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Tony Favro
City Mayors' USA Editor
Tony Favro, is a Fellow of the City Mayors Foundation and its USA Editor. He 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. Tony Favro also maintains the blog Planning and Investing in Cities. Articles by Tony Favro
| Most recent | Society | Health | Government | Politics | Environment | Development | Economics | Finance |Transport | Education | Commenting of Tony Favro's articles |
MOST RECENT
Black barbershops offer
health care in US cities
2 January 2012: In cities across the United States, African-American barbers are receiving accolades, not for cutting hair, but for improving health outcomes for African-American men. Their barbershops are functioning as informal health clinics and challenging American notions about how health care is delivered. More
SOCIETY
American abortion debate characterizes the
relationship between city, state and the Union
1 November 2011: Few issues in the United States are more polarizing than abortion - President Obama once called the opposing camps on abortion “irreconcilable” - yet it is difficult to find a mayor of a large American city that is entirely against abortion. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents usually disagree about taxation, policing, housing, social welfare, and other policies. But the right of a woman to choose her own method of reproductive health is something upon which, say, Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders of San Diego, Democratic Mayor Vincent Gray of Washington, DC, and Independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City all agree. More
The larger the city, the larger
the gap between rich and poor
29 May 2011: The largest cities in the United States are generally considered to be at the vanguard of social and economic progress. For example, Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ 2011 Cities of Opportunity report on the world’s top cities calls New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles “vibrant engines of the global economy.” However, city size in the US is also directly related to income inequality according to another recent study — the larger the city, the larger the income gap between rich and poor residents. More
Cities bear the brunt of
prison closures in the US
29 April 2011: According to the 2010 US Census, two million of the 2.3 million prisoners in America’s federal, state, and local jails come from urban cities and counties. Wayne County (Detroit), Michigan, for example, has less than 20 per cent of the state’s population, but accounts for 40 per cent of the inmates in the state’s prison system. Harris County (Houston), Texas has 25,000 residents in state prison; Dallas, 20,000. More
US clergy increasingly
active in local politics
1 February 2011: Clergy in the US, particularly Protestant clergy, have become more politically active in the last decade. A new study, however, finds that the public is becoming uneasy with the political activities of religious leaders, raising questions about the future of government contracts with faith-based groups. More
American mayors take
action to reduce poverty
7 January 2011: The week before Christmas 2010, the US Census Bureau released its latest poverty statistics. The numbers are sobering. Forty-four million people - one in seven Americans - lived below the official poverty level in 2009, the most since the Census Bureau began tracking poverty rates 51 years ago. In 2009, 40 million Americans received government assistance to purchase food each month, and 50 million went hungry at one time or another during the year. Fifty-one million Americans lacked health coverage in 2009. More
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
American cities debate English-only legislation
Critics of surveillance cameras fear racial profiling in US cities
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
HEALTH
Black barbershops offer
health care in US cities
2 January 2012: In cities across the United States, African-American barbers are receiving accolades, not for cutting hair, but for improving health outcomes for African-American men. Their barbershops are functioning as informal health clinics and challenging American notions about how health care is delivered. More
Nothing short of a complete overhaul will cure America’s health care system
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
Rochester’s mayoral election reflects
power relationships in American cities
31 March 2011: William A Johnson lost his bid to return as mayor of Rochester, New York, in a special election on 29 March 2011. The result was not surprising considering that Johnson ran on a third-party line and only four of the 1,265 mayors of US cities with more than 25,000 residents were elected without the endorsement of the Democrat or Republican parties. But the Rochester election, more than most local elections, exposed the power relationships that operate in nearly all American cities. More
American politics falls
victim to consumerism
11 November 2010: The recent US Congressional elections are unlikely to lead to a settlement of issues particularly important to American cities: tax policy, and therefore the distribution of wealth; environmental and energy policy; the implementation of national health care; immigration reform; education reform; and federal transportation policy. That’s because elections in the United States – and political discourse in general – are no longer shaped by major ideological differences as much as a consumerist model of governmental responsibilities. More
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
