(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 531: Behind the Mayor’s Desk

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re joined by Anthony Flint of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to talk about his book Mayors Desk: 20 Conversations with Local Leaders Solving Global Problems. We chat about the future of cities through the eyes of a mayor, those who operate like urban mechanics, and the challenges that connect cities around the world.

LISTEN to this episode at Streetsblog USA or find it in our hosting archive.

Below is a full unedited AI generated transcript of the episode:

Jeff Wood: Anthony Flint, welcome to the Talking Headways podcast.

Anthony Flint: It’s great to be here.

Jeff Wood: Thanks for being here. Before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Anthony Flint: I’ve been a journalist all my career, primarily at the Boston Globe, where I became more and more interested in architecture, urban design, urban planning, and real estate development.

And then after a brief stint in. State government. I came to the Lincoln Institute in 2006 and I’ve been here ever since. We’re a global think tank looking at the role of land use and land policy and society, broadly speaking in subjects like housing and climate and local public finance. And so I write for Landlines [00:03:00] Magazine, which is our magazine, online and in print.

I’m also host of the Land Matters podcast at the Lincoln Institute, and I also organize we’ve been trying to do it every year, a journalist workshop to get everyone in the media who’s interested in these subjects to meet with. Expert sources and look at resources and otherwise get up to speed on the current policy conversations.

So I guess you could say I’m an in-house journalist at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and having a great time.

Jeff Wood: I love those forums and the reason why is ’cause I get to meet all the like-minded folks that are writing stuff around the country about these issues. And it’s so fun to have been to a couple of these and just have a chat and sit down and have a chocolate chip cookie with somebody, that I’ve seen their byline on print.

And finally get to connect with them. And then also a number of them are actually subscribers. The newsletter too, which it really makes me happy too, to [00:04:00] see folks and get their reactions to like what we’re posting. So I really do appreciate that. It’s been really fun to go to those and see what everybody’s talking about.

And also like the experts you bring in and from different places, mayors and administrators and stuff. It’s just a really excellent way to learn new things about what’s happening in cities.

Anthony Flint: That’s great. We’re hoping to do it again possibly in December. December, later this year.

Jeff Wood: You also mentioned Lincoln as a place for global policy and I think that’s really interesting too.

I think you were in Cairo recently, so you know, just going places to talk about these issues from an English speaking perspective.

Anthony Flint: Yeah, it’s been a privilege. I was in Cairo for the World Urban Forum, which of course, as is something put on by the un habitat and our work in Latin America and South America, has brought me to Bogota and Medellin.

And there’s just no substitute for getting out in the field as it were, and seeing how all of these themes play out of, broadly speaking, human settlement. And in [00:05:00] Cairo, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this I actually had the chance to interview the equivalent of the mayor of Cairo. They call him the governor.

And so it’s been a great opportunity to go all over the world and have a global perspective.

Jeff Wood: What do you think you learn when you go to these places? Obviously it’s very different from, what mayors do in the United States, but it’s interesting to think about, all these issues that pop up that are somewhat similar.

Anthony Flint: Yeah obviously in the global south there are big differences, but there’s also some commonalities sometimes, sadly. I guess the one thing that is truly global is the challenges presented by climate change. I. And building resilience and disasters. You know where the fires in la were not so much different from flooding or other climate related events elsewhere around the world.

And even if you think about homeless encampments and informal settlement, it’s of the same. [00:06:00] Thread. So it’s always good to get out of the United States and appreciate what other communities and different places are experiencing, and I hope to do more of that. Covid took us all out of the running for a couple years, but now we’re back traveling around.

Jeff Wood: I wanna step back further. Go back further before we talk about the book, ’cause I have lots of questions about it, but I do wanna ask how you got interested in cities? What was the first inclination that you had that it was something that you cared about or were interested in? Going back maybe in as far as childhood, I.

Anthony Flint: I’ve always enjoyed walking around cities and have been impressed by what I now believe is the greatest form of civilization that we can all aspire to. I know that sounds very grand, but I really do believe that cities are. Beneficial in so many ways. I agree with Ed Glazer. They are hubs of innovation.

They are per capita, the [00:07:00] greenest form of settlement in terms of efficiency and the use of energy and transit and density. But they’re also incredibly beautiful places. I have been, in, in their swoon since being a young man. As I moved into journalism, I worked my way up to the globe at smaller newspapers throughout New England and things like land use and housing and zoning, were so central to those early days.

