Anthony Foxx vs Corey Booker: Which Mayor Is More Effective?

Mayor Corey Booker's Academic Resume:

Yale Law School (J.D.)
Oxford University (B.A.)
Stanford University (M.A.)
Stanford University (B.A.)


Mayor Anthony Foxx's Academic Resume:

New York University School of Law (J.D.)
Davidson College (B.A.)





(TIME Mag.) Why Cory Booker Likes Being Mayor of Newark, NJ


Many residents of Newark, N.J., long one of America's most troubled cities and favorite punch lines, would love to hop on the next bus down the Turnpike and never look back. Sure, the city has made strides since its devastating race riots in 1967 — there's a sparkling-new downtown arena, some bright residential complexes, the gestation of a hipster scene. But Newark is still a drug-infested, poverty-stricken place where rubble piles up on Park Avenue and the shabby Hotel Riviera sits across the street from an auto-parts joint, around the corner from an abandoned five-story building.

So if Newark Mayor Cory Booker (Democrat), the Political phenom who was most likely to be introduced as the "first black President" at speeches before we actually elected the first black President, had accepted a chance to run Barack Obama's new Office of Urban Affairs earlier this year, could anyone have blamed him?

After all, Newark's mayors — Hugh Addonizio, Sharpe James — tend to end up in the jailhouse, not the White House. What could be more tactical for a young, telegenic Rhodes scholar with infinite political potential? A home among the Georgetown salons, minutes from the national talk-show studios? Or a brownstone in Newark's South Ward, where on a July day, six teens shared a joint about a block from the mayor's residence? At 10 in the morning.

Despite all the rational reasons to pursue the position, Booker turned down the President. "That job is not playing to my strengths," says the mayor while sitting on a couch in his city-hall office. It's closing in on 8 o'clock the night before the three-day July 4 weekend. He has just wrapped up a meeting with his police director and a conference call with the local electric company, but Booker, 40, doesn't know when to quit working. Or talking. Some politicians ramble on in paragraphs; Booker pontificates in pages. Chapters, even.

"That's not playing to my sense of purpose," he says of the White House position. "And right now, I do believe, as immodest as it sounds, I'm the right guy at the right time for this city."





Is he? Newark had its glory days as a multicultural melting pot that produced luminaries like novelist Philip Roth and Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. It was a place that, with its strategic location in the Northeast urban corridor and assets like a thriving port, had the potential of Los Angeles. But since the '67 riots and the epic flight that followed, Newark (pop. 280,000) has been searching for its elusive renaissance. Booker, a black kid from the lily-white suburbs of northern New Jersey, has promised to deliver it and prove that an educated, technocratic outsider can rewrite the rules for how America's most challenged cities are governed.

The Booker bio is irresistible — and familiar:

He arrived in Newark fresh out of Stanford, Oxford and Yale Law, passing up riches to save a poor city. He moved into a decrepit Newark public-housing project, which has since been torn down, and was elected to the Newark city council at age 29. In 2006, at 37, he became mayor. To his supporters, who include A+ listers like Oprah Winfrey, Bon Jovi and Brad Pitt, plus an élite cadre of Wall Street and Silicon Valley scions, Booker's self-sacrificial tale is heroic. To his critics, Booker is still a publicity-loving political opportunist, a permanent outsider using the citizens of Newark to jump-start bigger things for his career.

But he passed up a job that would seem to be a step up, and now, in the age of Pres. Obama, how big can Booker actually get? Now that we actually have an African-American President, some say it's natural to start scouring the country for the next one. But in another sense, Obama's election has diluted the Booker brand.

The challenge for African-American Stars like Booker is to separate themselves from Obama's larger-than-life persona and not seem like Barack wannabes. So is Booker just Obama-lite, or can he really govern? And there's an even larger question: Can anyone save Newark?

A Crime-Dog Mayor

The centerpiece of Booker's campaign was a promise to improve public safety in Newark.

"You're a children's foundation, you're a health-care foundation — don't you know that if a kid gets shot, every one of the issues you care about gets undermined?" Booker says.





