Tony Favro, City Mayors' USA Editor
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Tony Favro
City Mayors' USA Editor
Tony Favro, City Mayors' USA editor, is an independent urban planning consultant. He has held positions is government and business as municipal Director of Planning and Zoning and CEO of a real estate development firm. He has a PhD in Geography from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.Articles by Tony Favro
| Most recent| Society | Government | Politics | Environment | Development | Economics |Transport | Education | Commenting of Tony Favro's articles |
MOST RECENT
Obama creates competition
to improve public schools
2 July 2010: When only two states – Delaware and Tennessee – were awarded funding in the first round of Race to the Top education funding, most US mayors were undaunted. “We will never give up,” former Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mayor Kathy Taylor said of her state’s initial failure. “We will be competitive in the second round.” More
SOCIETY
American cities face new
realities after lost decade
8 June 2010: American market research firms systematically classify the residents of a metropolitan area according to their purchasing power. Each consumer group receives a descriptive moniker according to its specific demographic, economic, and social characteristics: “Successful Suburbanites”, for example or “Urban Working Families” or “Low Income Southern Blacks”. The communities in which these groups live are likewise labeled: “Wealthy Seaboard Suburbs”, “Distressed Neighborhoods”, “Rustbelt Neighborhoods”, and so on. More
Economics and politics of
Arizona’s immigration law
15 May 2010: US mayors who have reacted to Arizona’s controversial new immigration law have done so primarily on economic grounds. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in the New York Daily News that “laws that have the potential to hassle [immigrants] could prove devastating to our economy. Basic free market economics tells us we need more legal immigrants - immigrants who will start new businesses and help build the foundation for future economic growth.” More
Socio-economic changes may compel
US mayors to consider power sharing
29 January 2010: Several research centers in the United States marked the beginning of the new decade with the release of demographic and economic data. Each data set provides a specific perspective of socioeconomic change and is compelling in its own right. Viewed together, however, they indicate a convergence of powerful trends with potentially momentous consequences for US cities, mayors, and government structures. More
US cities take the lead
in advancing gay rights
7 October 2009: Despite preparing for a large budget deficit, Cleveland, Ohio, Mayor Frank Jackson recently approved US$700,000 to help his city’s bid to land the 2014 Gay Games. “It’s the right thing to do,” said a spokesperson for Mayor Jackson. Meanwhile, across the country, Anchorage, Alaska Mayor Dan Sullivan vetoed a measure designed to counteract anti-gay discrimination in his city, saying that he was “not sure of the need for the ordinance.” More
Youth curfews popular with American cities
but effectiveness and legality are questioned
21 July 2009: At least 500 US cities have curfews on teenage youth, including 78 of the 92 cities with a population greater than 180,000. In most of these cities, curfews prohibit children under 18 from being on the streets after 11:00 pm during the week and after midnight on weekends. About 100 cities also have daytime curfews to keep children off the streets during school hours. The curfews are designed to prevent crime, increase parental responsibility for their children, and give police greater ability to stop people involved in suspicious activity. More
US mayors maintain silence
on high-profile racial incident
4 August 2009: The US media have been buzzing since the 16 July arrest and release of a prominent African-American scholar and subsequent comments by President Obama. The incident touches a nerve about race and class in America – the very issues that US urban mayors must contend with every single day. Curiously, American mayors, rarely shy in front of television cameras or newspaper reporters, have largely avoided commenting on the controversy. More
American cities debate
English-only legislation
25 June 2009: In June 2009, Albertville, Alabama (pop. 24,000) became the latest US city to pass an ordinance making English the city’s official language. Albertville Mayor Lindsay Lyons maintains the ordinance will be “a unifying factor,” bringing together immigrants and English speakers. “It will greatly enhance” the quality of immigrants’ lives, says Lyons, by encouraging them to learn English. More
Critics of surveillance cameras
fear racial profiling in US cities
11 June 2009: Since the terrorist attacks in 2001, hundreds of US cities have installed security cameras to monitor their streets. The cameras are funded by billions of dollars from the federal Department of Homeland Security, as well as state and local revenues. Urban video security systems range from a single camera in Liberty, Kansas (population 95) to New York City’s “ring of steel” network of hundreds of integrated video devices, based on London’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras.
