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Accelerator for America Action authored a statement of support for the House's passage of the INVEST in America Act, joining more than 100 transportation infrastructure, environmental, and worker advocates.
As the vote count continues, we are getting a clearer picture of how this election will turn out at the top of the ticket. As it stands right now, however, we are thrilled to share that Proposition A for "Project Connect" in Austin and Advanced Transportation District (ATD) Proposition A in San Antonio were approved with 58% and 68% of the vote, respectively!
Today marks exactly two years since Accelerator for America first gathered around the idea that, despite the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., local leadership can and should create national change from the ground up.
Opportunity Zones are imperfect, but they are here. We can choose to sit on the sidelines and criticize. Or, we can try to make up for the federal government’s failings and make them work for those most in need. We have chosen the latter course.
Reflecting on the Mastercard Global Inclusive Growth Summit I’m on a plane to Dayton, Ohio right now for an investor summit that Accelerator for America is co-hosting with Mayor Nan Whaley.
I spent several days with Dan Gilmartin, President and CEO of the Michigan Municipal League, his elected leadership, and his incredibly sharp, committed staff. He showed me the suburbs and outskirts of Detroit, where generations of Ford employees could graduate from high school and make a comfortable living building cars that drove the American dream. We saw small, well-built workforce housing with green lawns and nearby shops that many people here in Los Angeles would welcome.
One year after the election of Donald Trump, we gathered in South Bend, Indiana around the idea that Washington, D.C. was broken and had, in fact, been broken for some time. On November 7-8, 2017, at the Studebaker plant that was once the economic heart of the community around it, under Mayor Garcetti’s chairmanship, we launched Accelerator for America as a “do tank,” not a think tank. Our goal from the beginning has been to scale and/or replicate the best ideas for addressing economic insecurity and, in doing so, create national policy from the ground up.
Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine District was, until very recently, plagued by poverty and crime, its tenements run by slumlords who failed to provide upkeep for the district’s low-income residents. At one point, the area was designated among the most dangerous neighborhoods in America. But something remarkable has happened. Thanks to a focused public-private partnership—a phrase that is often bandied about, but rarely implemented so effectively—Over-the-Rhine bustles with life and is now a desirable place to call home.
For many, the words “factory town” conjure up images of rusted-out machinery and abandoned smoke stacks. But a new report by the Associated Press finds that aging industrial cities may suffer just as much—or more—from vanishing white-collar jobs.
The Accelerator For America Advisory Council just held its second meeting in Columbia, South Carolina. Over the course of two days, we convened some of the nation’s leading thinkers to discuss how cities are innovating, were inspired by Columbia’s own achievements, and mapped out the next phase of our ambitious project to expand American opportunity.
On the heels of an inspiring visit to Cincinnati this week with Mayor John Cranley and his team, Accelerator for America is headed to Columbia, South Carolina, where vice president of the US Conference of Mayors, Accelerator Advisory Council member and host, Mayor Steve Benjamin, will show us how he’s building the future.