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Section 8, the federal government's primary program for addressing the housing needs of low-income renters, is administered by thousands of local public housing agencies, most of which serve individual cities, towns, and counties. This article contends that the current balkanized system undermines the potential of the program to promote mixedincome communities and the deconcentration of poverty and that the voucher program should be administered regionally rather than locally in urban areas.One strategy for achieving metropolitan administration would be to contract out responsibility for operating the voucher program to competitively selected regional organizations. In addition to describing how such a program could work, we suggest a series of incremental reforms for moving the Section 8 program in the direction of metropolitan administration. Moreover, other reforms-including an expansion of affordable rental housing in suburban communities-are also needed for housing vouchers to achieve their full potential.

Metropolitan areas are the unequivocal engines of the US economy and our prosperity because they spatially concentrate at an unprecedented level the assets that matter, assets like innovation, human capital, and infrastructure. the national government must pursue a Metro Policy to help cities and metropolitan areas leverage these critical assets in the service of productive, sustainable, and inclusive growth. There are early signs that the Obama Administration embraces this new vision of Metro Policy. the President's rhetoric recognizes the critical role cities and metropolitan areas play in the national economy and the need for a new generation of federal policies that leverage this economic primacy. the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and FY 2010 budget invest directly in the assets that drive prosperity. But President Obama inherits a federal government replete with legacy programs, diminished in capacity, and without a coherent federalist philosophy, which will be obstacles for the structural reform necessary for Metro Policy.

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