Candidates must stop ignoring cities

We are mayors. And, although we supported different Democratic candidates in the Pennsylvania primary, we are firmly united in our commitment to ensure that all the presidential candidates address a topic critical to the future of our state and our country: America's cities.

Cities are essential to our nation's well-being. And now, more than ever, as our nation heads toward a period of economic downturn, we must ensure that urban issues are not simply a domestic-policy issue for the candidates to debate, but the domestic-policy issue that frames solutions to our economic woes. After all, according to the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, the United States' 100 largest metro areas contain 65 percent of the nation's population and generate 75 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. The six largest metro areas in Pennsylvania, with 68 percent of the state's population, generate 80 percent of its economic output.

Cities are too important to ignore.

To date, however, we are disappointed by the discourse. Too much energy has been wasted viewing the election as a political football game, focusing on the internal politics of campaigns instead of on the issues.

MayorTV, a project initiated by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy and the Nation, has interviewed mayors all across the country on their thoughts about a federal urban agenda. All  from Minneapolis to Atlanta to Buffalo to Los Angeles  shared a desire to hear a substantive conversation about the role that cities play in our country today and about the role that they surely will play in the future. This must be changed, and political support for cities  which has of late been absent in Washington, D.C.  must be conveyed by all who want to lead our nation.

Pennsylvania's job-performance ranking has improved recently, but remained 35th in 2006 and 2007 among all states, while average hourly wages declined 1 percent in the state over the last five years, according to a Brookings analysis. The presidential candidates must debate vigorously how they would tackle such entrenched economic problems with innovative solutions that recognize cities as hubs of activity and growth.