Supreme Court rules against US cities fighting gun violence
American Catholic Church struggles to maintain presence in inner cities
Affordable housing crisis casts a shadow over the American Dream
Supreme Court rules against US cities fighting gun violence
America prefers to punish rather than to provide care
Blacks increasingly wary as Latinos become fastest-growing US minority
GOVERNMENT
Elected mayors are more
effective, says US study
16 August 2008: An historical study of mayors in US big cities finds that mayors who are popularly elected are more effective than those who come to office through other means. The study, by Andrew D. McNitt* of Eastern Illinois University, examined the performance in office of 846 mayors of 19 US cities -- including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, San Francisco, Boston, and Houston – between 1820 and 1995. More
Cities are the most neglected
layer of American government
1 January 2008: Eighty per cent of Americans live in metropolitan areas comprised of hub cities and surrounding suburbs. Metro economies account for 87 per cent of America’s total economic output. Central cities, in other words, are major generators of wealth that attract business, labor, tourists, and investment. One might expect that the health of central cities would be at the forefront of debate during the presidential election campaign, yet candidates pay little attention to cities. More
POLITICS
Tea Party Patriots appeal to
Small-Town White America
20 February 2010: Small groups of fiscal and social conservatives in the United States began meeting in Spring 2009 under the moniker of Tea Parties -- the Chicago Tea Party, Kentucky Tea Party, and so on -- to organize small, but vocal local protests against big government and high taxes. Their name is intended to invoke the 1773 Boston Tea Party revolt of the American colonists against English taxation without representation, a pivotal event leading to the American Revolution. More
Obama promises to become
America’s first urban president
25 November 2008: Barack Obama has promised to advance a number of issues important to mayors of US cities soon after he takes office on 20 January 2009. America's 44th President says he will create 2.5 million well-paying jobs during the first two years of his administration by renovating infrastructure and schools and developing alternative energy sources. More
ENVIRONMENT
American cities divided over
benefits of natural gas drilling
13 November 2009: Mayors have been the vanguard of the green movement in the United States. Their city governments have led the nation in such areas as weatherizing buildings, creating green jobs, adopting alternative fuels, and creating new tools for sustainable land use and development. A new process for extracting natural gas – hydraulic fracturing or “hydrofracking” -- highlights the opportunities and challenges of going green for hundreds of communities in eastern United States. More
US and Canadian Mayors demand
say in new Great Lakes Agreement
23 August 2009: In June 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon announced that the two countries would update the 37-year-old Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The five Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River into which they drain contain 95 per cent of the fresh water in North America. More
US and Canadian mayors work together to protect Great Lakes
US mayors planning
for green prosperity
21 January 2009: It’s been said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it, and US mayors are intent on creating a future for their cities that is “green”. “Green” is the general term used to describe efforts to reduce waste and clean up the environment, and US mayors see the green movement as a new engine for economic growth and job creation. More
A city’s ecological footprint bears
no comparison to its actual area
2 April 2008: The US city of Rochester, New York State, and its immediate suburbs occupy about 160,000 hectares, or the same land area as London, England. The difference is that Rochester’s urbanized core contains 735,000 residents versus 7.6 million in London. London, for its part, has less than two-thirds the population density of Tokyo. More
DEVELOPMENT
American cities seek to
discover their right size
5 April 2010: Mayors in many American industrial cities are embracing urban revitalization through ‘rightsizing’, or shrinking their cities’ infrastructure to match shrinking populations. Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and Youngstown lost half their population over the past 50 years and continue to lose residents. The cities’ built environment – buildings, streets, and utilities – far exceeds the needs of the current or projected population. More
New legislation could make
US cities great for everyone
10 December 2009: A characteristic of American metropolitan areas is residential segregation by race and class. “If you give me a person’s address, I can almost always tell you his income, the quality of public schools his children attend, and the color of his skin,” says William A Johnson, former mayor of Rochester, New York. More
US debates the preservation
