Note to the '08 Candidates: The American Heartland is a Big City

Posted by Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Drum Major Institute at 8:01 PM on December 20, 2007.

In today's presidential campaign, America is all heartland -- tractor pulls, county fairs, town halls and truck stops. Candidates scramble for photo ops in plaid, stump in wheat fields and scarf down corn dogs. Our country, it seems, is all country.

Yet we are an urban nation. More than 80% of Americans live in cities. Urbanites drive 90% of our economy. In pandering to rural voters, presidential candidates ignore the bread and butter issues that most Americans deal with every day -- housing, transportation, infrastructure, crime, education.

Have the presidential candidates lost touch with urban America? Are "urban issues" code for poor people and ethnic minorities, and thus to be avoided at all costs? Should the candidates have an urban agenda? What should it be?

To find out, we asked the people who know our cities best -- America's Mayors. In punchy video interviews, a diverse and influential group of mayors gave their prescription for an agenda that supports American cities, and thus America at large.

The result -- MayorTV.com -- offers surprising insights into presidential politics, priorities and the candidates themselves. [Ed: you can view one of the videos, featuring Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, in the window to your right]

Update: New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman's December 14th column, "So Many Presidential Debates, So Little Concern Shown for Cities" is all about MayorTV. You can read it here.

Andrea Batista Schlesinger is the Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute.