and it served as a prototype for many american cities, including pittsburgh and new york. man: new york city went to philadelphia and said, "you know, we're thinking of developing a hudson river water supply -- what do you suggest we do?" and they said, "we've had "a lot of problems on the schuylkill. "don't go to the hudson river. go to the upland and work by gravity." and that's what new york city did. they first went to the hudson highlands, but 150 years later, it went to the delaware highlands. and really diverted the water that normally went to philadelphia to new york city. i don't think they anticipated that. narrator: the majority of new york city's drinking water comes from watersheds in upstate new york. a watershed is the area of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water. mountains act as a funnel to feed rivers and lakes. and in this case, reservoirs. in the new york city system, water is collected and stored in 19 reservoirs, which can hold more than a year's supply -- over 580 billion gallons of water. almost all of the syst

actually planned to demolish an american city so this one says every day the obama administration gets scarier and scarier first they take over the financial institutions then private industries like. now big brother is coming to bulldoze your home. what i think is not a valid criticism is that we have to rebuild every neighborhood and we have to somehow recreate the flint of the past it's not going to happen it's not going to happen no matter what we do in shouldn't happen and so i reject their criticism that somehow by acknowledging that we should be smaller that that sounds like defeat. in the u.s. we've had this. you know antiquated notion of our manifest destiny that will simply go west and get bigger in this has allowed us i think to make the mistakes of forgetting what's left behind. the notion that bigger is better is a fallacy a false promise it's not true it comes from the american west we're expansion it's primarily it's this american obsession with growth and expansion. in the u.s. most american cities have barely one hundred years of history and the difficulty is that in m

most american cities have barely one hundred years of history in that the difficulty is that in many cases flint detroit both being prime examples we've had one period of growth followed by one period of decline and we can't see far enough to realize that that's not the birth life and death of a city but it's the cycle. i think for a long time this notion in america that bigger was better was simply an undisputed fact for most people there was no reason to assume otherwise people didn't have. the long term vision to think that we could ever run out of space because we had so much of it people didn't have the vision to see that the smoke coming out of our tailpipes could possibly do us harm and today we're paying for that but at the time it was simply just this deep love affair that we had with space and this whole notion of the american dream of having your own house with your yard in your own garage and you each have a car that's all great but is unnecessary. the fact that g.m. was so out of touch with the rest of the world i think that's directly connected to the fact that the unit

. >>> boom town, we'll take you to the american city where there are so many jobs, they can't find enough people to fill them. >>> and homeward bound, with a little help from his friends, a wayward penguin gets a push in the right direction, after capturing earts of millions. spk spx the right direction. after capturing the hearts of captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> good evening, when you hear the word "storm" and "new orleans" in the same sentence, it >>> good evening, when you hear the word "storm" and "new orleans" in the same sentence, it's easy to think the worst. six yes after hurricane katrina did unthinkable damage to that city, tropical storm lee, a slow-moving system, has r been dumping rain for days, swelling rivers and bayous, prompting flood warnings in arvel raeas of louisiana and putting new orleans on high alert. tonight, there are reports of spinoff tornadoes in neighboring alabama and mississippi. but the good news, this is not a hurricane and the levees in new orleans appear to be holding firm. nbc's thanh truong is in in the crescent city tonight. good

and we begin tonight with a shooting spree in yet another american city. with the release of audio tapes of desperate 911 calls, a sifd picture of what happened inside a nevada ihop restaurant yesterday is now emerging. the picture outside the restaurant is coming into focus, too. neighbors shocked at the holes the bullets left, shaking their heads, asking, why now and why here? abc's david wright is in carson city, nevada. >> 911. what's the address of your emergency. >> it's ihop. there's a shooting going on. >> shooting where? >> in the ihop. >> reporter: it's been a long time since carson city, nevada, was considered the wild west. >> ryan, move! he's shooting at us now. >> okay, all right. >> he's shooting at us. automatic weapons. >> automatic weapons, like long weapons? there's one guy with an automatic weapon. he's shooting everybody. >> reporter: but the scene at the local ihop tuesday morning abruptly changed that. that voice on n e 911 call was ralph, who owns the barbecue joint just across the parking lot. bullets riddled his weapons when the s