(Charlotte Observer) Anthony Foxx: Charlotte Will Adjust


Excerpts from Anthony Foxx's prepared remarks after his Monday night swearing in as the new Mayor of Charlotte, NC. (Foxx is a Democrat)

The story of Charlotte is perhaps as improbable as my standing before you here today as mayor of Charlotte. As a Charlotte native, I know our community as one that always seems to adjust when the time calls for it.

When new opportunities emerged or new directions became necessary, Charlotte found a way to reinvent itself - through the ingenuity of those who live here. What contributions will we add to the continuing, improbable and remarkable story of Charlotte?

We will strengthen and diversify our economy. We will strive to make every corner of Charlotte a great place to live. We will renew our crucial relationship to our state government.

We face challenges today.

We are experiencing a 12 percent unemployment rate and a much higher rate of underemployment.

Our state experienced a $2 billion-plus shortfall last year and a shortfall of at least that amount is predicted for this coming year. These threaten to destabilize critical human services, including public education, and local government budgets.

Last year, I saw these statistics born out in people's real lives:

A 70-year-old man I met at a job fair who lost all his retirement earnings in the stock market and had to get back to work.

Countless men and women have had to go home to families and explain that they've lost their jobs.

Business owners who struggle to make payroll.

A growing population of homeless residents.

Neighborhoods that have lost families and stability due to foreclosures and neglect.

There are many challenges before us. But if we fixate just on the rough patches, it will blind us to the possibilities.

The good news is that we are not starting from scratch. We are standing on the shoulders of leaders who have bequeathed to us a city that, unlike many others, is remarkably resilient.

Within the hearts and minds of our residents, there is still the same old hunger to evolve to the best of our collective ability.

Tonight we reaffirm that the remarkable story of Charlotte is not over. A new chapter is beginning. What will that new chapter look like?

Stronger, more Diverse economy

The City of Charlotte, at its best, enables economic opportunity. At our worst, we get in the way. We absolutely must work to enable and encourage job growth. In the coming weeks, I will ask this City Council to take immediate steps to strengthen and diversify our economy:

Expand the Small Business Loan program to grow emerging industries.

Appoint a task force to review and recommend revisions to the Small Business Opportunity Program.

Initiate a broader review of the city's utilization of small businesses and recommendations of improvements.

Working with the Charlotte Chamber, I will help lead an "access to capital" conference, to match local businesses with potential capital sources to help them grow.

I will do all within my power to recruit and retain jobs in our city.

Improving quality of life

I am proud that Charlotte continues to make improvements in public safety that are driving down the crime rate and investments in transportation and neighborhood infrastructure that will improve our ability to attract families and businesses. We must continue working to do our part. However, we must take this economic crisis as an opportunity to push the limits on efficiency and effectiveness in delivering city services.

Next week, I will ask this City Council to appoint a task force to review our budget and recommend strategies to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Relations with Raleigh, region

Charlotte is a key economic driver within North Carolina. Many of our local challenges, on the other hand, cannot be addressed effectively without state help. Whether the issue is transportation, economic development, education or criminal justice, Charlotte's fate is tied to the state of North Carolina, and North Carolina's fate is tied to Charlotte. I'd say the same thing about our region.

I will work for regional transportation decision-making and innovative technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the criminal justice system.

There are two other major priorities that reach into the conscience of this community and that we cannot allow to continue.

Housing & Homelessness

We live in a city in which 3,000 children are documented as homeless. On any given night, 8,000 people are homeless.

Last week, our community lost one of the great voices for ending homelessness, Chris Wolf. We have more homeless men and women on our streets today than ever before. In 2009, this City Council can make progress to eliminate homelessness.

Children

As a product of the Charlotte community, I know this city is capable of taking young people from a variety of backgrounds and giving them the tools to be successful in life. For too long, we have tolerated low performance from our children and from ourselves. We cannot solve this problem completely within these four walls. But we can address this problem as a community - by mentoring.

Every time Charlotte has faced a serious challenge - a turning point that threatened its future - the people of Charlotte have pulled together to push the city forward. In a time of doubt and uncertainty, we must do what previous generations of Charlotteans have done - draw on our spirit of optimism, our collective belief that the future can and will be better and act upon it.



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Sources: City of Newark, Charmeck.org, TIME, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Wikipedia, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps