national imperative to

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build a thousand new nuclear power
plants uh in civilian nuclear power

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plants in the US by the year 2000. Cut the
entire US electric grid over to nuclear.

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>> It would by the way
would have gotten us

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to electric cars you know probably
30 40 years faster um and would have

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completely separated us from strategic
involvement in the in in the Middle East

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for for for energy. Um so that was the
good news. The bad news is he created

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the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission which then prevented Project

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Independence from happening and of
course the no new nuclear power plants

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got built. But that was a policy choice,
right? And and I'm sure that was not the

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out that was not the result that he
intended but that was a policy choice.

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Um and so you know and and by the way
a lot of this is happening right now in

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Washington. Like there is an opportunity
to look at everything from nuclear

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power, minerals, natural resources.
I was on a call this morning on natural

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resources with very promising progress
being made. um you know, rare earth

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metals, there's, you know, construction.

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We we have a project to build a new city
um in California. Um we've bought, you

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know, four times the uh acreage of of
Manhattan uh in Solano County. Um you

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know, we have the opportunity to build
like entirely new cities in this

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country. Um you know, we like there's
any number of things any number of these

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policy decisions that we could make
that would cause revitalization.