just about this time six years ago, the horror of a major american city drowning before our eyes was unfolding. six years later, so many people are left behind here in the city after the broken levees wreaked havoc on entire communities. here's the thing. there are so ideas out there for making things right. and so many people with the will to get us there. which is great, because we here in new orleans need it all. in fact just this week, the nonprofit group kiva opened a program in new orleans. and in its first 24 hours, kiva said that all 14 small business projects seeking funding got all the money they were looking for. then there's people like actor wendell pierce. you know him from "the wire." now he's a trombone player for "treme." wendell pierce is the real thing. he was born and raised right here in new orleans. and ladies and gentlemen, he is the survivor spirit. and that is what makes wendell pierce the best new orleans thing. he is helping to rebuild the city around questions of politics, of economics. he's looking in his neighborhood. childhood neighborhood of pontchartra

american community that need to have capacity built. i am is so passionate about being a mayor that brings all the great elements of our city together and recognizes that has san franciscans, we can tackle any problem, that we can be looked at by the world-reversing a renaissance for our african american community. i believe as a gay man seeking to make history in sentences could that i can also be a thought leader and help other cities do a better job in recognizing the needs of their lgbt citizens and be a thought leader in that regard, but i intend to be a great mayor for san francisco. please visit me at bevandufty.com >> election day is november 8, 2011 view that as the last date to vote in person and the deadline for receipt of vote by mail ballots. >> i am tony hall, and i am running for mayor because san francisco more than ever need someone who would deal honestly with the hard truth that in our city pier i am not a member of a political party and not seeking some higher office. for 35 years, i am have served you, the people of san francisco, as an administrator in seven different apartments. i know how the city functions, but

one thing that plagues american cities is the maintenance budget for maintaining public streets and public right of ways. we know very well that you have very high taxes and you have very high parking fees. could you talk about who and how you maintain your infrastructure and the streets? is that just a given, you decide to build something and somebody maintains it, or is there an agreement with another department to maintain it? >> the authorities in amsterdam, the infrastructure and transport department and municipalities, they financed it, they planned it, they build it, construct it, and they maintain it. i think that is the logical route. and is paid by the community's -- and is paid by the communit ies, and also from the state department. [inaudible] >> in the netherlands, if a road is really bad they will fix it. >> ok, there is a question in the back. >> our director of public works was in the back. he has a real problem here. maintenance is a huge bill. we do not have the wherewithal to maintain what we have. putting in new facilities increases the cost. then when you bring in dif

shell gave away the gas and four major american cities today and will give it away in our others on october 13. >>> tonight at 5:00, what a difference a year makes. the giants season ends today with this afternoon's game. it seems pretty anti-climactic after l.a. year's world series victory. that's tonight at 5:00. thank you for watching. have a great day. i am a nose coach. i am a throat untickler. i am a human cough suppressant. and i am the sniffles worst nightmare. i am a target pharmacist. ask me about cold and flu remedies. hey, jessica, jerry neumann with a policy question. jerry, how are you doing? fine, i just got a little fender bender. oh, jerry, i'm so sorry. i would love to help but remember, you dropped us last month. yeah, you know it's funny. it only took 15 minutes to sign up for that new auto insurance company but it's taken a lot longer to hear back. is your car up a pole again? [ crying ] i miss you, jessica! jerry, are you crying? no, i just, i bit my tongue. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. state farm.

american cities hit hard by the economic downturn. tax revenues are down. layoffs are up. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, looking at jobs, home prices, and foreclosure rates, we use our partnership with patchwork nation to discover which regions are hurt most, and why. >> woodruff: then we assess the surge in health insurance premiums-- up 9% this year-- with health analyst susan dentzer of the journal "health affairs." >> ifill: jeffrey brown reports from a missouri community still picking up the pieces after a deadly spring tornado. >> this new mural tells the story that joplin is the very portrait of widespread destruction and hope in rebuilding. >> woodruff: margaret warner examines heightened tensions between the u.s. and pakistan over allegations of links between afghan terror attacks and pakistani intelligence. >> ifill: and ray suarez takes us to the washington monument, where engineers are rapelling down the walls in search of earthquake damage. >> we're going to literally by human eyeball have to determine w

i know you mentioned study in cities throughout the world, but i think you also have to study american cities, because we are in america, and americans are more independent and less communal the other areas. we have to pick up the things they do well. i have been to a number of cities that i found there center cities very common -- calm, denver and san diego some examples, because they have ways to divert a lot of the traffic outside of the city, so the heart of their city is a calm one. we have a geographical problem. a lot of traffic has to go through san francisco. your thoughts about giving people out of cars may work part of the way, but it is never going to stop the commuter or the person who is traveling and has to travel, by necessity, through san francisco. the only thing we can do is find ways to move our transit and not compete with the cars on major streets like van ness and geary, and take a cue from what was done about 90 years ago and start building tunnels where we can and put transit in its own right of way, where it is not in competition with everything else. to objects cann

