Albuquerque's mayor is struggling to get a fair share of the stimulus.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—"The broad outline of the stimulus package is very responsive to what we've been advocating. ... A lot of [the package] is going to go directly to metropolitan areas."—Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez, Jan. 17, 2009

"Most mayors around the country, at least the major cities, feel like we're standing with buckets in the rain and it's falling all around us."—Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez, July 22, 2009

Over the last six months, Chávez's optimism has spoiled into exasperated defeat. When he talks about the stimulus—as he did with me for a half-hour in Albuquerque—he speaks in a soft, flat voice that rattles off examples of how his city has been slighted. Albuquerque is in line for $59 million of stimulus money as of now, and hardly any has arrived. New Mexico is receiving $2.4 billion: 2.5 percent of the state's stimulus haul is planned for a city with about one-quarter of New Mexico's population. The government giving Albuquerque only $59 million is like the tooth fairy leaving an IOU under the pillow. The city had to go through all sorts of pain—a 72 percent rise in unemployment in a year—to get the tooth fairy to show up; the least she could do is leave a fair reward. And so for Chávez, that $59 million is a symptom of the stimulus's limitations. And—though he won't say it explicitly—maybe the stimulus's failure.

As Chávez and I sat down in a stately conference room next to his office, the first thing he wants to make clear is that he never endorsed the stimulus package. That message of hope back in January? An encouraging pat on the back for a stimulus bill that never was. When I read his quote back to him, he resolutely declares that "the stimulus package that we discussed with the administration, with leadership on the hill, was not the stimulus package that was passed." He doesn't say this with an idealist's disappointment—he takes care to mention that mayors are pragmatists by nature a few times during our conversation—but with a politician's present-mindedness. The stimulus package is what it is-and it's a crappy one for Albuquerque.

There are, according to Chávez, a number of explanations for its urban ignorance: Stimulus money primarily goes from the feds to the states, not the cities, which means it's divided by 50, not 1,000. The states have their own agendas—often including rural and suburban growth—that don't always dovetail with urban interests. Even when the states do want to spend money on cities, the limitations on stimulus dollars sometimes prevent them from doing so. Highway projects, in particular, weren't as shovel-ready in cities as they were in rural areas, mainly because there are more complications with building in the middle of the city than in the middle of nowhere. Obtaining environmental clearance widens the gap further.

A devotee of the Recovery Act—if there is such a person—could argue that giving money to cities doesn't matter. A job created is a job created; who cares where it happens? If the stimulus is supposed to be about building a new America, then we may as well do it someplace new, not in the midst of a city that has already been developed. This is a national stimulus bill, after all, so who cares where the money goes into the economy, as long as it's going into the economy. Right?