I picked up on the idea that this is this is pretty important. And that continued at the Boston Globe as I. Became interested in architecture and urban design, and this was a period in the nineties where Boston was going through a lot of changes and gearing up and doing a lot of planning for the Seaport district, for example, a maritime industrial area that has now been redeveloped.

But back then there was a lot of planning going on for that. The big dig, which I ended [00:08:00] up covering a giant engineering project, but also, intertwined with the life of the city of Boston. And so I got a little break and did the Loeb fellowship at Harvard Design School in 2000, 2001. And I got trained up and more familiar with all of these subjects.

And that was a real turning point. Came back to the globe after the Loeb fellowship and continued to write about land use and housing. But it had a little bit of a more global perspective. The more and more I got into this, just the more and more captivated I ended up being. I. That’s awesome.

Jeff Wood: I love asking the question because I feel like there’s so many ways that people come into loving cities, or at least, being interested in them and everybody’s story’s different and I wanna encourage younger folks who are interested in this subject matter that, there’s all these different ways to get in.

You don’t have to have a planning degree. You can just come from a, any number of sources and places and everybody’s welcome. I feel like in planning, I’ve been wanting to chat with you about this book for a while and [00:09:00] I’m glad we’re finally getting to do that. Why do you think is so important to talk with mayors about cities?

Anthony Flint: At the Lincoln Institute, we have long been interested in and supportive of local government. I think that’s where the action is right now. In 2025, I think there’s gonna be much more of a spotlight on local and state policy action. Local leaders paying attention to what’s important to their constituents and their quality of life.

So I think the local level really is deserving of a lot of attention. And so we decided to start this series called Mayor’s Desk, which was a series of interviews with local leaders from around the world. We ran them in Landlines magazine. And then when we had 20 of them, we compiled them in the book mayor’s Desk, 20 Conversations with Local Leaders Solving Global Problems.

That’s published in partnership with Columbia [00:10:00] University Press. That came out last year. I. And I’ve since been interviewing more and more mayors, so we might get to another 20 and who knows who might do another edition of Mayor’s Desk. When you put them all together, it really is a pretty impressive compilation of, I think for the most part, genuine, innovative people trying to address problems at the local level.

And we think local leaders are people that we should pay more attention to.

Jeff Wood: One of the themes that I saw in the interviews was how mayors deal with the differences in like tax bases, how some deal with decline of cities versus the places that are growing in the Sunbelt, et cetera. What’s your sense of the difference between mayors in these growing cities versus some shrinking cities as you’ve had a mixture of both.

Anthony Flint: Yeah. Part of the process, which I give all credit to my colleagues, Maureen Clark and Catherine Roth is figuring out who should we interview and where should we go? Part of our work program here at the Lincoln Institute is all [00:11:00] about, we call them legacy cities. So those are the post-industrial shrinking cities that you refer to, and that was a good place to start.

One of the first places we went to was Syracuse and terrific interview with the mayor there. These legacy cities are grappling with particular challenges, having to do with the loss of population, loss of manufacturing, how to reinvent themselves. And so that’s been a common theme in some places like Cincinnati, I would argue they’re dealing with a little bit of both.

They’re coming out of a decline, arguably. So my interview with Aftab Pure Valve, fantastic guy, mayor of Cincinnati, they’re thinking about we seem to be in a position where ultimately we might be viewed as a bit of a climate haven, and so they’ve had to worry about affordability and housing supply.

So in some ways, these post-industrial cities are joining the fray [00:12:00] of the San Franciscos and the Bostons and the Seattles of the world in struggling with affordability, primarily. So many differences, but that is a common theme. Affordable housing, I.

Jeff Wood: I wrote this note to myself, many cities are stuck digging themselves out from their past lives and the confines of their borders.

There’s in the book, post-industrial, Post-Communist, and even post national. But my question is like pre what? We’re post everything, but what are we getting? What are we doing in the future?

Anthony Flint: I think that’s what all of these leaders are really wrestling with is, what’s the future of cities they’re responsible for in some cases, whether it’s Delhi or SEO or other places like that, just huge populations with really pressing day-to-day challenges keeping people safe and providing safe and sustainable housing.

And so I think. Right down the line of the spectrum of the cities where we have gone and [00:13:00] interviewed these mayors, they are all trying to figure out the most sustainable future they can possibly have a future that’s equitable and safe from hazard Also. To build on this tradition of being hubs of innovation.

