Posts in Letters from the CEO
These Victories Are Clear

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!

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Exciting Things are Happening in the City of Detroit

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.

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Update on Our Work - September 2019

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.

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Cincinnati's Sweet Spot

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.

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A Look Back at Columbia, SC

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.

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Accelerating Columbia

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.

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