of recent modernist buildings
17 October, 2007: The baby boom in the United States began in 1946 and lasted until around 1960. Four million children were born each year during this period, more than double the number of the previous two decades. One way the US government responded to rapid post-World War II population growth was by offering low-interest, federally-guaranteed home mortgages. More
Little action as some 160,000 US bridges are considered to be structurally deficient
City mayors must innovate where governments dither
ECONOMICS
US cities expect to be favoured by economic stimulus package
TRANSPORT
US public bus systems face
rising demand and deficits
20 December 2009: Busses are a common, if unglamorous, feature of US cities. Each day they transport over 3.5 million people from home to work, according to the US Census Bureau. About 20 per cent more people rely on busses for their daily commute than all other forms of mass transit combined, including trains, subways, light rail, and trolleys. Busses are the workhorses of American public transportation, yet they struggle financially. More
US car parks amount to
half the size of Belgium
31 August 2009: Studies show that there are approximately three parking spaces for each vehicle in the United States. This amounts to a parking lot half the size of Belgium. New parking lots and garages take away from the ambiance and viability of downtowns and neighborhoods. They take up land that could be used for a new building or park. They force buildings to be designed to accommodate cars. More
US cities realise that cycling makes sense
EDUCATION
Obama creates competition
to improve public schools
2 July 2010: When only two states – Delaware and Tennessee – were awarded funding in the first round of Race to the Top education funding, most US mayors were undaunted. “We will never give up,” former Tulsa, Oklahoma, Mayor Kathy Taylor said of her state’s initial failure. “We will be competitive in the second round.” More
American mayors welcome military
schools into poorer neighborhoods
3 June, 2008: A little-known occurrence in public education in American cities is the rise of military schools. These schools generally operate as a partnership between the local school district and the US Department of Defense. They target poor, minority students between the ages of 10 and 18, especially African-Americans, and offer academic instruction and athletic activities within a framework of military discipline. More
US state schools still censor
educational reading material
24 November 2007: In September 2007, Anchorage (Alaska) Mayor Mark Begich read aloud at a public forum from The Chocolate War, a novel for young adults about a boy who is bullied and beaten in school. Since its publication in 1974, The Chocolate War has been banned by public school systems in dozens of US cities because it contains obscenities. It is one of many books that have been prohibited from classroom use because of objections over their content.
US mayors are divided about
merits of controlling schools
2 February 2007: Public school systems in the United States are traditionally run by elected Boards of Education, commonly known as school boards. Generally, a school board sets educational policy for a school system and hires a superintendent to administer that policy. In American suburbs, students in public schools generally perform well academically, and the effectiveness of the traditional superintendent-school board approach to governance is not questioned. However, in American cities, where children in public schools often fail to read and do math at basic levels, mayors increasingly seek control of schools. More
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VOTE NOW and decide who should win this year's World Mayor Prize
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City Mayors, the international think tank on urban affairs, is seeking voting for the 2010 World Mayor Prize. The Prize, which has been awarded since 2004, honours mayors with the vision, passion and skills to make their cities incredible places to live in, work in and visit. The World Mayor Project aims to show what outstanding mayors can achieve and raise their profiles nationally and internationally.
The organisers of the World Mayor Project are looking for city leaders who excel in qualities like: leadership and vision, management abilities and integrity, social and economic awareness, ability to provide security and to protect the environment as well as the will and ability to foster good relations between communities from different cultural, racial and social backgrounds
Previous winners
and runner-ups:
In 2004: Winner: Edi Rama (Tirana); Runner-up: Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Mexico City}; In third place - Walter Veltroni (Rome)
In 2005: Winner – Dora Bakoyannis (Athens); Runner-up - Hazel McCallion (Mississauga); In third place - Alvaro Arzú (Guatemala City)
In 2006: Winner – John So (Melbourne); Runner up – Job Cohen (Amsterdam); In third place - Stephen Reed (Harrisburg)
In 2008: Winner – Helen Zille (Cape Town); Runner up - Elmar Ledergerber (Zurich); In third place - Leopoldo López (Chacao)