Congressman Dan Kildee Fights for Cities, Discusses Municipal Finance Issues on SaveMICity Podcast

U.S. Congressman Dan Kildee talks about his ideas for promoting a national agenda around strengthening communities on the latest episode of the SaveMICity Podcast.

The League’s Anthony Minghine, COO and deputy executive director, interviewed Kildee recently in Kildee’s Flint office. It was an informative conversation that touched on an array of topics, including municipal finance reform, the Flint water crisis and Kildee’s new initiative called “The Future of America’s Cities and Towns.” View a press release about the effort here.

[podbean resource=”episode=chmuj-997feb” type=”audio-rectangle” height=”100″ skin=”1″ btn-skin=”107″ share=”1″ fonts=”Helvetica” auto=”0″ download=”0″ rtl=”0″]

From the press release: Kildee’s new initiative, “The Future of America’s Cities and Towns,” will include policy discussions in Washington, D.C. and around the country with local, state and federal elected officials, as well as public policy experts to focus on the unique challenges and opportunities facing many older, industrial communities like Flint, Michigan.

“My hometown of Flint has captured many newspaper headlines in recent years. But even before the water crisis, Flint faced unique challenges as an older, industrial city: population loss, the outsourcing of jobs and rampant blight. Flint isn’t an anomaly; a whole subset of America’s cities and towns face similar challenges. There are places in every region of the country, like my hometown, that face similar stressors.

“These are real challenges that require action. It is long past time for us to have a national strategy about how we approach and invest in America’s cities and towns. We cannot simply let these communities—where millions of people live, work and raise their families—fall further into decline. America needs these communities to succeed,” Congressman Kildee continued.

Kildee has been a staunch supporter of the SaveMICity work which has also been supported by the Flint-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Kildee spoke about the need to better fund cities at a Mott Foundation-sponsored session at the 2018 Mackinac Police Conference on Mackinac Island in May. View a press release about Kildee addressing the conference here. Watch the video of the session below.

In the SaveMICity podcast, Kildee explains that from the federal standpoint, we should plan for investment in communities and ensure less volatility as the economy goes through up and down cycles.

Congressman Kildee is recognized as a leading national voice on urban policy issues. In Congress, he has successfully fought for billions of dollars for Michigan and other states to remove blight from neighborhoods in cities like Detroit, Flint and Saginaw. According to a study by the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University, removing blight in neighborhoods has been found to lower crime rates and improve property values for surrounding homeowners.

Before being elected to Congress, Congressman Kildee co-founded and served as the president of the Center for Community Progress, a national non-profit organization, where he served as one of the nation’s leading voices on urban land reform and revitalization. He founded Michigan’s first land bank – the Genesee County Land Bank – which is responsible for over $100 million in redevelopment in the city of Flint. The Genesee County Land Bank later served as a model for over 100 other land banks across the nation.

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3i70d154SA&feature=youtu.be”/]