Mayors Rock!
I just fell back in love with the United States of America, and not for the reasons you might think. It was thanks to some amazing, hard-working, and dedicated city Mayors that I had the pleasure of getting to know this last week.
You see, my jetlagged, broken-backed, congested self just wrapped up an amazing and affirming professional experience as a part of the The Mayor’s Institute on City Design. For three days, we (a panel of architects, designers, planners, and real estate professionals) were locked in a room together with 8 mayors to discuss their cities and address their issues and concerns about their home towns.
I was energized by these leaders — they are willing to act as lightning rods on tough land-use issues that might be unpopular in the short term, but could improve their communities for decades to come.
This country was built on the backs of public service such as theirs — they generally make little money while often serving “part-time,†when in reality, they work full-time for their constituents. My interactions with these mayors showed me, in a tangible way, that livable places are the result of good governance, which is the result of ordinary people working hard and caring for their neighbors and families.
Kudos!
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Could you please bring those mayors on your way back to Argentina? 🙂
Saludos!
Mercedes! I had this moment where one mayor was talking about her city with such pride and with so much love, I was truly misty-eyed. Later, I was told that when developing the case-study for her town, she stopped to talk to two young school children doing a clean-up project in the downtown area, telling them that she was the mayor and how proud she was of the work they were doing, even though she had an entourage of people to take care of waiting for her. Inspirational stuff.