For the first time in human history, the majority of the world’s population (54%) lives in urban areas, including 80 percent of Americans. This number is expected to grow to 66 percent of the world’s population by 2050.
Increasing population growth in cities not only leads to greater citizen demand on local government but also creates an entire new ecosystem in which local governments must respond and adapt. For this reason, the National League of Cities is publishing this yearly benchmarking report, State of the Cities, which provides analysis of trends in cities and the response of local governments. This is based on annual state of the city addresses from mayors across the country.
The article below discusses some of the issues in the report. For a complete reading of the report please refer to:
www.nlc.org/find-city-solutions/city-solutions-and-applied-research/state-of-the-cities
NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES
NLC Releases State of the Cities Analysis of 100 Mayoral Addresses
New annual report provides unique window into the current conditions and future direction of our cities and our country
Austin, Tex. - As the prominence of cities continues to grow, the voice of our nation’s mayors is quickly becoming a barometer for the contemporary conditions and the future direction of our country. Released today, NLC’s new annual report, State of the Cities, provides an analysis of mayoral state of the city addresses and identifies key trends in cities and the responses of local governments.
City leaders today are grappling with decisions that determine whether the cities of tomorrow will be places where the benefits of growth enhance quality of life for all residents. While research has been done on the president’s State of the Union address and on governors’ state of the state speeches, very little analysis has been undertaken of mayoral state of the city speeches. For this reason, NLC has embarked on this critical analysis of state of the city addresses from mayors across the country.
“We see State of the Cities as a key window into the issues that are imperative to our nation’s local leaders,” says Clarence Anthony, Executive Director of the National League of Cities. He continued, “It provides an essential view of the national picture on cities that will inform policy choices and help cities understand key trends.”
This year’s baseline report will provide the foundation for annual benchmarking for years to come. Key findings from this year’s report:
- Topline issues for the nation’s mayors are jobs and the economy, budget and finance, and public safety.
- Jobs, education and housing are prevalent topics in the speeches of larger city mayors whereas public safety is the leading priority issue in cities with population below 50,000.
- Transportation issues receive extensive attention from mayors in the West and South, environmental issues from mayors in the West, education from mayors in the Northeast, and housing from mayors in the West and Midwest.
“Mayors are at the frontlines of our nation’s most pressing issues, implementing solutions, developing partnerships and innovating with an eye toward the future,” said Brooks Rainwater, Director of NLC’s Center for City Solutions and Applied Research. “State of the Cities 2014 provides not only a snapshot of what is currently happening in cities, but also develops a baseline for further exploration and understanding of what is coming next.”
As part of a new City of the Future initiative to explore key drivers of change in cities, the State of the City project analyzes 100 state of the city speeches, testing for 10 major topics and the prevalence of subthemes within each topic. This annual effort provides a baseline of key issues, challenges and strategies in cities, and, over time, a consistent and measurable benchmark on emerging trends.
MAP OF CITY LOCATIONS
KEY RESEARCH FINDINGS
Although national employment is on the upswing, the pace and quality of economic recovery that we are experiencing are troublesome. Low wage jobs are growing more quickly than high wage jobs, with mid-wage jobs trailing even further behind. In fact, while low wage industries constituted only 22 percent of recession job losses, they are responsible for 44 percent of recovery growth.
Additionally, growth dominated by low wage jobs is compounding a trend of income inequality. As of 2010, the top 1 percent of Americans held 35 percent of the nation’s wealth while the top 10 percent of Americans accounted for 75 percent of that wealth. An examination of the economic mobility of the bottom 20 percent of income earners shows that nearly half stay in the same economic strata that they were born into. Even more troubling is that only 4 percent of those born into the lowest economic strata ever reach the top quintile.
Coupling the widening gulf of unequal incomes and the lack of economic mobility with the fact that over 16 million children in the United States currently live in poverty reveals that the economic future is anything but certain.
Given these conditions, it is not surprising that economic development and jobs were covered in nearly every mayor’s annual state of the city address this year (98%). Budget and finance issues were a close second (83%), while issues concerning public safety (78%), transportation (75%) and education (70%) were also covered by more than two of every three mayors.
