Progressive Cities Work for 'Growth with Justice'

"Around the country, progressives have become more sophisticated at municipal policy as well as politics. This is a tribute to the alliances between unions, community organizations and faith-based groups that have emerged in the past decade. There is growing momentum at the local level for progressive urban policies, such as the rising number of cities (now more than 120) that have adopted living wage laws, and a handful (including Santa Fe and San Francisco) that have passed citywide minimum wage laws. The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (www.laane.org), an organization initially created in the mid-1990s to fight for the living wage law, has become a powerful research, policy and organizing center, expanding its vision to promote "accountable development." LAANE's success has encouraged progressive activists and local labor councils in about fifteen other cities (including Atlanta, San Jose, Boston, New York, Denver, San Diego, Milwaukee and Miami) to create parallel organizations that--along with progressive policy think tanks like Good Jobs First (www.goodjobsfirst.org), ALICE (www.highroadnow.org) and PolicyLink (www.policylink.org)--now form the intellectual foundation for a 'high road' economic strategy at the municipal, regional and state levels."