US mayors spearhead moves
to lower energy consumption
28 October 2010: Metropolitan areas in the US exhibit notable paradoxes: high employment and high unemployment; rapid physical growth and near-total abandonment; social connectivity and social isolation. Underlying these extremes is the energy efficiency paradox. As energy efficiency increases in the US, so does demand. As cars become more fuel efficient, for example, Americans purchase larger vehicles, and second or third vehicles, and drive more. More energy efficiency results in more energy consumption, not less. More
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
Gentrification poses a new
dilemma for many US cities
29 September 2011: Gentrification has been a characteristic of major American cities like New York and Boston for over a century, but in the past decade it has become part of the growth cycle of smaller cities as well. Minority and working class neighborhoods such as Pittsburgh’s South Side; Northwest Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and East Austin, Texas are being transformed as white and middle-class residents move in. More
Studies uncover pros and cons
of efforts to revitalize US cities
6 October 2010: Three recent studies on mixed-use development, resident satisfaction with their neighborhoods, and community gardens offer insights into the effectiveness of some of the most widely-used urban revitalization strategies of mayors in the United States. More
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
Annual report stresses the economic
importance of American metro areas
27 June 2011: The gross metropolitan product (GMP) of the immense New York City region - that is, the total output of all goods and services produced in the region - is greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of all but 12 countries in the world. But who would have guessed that the GMP of Jacksonville, Florida is bigger than the GDP of Syria? Or that Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s annual economic output is greater than Uruguay’s? Or that if metro Madison, Wisconsin (population 560,000) were a country, it would have a larger economy than Lithuania? More
US cities expect to be favoured by economic stimulus package
FINANCE
Even Community Land Trusts affected
by American cities’ financial problems
Finance: Mayors in at least 100 municipalities in the United States, from Bridgeport, Connecticut to Los Angeles, California, are openly contemplating bankruptcy. The cities’ financial problems result fundamentally from widespread home mortgage foreclosures that have reduced property values and consequently the amount of property taxes local governments can collect. More
TRANSPORT
US mayors lobby federal government
for fully funded transportation policies
13 October 2011: In September 2011, a group of 50 US mayors traveled to Washington, DC to speak with federal officials about funding for transportation projects. The nation’s omnibus transportation bill was set to expire in ten days, and the mayors, led by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, and Mayor Elizabeth Kautz of Burnsville, Minnesota, lobbied for a “comprehensive, fully funded” successor. More
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
Discipline and civil rights
in American state schools
2 November 2011: Discipline may be necessary for ensuring responsible student behavior, but “the application of discipline is unfair and unequal” in American state schools. Moreover, many student disciplinary practices employed by local state school systems may result in violations of US Civil Rights Law. Those are the findings of Discipline Policies, Successful Schools, and Racial Justice, a report by Dan Losen of The Civil Rights Project of the University of California at Los Angeles. More
College degrees are not the
only pathways to prosperity
17 September 2011: The last month of summer 2011 in the United States brought us a New York Times poll showing that New Yorkers remain extremely dissatisfied with their public school system despite years of reform under Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Republican presidential candidates debating the cost of a college education, sparked by conservative Texas Governor Rick Perry’s plan to offer affordable degrees; Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel under fire from both average citizens and teachers’ unions for proposing to raise property taxes to pay for city school improvements; and the US Conference of Mayors passing a resolution urging the federal government to maintain its current level of financial support for adult education and training. More
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 mayors are divided about merits of controlling schools
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The Code of Ethics has been instituted for city leaders who wish to perform their duties beyond all reproach.
CITY MAYORS
Code of Ethics
The City Mayors Foundation was established in 2003 to promote, encourage and facilitate good local government. To strengthen local government further, City Mayors has now instituted a Code of Ethics for city leaders who wish to perform their duties beyond all reproach.
Mayors featured by City Mayors and those shortlisted for the World Mayor Prize have been asked to confirm that they and their administrations adhere to the letter and spirit of the Code. Ultimately, City Mayors aims to establish the professional title of Chartered Mayor in recognition of city leaders who bring high integrity and competence to public service as well as adhere to the code of ethics. More