URBAN AGENDA page for review
What is an Urban Agenda
An Urban Agenda is not a report or policy brief, or a new program or initiative. An Urban Agenda calls for coordinated and integrated planning, collective action, and accountability. An Urban Agenda advances the economic and social inclusion of Black and Brown people; builds a vital, sustainable, healthy, and engaged community for all; addresses conditions that have resulted in disinvestment in communities of color; mitigates policies and practices that foster structural racism and ineffective systems; and serves as a blueprint that clarifies community priorities, codifies joint approaches for action, and unifies like-minded leaders from various backgrounds and disciplines to ensure successful implementation.
What is an Urban Agenda
PolicyBridge has served Cleveland and Northeast Ohio for twenty years as a public policy think and action tank. The Urban Agenda Collective Impact Project was launched, in part, as a response to Cleveland gaining the unwanted distinction of being the one of the nation’s poorest big cities. The city has consistently remained among the nation’s poorest despite various efforts among local entities and organizations to turn the tide. In late 2021, our report titled “Resetting the Table,” advocated a new, unified approach to the area’s protracted challenges. In February 2023, an engaged group of leaders representing public, private, philanthropic and non-profit organizations began meeting regularly to talk, build connection and plan. A commitment to an Urban Agenda focusing on economic mobility emerged from those meetings. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing event sets an intent among the assembled Community Partners to pursue a collective impact approach consisting of co-designed strategies, coordinated activities and continuous improvement measured by a community dashboard.
What Are The Urban Agenda Goals?
The Urban Agenda will aim to narrow and eventually eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in economic well-being in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.
The three shared primary goals are:
Improving median incomes for Black and Hispanic/Latino households
Reducing poverty rates
Closing the wealth gap between Black and Hispanic households and their White counterparts
The Urban Agenda is unique from other initiatives
1.
The Urban Agenda is about systemic, not programmatic, change.
2.
The Urban Agenda recognizes that significant change will take decades
3.
The Urban Agenda adopts a collective impact approach to systemic change.
4.
The partner model of The Urban Agenda is unique.
