Mayor Manny Diaz: "Not the hot button issues"
Of all the mayors we interviewed for MayorTV, Manny Diaz of Miami went the furthest in critiquing America's pollsters, pundits and media outlets for their role in driving the presidential campaigns.
"The media and pollsters don't focus on urban issues," Mayor Diaz told us. "They focus on the war, abortion, gay rights -- things that, quite frankly, for those of us in the trenches, are not exactly the hot button issues."
According to Diaz, the candidates don't even deserve much of the blame.
"When you start the electoral process this early, and the polling is done every day, the hot button issues ... are not [even] the ones that the candidates want ... but the ones that the media want."
Diaz's list of the "real" issues reads like a classic bread and butter slate: jobs, crime, housing, infrastructure, education and environment. Surprising? Probably not. But watching these interviews, you can't help but think that Mayor Diaz and his colleagues actually have their fingers on the pulse of America. After all, Mayors preside over 80% of all Americans. They solve America's problem every day.
With such a disconnect between political discourse and the issues we care about, is it any wonder that half of Americans don't vote?
When asked how the federal government is treating his city, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had no hesitation.
"Whether it's poverty, work and opportunity, bolstering the middle class, housing or infrastructure," Mayor Villaraigosa said, "it is absolutely criminal that the federal government has failed to address these issues."
Villaraigosa has long been associated with policies that strengthen the middle class. He's insistent that the government, both local and federal, help people move up from poverty. Not exactly the Bush administration's primary agenda; so no shock that Villaraigosa doesn't get the funding or support he'd like.
But even on homeland security -- the Bush administration's signature issue -- Villaraigosa says the feds have fallen flat. "The federal government talks a good game about homeland security. And yet cities, like Los Angeles, are constantly struggling to get the resources we need to provide that security."
Villaraigosa is endorsing Senator Hillary Clinton for president, in part because "she understands the need to invest in infrastructure in cities across the nation." Will her relationships with mayors across the country encourage her to discuss that investment strategy on the campaign trail?
Sheila Dixon of Baltimore is the most recently elected Mayor we interviewed . But she already has her priorities straight -- tackling crime, guns and the flow of drugs into her inner city.
"I want to see one of the candidates come up with a comprehensive plan to eliminate the tide of drugs coming into our country," the Mayor told us. "I mean, we have wars here in our city. We should be making strides in that area, but its something I never hear [the presidential candidates] talk about."
She's right, of course. The '08 presidential race has distinctly eschewed issues of inner city violence and drug trade. Perhaps it's a blessing that we haven't had Willie Horton-style attack ads that demonize urban people of color; but we also haven't had any substantive talk about America's drug problem (the illegal one, not the prescription one).
Maybe not surprisingly, then, Mayor Dixon has yet to endorse a presidential candidate. "I've had a couple conversations with a couple candidates," said the Mayor, "and my first question is, What is your platform for urban issues? ... And then, what kind of commitment will they make for following up?"
For cities like Baltimore to not just get a lot more hot air, it's the latter question that matters. Good thing that Mayor Dixon is asking. Hopefully she gets a truthful answer.
]]>Does it matter that the presidential nominating process is dominated by rural states? Does it affect the way urban issues are discussed on the campaign trail? Mayor Byron Brown thinks so.
"The nomination process certainly has a negative effect on the coverage of cities," says the first African-American mayor of Buffalo, NY. "While presidential candidates are raising substantial amounts of money in cities, they are spending it in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina ... It disproportionately puts the focus on [rural] areas of the country where the majority of our citizenry do not live."
It's a sensible, almost self-evident point. Mayor Brown also called out a race / class dynamic that shapes the way presidential candidates talk about cities. To many Americans, "urban" is code for poor people and minorities -- not often popular topics in the heartland.
"If you look at the riots that took place in the 60s, and the flight from our cities, since that time urban issues have definitely become synonymous with poverty, with minorities," Mayor Brown said. "That has negatively shaped how urban issues are discussed, debated and looked at in this country."
]]>"Infrastructure isn't sexy."
So says Mayor Shirley Franklin of Atlanta. In her far-ranging MayorTV interview, she was the first to admit that aqueducts, sewage facilities and desalination plants don't exactly grab headlines.
That is, until the worst drought in 100 years hit the Southeast.
With reports that Atlanta has only three months of water left, Mayor Franklin is dealing with an infrastructure problem of biblical proportions. Naturally, "It all comes back to water, water, water -- everywhere," says Mayor Franklin. "Water is my top 10 priorities. Or top 20."
Washington, meanwhile, has compounded the drought by drastically cutting their investment in water infrastructure. "In the 1970s, the federal government gave cities 75 cents of every dollar they needed to build water and sewer systems," she explained. "Today, we get pennies on the dollar." The result? Leaking pipes, failing equipment, wasteful systems -- at a time when waste means disaster.
"There was a major campaign for the last presidential election called Vote or Die," the Mayor told us. "I would modify that to say, Invest or Die. Invest, or Atlanta's economy -- and the national economy -- is going to shrivel up and die."
"I hope when the presidential candidates talk about cities, they stop thinking about us as basketcases, and think instead of the potential of cities to turn this country around."
That's Mayor R.T. Rybak's urban agenda in a nutshell. It's time, he argues, for federal policymakers to get over the outdated notion that cities are a drag on America. Instead, whether you're talking about a better workforce, a stronger economy or a healthier environment, "urban America is the future of America."
