Blueprint for American Prosperity

Blueprint for American Prosperity
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The Blueprint for American Prosperity is a multi-year initiative of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program that includes a series of partnerships, public events, and publications designed to promote an economic agenda for the nation that builds on the assets—and centrality—of America’s metropolitan areas. The Blueprint argues that with over 80 percent of Americans living and working in metropolitan areas, America is a “Metro Nation.” The top 100 metros take up only 12 percent of our land mass but house 65 percent of our population and generate 75 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. The ability of this nation to grow and prosper and meet the great social and environmental challenges of the 21st century is at risk unless the metropolitan engines of national prosperity are healthy and vital.

Under the leadership of Bruce Katz, Amy Liu, Alan Berube, and Mark Muro of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, the Blueprint advances four core propositions, outlined in Berube’s signature paper, “Metro Nation: How U.S. Metropolitan Areas Drive American Prosperity:”

Dynamic global and domestic forces pose urgent economic and environmental challenges that are testing American prosperity.
To achieve prosperity, the nation must leverage four key assets that principally concentrate in metropolitan areas: innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality places.
The Blueprint is a call for a new federal partnership between state, local, and private-sector leaders who can work together to strengthen metropolitan economies, build a strong and diverse middle class, and grow in sustainable ways.

In the service of building such a partnership, the Blueprint proposes an integrated policy agenda and specific federal reforms that give cities, suburbs, and metro areas the tools they need to leverage their economic strengths, grow in environmentally sensitive ways, and create opportunities to build a strong and diverse middle class. New policy approaches are imperative if the nation is to effectively adapt to the new realities of increasing global competition, economic restructuring at home, and rapid population growth.

In advance of the 2008 election, the Blueprint will lay out concrete reforms to help federal policy leaders and their state and local partners advance key national priorities including:

boosting innovation and productivity
making work pay for low-wage workers
replicating the best examples of urban school reform
achieving higher and higher levels of educational attainment
integrating immigrants into the mainstream of American life
increasing the supply of workforce housing
improving transportation within and across metros
making energy efficiency in our homes part of the solution to climate change

The Blueprint is being supported and informed by the Metropolitan Council, a network of leaders who strive every day to create the kind of healthy and vibrant communities that form the foundation of the U.S. economy.

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Available and Forthcoming Blueprint publications
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External links:
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the Blueprint for American Prosperity

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