There’s a lot of big things that all of these cities are wrestling with and that the mayors are confronting and trying to plan for all the while, while governing day to day and dealing with. A wide variety of day-to-day emergencies and pressing challenges. So it’s pretty impressive that anybody would even wanna take that on, right?

Jeff Wood: Yeah. I wonder what the psychology is. A lot of the mayors that you talk to, are most of them dreamers or pragmatic, or do they follow a certain line, or are they all over the place based on where their city is on the timeline?

Anthony Flint: Yeah, I think in some cases there’s just been a happy coincidence of interesting leaders coming into a city at a [00:14:00] particular point in time.

Again, I would point to aft Val in Cincinnati, but also Mi Weinstein in Burlington, Claudia Lopez in Bogota. If there’s any kind of common theme, I guess I would say. That these folks are ambitious, but a little bit more of policy wonks and not so much. Many of them are very articulate and it’s fantastic, they’re not polished.

They’re certainly not bombastic. They are pretty practical and pragmatic and a little bit more focused on the nuts and bolts, but in a cool way, whether it’s zoning or building codes. They’re figuring out the machinery that, ultimately really makes a difference.

You might even say a little nerdy sometimes, but across the board, genuine and thoughtful leaders, which is really nice to see. I try to keep arms length in terms of being a journalist, I [00:15:00] can’t help but think after talking with some of these folks that wow, this is nice.

And even a little bit inspiring to see leaders like that. Now, as I pointed out in some of the pieces I’ve done, looking back at this work, there’s definitely political ambitions for some of these leaders. Marty Walsh went on to be labor secretary. The mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaff, ranked for state treasurer in California, the mayor of Bogota.

I mentioned Claudia Lopez is a very credible candidate for President of Columbia. Same with the mayor of Athens. Many of these leaders may ultimately have their eye to practice their craft at a higher level. And that’s okay. Some are more sort of urban mechanics in the style of Tom Menino, who’s married Boston for many years, who didn’t have those higher political aspirations.

So it’s a mix.

Jeff Wood: I feel like mayors would make great leaders in the higher echelons [00:16:00] of politics and governing, and I often wonder if sometimes we’re stuck where we are because they can’t get there because of their maybe down to earth ness, or there’s no like big personality quality that sticks out for them, that makes people do the whole beer test thing with them, right?

Like here in California, we have folks like Scott Wiener who do amazing job at legislating at. Coming together with folks to think about big ideas and how to legislate that and put that into law, but you don’t see the possibility for them to be like the president of the United States because it’s just like they’re in the weeds and they’re in the world they’re looking at.

It doesn’t seem to like. Translate to this larger cult of personality that’s taken over the larger discussion about who should lead a country and maybe, in my opinion anyways, the person who is less of a cult of personality maybe should be the one. We’re looking at Canada right now with the new Prime Minister and the potential new leader after the election, Mark Carney, and I’m seeing a person who is more along the [00:17:00] lines of like those operators who understand the details, who maybe are better fit for the job than somebody who maybe would brush off a lot of the issues.

That people care about.

Anthony Flint: Yeah. And sometimes it’s a little bit of both urban mechanic and quite polished in our tech. I’m thinking of Pete Buttigieg. Yeah. In the current running or consideration of how you get a mayor to run for governor or Senate or President. Exactly. Three mayors have become US Presidents Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge.

Nobody more recent. Plenty of mayors have thought about it. You go back to someone like Mayor Lindsay in New York City where, it’s wonderful fodder for, chatter about, or speculate about what their political fortunes might be. But I think there’s several components that would make the experience of being a mayor.

Quite applicable to running bigger systems. And in fact, running a city is in some ways [00:18:00] comparable to running a federal government. So it’s good training and we’ll have to see, what happens. But for these purposes, in terms of the book Mayor’s Desk, looking at these folks, I’d keep an eye on people like AF Purl, Randall Woodfin from Birmingham, Alabama.

Again, I mentioned the mayors from Bogota and Athens. So keep an eye on Greece and Columbia to see if a former mayor becomes president.

Jeff Wood: I was impressed by Marvin Reese’s take on immigration in the book and his comment, the powerful of put the poor against each other for too long, and reframing the discussion away from the national perspective to that local one that we were just talking about.

