The “Elusive Wizard” Of Housing

How to Really Run a City powered by Accelerator for America

In our latest episode, former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and former Philly Mayor Michael Nutter, along with Citizen Co-founder Larry Platt, invite an “elusive wizard” onto the show.

Bruce Katz is the Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University, and an architect of the National Housing Crisis Task Force at Accelerator For America. “Bruce has forgotten more about cities than I’ll ever know,” Larry tells our mayors before referencing the Trump Administration’s gutting of federal agencies and funding. “Given your experience, Bruce, how scared should we be?”

“This is a war on the poor,” Katz says. “This is a war on science. This is abandoning our allies and the dismantling of the federal government. We should be very scared.”

That doesn’t mean there is no hope, though.

“The U.S. has always shown the power of the local,” Katz tells the hosts. “We are really unlike any other place in the world. We have a long tradition of volunteerism, philanthropy and corporate engagement. It’s local. People are committed to place. This will be our salvation.”

Join us for this episode about how to really fix housing in this country. Remember to subscribe to the podcast to keep up on all the latest episodes. You can even watch the conversation play out on YouTube.

As cities go, so goes the nation!