Here is the Pennsylvania governor talking about how state policy disadvantages cities and what could be done about it.

• Regional land use planning
• Zoning ordinances and planning codes that allow mixed use, high density communities
• Urban growth boundaries like Portland, Oregon
• Inclusive zoning like Montgomery County, Maryland
• Change public infrastructure investment strategy to promote redevelopment of old settlements
• Strike a better balance between highway and mass transit funding
• Consolidate and restore old industrial sites for redevelopment
• Reform local tax policies starting with the state taking a bigger share of funding for public education

In the end, the struggle for our cities will depend on the outcome of the competition between suburbs and cities. The outcome will largely be determined by the extent to which that competition is a fair one.

I like most of this, but I’m not so sure about the city vs. suburb talk. Part of regional coordination and planning would be to think of the success of a metro area as a whole, from its most intensely urbanized core out to the less dense areas. But I like the urban growth boundary concept, because it puts a lower limit on how far out that development can go and how much infrastructure it can gobble up to get services to people who are spread out, at every else’s expense. Education funding could be done well at this metro area scale, rather than pitting many tiny municipalities and school districts against each other as it does now (a problem across the U.S., but Pennsylvania is particularly bad). I am skeptical of the state, which draws much of its political power from the empty spaces between metro areas, being the solution. Its existence depends on sucking resources out of the population centers where economic activity happens and taxes get paid, and redistributing them to the empty spaces. Even more insidious, in our state at least racism plays a role in the urban vs. rural divide, as well as the city center vs. suburban divide.