Thinking about, what did you take from that discussion with him? I. Mayor of, I think it was Bristol uk. Bristol

Anthony Flint: England. Yes. Marvin Reese. He was an interesting case because what ended up happening was that there was a vote and they phased out the specific role of mayor, just as he was a real rising star.

But he talked [00:19:00] about the sort of post national landscape where he was feeling, I think, buffeted by national politics and was thinking that. These issues are all too important, but we’ve gotta get to work at the city level. And he predicted a sort of a post national environment where bottom up innovation will flourish.

And he said, we can’t leave our futures in the hands of national governments. Cities are equipped with a political machinery to lead the way. So I think there’s some truth in that. I think he was feeling frustrated as many mayors. Maybe are today in 2025. I think we saw a good representation or just standing up for principles however you view the immigration debate.

When we saw the mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston and the Mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, testify in Congress about [00:20:00] immigration in those cities. And of course, everybody realizes how. Important immigration is for the economic life of cities, for building housing for that matter, and the importance of welcoming immigrants while being mindful of, any criminal activity as has been alleged.

On things like that. It seems like it’s ended up being a kind of a built in conflict between federal policies and these values and principles that we’ve seen articulated in cities.

Jeff Wood: That’s a theme about belonging too. Thinking about, international mayors trying to understand how people of different backgrounds can coexist in their cities.

You talk about the mayor of Athens and some of the things that they were talking about, most of the mayors have to understand and deal with. I. How people come to their cities and what they have to deal with when they get there. And then also, you were talking about the Mayor of Cincinnati and his thinking about, why are big companies coming in to buy houses and making them more [00:21:00] expensive?

And what does that mean for the populations that wanna live here? Immigration doesn’t necessarily have to be cross border. It could be between cities as well. We just talked with Yoni Applebaum about his book Stuck. And so thinking about those movements as well between cities, not just between countries, and you start thinking more about belonging for everybody, not just the folks who are there already.

Anthony Flint: Yeah, it’s a lot to manage and it’s so dynamic and the economic conditions can be quite fragile and day-to-day while all the while hoping to, create places that are, welcoming and where people can work their way up and take advantage of economic opportunity.

Jeff Wood: It’s also interesting reading the book and thinking about the pandemic, how much things have changed since like the start of pandemic.

You did a number of these interviews in 2020, and it’s almost sad to see like the optimism that was there at the time about transportation policy. You talked to Libby Schaff and thinking about what they did with Streets in Oakland [00:22:00] and where we’re at now with that. And almost somewhat a reversal we see in New York City where they haven’t brought back as many of the dining parklets because city regulations, because some of the folks wanted to keep parking there, and so they’re only available in the summertime instead of all year round, and a lot of them have disappeared.

So looking back at your interviews during the pandemic and some of the optimism that existed, even in a tough time and looking at things the way they are now, how do you feel about that juxtaposition?

Anthony Flint: Yeah, I think at the time boy, I was interviewing Libby Schaff in Oakland. You remember the cruise ship that, had to be evacuated, and this was really a period of time where cities were forced to respond quickly and capably.

And I think that’s one of the silver linings that came outta that was this. Just generally speaking, ability to act faster and to say that I don’t care that we have never bumped out a cafe into parking spaces. We’re just gonna do it and see what happens. So I [00:23:00] think a little bit of that has carried on since the pandemic.

But you’re right, other things to come out of the pandemic in terms of complete streets and pedestrian walkways and bike and bus lanes. Now I think I. That momentum, the complete streets momentum has carried on pretty strongly. But, and I’m okay with this you see a little bit of an adjustment in Boston.

For example, Michelle Wu, who I hope to interview, she’s up for reelection later this year, has taken the feedback about bike and bus lanes and that transformation that’s going on in Boston, and ultimately listening to her constituents. I just interviewed the mayor of Providence, Brett Smiley, who is slightly less enthusiastic about bike and bus lanes and dedicated bike lanes and so forth.

And he makes the point like, yes, of course I want this, but I gotta do some balancing here. And I. At the end of the [00:24:00] day, on a good day, like under 10% of people in the city of Providence are gonna be commuting by bicycle or using bikes. He’s making those kinds of calculations.

I’m okay with that, even if it’s a slowing down of that process that as you point out, that arguably began in the pandemic. But overall, I’m mostly impressed with how cities responded. I think you still see lots of manifestations of the things that we experimented with that carry on to this day, and it’s making the public realm better overall.

Jeff Wood: I. I would love to chat with the mayor of Providence and set him straight. From my perspective, there was an article that I posted this week from WGBH, your public station in Boston and there was a professor who’s at Northeastern and he goes back and forth between Tokyo and I found that interesting.

The auto centricity of it all and how pairing those two cities against each other, Boston and Tokyo, and what’s the difference? And his conclusion was that we put autos [00:25:00] above everything else. And so I personally feel like we’re seeding too much space or too much, feeling to automobile.

But it’s interesting to hear from these mayors and they get yelled at a lot. Yeah. And I’m sure that, like you said, the province mayor, he is. A little, not sour on it, but it just it’s something he probably hears about. It’s like those folks here in San Francisco who work on certain streets, they own businesses on certain streets, and all they hear all day are the people that come in and complain about parking.

That’s one person and they’re complaining, but nobody that goes in there riding a bike or walking says, Hey. I came in here, I couldn’t have a sidewalk or I couldn’t park my bike. So they don’t hear from those folks. And so I think it’s partially, on us to let merchants know and stuff like that, that, we are coming by biking, walking, but also they hear it all day.

And so that might be one of the calculations. And with Mayor Wu as well. I think I. I’ve seen on Streets blog Massachusetts, how people are disappointed in some of the recalculations, but if they’re voters and the folks that are, making the most noise, I know the squeaky wheel is not the one we mostly wanna listen to, but if it’s the one you hear, you just kinda [00:26:00] wanna turn it off.

Anthony Flint: Right.

Jeff Wood: Yeah.

Anthony Flint: And I don’t wanna say it’s an awkward transition, but it is a transition and I think these efforts are to be encouraged to get everybody more used. To the setup of the public realm that is shared space, so that it’s just like the new normal and not anything quite so unusual or funky or like what is this?

There used to be parking spaces here freaking out about it. I think it’s a matter of transition and getting used to a different kind of configuration for urban. Streets of course, look at places like Paris. Now that is one interview that I have yet to do, but I hope to do someday. You see them getting way out front on the space that, as you say, is dedicated to cars.

Jeff Wood: Yeah. That’s another thing about the book too, is that you talk to folks obviously from other countries outside of the United States, and it’s interesting to see how the transportation policy [00:27:00] discussions go there too. Of Athens and Bogota and places around the world that are looking at these things differently because their constituents are looking at these things differently.

And so whether you have a cable car instead of talking about bike lanes, might be a different world in terms of thinking about the transportation policy that comes from other places.

Anthony Flint: Yeah, transportation is destiny for cities and it’s been amazing to see whether it’s London and Crossrail or right here in the us.

I was just out in Denver for the American Planning Association conference and talked with the mayor of Denver, Mike Johnson, and the light rail network that has. Been established in that otherwise very spread out. Western City is really incredible to see and to see it being used. And it’s just become arguably like bike lanes.

It’s just become part of the urban landscape. And of course there was the environmental mandate for all of this, but there’s also, even if you. Put that aside [00:28:00] here in 2025. It’s just the convenience and the quality of life that these transit systems enable, but yes. Yeah, it’s been fascinating to look at the different places and both that you mentioned, the cable cars and also escalators and intervention that almost instantly improves the quality of life, even if you can’t do much about.

Other things, and of course there’s poverty and violence, but just the idea that someone in Bogota or Medellin could cut their commute down to a reasonable amount of time if they have a job downtown by taking these cable cars or escalators. There’s other ideas for people movers and other places.

I applaud any of those kinds of new approaches and innovations in urban mobility. To use the grand phrase, but that’s really what it’s about. It’s just such an important part of any city’s life.

Jeff Wood: The escalator thing is really interesting. I feel like if you [00:29:00] looked at those spaces, and most of us would not think oh they just need an escalator.

That’s not something you’d, it’s almost something outta place out of time. Then you put it in there and it makes so much sense and you’re like, why didn’t we think about this before? And sometimes you have to think a little bit outside the box. I think in some of these instances and even the US, we can possibly think outside the box.

We’re so car focused that, sometimes maybe we need to. Step back a bit and think about, the future and we talked about the post-industrial, post, national post, everything pre what, and I think some of that pre what is just dreaming about some big stuff that we might be able to do and not like making it into something like the Hyperloop became, which is like a way to push back on a high-speed rail or a way to be negative about transportation, but a future that everybody can imagine that is positive and has.

Positive externalities in the future I think would be a good way to go.

