Before running the Centre for Cities, I was a diplomat in Washington during the first term of the Bush Presidency. As the British Embassy's economic attaché, I saw the US economy up-close during a very momentous period. I reported back to the UK Government and Bank of England on the economic consequences of 9/11 and the Iraq war, Enron and the Bush tax cuts.
But this is an even more momentous time for the US economy. Wall Street is in shock, house prices are set to fall by 30% from their 2006 peak, and almost 2 million jobs have been lost during 2008.
Enter Obama, and a seismic dose of Keynesian spending. A massive economic recovery package is now around the corner - way bigger than the £20 billion package in our Pre Budget Report. "Obamanomics" is about to unfold, with a major injection of tax cuts and billions of investment in new roads, bridges and schools.
We already know most of the new Cabinet line-up. Obama's economic team is particularly impressive. Timothy Geithner, until now chief of the New York Fed, will become Treasury Secretary. Larry Summers, former Clinton adviser, will head up the National Economic Council. And former Brookings whizzkid, Peter Orszag, will lead the White House Budget Office.
So what will Obama do for American cities? And what might he learn from us?
US urban policy was rather neglected during the Bush era. For example, the status of the Department of Housing and Urban Development - the US equivalent of CLG - was steadily eroded under Bush.
The President-Elect has already announced his intention to set up a new Office of Urban Policy inside the White House. This signals a renewed interest from the federal government in US cities. During the last phase of his second term, Bill Clinton embarked on his New Markets Initiative. This triggered new tax breaks for investment in inner cities, and a wave of new community development programmes.
When I was in the Treasury, I worked with Sir Ronald Cohen on the Social Investment Task Force. This transferred much of Clinton's New Markets Initiative to the UK. In 2001, Gordon Brown responded with a package of measures including the Community Investment Tax Relief and Bridges Community Venture Fund - both of which helped to lever additional new private sector investment into our inner cities.
During my time in Washington, I facilitated a lot of further policy transfer from the US to the UK - on city competitiveness, education and housing. But this policy exchange was all one-way traffic. UK Ministers hardly ever offered any of our policy lessons to the Bush Administration.
At the Centre for Cities, we have identified a number of areas where the US could learn from our urban policy experience. Six months ago, we co-produced a report with the Brookings Institution, calling on the US federal government to pursue a more active urban policy.
Drawing on lessons from the UK, we called on the incoming President to do more to champion US cities and metropolitan areas - rather like national politicians here have promoted our cities, from Michael Heseltine to Hazel Blears. So we welcome the proposed new Office of Urban Policy, which will co-ordinate all federal urban programmes.
We and Brookings recommended that the Obama Administration expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is the US version of our own Working and Child Tax Credits. The EITC was last enlarged significantly in 1993, and is much less generous than our own scheme. The minimum wage in the US is also worth much less to low-income communities. So we also welcome Obama's plans to expand the EITC and increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011.
Our work with Brookings also highlighted the contribution that congestion charging can make to reducing carbon emissions in UK cities. We don't expect immediate progress on that, but Obama will definitely place much greater importance on the climate change agenda - and, like us, has plans to make existing buildings more energy efficient.
Once he gets into his stride, Obama and his Administration will inevitably provide new policy lessons for us. Not just on fiscal stimulus, but also on promoting innovation, delivering affordable housing and rebuilding other vital infrastructure. Much of this new thinking is being fed by the more progressive US think tank community - in particular, Brookings and the Centre for American Progress.
The Obama Era offers us a great opportunity to embark on a new process of smarter, two-way policy exchange with the United States. We genuinely do have some lessons to share, for example on city-regional (or metropolitan) governance. And we still have much to learn from the US experience - not least their devolved, and more effective, approach to financing and investing in cities.
US and UK cities are very different, but they share common challenges - like globalisation and climate change, affordable housing and workforce training. Despite the clear differences between our two countries, there are plenty of opportunities for policy learning on those common issues that face our cities and urban areas.
A version of this article first appeared in Public Servant