To better understand the priority issues of our nation’s mayors, we examine the extent to which mayors devote significant coverage or significant portions of their speech to discussing specific strategies related to these issues.
From this perspective, economic development and jobs (67%) still hold strong at the number one spot, with more diversity of priorities across other issues. Public safety (50%), budget and finance (35%) and education (32%) also received noteworthy attention, while health care (9%), energy (9%) and immigration (2%) were given less coverage. We examine these issues by population size and geographic region to uncover variation in how cities are prioritizing these issues and to understand differences in how these issues are playing out locally.
BREAKDOWN BY GEOGRAPHIC REGION
Turning to regional variations, at least 60 percent of mayors across all regions dedicated a significant portion of their speeches to economic development and jobs. Discussions of health care and energy issues were also relatively consistent across each geographic region, ranging from 8 to 10 percent and from 5 to 13 percent, respectively. Regional differences across other issues, such as transportation, education, environmental issues and housing, were more pronounced.
Mayors from cities in the West (40%) and the South (30%) were more likely to prioritize transportation in their speeches than were mayors in the Northeast or Midwest (15%and 21%, respectively). In addition to roads, mayors from the South focused on bridges (39%) and sidewalks (39%), while those in the West focused more heavily on bicycles (50%) and trains (40%).
The majority of mayors from cities in the Northeast (55%) focused large portions of their speeches on education, significantly more than those in the next highest region (West, 30%). Nearly one in four mayors from cities in the Northeast discussed pre-school (25%), the achievement gap (20%) and the graduation rate (20%), while 15 percent discussed community college and 10 percent discussed charter schools.
Mayors from cities in the West (33%) were at least twice as likely as others to significantly address environmental issues in their speeches. Commonly addressed issues among them related to water and wastewater (67% and 23%, recycling (23%), climate change (20%) and carbon (10%).
Housing was more likely to be given considerable attention by mayors in the West (30%) and Midwest (29%) than by those in the Northeast or South (10% and 15%, respectively). Key concerns among these mayors were homelessness (43% and 29%, respectively) and affordable housing (27% and 21%, respectively).
PERCENTAGE OF SPEECHES WITH SIGNIFICANT COVERAGE OF TOPICS BY GEOGRAPHIC REGION
NUMBER OF SPEECHES BY CITY POPULATION
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/JOBS
A mayor’s role in creating the environment for economic growth, from well paying jobs to a skilled workforce to an area attractive to families and business owners takes on many forms. The diversity in the initiatives discussed by the mayors underscores the range of economic development approaches that cities will be spearheading over the next several years.
On the work force side, cities are focusing on building up their home grown talent pool. Cities such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tacoma, Washington; and Evanston, Illinois, have summer jobs programs for youth that build up and train the cities’ future workforce. In Massachusetts, New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell captured what many other cities are also thinking by saying, “We will continue to modernize our workforce development programs in a way that suits the needs of employers so that we train people for jobs that are likely to be available.”
Regardless of city size, mayors are recognizing the need for regulatory reform. They are pledging to cut red tape at city hall and make it easier for local companies to comply with the
city’s regulatory requirements. “The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in Seattle, and we need to make sure the city is contributing to, and not inhibiting, that energy and enthusiasm,” said Seattle Mayor Edward Murray.
Lastly, our analysis demonstrates that mayors are approaching economic development from a holistic lens. In Salem, Oregon, Mayor Anna Peterson explained, “Corporations today, and the employees of tomorrow, are looking for more—they are looking for quality of life, new entertainment, and recreational opportunities right out their front door. In other words, they are looking for vibrancy. And we have that, and more is coming.”
TRANSPORTATION
The movement of people and goods via highways, railways and public transit systems drives economic growth, directly affects the day to day lives of individuals and is central to the well bring of cities. While transportation projects suffered in the wake of the economic downturn, mayors expressed commitment to restoring transportation investments.