Anthony Flint: And of course, in so many of these cities looking to a future where electric vehicles are more commonplace, scooters, electric bikes, just all manner of [00:30:00] ways to get around that will be different from the combustion engine.

And the Buick that needs to back into that parking space in South Boston.

Jeff Wood: Going back to the pandemic a little bit, I also appreciated what some of these mayors said about, the cities dragging their feet over time and some of the stuff that should have been done way ahead of time got accelerated because of the pandemic.

But maybe it should have been done earlier, like internet connection for low-income families and things like that. Things that are the public good. But we just hadn’t prioritized them before. And so I think that’s an interesting way that some of these mayors are looking at things too, is like the pandemic forced them to rethink what’s important.

What are we providing to people that might help them in the long run.

Anthony Flint: Yeah, and I think there’s a little bit of a theme of urgency. And being nimble. I’ll tell you the one thing that has stuck in my mind is Ivan Aki Sawyer, the mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leon, she appointed Africa’s first Chief Heat officer and did one thing that [00:31:00] I don’t know why I’m still impressed by this, but it just seemed like it was a intervention that didn’t take a lot of time. It didn’t take a study, it didn’t, they just made it happen. They worked in collaboration with the ARS Rockefeller Foundation, and that was to put shades over the open air markets in the city. Primarily women, almost entirely.

Women, would go a long way and they would come and they would just suffer in the heat. And they developed a fabric that was pretty easy to manufacture and design it set up so that you just have these cooling shades over the open air marketplaces. Now it’s that gonna solve climate change or are there gonna be other extreme heat incidents that continue to make life miserable. But for that one slice of life in Freetown, there was no fussing around. It was just like, this is a good idea. We’re gonna do this, and these shades were installed. It sounds really simple, I think that’s the kind of nimble activity [00:32:00] that has become, more and more important.

Jeff Wood: Another thing that I was really impressed by was a mayor that you’d mentioned already of Miro Weinberger, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot too, is the idea of public utilities and public goods and the public side of things and thinking about a publicly owned utility, a public power company that can actually, you know, I.

Transform your city. And so Burlington seems like it’s on its way to the future where other cities may be lagging behind. And part of that is just because they have ownership of a public utility and they have people inside of the public utility that see the benefits that they can bring to people.

Anthony Flint: Burlington, Vermont is a great case study in getting to net zero as the it sounds almost quaint today, doesn’t it, that this would be a goal for anyone, but the package of initiatives in Burlington are impressive and focused, and the policy goals are really achievable now. They do have this municipal electrical [00:33:00] utility that does seem to be unique, but part of what the book suggests or we hope, and we even added a bunch of what we called replicable strategies was to take something like that and see where is this possible in another city?

Take what, steal our ideas to take what’s going on in one city and see if it can’t be applied to another. It’s really been a study and innovation in that way. And I think, other people have picked up on this, namely Bloomberg and their mayor’s center now at the Harvard Kennedy School.

That’s what it’s all about, is exchanging these, I. Ideas and strategies for anyone to use, and particularly, new mayors coming in, getting an education on what, what has been tried, what’s the context? And just talking with other mayors about their experience with what’s it like to have your own municipal utility that you can make as green as it can be.

So there’s a lot I sense there’s a lot of ferment [00:34:00] and. Things I’ve imagined and in fact we’ve done this where we’ve done a mayor’s panel at the American Planning Association. So you get some of these mayors together and it’s really fun.

Jeff Wood: That’s my dream here in San Francisco is taking back the pg e and infrastructure, making our own public utility.

And then, if we have all these electric vehicles and stuff, one of the things that, Miro said in the book is quoted every time we bring another electric vehicle or heat pump online, that’s revenue for the city. And so my dream was to, set up the public utility in San Francisco, which there’s been discussions about, and if people are gonna park on the street, give them electric chargers from the city utility, and then use that money that they would generate, that would go to a profit center for oil company otherwise, and use that to fund your transit system or use that to fund some other public good that the city needs.

Use it to fund the development of solar panels or heat pumps or whatever it may be, that will reduce the weight of need in your city. And so I’ve had this dream before and so I loved seeing it actually happen in another place. And to know that it’s possible is always a good, [00:35:00] push forward.

I.

Anthony Flint: Exactly. To see how it can play out. And of course every city’s different, but yeah. The power of example,

Jeff Wood: what do you think this book would’ve been outside the pandemic?

