Citi Foundation and Living Cities Expand City Accelerator Program to Tackle Infrastructure Priorities in Low-Income Communities

NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, March 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Citi Foundation and Living Cities today announced the expansion of the $3 million City Accelerator program to help speed the adoption of leading local government innovations to Pittsburgh, St. Paul, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Urban leaders in these cities will work together over the next 18 months to explore and adopt new practices and policies to help close funding gaps to fully implement their five-year city infrastructure plans, with particular attention to projects that will have an impact on low-income residents. 

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This initiative builds on successful City Accelerator efforts across eight cities since the City Accelerator launched in 2014. For example, Philadelphia is increasing enrollment in benefits programs among low-income seniors by experimenting with behavioral economics or "nudges" applied to their written communication with residents. In the City of Seattle, municipal leaders are attempting to change the culture of city government by implementing new strategies that balance traditional civic engagement forums with new technology, such as digital outreach and telephone town halls, to provide opportunities for residents to more deeply contribute to the decision-making in City Hall.

With support of $1,155,000 from the City Accelerator program, each city has a unique focus based on its needs.

Pittsburgh will explore innovative financing options to systematically repair hundreds of municipally-owned facilities and stairways throughout the city. Saint Paul will collaborate across city departments to develop a stormwater funding mechanism that addresses construction and maintenance costs associated with brownfields and vacant industrial sites and increases neighborhood vitality. San Francisco will explore potential financing mechanisms to fortify the city's seawall, protecting its densely developed downtown area and several major transit and utility assets. Washington, D.C. will utilize a newly launched executive Office of Public-Private Partnerships to convene agency leaders to collaboratively source innovative financing ideas for a plethora of infrastructure projects, including improving school facilities and installing smart street lights.

"Increasing our capacity by double or triple the rate of repair and replacement of our city's steps -- a rare asset that brings unique character and walkability to our neighborhoods -- would allow us to cut down on our large maintenance backlog and incorporate new technologies to help preserve these assets longer," said Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto. "We've done great planning to get us to this point and know that Living Cities and Citi Foundation will help us tap new and creative financing sources to move forward through the City Accelerator." 

"Developing brownfields requires working partnerships, community engagement, and shared vision for improved land use," said Saint Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. "The expert technical support provided by Living Cities and Citi Foundation through the City Accelerator program will help us to continue our momentum for innovation in public services, with a focus on green infrastructure."  

"Our City continues to make great progress in improving our infrastructure and fighting climate change, but we must do even more to ensure all our neighborhoods are resilient," said San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee. "I am grateful to the Citi Foundation and Living Cities for this opportunity to work with fellow innovators from the public and private sectors to find solutions to challenges that face our entire planet."

"Putting District residents on pathways to the middle class is a fundamental goal of my administration, but it requires robust infrastructure across a range of sectors," said Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. "Knowing the challenges we face and the tools the District has in place to address them, we are looking to the City Accelerator, Living Cities and Citi Foundation to help us create an actionable plan for infrastructure that will create jobs, broaden prosperity, and more effectively serve residents and visitors alike."

In the 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors, supported by Citi, local leaders noted that they are receiving little funding and support from the federal government, and are increasingly taking on the challenge to build and maintain vital capital assets to meet the needs of residents, commuters and visitors.  

"Cities are being challenged to meet greater expectations of their residents with increasingly limited resources," said Ed Skyler, Citi's Executive Vice President for Global Public Affairs and Chairman of the Citi Foundation. "With demand for infrastructure improvements in the U.S. estimated to be over $200 billion a year, we want to help build a network of cities so they can pool their expertise in order to help meet these critical needs."

By working with cities to close the gap on financing vital infrastructure, Living Cities connects safer and better infrastructure to opportunities for economic equity. "Simply put, our failure to provide citizens adequate physical structures and public assets is a failure of democracy," said Ben Hecht, President and CEO of Living Cities. "In order to achieve dramatically better results for low-income people, faster, cities need to improve how they manage funds to build, repair, and maintain their infrastructure assets. These changes are necessary for cities to become competitive in the global economy, improve residents' quality of life and provide opportunities for the low-income people who live there."

Citi and the Citi Foundation are committed to helping cities become more efficient and empower citizens by providing access to services that enhance livability and prosperity. For more information about how Citi is enabling progress in cities, please visit www.citiforcities.com.

The Governing Institute provides ongoing coverage of work and learnings from the cohort cities and related efforts around the country at www.governing.com/cityaccelerator. 

About Citi
Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com| Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi

About the Citi Foundation
The Citi Foundation works to promote economic progress and improve the lives of people in low-income communities around the world. We invest in efforts that increase financial inclusion, catalyze job opportunities for youth, and reimagine approaches to building economically vibrant cities. The Citi Foundation's "More than Philanthropy" approach leverages the enormous expertise of Citi and its people to fulfill our mission and drive thought leadership and innovation. For more information, visit www.citifoundation.com.

About Living Cities
Living Cities harnesses the collective power of 22 of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions to develop and scale new approaches for creating opportunities for low-income people and improving the cities where they live. Its investments, research, networks, and convenings catalyze fresh thinking and combine support for innovative, local approaches with real-time sharing of learning to accelerate adoption in more places. Additional information can be found at www.livingcities.org.

SOURCE Living Cities

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