The head of the White House Office of Urban Affairs said the Obama administration is moving forward with its ambitious plan to revitalize metropolitan centers across the country, with a special focus on transportation and education.

“We want to build stronger cities and stronger communities,” Adolfo Carrion, the White House Director of Urban Affairs, said in an interview with BlackAmericaWeb.com.

In the not-so-distant future, Carrion said, the majority of Americans will live in urban centers. And according to city planning experts, metropolitan areas now generate two-thirds of the country's jobs and fuel the economies of 44 of the 50 states.

Most presidents have not adequately addressed the problems in metropolitan centers, and civil rights activists have complained for years that few federal dollars have been allocated to the nation’s urban areas because the word "urban" has become synonymous with "black."

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, however, created the White House Office of Urban Affairs to develop a strategy for metropolitan America and to ensure that all federal dollars targeted to urban areas are effectively spent on the highest-impact programs.

Over the past two months, Carrion and other administration officials from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Transportation Department have toured several major cities to learn more about the challenges facing urban centers and how best to address the problems.

Two of the most impressive initiatives Carrion has highlighted were Choice Neighborhoods, a new HUD program that provides poor neighborhoods with housing and day care, and the Harlem Children's Zone, which helps young people improve their academic performance while offering after-school and weekend life-building activities.

Carrion said communities of color – blacks and Latinos, in particular – have been “historically marginalized,” but now the Obama administration plans to address the problems.

“When raising our kids,” Carrion said, “we want to create a vehicle for people to succeed. We’re getting at the root of the problem. There has been failure for too many people for too many generations.”

Carrion said one of the administration’s goals in rebuilding urban centers starts with improving the nation’s transportation systems, such as metros and buses, to make sure people are connected to their jobs and communities. 

Carrion’s comments comes as the Obama administration announced last week that the Department of Transportation has jump-started more than 10,000 transportation projects across America – the result of Obama’s Recovery Act initiative.

“Just nine months in, tens of thousands of people are on the job at highway, bridge, rail and airport improvement projects across the country, thanks to the quick action by the Department of Transportation putting Recovery Act dollars to work,” Biden said in a statement. 
“These projects are not only providing new opportunities for hard-hit workers and businesses during tough economic times, but helping lay a strong foundation to support our 21st century economy,” Biden said. “This is a significant milestone on the road to recovery, but we continue to work every day to create more jobs and drive economic growth.”

In the last week, the DOT has approved hundreds of additional transportation projects across the country, topping 10,000 projects, according to administration officials.

In Florida, a $71.2 million Recovery Act funded project will construct a new four-lane highway to relieve traffic congestion in the Jacksonville area. In Kentucky, a $25.5 million project will reconstruct approximately five miles of US 150 through Rockcastle County. A $37.6 million project in Lee County, North Carolina will widen the 1.8 mile Sanford Bypass to ease congestion on one of the state’s most critical highway corridors. In Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, a $22.9 million project will repair and replace pavement along I-81.

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