Forum discusses recovery of global economy

CHICAGO — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden gave the closing keynote address at the 5th Annual Richard J. Daley Urban Forum, which discussed the role of major metropolitan areas in global economic recovery.

The forum united experts and municipal leaders from cities around the world, including Mayor Richard M. Daley, and addressed the obstacles to economic recovery and the innovative ways each city is dealing with the global crisis.

Higher education was among the central points of the international panel.

"In the past the city was constructed around the centers of power," said Judith Pinedo Flórez, mayor of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. "Today it is being built around the centers of knowledge."

Vice President Biden said the Obama administration is keeping cities at the center of its financial recovery plan.

"To truly reclaim our cities, we have to make them safe, clean, appealing places for people to live," Biden said.

Leaders from both industrialized and developing countries highlighted different strategies to develop education.

Medellin, Colombia is focusing on building libraries, schools, and infrastructure that give the poor access to knowledge, said mayor Alonso Salazar Jaramillo.

Many of the panelists said education is the main driver of innovation, which in turn revitalizes the economy.

Norbert Riedel, corporate vice president and chief scientific officer of Baxter International, advocated partnerships between corporations and universities. Rather than forcing universities to sell out to corporate interests, these partnerships function as "commercial outlets" for the innovations that occur through university research, he said.

"We support that research and offer ourselves as a potential commercial outlet for that innovation," Riedel said. "Baxter could never harness the power of innovation all by itself."

Paul Magelli, a retired faculty member in the College of Business, said the University currently transfers inventions created on campus to the market through the Office of Technology Management. This office tests the business feasibility of different inventions, facilitates intellectual property protection, and finds the necessary commercial contacts.

Other strategies for global economic recovery focused on strengthening the private sector, especially small and medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs.

"We lowered rent and fees to the minimum for small entrepreneurs," said Vladimir Resin, first deputy mayor of Moscow.

Valerie Werner, Director of the Undergraduate Program in Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said Biden's speech failed to address the fact that the stimulus package is investing heavily into the financial institutions that helped bring about the economic crisis.

"It's the small business that makes capitalism checked by communities," she said.

Other leaders reflected the importance of community involvement.

"This is not the task for a single person, a single party, or a single administration," said Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, mayor of Reykjavík, Iceland, who related the global economy to her country's crisis.

"The keyword is cooperation, we have to take down every wall we are used to within business and politics," she said. Kristjánsdóttir said her administration engaged Reykjavík workers in solving the crisis. Their ideas allowed the city to shave 20 percent of its budget without raising taxes. This also allowed wages to be cut on all levels, including a 10 percent reduction in the city council's wages and 20 percent reduction in the mayor's wages, she added.

"Allow the people, allow your workforce to get involved," Kristjánsdóttir said. "This is the opportunity to really change government."

Mayor Daley emphasized the importance of involving the general populace in economic recovery. He said the current stimulus plan does not provide for lasting stability, and the government should focus on investing in the private sector as opposed to expanding bureaucracy.

Most of all, the U.S. must avoid becoming protectionist and closing its boarders to the influx of knowledge and labor from other countries, Daley said.

"These are allies and friends, we should not protect ourselves from their citizens. This is a city of immigrants," Daley said. "We should never, ever think of shutting our boarders and blaming the rest of this world for this economic crisis."

Masha Stul contributed to this report