Our policy research is informed by our commitment to policies that promote equity, sustainability, and efficient democratic government. We focus on concrete, implementable recommendations for mayors and city leaders.
By Topic
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Living wage ordinances raise job standards for workers at firms that do business with a city or county or that benefit from taxpayer assistance. At least 140 communities in the U.S. have passed such laws over the past two decades, and there is now a significant body of research on their effect. The evidence shows that living wage ordinances raise wages for low-income workers, often by a significant amount, with few if any measurable negative effects on either employment or taxes. Cities should consider the track record of living wage laws in other communities in order to implement the best living wage law possible. Written and produced by our partner projects, COWS and ALICE.
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Promoting Access to Healthy Local Food: A Guide for Local Governments. Mayors Innovation Project.Inequitable access to food perpetuates poor health outcomes among low-income populations and undermines efforts to improve public health and promote community. The increase in diet-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers have put us on a path to change modern history: many children born today will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. In addition to nutritional and health impacts, the flow of food dollars out of some regions represents a significant loss for local economies. This policy brief looks at bright spots of innovation, where local policies promote and increase residents’ access to healthy food.
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Governments everywhere are looking for ways to create new, quality jobs, despite restricted budgets. Although many have enacted programs that facilitate energy efficiency retrofits for the residential and commercial sectors, retrofit of public buildings has garnered little policy attention.
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This report aims at helping individuals and organizations advocate for, design, and implement progressive policies toward immigrants at the city level as well as address, with immigrant-friendly, city level policies, the problems that large inflows of immigrants sometimes generate for the communities receiving them. These goals have become particularly important given the recent failures of comprehensive immigration reform initiatives at the federal level.
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What can cities do to improve the quality of jobs? How can cities boost the access of the disadvantaged to the good jobs available in their jurisdictions? Building from policy innovations and experiences from all around the country, we offer here a menu of city policies aimed at improving job quality and redistributing job opportunities in favor of the disadvantaged.
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