Andrew Cohen: The ‘age of America’ is far from over
Andrew Cohen: The ‘age of America’ is far from over
- Andrew Cohen, School of Journalism and Communication
Byline: Andrew Cohen
Publication: Windsor Star (Canada)
Date: Wednesday January 12th, 2011
In the grip of economic malaise, growing debt and dysfunctional politics, it is easy to see the United States slipping into genteel, irreversible decline. Many think so, both at home and abroad.
Can’t you see the signs? A people losing their jobs, their homes and their wealth. An eroding infrastructure, especially roads and airports, which look Third World in places. An inconsistent education system and a costly health system. A culture of vulgarity and celebrity.
It isn’t hard, if you try, to see the great republic in eclipse. Certainly that was how much of the world saw America in the late 1980s, when a rising Japan was going to displace it as the world’s richest country.
We all know what happened to Japan. No matter; now it is China that will unseat America as the world’s foremost nation.
And perhaps it will later this century. In the meantime, though, things are happening in the United States that defy conventional wisdom.
That much-divided, derided Congress was the most productive in a generation. In the last two years, it passed legislation on health care, financial regulation, food safety standards, credit cards and student loans. In the past two months, it repealed ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ extended the Bush tax cuts and ratified a new arms control treaty with the Russians.
In other ways, there are encouraging trends. One is the fall in violent crime, particularly the murder rate. At 5.0 murders per 100,000, it is near levels of the mid-1960s.
Another is teen pregnancy. At 39.1 births per 1,000 teen mothers, it is now the lowest in some 70 years.
Two figures do not a Utopia make. But if you think that the Age of America is over, spend some time in its cities, particularly in Washington, which, like others in this country, is remaking itself.
The renaissance of Washington began about a dozen years ago and continues today. You see it most strikingly in the incandescent new museums and memorials of this imperial city.
The investment in the national capital is staggering. Since 2000, the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Second World War Memorial have appeared on the National Mall. A major museum to Black America is being planned.
The National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum have all been renovated; the last two are particularly stunning. In Virginia, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, featuring achievements in air and space, has opened. In Congress, an interpretive centre has been created. Nearby is the reopened U.S. Botanic Garden and the spectacular Newseum. To honour the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth in 2009, Ford’s Theatre and Lincoln’s Cottage have been restored.
A proud, self-aware people, the Americans celebrate their past. Like the Germans, British and French, they take their heritage seriously. In the last decade, the homes of George Washington (Mt. Vernon), Thomas Jefferson (Monticello) and James Madison (Montpelier) have all been improved and enhanced with new museums.
Splendid as official Washington is, though, it is in residential and commercial Washington that we see the vibrancy of American urban life.
Not long ago, it was dangerous to walk in downtown Washington. The department stores had left F Street, once the commercial heart of the city. To the north and east, Chinatown was turned over to shooting galleries and crack houses.
People fled to suburban Virginia and Maryland. The rot that began with the devastating race riots of 1968 spread in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1997, however, a new arena opened in Chinatown. The professional sports teams that had played in Maryland moved
downtown. It was a bold experiment in urban renewal.
Today the neighbourhood is reborn. It is so successful, in fact, that much of old Chinatown is gone, replaced (sadly) with trendy restaurants, shops and cinemas. People now linger after the game before getting on a superb Metro system.
There is progress as well in other once no-go neighbourhoods in Washington. But it is strongest in the notorious southeast, where urban homesteaders are making a stand. It took courage, for example, to build a large, luxury apartment building on the rough end of Pennsylvania Avenue and to open a terrific supermarket inside, but they did.
The area is still spotty. But bringing back the middle class reflects progress in the poorest part of the city, which is now home to a new baseball park, the restored Washington Navy Yard and a renewed waterfront.
Washington tilts toward the future. Its schools are improving, it has made a commitment to cycling and both its airports, especially the newly redesigned Dulles International Airport, are modern and efficient.
No wonder the city’s population is growing again, reversing decades of decline. As Washington goes, we might say, so goes America.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University. E-mail: andrewzcohen@yahoo.ca.
This column first appeared in the Ottawa Citizen.