For Rybak, that philosophy also means valuing the diversity and inclusivity of cities. "I was elected right after 9/11," said Rybak, "when there were a lot of messages coming out of Washington that attacked immigrants, that attacked the gay and lesbian community. But you can hardly go to a block in Minneapolis where there isn't a significant contribution from the gay and lesbian community. And you can go to streets that were moribund before large scale immigration happened that are now totally revived because of it. My city is stronger because we had different values than the Washington values that have been pushed onto us."
As a prairie populist with community organizing roots, it's no surprise to hear Rybak wax poetic about the 100 different languages spoken in Minneapolis, or the value of listening to community leaders. His hope is that the next president will bring that same sensibility to the White House. Which is why he was the first big city mayor to sign onto the Obama bandwagon.
"We need a person in Washington who understands that leadership often comes from the grassroots," Rybak said. "I want a community organizer in the White House."
]]>Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is the consummate anti-politician. Before his election in 2003, "Hick" ran several successful restaurants and other businesses. He buck partisan gridlock and constantly pits pragmatism against politics. So its no wonder that he's calling on Presidential candidates to do the same.
"Too often, national political figures are trying to create political strife," Hickenlooper said. "But the way we're going to succeed in this country is getting back to a collaborative approach. And that means a lot less partisanship."
In practice, how does that play out? The answer, according to this former entrepreneur, is local experimentation. "Down here where the rubber meets the road, we're fixing potholes, we're making cities safer, we're solving problems around health care ... we can figure out the solutions. We're America's laboratories."
And the federal government's role? "As we find cost-effective ways to address these issues, whether you're talking about homeless or economic development ... once we find those solutions, we need help making sure that we have the resources to role them out to the whole community and the whole country."
When we asked about a decidedly more partisan topic -- Denver hosting this year's Democratic National Convention -- Hickenlooper brought it right back to showing off his hometown solutions.
"[The Rocky Mountains] are a place where people come together and put aside partisan issues to solve problems. Being able to talk about those pragmatic solutions is going to be of great benefit to the entire country."
Talk about them, yes. But will the candidates -- and the media -- listen?
It's easy for Americans to be abstractly frustrated by the war. We know that Iraq is drawing away resources and attention. We spend $200 million a day in Iraq -- so much money it's hard to understand the implications. It's hard to know what that means for our daily lives.
Not for Rocky Anderson.
Anderson is the headline-grabbing mayor of Salt Lake City. He made international news by organizing an anti-war protest against George W. Bush in 2005, and later calling for Bush's impeachment. (This in the middle of Utah, which voted stronger for Bush in 2004 than any other state.) Every day, he sees what happens when the nation's coffers are devoted to war, not the cities in which 80% of Americans live.
"This is a president who has not only entirely neglected cities," the Mayor said, "but has hurt our cities in such enormous ways, both in terms of policy-making and fiscal decisions."
Bush's focus on terrorism and war has meant a near-complete disengagement with urban policy, Anderson charges. "Republicans and Democrats alike, among mayors in this country, have been very, very upset and concerned about the disregard for cities by this administration."
Bob Duffy is a tough guy with a tough job. He's the mayor of Rochester, NY, a city of 208,000 grappling with some tough statistics. A few stand outs:
- 39% high school graduation rate
- 57% of adults read at 6th grade level or below
- 38% child poverty rate, the highest in the state
- a population decrease from 332,000 in the 50s to 208,000 today
And then there's the stat that underlies all the other stats -- a 41% drop in manufacturing jobs over the last few decades.
Rochester is not a big, glamorous city like LA or Miami. But the story of Rochester is one that must be told. Mayor Duffy speaks incredibly eloquently for the hundreds of small and mid-sized America cities that grew up around a strong manufacturing base, and have struggled for survival as that base drops out. For Rochester, that base was Eastman-Kodak.
"Eastman Kodak, when I was much younger, employed 65,000 people here in Rochester," said the 53-year-old Duffy. "Today, it's 11,000 to 12,000. That gives you a sense of the changes that manufacturing has had here, and across this country."
Before becoming Mayor, Duffy was Rochester's police chief for seven years, and a lifetime cop before that. It show in his neighborhood-centric, pragmatic, non-partisan (actually more like anti-partisan) approach to governing. And also in his metaphors.
"Our cities across this country are proud. They have a great history. But like a boxer, they've taken one knee, and they have to bring themselves back."
Tom Menino has been the mayor of Boston forever. Well, since 1993, which in city politics is forever. He's seen a lot change in urban policy, and if you ask him, the history lesson is clear.
"When we invested in our cities, this country did extremely well," Mayor Menino told us. Other mayors we interviewed reflected this theme again and again. Call it the "As cities go, so goes America" theory. It makes sense. With 80% of America's population and almost 90% of our economic output, there's hardly anything to America but cities.
So the inverse of Menino's quote is also true -- when our nation stops investing in cities, America suffers. Of all the Mayors we interviewed, Menino hit that point with the most clarity. "Because Washington has no urban agenda, the cities in this country are doing poorly. Unemployment is up. Faith in the economy has gone down. Crime has gone up."
Menino expressed some hope that this presidential election could reverse that. He's backing Hillary Clinton for President, and told our interviews that Bill Clinton was the best urban president of his lifetime, "no question about it." Still, he hasn't heard nearly enough discussion of the issues that truly affect Boston or other cities. So he posed a direct challenge to the presidential candidates: "Talk more about cities. It will be beneficial to you, and it will be beneficial to the country."
Let's hope he's right.