News

Los Angeles Mayor and Accelerator for America Founder Eric Garcetti today joined U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Chair of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR); Chair of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC); Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), former Mayor of West New York, NJ, and current senior Member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure; Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ), former Mayor of Phoenix and current Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit; Mayor Quinton Lucas, Kansas City, Missouri; and Mayor Levar Stoney, Richmond, Virginia, for a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol to highlight the need for Congress to act boldly on infrastructure.

Today, Accelerator for America and Drexel University’s Nowak Metro Finance Lab released the Small Business Equity Toolkit, which offers mayors and economic development leaders in the nation’s top 100 metropolitan areas unique insights and innovative strategies for growing Black-, Hispanic-, Asian- and Women-owned businesses. The toolkit offers a data-driven, evidence-based approach to help cities close the long-standing racial, ethnic, and gender wealth gaps that have been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Accelerator for America Action, WSP USA, Mastercard City Possible, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, The ACEC (American Council of Engineering Companies) Research Institute, Meridiam NA, and HNTB — collectively, the “New Partnership on Infrastructure” — yesterday released an updated version of “America’s New Playbook for Infrastructure.” While other approaches to infrastructure policy draw from past best practices, this effort was uniquely created during the pandemic and with a focus on recovery.

The New Partnership on Infrastructure released “America’s New Playbook for Infrastructure” today. The Playbook goes beyond a call for significant investment in our nation’s infrastructure and urges an overhaul of how infrastructure is financed by the federal government. The Playbook states that for stimulus legislation to be most effective, we must align local government needs with broader federal macroeconomic stability goals and overhaul how we fund infrastructure in our country by moving toward a system that incentivizes aligned local, state, and federal investment.

Building on the successful Angeleno Card financial relief program for Los Angeles residents, the non-profit Accelerator for America announced today it will help 10 additional U.S. communities establish similar programs. Supported by a $750,000 grant from the Open Society Foundations, Accelerator for America will provide technical assistance and $50,000 in funding for each community to stand up the infrastructure needed to successfully administer a large-scale financial assistance program.

Accelerator for America today announced the addition of Rebecca Rhynhart, City Controller for the City of Philadelphia, to its Advisory Council.

Accelerator for America, the Centre for Public Impact (CPI) and Drexel University Nowak Metro Finance Lab released their research on the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative (WPSI). The comprehensive report details the organizations’ findings from a 3 month look into West Philadelphia’s unique workforce development model, which has had an overwhelmingly positive impact in the area.

Over a year ago Opportunity Zones (OZ) were created to move billions of dollars into low-income communities, yet business investment in these areas is trickling in - while real estate investment continues to surge. In a new report released today, researchers from the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University, Ben Franklin Technology Partners and Accelerator for America, identify which OZ rules are inhibiting stakeholder interests in business investments, while identifying updates that can make OZ benefits for business investing clearer and easier to leverage.

The Local America Forum will take place on Friday, December 6. Doors open at 3:30pm and the event will run from 4:30 to 8:30pm. Iowa Starting Line is the official media partner for the Forum, and will stream the program online at IowaStartingLine.com. The Forum will also be broadcast live by Mediacom on station MC22 in more than 300 Iowa communities and on local channels 722 and 822. It will also reach communities in Illinois and Minnesota and will stream online nationwide.

“As Mayors, we hear directly from the people we serve at the playground, at the supermarket — face to face. That’s the perspective we are going to put in front of these candidates,” said Los Angeles Mayor and Accelerator co-founder, Eric Garcetti. “We need real solutions that will build wealth for people who don’t have it.”

The non-profit Accelerator for America and the U.S. Conference of Mayors announced today that presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer will answer questions posed by mayors about their agenda for America’s local communities at the non-partisan Local America Presidential Forum on December 6 at the Cedar Valley Sportsplex in Waterloo, IA. Iowa Starting Line is the official media partner for the Forum.

The Governance Project (TGP), Accelerator for America and Drexel University’s Nowak Metro Finance Lab announce today, the release of “Opportunity Zones and Urban Revitalization: a place-based approach to the emerging market.” The first-of-its-kind analysis reveals new insights and tools to best foster inclusive local development in communities across the country.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 contained a bipartisan amendment with a new economic development incentive to spur private investment in 8,762 low-income census tracts designated by states as Opportunity Zones. We analyze the top five percent of job-dense zones. These zones are important because they act as employment centers, giving them some degree of market traction. Yet, ninety-seven percent of these zones are in federally designated Low Income Communities, meaning at least 20% of their residents are living in poverty. We believe this combination of social need and market traction gives these job-dense Opportunity Zones some of the highest potential for inclusive growth in line with the legislation’s intent.

Accelerator for America, in coordination with Bruce Katz, Accelerator partner and Director of Drexel University’s Nowak Metro Finance Lab, and Ross Baird Founder of Blue Print Local, released the groundbreaking new policy paper “Towards a New System of Community Wealth” at the City Lab Conference in Washington, DC this week.

The United States is witnessing a radical shift—a quiet revolution—in its approach to the revitalization of distressed urban communities.

Accelerator for America, as part of the new Start Us Up coalition of more than a dozen organizations organized by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is launching America’s New Business Plan to provide policymakers at the local, state, and federal level a bipartisan roadmap for reducing barriers to entrepreneurship and spurring more new businesses across the country to create new jobs as a potential recession looms large.

Accelerator for America helped launch the first cohort of FUSE Corps Executive Fellows focused on Opportunity Zones – Gil Keinan, San Bernardino, CA; Stacy Cumberbatch, Riverside, CA; Clair Whitmer, Fresno; and Angeline Johnson, Wichita, KS – who begin their year-long fellowships this month.

Accelerator for America announced the following six new members of its Advisory Council: Mayor Quentin Hart, Waterloo, IA; Mayor David Holt, Oklahoma City, OK; Mayor Andy Schor, Lansing, MI; Council Member (at-large) Amanda Edwards, Houston, TX; Larry Jacob, Vice President of Public Affairs, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; and Shamina Singh, President and Founder, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth.