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FAQs

The American City Agenda

 

What is the American City Agenda?

The American City Agenda is an integrative national urban strategy, a framework for aligning local, state and federal policies and the actions of the public, private and philanthropic sectors to promote:

Individual Opportunity and Wealth

Ensuring that people have access to education and training at all levels; are able to save and build wealth; and have access to the work supports, such as childcare and education, they need to stay on the job and advance in their careers.

Business Expansion and Investment

Ensuring support for both existing and emerging businesses, and filling the capital gaps that keep small businesses from expanding.

Strong Neighborhoods

Ensuring an adequate supply of affordable housing for all residents and the development of high-performing community institutions such as schools and healthcare centers.

Sustainability and Wellness

Ensuring that transit is properly aligned with economic and housing needs; that the basic health needs of all residents are met; that fresh food is broadly available; and that climate change is fundamentally addressed.

Critical Infrastructure

Maintaining and improving core infrastructure of transit, bridges and sewer systems and ensuring access to the Internet for all residents.

Whether it’s promoting linkages between colleges and local businesses, developing new healthcare options for all residents, or undertaking “green job” development initiatives, successful strategies in these five areas exist in cities throughout the country. But no one city is addressing all of these priorities in a comprehensive manner that improves the quality of place, raises the quality of life and expands opportunity.

How will the American City Agenda be implemented?

Achieving the American City Agenda will require new and integrative planning, investing and governing strategies.  Living Cities will move this agenda forward by:

  • Helping cities and states adopt proven programs, policies and statutes across the five key areas;
  • Working with cities and states to identify, modify and remove programs, policies and statutes that inhibit this integrative approach;
  • Focusing on key federal policies that accelerate the large-scale implementation of proven strategies, remove unnecessary barriers to innovation, and provide incentives that give cities more tools to succeed;
  • Using the power of flexible philanthropic grants and loans to foster robust private-sector investment; and
  • Promoting best practices through a series of convenings, conferences and reports.

 

What is the partnership that Living Cities has with the State of Ohio and the City of Cleveland and how does it advance the American City Agenda forward?

A critical part of the American City Agenda will be partnerships with select states. In those states, we will work directly with the governor and the mayor of a major city to implement this integrative strategy. Ohio, with the direct support of Governor Ted Strickland, Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, will be the Agenda’s first state partner. Our research partner on this entire effort is the Brookings Institution’s Center for Metropolitan affairs.

Together the partnership will align local and state policies across the five American City Agenda priority areas, identify important innovations that can grow to scale, and leverage the investments and influence of local philanthropy, the business community and Living Cities to move these efforts forward. We will consider where policy is blocking needed reform, work to overcome outmoded and siloed systems, and develop the approaches needed to solve today’s challenges. In short, we will work to translate the right policies into real outcomes on the ground for real people in Cleveland’s neighborhoods. Once the model is established in one city, we will work to expand it statewide.

How is the American City Agenda different from traditional urban initiatives?

Fundamentally this effort is unique because of its scale and intent: Intentionally aligning federal, state and local policy around five broad areas. Most efforts focus on just one level of government or one policy area.

Typically, foundation efforts fund demonstration or pilot programs and often the city and state do not work in concert. And rarely do any of these stakeholders work on a broad set of areas—from human services, to business development to affordable housing—simultaneously.

The goal is to improve lives, but whereas such strategies normally entail block-by-block improvements or new pilot initiatives, the American City Agenda says that that is not enough to achieve systemic change: The highest-level principals from the government, philanthropic and corporate community must also align their efforts.

Cities are at the heart of our nation’s economy and future. From the country’s birth through the beginning of the 21st Century, cities have been the engine of job growth and social mobility. Now with the transition to an innovation economy the importance of cities has never been greater. As home to the majority of people and knowledge workers, higher education institutions and global businesses, cities drive prosperity. Cities must work well.

And we are at a special moment in American history as unique forces are converging to give us the opportunity to not just re-think cities, but to reengineer them.  These powerful forces of change include:

The Will of the American People 

Today, more than ever, Americans believe that cities are critical to our economic future and global competitiveness. In a May 2008 poll of Democratic and Republican political donors conducted by Living Cities and CEOs for Cities, 85 percent said that the country simply cannot be competitive in today’s economy without dynamic cities. And 90 percent said that the economic futures of cities and the country as a whole are entwined. This result is not surprising because most Americans live and/or work in cities. Though the nation’s 100 largest metro areas take up only 12 percent of the nation’s land area, they contain 65 percent of the nation’s population and 68 percent of its jobs, and they generate 75 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product according to the Brookings Institution.

A New Brand of Leader

We are seeing the emergence of new leaders who are more pragmatic, unencumbered by past ideological divisions, and not tied to failed systems of the past. These leaders, whether from the public or the nonprofit sector, are more open to risk taking and crosscutting approaches. Indeed, they are tackling large-scale, critical issues, such as public education in New York and Washington, D.C., and universal health care in Massachusetts and California.  

Broad Adoption of Technology

Mass adoption of new technology gives us the chance to transform government and overcome historic barriers to the economic mainstream. Today, 83 percent of Americans have a cell phone and use it for tasks that only recently required a computer. For teenagers in particular, the Internet and cell phones fuel the rhythm of daily life. According to the Pew Internet and American Life project, the number of teenagers using the Internet has grown 24 percent in the past four years, and 87 percent of those between the ages of 12 and 17 go online. With technology so accessible, creating large-scale technology-based solutions is within reach, making it possible to streamline and integrate virtually all city products and services.

Capacity for Local Innovation

The federal government’s retrenchment in the 1980s helped stimulate innovation by states and cities. From welfare reform to school reform, nearly every major federal domestic policy change since the 1980s was road-tested at the state and local level. Cities and states are now primed to lead a new urban agenda.

Urgent Issues

The nation is facing a series of urgent issues, such as the sub-prime crisis, universal health care access and climate change, and there is a growing sense that cities must address these issues directly because the federal government has failed to do so.

Taken together, these forces of change create both the opportunity and the urgency for action in the form of the American City Agenda.