Strong Cities, Strong Communities Convening: Building a Model of Collaboration in American Cities

Matt Ammon White House Domestic Policy Council Urban Affairs

Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Challenges
Years of rising costs and declining revenues in many communities have severely strained the capacity of local governments. A top-down, siloed federal approach has oftentimes stressed monitoring rather than problem-solving. Local government capacity challenges and complicated regulations have sometimes left federal funds on the table.

A key factor holding back distressed communities from advancing economically is a weakened approach to governancei.e., they lack local government capacity, they dont have a comprehensive plan for revitalizing their economy, and/or they experience obstacles for effective collaboration with key community stakeholders.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Challenges
Consequence of these factors is that many economically distressed cities and towns: have significant federal resources at their disposal that either are not being spent at all or not being spent strategically; routinely lose their unspent formula funds to recapture; regularly lose out on competitive grants; and often lack the flexibility to deploy federal resources in a way that fits their complex needs. These factors make it difficult for distressed communities to gain traction on advancing themselves economically, including taking advantage of crucial partnership and leveraging opportunities.

Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Building Resilience
Every city and region will face challenges at some point: Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from shocks, such as the effect of a declining industry, national economic recession, or natural disaster. Research shows that local government leadership, cross-sector partnerships, and having a long-term vision are critical for fostering resilience. Given this, while our long-term objective is to put our nations economically distressed cities, towns, and regions on the road to economic recovery and revitalization, the starting point on this road is to help them acquire the foundational elements for economic transformationnamely local capacity, comprehensive planning, and regional collaboration. SC2 is designed to do just that.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

What is SC2?
Over the past two and a half years, the Administration received feedback from mayors all across the country who described the kind of partnership that would be most useful to them for economic growth. In response, on July 11, 2011, President Obama announced the launch of the Strong Cities, Strong Communities Initiative.
SC2 is an innovative interagency pilot to partner with cities to promote bottom-up economic transformation for Americas struggling urban centers. SC2 was designed to help communities strengthen their capacity to create jobs and more competitive business climates, implement locally driven community and regional planning approaches that lead to sustained economic growth, and ensure that Federal assistance is more efficiently provided and used.

Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

What is SC2?
SC2 is focused on providing economically distressed places with holistic localized technical assistance to better position them to use (and/or compete for) existing resources more effectively and efficiently, and to promote and support partnerships with businesses, non-profits and other key economic players that will help attract critical private investment the keys to job creation, economic growth and community prosperity.
This targeted assistance will help put these places on a path towards creating and/or realizing a customized and specific plan for long-term economic revitalization, and will enable the federal government to better assist these communities in implementing their new economic development vision.
The following agencies are participating in the Strong Cities, Strong Communities Initiative: HUD, DOC, ED, DOL, DOT, EPA, USDA, DOJ, HHS, SBA, TREAS, DOE, ACE, CNCS.

Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

What is SC2?
Working with six diverse cities across the U.S., SC2 has five main pillars: (1) Community Solutions Teams in each pilot city; (2) an Economic Visioning Challenge; (3) a Fellowship Program; (4) a National Resource Network; and (5) a White House Council on SC2 that will support the sustainability of the SC2 model of collaboration.
By integrating government investments and partnering with local communities, SC2 is channeling the resources of the federal government to help empower cities as they develop and implement their vision for economic growth. From the start, this has been an exemplary inter-agency initiative in both the breadth and depth of engagement and we have created a permanent structure to ensure the necessary coordination among federal agencies, and continued support of communities 7 across the country.

Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Goals of SC2
Together, these components aim to: Improve the relationship between local and federal government: SC2 seeks to break down traditional local and federal government silos, allowing the federal government to partner more effectively with localities that have faced significant long-term challenges. Provide coordination and support: SC2 provides on-the-ground technical assistance and planning resources tailored to a citys needs, while also assisting them to use federal funds more efficiently and effectively. SC2 provides the necessary technical expertise to help cities focus efforts around populations served by both federal and local programs. Encourage regional collaboration: SC2 helps build regional relationships and foster new connections in order to strengthen regional economies to compete in an increasingly globalized world.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Goals of SC2
Together, these components aim to: (cont) Partner for economic growth: SC2 assists cities in developing critical partnerships that focus on job creation, workforce improvement and economic development with key local and regional stakeholders that include municipal and state governments, the business community, nonprofits, faith-based institutions, and other public, private, and philanthropic leaders. SC2 provides a customized approach to supporting communities on the ground in their efforts to create jobs and revitalize their economies. Enhance local capacity: Every community is unique, with its own set of challenges and opportunities. The key to winning the future is empowering communities to frame their own economic vision and then partnering with them to identify, strengthen and leverage the tremendous physical, commercial, and social assets that they possess. SC2 provides a number of local capacity-building tools to test various models of placebased technical assistance to help cities and regions maximize the benefits from the federal funds they already receive and build resilient 9 communities.

Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

SC2 Suite
Developing Economic Blueprints: One-time competitions

Economic Visioning Challenge

(Commerce - EDA)

6 pilot locations, TBD

Targeted Capacity Building Assistance: 6-12 month engagements Cities apply for assistance Intensive Federal Engagement/ Recruiting Talent: Multi-year engagements 6 pilot cities and regions

National Resource Network (HUD)

Community Solutions Teams (All agencies)

Fellowship Placement Program (HUD)

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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Developing an Economic Blueprint

The Economic Visioning Challenge is designed to help up to 6 cities develop economic blueprints. These blueprints are a foundation for economic resilience and development. Six cities will be competitively selected to receive a grant of approximately $1 million that they will use to administer an X-prize style competition and challenge multi-disciplinary teams of experts to develop comprehensive economic and land use proposals for their city. The financial support will be distributed through a publicly announced Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) that is scheduled to be released this year.

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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Targeted Capacity Building Assistance

The National Resource Network (NRN) is a portal for cities to access national experts that will provide holistic, customized policy and implementation support. Experts will address a wide range of capacity challenges that impede economic growth and resilience. The NRN will help to align federal, philanthropic and other investments in capacity building at the local level. HUD will host a grant competition to select an organization to run the daily operations of the NRN and coordinate with philanthropy.

Local governments will apply for an NRN engagement and be selected by the organization based on economic need, strong local leadership and collaboration.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Intensive Federal Engagement

Community Solutions Teams of federal staff are working in 6 pilot cities and regions: Chester, PA Cleveland & Youngstown, OH Detroit, MI Fresno, CA Memphis, TN New Orleans, LA

Teams focus on issues mayors have identified as vital to their economic strategies: building on local assets, strengthening regional economies, developing transportation infrastructure, improving job-training programs, and supporting community revitalization efforts. SC2 pilot cities were selected on the basis of economic need, strong local leadership and collaboration, an articulated vision for economic growth and development, geographic diversity, and the ability to test the SC2 model across a range of environments.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Recruiting Talent
The Fellowship Placement Program builds the bench strength of the pilot cities by putting early/mid-career professionals to work in local government positions. The German Marshall Fund partnership will place and train fellows to take on high-level responsibilities and become active city leaders. Fellows will receive stipends and be mentored by staff from GMF and its partners, Virginia Tech University and Cleveland State University. Peer-to-peer learning at the local, national and international levels is a key aspect of this program. A $2.5M gift to HUD by the Rockefeller Foundation helped to launch this program.

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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

White House Council on SC2

President Obama signed an Executive Order on March 15, 2012 establishing a White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities. The Council will ensure the necessary coordination among Federal agencies to improve the way the Federal government engages with and supports local communities. By better aligning resources and engaging leaders across executive departments and agencies, communities across the country will have greater access to comprehensive, customized technical assistance and planning resources to develop and implement their economic vision and strategies. The Council will:
Coordinate agency efforts to ensure communities have access to comprehensive, localized technical assistance to develop and execute their economic vision; Encourage the development of technical assistance, planning, and financing tools and implementation strategies that can be coordinated or aligned across agencies; Facilitate the exchange of ideas and strategies to help communities address economic challenges and create sustained economic opportunity; Ensure that members of the Council incorporate SC2 efforts into their agency annual performance plans and the outcomes into their annual performance results.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Building a Model of Collaboration for Americas Cities

