Another Obama breakthrough- The first President since Teddy R. to come from a big city

[EraOfResponsibility]

Obama's Other Breakthrough: A Big-City President

By Amy Sullivan / Washington Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2009





The one thing that will be very familiar to the new First Family is city life. Unlike every other President stretching all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt, Barack Obama has spent his entire life living in urban areas. Some of his supporters believe this background makes him more culturally sophisticated than many of his predecessors — they're relieved he won't call the city "Warshington" — while others say it allows him to better understand multi-cultural 21st-century America. But the fact that Obama has spent his weekends walking down the street to the barbershop instead of riding a 4x4 across the ranch to clear some brush is more significant than any particular kind of cultural or sociological orientation. It means he thinks about policy problems and solutions in a way that differs from most Republican and Democratic politicians, a fact that could dramatically shape this urban President's domestic agenda.

"Urban" is often employed as a euphemism for "African-American," but in Obama's case it is simply the most accurate way to locate him. The roster of his past addresses include some of the world's largest cities: Jakarta (9 million), Los Angeles (3.8 million), New York (8 million), Chicago (3 million). His hometown of Honolulu, with a population of 300,000, is the smallest place Obama has ever lived. Compare that to Hope, Arkansas (pop. 10,000) or Crawford, Texas (pop. 789). "The last President who was grounded in a city the same way was Theodore Roosevelt ," says Ed Glaeser, director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard University.

And there is little doubt that Obama's city background has shaped his policy priorities. Of all the candidates in the 2008 primaries, says Glaeser, "Obama was clearly focused on issues of the city, like the Harlem Children's Zone," a non-profit anti-poverty effort that Obama hopes to replicate in 20 cities around the country. When Obama got involved with civil liberties issues as a state legislator, it was to spearhead a law requiring the videotaping of all confessions and interrogations in capital cases, which disproportionately involve urban defendants in Illinois.

Read the complete article here

[YOY]

1. "Warshington"...I work with a couple "Warshingtonians" who do

Drives me nuts as well.

[Kaylee]

4. As a DC native, I prefer "DC". When people say Washington, I

automatically think they are talking about the state.:D

[mrs_p]

7. from the great state of warshington here

and all my relatives say it this way - no matter if they are from the city or country. i always thought it was just a regional thing, not a small town thing.

yes, it bugs me too.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Um...don't forget TR and FDR. nt

[EraOfResponsibility]

3. read the article it mentions TR

[Captain Hilts]

5. Yes, I saw that. Thanks.

Harding also was a city boy as was JFK.

Truman, Coolidge, Eisenhower, Carter and Nixon, not.

Ford was from Grand Rapids, which was pretty big also.

[Cha]

6. I grew up in Colorado

somehow putting a "r" in my wash and didn't even know I was doing it until someone pointed it out. Now, I'm aware of it and actually try to say wash.

Obama's from Chicago but grew up on Oahu and Michelle says "to understand Obama you have to understand Hawai'i which translates "the Aloha Spirit"B-)

Not to say he doesn't understand Urban by now..he's got both sides covered.

[firedupdem]

8. Nice Article.......

I was born and raised in Chicago and I'm guilty of saying Warshington, I'm going to warsh my hair etc. I get called on it all the time! :)

[Captain Hilts]

9. Millard Filmore - Buffalo. nt

[MADem]

10. George Bush is NOT from "Crawford TX pop 789). He didn't buy that Show-Ranch aka Pigfarm until

he was trying for the White House. He lived in Midland, in Connecticut, in Andover Massachusetts, a short bus ride to Boston, he lived in Kennebunkport ME, he lived in New Haven CT and Boston MA...he lived in Houston, Dallas, even in Alabama while he was shirking guard duty, and in DC for a time while "Deddy" was CIA and then some...now, these aren't MEGA-cities, but they aren't little one horse towns either. And Dumbo also travelled, prior to entering public life, to the UK and to China and elsewhere, though he may have been so shitfaced he didn't remember.

And Bill Clinton, after his Hope days, moved to Little Rock, which isn't huge, but it's about as happening as Honolulu. And he went to New Haven, CT to Yale (which is not horribly inconvenient to Boston and NY), and London, to Oxford, and travelled the globe, to Russia and points beyond as a grad student--it's not like he was some rube off the turnip truck coming into the White House straight outta Hope, scratching his ass.

JFK lived in Brookline, a suburb of Boston with Boston and Cambridge merely a trolley and T ride away. There's no real dividing line, either, it's a smooth blend from 'burb to city--more like a neighborhood than a separate entity. He also lived in LONDON as a young boy, when his father was Ambassador. He was by no means an unsophisticated rube, either.

LBJ may have been from Texas, but he lived for DECADES in Washington DC as a Congressman, Senator (and Majority Leader) and as Vice President before he became President.

Yes, Obama's lived in big cities. It is a point to note. He's lived in more big cities than any other president, certainly.

He did spend in formative years, though, the ones where he got the education that was his academic foundation, in Honolulu, which wasn't terribly big. Ergo, he's got a little of both going on. That's a good thing.

The effort to make the point, which is a valid one, is overshadowed by the author's eagerness to "compare and contrast" falsely, by making suggestions about others that don't stand up to a close look--like that Crawford assertion or the Hope throwaway.

And the NYC of TR was probably not unlike Obama's Honolulu, in terms of how busy it was back in the day.

The point, just to be clear, is valid. The article trying to make it, though, sucks.

It ruins the piece, IMO.