Transportation infrastructure was commonly addressed in the speeches covered in our sample. In Providence, Rhode Island, Mayor Angel Taveras proudly noted that a $40 million project to fix 62 miles of roads in Providence would be completed by the end of the year. For many cities, infrastructure projects form part of a long term approach to develop multimodal transportation systems. Mayor Kirk Caldwell of Honolulu emphasized the role of multimodal transportation in creating social equity saying that public transportation “is the great equalizer for the people of our community.”
Bicycles and bike lanes were frequently mentioned as a component of multimodal transportation. Mayor George Heartwell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, said that the city had recently installed 41.6 new miles of bike lanes toward a 2015 goal of 100 miles, while Mayor Caldwell, who devoted over a third of his speech to transportation issues, said that $1.4 million of the upcoming budget was specifically devoted to a bike plan and bike lane improvements. In San Diego, Mayor Todd Gloria said that investing in bicycles “makes sense for public health, our environment, reducing traffic congestion and for greater interaction in our neighborhoods,” and he announced a new bike sharing program.
HOUSING
The implosion of the housing market in 2008 and the resulting recession continue to present cities with housing related challenges. At the forefront of housing issues is affordability which has been complicated by recent reductions in the federal resources that aid cities in developing affordable housing.
In Beaverton, Oregon, Mayor Denny Doyle noted a recent city wide tax exemption to support affordable housing, while Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco detailed a seven pillar plan to complete 30,000 new and rehabilitated homes by 2020 and an executive order giving priority status to permits for affordable housing developments. Said Lee, “We have to set aside the politics and traditional ideologies and instead work together in the service of real solutions for housing.”
Homelessness is another central issue related to accessible housing. Mayor Greg Stanton proudly highlighted the fact that Phoenix recently became the first city in the United States to end chronic homelessness among military veterans. “When we took on [the challenge] more than two years ago, it seemed impossible,” he said. “But we knew we had a responsibility to take care of those who served and sacrificed.” Mayors from Eugene, Oregon; Columbus, Georgia; Norfolk, Virginia; and Saint Paul, Minnesota each noted this accomplishment as motivation.
As cities continue to heal from the housing crash, opportunities exist to strengthen local efforts to ensure that resources are used effectively and efficiently. When these collaborations are initially developed around a subpopulation such as homeless veterans, their benefits can be extended to meet a city’s evolving needs.
CONCLUSION
Mayors are at the frontlines of our nation’s most pressing issues. Despite the challenges before them, there is optimism in our cities with mayors, whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent, tackling head on what others may view as intractable problems. That’s just what mayors do. They act, they lead.
Looking forward to 2015, economic recovery will continue to define leadership agendas in cities across the country. In light of a disappointing job recovery and a persistent achievement gap and despite the fact that few mayors have control over their school systems, education is likely to remain a high priority.
Additionally, demands on local budgets, such as transportation and pensions, are likely to persist and hold back local budgets from full recovery for years to come. In the wake of gun violence and renewed calls for community policing, we also anticipate that public safety will remain front and center.
Key issues that did not receive high levels of attention from mayors this year, health care, energy and immigration, are still playing out locally and demand attention from state and federal partners. With the nature of these issues being heavily influenced by the national political environment, the outcome of the 2014 congressional elections may bring these issues more to the fore in 2015.
Cities are central to our nation’s future, and in order for any priority issue to achieve lasting success, a partnership among levels of government must be strong.
The city of the future will continue to be about people and the great places in which they live, work and play, and success in our urban century requires our leaders to think about and anticipate what is on the horizon. Coming shifts in technology, demographics, climate and more will affect cities well into the future. The State of the Cities provides not only a snapshot of what is currently happening in cities, but also a baseline for further exploration and understanding of what will be happening next.
The National League of Cities will undertake this effort by continuing and expanding on the work of State of the Cities through the City of the Future initiative which will delve into key priorities of city leaders. Long term thinking and planning is imperative. As we observe from their state of the city addresses, mayors are not only reacting to challenges before them but also seizing opportunities to create a more prosperous future.
The National League of Cities (NLC) is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans. www.nlc.org
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