Anthony Flint: That’s a good question. It’s almost hard to imagine what, which kind of applies to all of life. You can’t imagine, you never

Jeff Wood: know what’s going on.

Yeah.

Anthony Flint: What it was like without the pandemic. I just can’t do it. But I think it was an episode that tested municipal government certainly the federal government and all kinds of ways, but at the local level in a weird way, it reinvigorated the relationship I think people had with their local government in some ways.

And so I think we’re gonna be studying this for years to come. The effect on the pandemic on all of our lives and for cities in particular. Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t think it would be as rich or as interesting without the pandemic as macab as that may sound. But like I said, a pandemic changed all of us in [00:36:00] ways that we’re gonna be reflecting on, I think for a long while.

Jeff Wood: I find it fascinating to see how much the infusion of money from things like the American Rescue Plan or the IRA or the IIJA the infrastructure bill have had on what cities can do or what they feel like they can do. Usually budget crunches, abound throughout cities in the United States, but there was this moment in time when there was extra money, and so you could do.

Experiments that maybe you couldn’t try before. And so what did we learn from those? Is there any indication that, from your discussions, that was just like a bounty that benefited places around the country? I.

Anthony Flint: I think it ended up manifesting in plenty of positive things and certainly in the physical or public realm.

But I think what we’re facing now is cities dealing with the fact that party’s over, right? Those that. Funding is no longer there. And then of course you’ve got this very typical municipal finance squeeze between revenues and expenditures for services [00:37:00] let alone any capital projects and infrastructure.

So I think what’s gonna be interesting now is the pandemic hangover, if you will, where municipalities are, right back in that. Squeeze and some of the mayors have dealt with this, and of course I think are gonna be dealing with this. And that is in terms of local public finance, the reliance on the property tax, which is a good tax overall and a very democratic tax.

But I think there’s gonna be increasing revolts and backlash against the property tax. Just at the moment when cities and. Towns are gonna be relying on it as they have been more than ever. So I think their challenge is gonna be fending off some bad ideas, some sort of proposition 13 style ideas or caps or limits or even as the Governor Florida has suggested eliminating it all together, it’s the primary source of revenue [00:38:00] for cities and towns, and I think it’s gonna be.

Post covid and post this federal funding. You’re gonna see a lot more of that I think in the months ahead.

Jeff Wood: You talk about that with the mayor of Cleveland the disparities in the land they sit on. I thought that was an interesting quote. Thinking about those property taxes and the Georgia of it all is fascinating.

I’m frustrated I think by this discussion about property tax and just like the common good and the getting away from, what is a common good I. What is the commonwealth for the common good? Putting together resources to build things, whether that’s infrastructure or housing or whatever it may be.

And so the tax discussion, and there was an article I think yesterday in the Wall Street Journal talking about this specifically, like people are. They’re suffering because their housing values are going up, but they don’t realize those gains, but they still have to pay taxes on it. And there’s a frustration there.

But there’s also, a frustration of, here in California, for example, a Prop 13 where, houses next to each other, one may pay $2,000 in tax and the other one may pay 24,000 and they’re the same street. And there’s a lot of [00:39:00] disparity there too, for long time livers and folks who just got there.

And so there’s a lot of issues to be discussed and hashed out. You’ve interviewed a lot of people a lot of mayors, and obviously at the globe you did a lot of stuff. I’m interested in this more kind of shop question, which is have you had an interview or a conversation that went a little sideways?

Anthony Flint: Knock on wood. Not so far. And I would say, it’s mostly on me. I’ve got to be prepared. I’ve gotta learn about the city, whether it’s. Warsaw or Bristol England or Delhi or Seoul or a legacy city like Birmingham or Syracuse. I’ve really, I try to immerse myself and get good background on both the local politics and, what the top issues have been.

I think the value of Mayor’s desk, in a way is that it’s within. The guardrails are clear and happily, these are the issues that at the Lincoln Institute we, [00:40:00] we occupy ourselves with. But talking about housing, transportation, we got into a little bit in Covid in terms of public health, but it always goes back to the physical realm and you know the policies that are in place. Zoning, housing, affordability, transportation, bike lanes. There’s a category of subjects here, which all of the mayors that, we’ve scheduled interviews with, they definitely meet us more than halfway. So they’re like, interested in all this stuff.

Now I don’t often ask about education, for example. I guess what I’m trying to say is there’s a bucket of these issues that it’s clear from the outset that we’re gonna be talking about and most of ’em just love talking about, things like zoning. Or, local public finance innovations, land-based financing, anything like that.

