Think Presidentially, Act Locally |
By Doug Linkhart, President of NCL
Have you noticed that crime and other urban issues have largely disappeared from presidential debates and speeches? While crime and race appeared as discussion items for a short time a couple of months ago, there were few solutions offered. Since then, these topics have taken a back seat to personal attacks, talk about terrorism, and, well, more personal attacks.
Many of the issues facing Americans are difficult to address at the national level, leaving presidential candidates unable to develop practical solutions. These include issues like crime, race relations, education, poverty, failing infrastructure, homelessness, affordable housing, and traffic congestion. Other issues, like climate change, public health, immigration and wage levels, are simply not being addressed nationally because of the policy gridlock in Washington.
That leaves cities with the responsibility of addressing these and other key issues that dramatically affect people's quality of life.
Fortunately, local governments are not waiting for Washington, and are effectively addressing key national issues locally. Regarding climate change, for example, more than 500 cities have signed on to climate change accords initiated by the UN Climate Summit in 2014. Regarding race relations, more than 100 cities recently took up the challenge posed by the National League of Cities to hold dialogues on race. Regarding education, nearly 300 cities are part of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading effort to improve literacy by the third grade.
Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill once said that "all politics are local." Perhaps the more accurate statement is "all solutions are local."
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Join us tomorrow for a Promising Practices Conference Call
National Civic League is hosting the first in a series of AAC Promising Practices" conference calls on October 25th. These calls will share innovative and impactful AAC projects with our network and others interested in learning more about how to create stronger communities.
By equipping individuals, institutions, and local governmental bodies through this series with ideas, models and insights that can be adopted/adapted to individual communities NCL hopes to accelerate the pace of change in communities across the country.
Join us Tuesday October 25th at 9:00am PST / 10:00am MST / 11:00am CST / 12:00pm EST to learn from the 2016 All-America City winner - Hayward, California on the impacts of co-locating health services.
Hayward, California's Firehouse Clinic
Hayward's newest fire station is more than just a space for first responders. It is a fully functioning medical center serving Hayward's most needy. Co-locating critical medical services with emergency responders enabled the city to increase medical access in a safe and trusted setting. Learn more about this program and how you could adapt it for your community from Hayward's Fire Chief, Garrett Contreras.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/october-all-america-city-promising-practices-co-locating-health-services-tickets-28052192864
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Congratulations to the first 22 SolSmart Communities
In late September, SolSmart
announced the first 22 communities to earn the coveted SolSmart designation. These communities are helping to reduce the cost of residential solar in their communities by taking action to adopt best planning, zoning and inspection practices, and through other efforts to make
it easier to go solar. To learn more visit:
www.solsmart.org
SolSmart Gold
Austin, Texas City of Boulder, Colorado Columbia, Missouri Fremont, California Fort Collins, Colorado Gladstone, Missouri Hartford, Connecticut Kansas City, Missouri Milwaukee, Wisconsin Minneapolis, Minnesota San Carlos, California Santa Monica, California Santa Rosa, California Satellite Beach, Florida
SolSmart Silver
Boulder County, Colorado
SolSmart Bronze
Burlington, Vermont Claremont, California Denver, Colorado Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Redwood City, California Saint Paul, Minnesota Somerville, Massachusetts
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