Developing Partnerships for Hybrid Food Pantry/Retail Outlet SC2 helped to coordinate efforts which led to the first non-profit supermarket in Chester. Due to the efforts of the SC2 team, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently made a $1 million grant for Philabundances hybrid food pantry project. The supermarket will offer both free and sale items to lowincome residents. Currently, Chesters unemployment rate is 15%. There has not been a grocery store within the city for the last ten years. Facilitating Collaborative Solutions Chesters transportation center has been an issue since it was refurbished over 10 years ago. The City wanted the space available for commercial use and meetings. There has been an ongoing dispute over which transportation authority controls the space. SC2 helped to facilitate an agreement whereas the City will control the space and make it available for commercial use. The lease is still pending and is expected to be finalized in the near future.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Building a Model of Collaboration for Americas Cities

Facilitating Solutions in Affordable Housing Development SC2 resolved a long-running deed restriction issue that had endangered a local redevelopment housing project. SC2 leadership worked with HUD to reach an agreement that keeps project funding intact and construction on schedule Improving coordination between workforce and economic development programs Through the work of SC2, the Cleveland/Cuyahoga County Workforce Investment Board (WIB) created a workgroup focused on new methods to more broadly engage the community to align workforce resources. DOL, Education and EDA are engaged, as well as Living Cities, where workforce is the focus for 2012 . Using Federal Resources More Efficiently SC2 worked to ensure the extension of federal Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control grants that were set to expire, thus allowing the city to continue to provide services to families with children to protect them from the dangers of lead-based paint.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Building a Model of Collaboration for Americas Cities

Helping to Promote a Vibrant Downtown SC2 facilitated the signing of a 15-year lease in the Downtown Fresno Fulton Mall by the Social Security Administration. This will create an influx of patrons in the heart of the city's historic district. This is Fresnos long-term vision for revitalizing their downtown and its neighborhoods into a vibrant and sustainable place to live and work. SC2 is also working closely with the City to advance its proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Over $17 million of Federal Transit Administration program funding was committed to the project, with an additional $20 million expected in FY13-14. Partnering for Growth SC2 facilitated a partnership among SBA, MBDA, and GSA that will foster greater access of small and minority-owned Fresno firms. They are preparing small and minority-owned businesses through workshops and other events to capitalize on future economic development activities in the downtown area and beyond.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Building a Model of Collaboration for Americas Cities

Providing Support for Entrepreneurs SC2 assisted in the development of the Government Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) program, an initiative that allows startups to access expertise on a variety of federal programs that support new businesses. A collaboration among the White House, Economic Development Administration (EDA), The Idea Village, and the city, the EIR hosts monthly office hours, where businesses can get one-on-one support from federal officials. Helping Reduce Homicides SC2 assisted the city in establishing the Mayors Strategic Command to Reduce Murders, a comprehensive public health/law enforcement framework. The model utilizes a multi-disciplinary, data-driven, evidence-based approach to review homicides and generate recommendations for tactical and systemic changes that decrease the likelihood of future homicides.

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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Building a Model of Collaboration for Americas Cities

Integration of Transportation Plans DOT SC2 team members are working with the City Engineer, the bus system, and the Metropolitan Planning Organization to analyze plans and recommend ways to improve the overall system. One such recommendation is for the MPO to map projects by City Council district, which the team is in the process of completing. Enhancing Workforce Development SC2 brought together InfoSys and the Wayne County Community College District to launch an intense four-month Foundational IT Skills Training course in Detroit to train 100 students, as well as key faculty of the community college.

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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Building a Model of Collaboration for Americas Cities

Providing Support for Entrepreneurs SC2 assisted in the development of the Government Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) program, an initiative that allows startups to access expertise on a variety of federal programs that support new businesses. A collaboration among the White House, Economic Development Administration (EDA), The Idea Village, and the city, the EIR hosts monthly office hours, where businesses can get one-on-one support from federal officials. Support for Strategic Planning and Creation of a CITY STAT Performance Management System SC2 advised the Mayor in crafting priorities and a vision for his new term, informed by the teams inventory of more than 40 strategic plans underway in the City. The team is helping create and implement a CITY STAT system of performance management, where data is used to drive decisions; some of this data will come from the 311 system with which the team also is helping.
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Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)

Contacts
City Team Leads Agency Points of Contact WH Domestic Policy Council Urban Affairs
Matthew Ammon (matthew.e.ammon@hud.gov)

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