President-elect Barack Obama is promising a massive public works plan to stimulate the economy. It will sound like a familiar idea to World War II-era readers, viewers and listeners who got federal government jobs to build bridges, buildings and roads that are iconic in our communities today.
It would be worth a look around to see what enduring projects came from that "back to work" effort. Some towns, such as tiny
Carbon Hill, Ala., have photo collections of Works Progress Administration efforts.
The Miami Herald wanted to know what communities in its coverage area are asking for. The paper found that local leaders have sent lists of "shovel ready" projects they would like to accomplish.
The
Herald reports:
The Overseas Highway through the Florida Keys. Signature regional parks like Matheson Hammock and Greynolds parks. Expansion of Jackson Memorial Hospital. The creation of the first artists' colony in Key West. The first public facilities in what would become Everglades National Park. Plus numerous schools, post offices, fire houses and community centers from Miami Beach to Miami, Coral Gables and Biscayne Park.
All were financed and built under the New Deal in the 1930s, helping to revive the region's sagging fortunes and, in the process, scholars say, creating and defining modern South Florida.
Will history now repeat itself? As President-elect Barack Obama gets set to occupy the Oval Office this month, he, too, has called for massive public investment to pull the nation out of an economic nose dive, a plan that some have dubbed the New New Deal.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, in his capacity as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors -- an organization formed during the New Deal to lobby for federal aid to cities -- has sent Obama an encyclopedic list of ''shovel-ready'' public works projects across the country.
The projects include expanding Miami International Airport, improving parks, upgrading roads and more.
