“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.”
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage

Poverty in America

Robert Reich Explains the Economy

Tea Party Pubic Service Announcement

December 14, 2007

Presidential Candidates Ignore Issues of Urban Areas

Followers of the current presidential campaign, and viewers of the more then twenty presidential debates to date might get the idea that all Americans live in suburbs or pristine rural areas. When all eyes are on two rural, primarily Caucasian, rural states - Iowa and New Hampshire - to influence the outcome of the primary season and to begin whittling the crowded field down, one gets the feeling that the needs of the vast majority of Americans who live in metropolitan areas are being all but ignored. And they are. Affordable housing, mass transit, education and other concerns of metropolitan areas do have not made their way into the sound bites of presidential politics.

In an attempt to remedy that, the Drum Major Institute, a progressive think tank, has interviewed Mayors of cities across the country to hear in their own words, what the needs of their cities are.

You can view videos of these interviews at http://www.mayortv.com/

Let's get a presidential campaign going that represents all Americans, what a refreshing turn of events that would be.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I truly wonder if the true concerns of our cities are of no real signifance to the candidates because the issues are not in their personal back yards. From those were born with their lives issued on a silver platter to those moved out of these desperate areas to a better life and choose not to remember their past, the question still remains do we really see these urban areas as small insignificant situations or are they the growing problems that will later on lead to much regret. I truly believe that the weeds that survive are those that are not addressed. The small issues always materialize as big issues that were earlier ignored. Take drugs for example, as long as they remained in the urban areas there was no concerns. The same thing is applied here.