in the early 1970's, just a decade after all of the problems in birmingham, to make it an all-american city, and that got his attention to the city. once he became a member of the legislature, once he became a member of the legislation, he continued to do that. he wore to with all segments. he truly was a representative not only of the black community in birmingham but for all of birmingham and all of jefferson county, and it was just his persona. you just have to know chris, and you know him well. he has got that booming voice, even at age 85. he has that strong voice. he is the kind of person that people flock to whenever he speaks. tavis: now, to get to your point, at 85 years of age, how does a civil-rights icon such as chris mcnair find himself in prison, which if you are a math major is until he is 90 years old? how did this happen? >> tavis, this is a story of triumph after tragedy that ends up in tragedy again. as a county commissioner, chris was seen to have taken a lot of what the government termed as bribes, what the jury found, quite frankly, to be bribes. what he was trying to

. >>> when we come back here tonight, another american city with something to be proud of. a woman with four kids of her own who's making a difference for other children she will never meet. >>> finally tonight here, our making a difference report. it starts in new england and it stretches all the way around the horn of africa where we have been covering this famine, the worst human health crisis on earth right now, which has claimed the lives of at least 29,000 children under the age of 5 this summer. 29,000. but as we saw from our reporting team on the ground there, there are legions of aid workers trying to stop that from happening and one of the tools they rely on most is a silver packet you might have seen on tv. something called plumpy nut. it's a product that comes from a small, nonprofit factory here in the u.s. and it is a lifesaver. our report tonight from nbc's kate snow. >> reporter: providence, rhode island with its postcard images of americana. but inside this factory, the only one of its kind in the u.s., they're churning out something to help children on the

. >> reporter: chicago has 100,000 foreclosed homes, more than any other american city. many are selling at fire sale prices. the average forclosure sells for $50,000 less than other homes. >> how many bedrooms? >> two bedrooms. >> reporter: how many baths? >> one bathroom. >> reporter: and you're paying less than you paid for your apartment. >> yes. >> buyers for foreclosed or market rate, or traditional sales, i think they're all getting steals. jeter realtor sara wear showed >> reporter: realtor sara wear showed us some examples. what kind of deals are you getting for your clients? >> this house was purchased as $60,000. $60,000. >> reporter: and this is five bedrooms? >> five bedrooms, three fireplaces. >> reporter: 40% of the homes sold in chicago are foreclosures. nationwide it's 30%. >> people that look at home- ownership as a dream, as the american dream and the dream was not so dream-- it may have been a nightmare-- but also i like at it as an opportunity. a nightmare-- but also i look at it as an opportunity. >> reporter: but here's the problem it's massive num

in the summer of one nine hundred sixty eight army and national guard troops were sent into american cities as thousands of black people rioted following the assassination of martin luther king. that spring troops were used against antiwar demonstrators at the pentagon. then in august soldiers at fort hood were told they would be sent to chicago where antiwar demonstrations are planned for the democratic party's national convention. we just come back from fighting the vietnamese not i want us to fight the americans. the night before the troops are supposed to leave there was a meeting of blood as they gathered up in a parking lot in the first armored division section and they were out there all night in a parking lot talking you know. really why they were opposed to going to chicago where making it clear that it was a gentle south and it was going to go on and how can i go and commit genocide on my people shoot my people and one hundred black jazz and the straight feel brothers came up and really started pointing on the ng about you know discrimination and unfair treatment not getting the r

have a better shot at than, say, other places where large distances have to be traversed in most american citieso kind of get to the places you want to get. here in san francisco, we have been blessed by the geometry where our trips are short where 40 years ago we realized that this was the way we will have to kind of meet our future. the iron call part of that is at the same time europe also discovered that and they made strides to towards actually implementing these alternative choices, we have found it very difficult to kind of wean ourselves from the convenience of being able to. i say it is still convenient to drive. as long as the alternatives are not just as convenient, we won't be able to make our case about our travel modes as contribution to the detriment of the environment or to the detriment of our health as we all know the sun is by date getting madder at us and angle grier at us and we are getting fat. we got to do something about it. this is the time to do it. we have the best opportunity here with these four guests from the german marshall fund and i was hoping that supervisor ch