Forget Washington: America's Pragmatic Caucus is Creating Jobs

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What can Washington learn from the leadership on display in our states and metro areas?

For a national economy stuck in first gear, the new metropolitan growth model offers the promise of more jobs (to resolve America's employment deficit), better jobs (to make work pay) and more accessible jobs (to ensure people can actually get to work).

For a federal government desperate to do more with less, galvanizing the talents and energies of state and metropolitan leaders, with fewer federal prescriptions and more incentives, seems a sure shot for success.

And for a federal political class defined more often by behavior fitting of school yard bullies than the nation's highest elected officials, the Pragmatic Caucus offers the potential to restore purpose to our politics and civility to our commons.

America's entrepreneurialism and innovative spirit is alive and well in the work of tens of thousands of leaders across hundreds of cities and metropolitan areas and dozens of states. These leaders are making smart, strategic investments in the future of their communities, often with little federal support or encouragement.

If American history is any guide, the infectious dynamism and energy and innate common sense that defines this network of leaders, this Pragmatic Caucus, will ultimately prevail. This is bottom up innovation and nation re-building in the making, a silent affirmation of democratic principles and possibilities that should both inspire and humble the partisans bogged down in Washington DC.

Katz is the founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Follow him at @bruce_katz. Rodin is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation. Follow the Rockefeller Foundation at @FoundationRock.

Who do you think is a member of the pragmatic caucus? Join the conversation on Twitter #pragcaucus.