Despite the fact that the largest 100 metropolitan areas are home to 65 percent of the nation’s population and account for about 75 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, Americans haven't elected an urban president since John F. Kennedy. A few factors probably contribute, none more than the southernization and subsequent faux-populism of the Republican Party -- the former left no room in the GOP for urban moderates, while the latter made it difficult for "urban Democratic elites" like John Kerry or Michael Dukakis to survive a national election. Combine that with the Electoral College and our electoral and legislative systems, both of which give disproportionate weight to rural voters and rural concerns, and it's no surprise that urban issues are commonly absent on the national political stage.

But if Barack Obama manages to win the White House, this neglect may end. Check out Mayor Daley's thoughts on this topic in a new Illinois Issues article on what clout the Prairie State might gain under an Obama administration:

In August, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley played up both Obama’s and Biden’s familiarity with big cities as an asset. Obama has lived in Chicago, New York and Cambridge, Mass.; Biden lives in Wilmington, Del., which is in the greater Philadelphia area.

“It could be the first time in a long time that we had the top two officials coming from an urban environment,” Daley said. “I’m not just saying coming just from a big city or an inner city. I’m talking about an urban environment, and that includes [places such as] Kane County, Lake County and Joliet. It’s urban; it’s not just a city. It’s a good perspective … for the federal government, which is much more rural in its history.”

An emphasis on urban poverty and regional development couldn't come soon enough. The New York Times editorial board laid out the stakes in February:

Continue to ignore the plight of urban schools, and soon about half of New York City’s one million schoolchildren won’t graduate from high school. Continue to neglect infrastructure, and face the prospect of more Katrina-like disasters where large numbers of people live or more collapsed bridges that carry thousands of commuters, as happened last summer in Minneapolis. Let brownfields remain polluted, and risk health problems and hurt the potential for job-creating development. Keep encouraging fossil-fueled transportation, and cities will choke on gridlock, and so will businesses and jobs.

Thankfully, Obama's plan to "stimulate urban prosperity" addresses some of these issues. While it could be more comprehensive, he promises to create a White House Office on Urban Policy, increase affordable housing stock, improve livability, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and minimum wage, support early education, and improve transit, among other proposals. As Matt Yglesias noted a few months back, Obama seems to understand the crucial need for regional development, too:

To seize the possibility of this moment, we need to promote strong cities as the backbone of regional growth. And yet, Washington remains trapped in an earlier era, wedded to an outdated “urban” agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities, and ignores our growing metro areas; an agenda that confuses anti-poverty policy with a metropolitan strategy, and ends up hurting both.

On the other hand, if John McCain and the Republicans snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, don't expect much to change. Case in point: McCain has no proposals geared toward cities on his website.  Moreover, his party chose Aaron Schock as its "urban representative" at the Republican National Convention this year.