Dems Debated in the Perfect Place to Talk About Cities, But Didn't Talk About Cities

Kat Stafford addresses the elephant in the room during last week's Democratic primary debate:

Detroit — the largest African American majority city in America — is home to a microcosm of systemic issues facing cities across the nation: Poverty, crime, struggling educational systems, a lack of affordable housing and long-term disinvestment, to name a few.

Yet, it and other cities like it, were tossed on a back burner while candidates traded barbs and debated at length the minutia of each other's health care proposals.

Stafford argues that the lack of focus on issues that hit a little closer to home to the residents of the traditionally Democratic stronghold of Detroit represents a missed opportunity. An advocate cited in the article says Democrats must focus on urban issues to rally voters.

A separate article by Alissa Walker also discusses the conspicuous absence of substantive urban policy discussion in the debates so far, noting that only one candidate spent any time at all discussing the housing affordability crisis: former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro.