Mayors of cities across the United States are overwhelmingly concerned about aging roads, mass transit, and water and waste treatment systems. They want to make their streets more bike-friendly, even at the expense of motorists. And mayors, both Democrats and Republicans, strongly favor policing reforms such as body cameras, civilian review boards, and data-driven evaluation.
Most say they get little financial support from federal and state government to address their pressing infrastructure needs.
These are some of the findings of the Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC) 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors—a research project, now in its second year, that analyzes the major needs and policy priorities of a representative sample of mayors across the country.
Shared Viewpoints
This year’s survey, based on in-depth interviews with 89 mayors from cities of all sizes, was conducted with the support of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. It was released Jan. 20, 2016, at the conference’s annual winter meeting in Washington, D.C.
The survey explored the mayors’ concerns and attitudes on a wide range of issues, from infrastructure and urban planning to poverty and economic inequality. Strikingly, mayors shared similar perspectives on major items such as policing reforms, despite city size and location or party affiliation.
“It’s really interesting that the Republican mayors were just as supportive of these reforms, which we think of as being largely Democratic priorities,” says Katherine Levine Einstein, the co-investigator of the survey and an assistant professor of political science at Boston University. The other survey investigator is David M. Glick, also an assistant professor of political science. The USCM does not identify its members by party affiliation. For academic purposes, the researchers identified the political affiliations of the 89 mayors surveyed.
The shared viewpoints across partisan lines reflect the pragmatic approach mayors need to take in order to govern effectively, says Graham Wilson, IOC director and cofounder. “Mayors are innovators, collaborators, and problem solvers by nature, often taking action when other levels of government cannot,” says Wilson, a professor of political science. “The BU Initiative on Cities was co-founded by one of America’s greatest mayors, Tom Menino, and we have a profound respect for the job mayors do every day.”
The 89 mayors who participated in the survey were from 31 different states. Of the 89, 63 were mayors of cities with populations over 100,000 (of which there are about 275 in the United States, according to the survey). The sample is 74 percent Democrats and 26 percent Republicans; cities are usually more Democratic than suburban and rural areas, according to the survey.