So it’s never gone entirely sideways. And I think it’s [00:41:00] owing to those two things, as a defined set of issues, where we can really dig into these things and have great conversations.

Jeff Wood: I do wanna ask you a question about the topics generally in the book. And one of the questions I ask a lot of folks who’ve written books is, there’s a lot of work that goes into the book.

There’s a lot of background that goes into it. You did a lot of research for all these interviews and then sometimes we feel like there’s maybe a subject that we think that people overlook or they don’t pay as much of attention to, even though we think it might be important. So is there something that’s in the book or something that you’ve talked with mayors recently that.

You feel is overlooked or isn’t discussed as much as maybe you think it should be?

Anthony Flint: I don’t know, it’s, it just like this has all become pretty iterative, like it just keeps building on itself. And so in the book, in fact, our editors here, Katherine Roth and Jennifer Sigler, they added little updates and I.

Annotations, which I think are really neat, ’cause some of the interviews ran in the magazine a couple of years prior. And [00:42:00] so there are these updates and then there, there is the section of replicable strategies at the end that collect. All of the, innovations, whether it’s in Athens or Freetown or wherever it is.

And so that I think, opens the door to continuing to think about, just a wide range of proposed solutions and addressing these various problems. So I guess I look at it as more open-ended that nothing has been neglected, I don’t think, these folks have their. Shoulder to the wheel on day-to-day stuff that makes a difference in people’s lives, like housing and the nuts and bolts stuff that’s underneath all of that, like zoning.

And so I can’t complain that there’s something that hasn’t been talked about. And in my world, in our world of mechanics of what makes a city tick and what we’ve been able to do with the book is an attempt to, keep the conversation [00:43:00] going. I guess my answer is no.

I don’t think there’s anything that’s been, obviously undercovered or unaddressed, but, I’m in a bit of a bubble looking at some of these subjects where, I’m delighted that anybody’s even. Thinking or talking about it in the first place.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Anthony Flint: I’m sure people could find a bunch of things, but I feel this is pretty good collection of solutions and thoughts and ideas. Nice. I.

Jeff Wood: The book is Mayor’s Desk 20. Conversations with Local Leaders Solving Global Problems. It’s densely packed with good information, but it doesn’t take you too long to get through it.

And I think people with time crunches might appreciate that a lot.

Anthony Flint: And there’s a nice Forward by Michael Bloomberg. I. To put some things in context. He has a lot of respect for the Office of Mayor and I think he has a pretty good argument for it. And yes, you can flip through this and yeah, you can pick and choose your mayors.

You can choose your own adventure. I. Or you can read ’em all, [00:44:00] even if you did that back to back, wouldn’t have too much time. And that was really the idea. Behind this a lot of our publications are about, pretty meaty issues like financing infrastructure and property tax systems and so forth.

So it can be a bit more on the technical side, but here we want to offer content that is, more. Accessible and digestible, even as it reflects all these areas of our work, which you know, can rather quickly become a bit more technical. You can get the book by just simply going to lincoln ins.edu.

I think it’s still on the homepage. Also available through Columbia University Press, but I would say the best way is just go to the website, Lincoln i.edu. That’s short for Lincoln Institute on Social Media. The handle is at land policy. So hopefully people can find us. And where can folks find you if you wish to be found?[00:45:00]

I am also on the website Lincoln in.edu and email is the same. Anthony do [email protected]. I’m happy to hear from anyone and everyone. I’m always looking for new mayors to interview and it’s always an interesting choice to, go to a new city and learn all about it and find a rising star.

And there’s the question of smaller cities versus bigger cities. We try to do a mix. So anyway, I’m totally open to suggestions and ideas about where else we should be looking.

Jeff Wood: Awesome. And make sure folks listen to the podcast as well, right?

Anthony Flint: Yes. We’ve been doing sort of a combination of the essays which appear in Landlines Magazine, online and in print, and also doubling for a Land Matters podcast show.

And that’s great because. The podcast format, we can pretty much run the entire interview, whereas, for space reasons in the magazine we do some light [00:46:00] editing. So yes you can also hear many of these mayors on the Land Matters podcast. Awesome.

Jeff Wood: Well, Anthony, thanks so much for joining us.

Anthony Flint: Really appreciate your time. This is a great conversation. Thank you.