Part Two: Closing the Opportunity Gaps

In many cities, thousands of residents are moving from welfare rolls to payrolls. A number of downtowns are experiencing a highly visible renaissance as destinations for tourism, sports, the arts, and entertainment. Violent crime is down and homeownership is up. City balance sheets are getting healthier.

However, serious challenges remain, for this good news and the confidence it inspires does not extend to all cities -- nor to all parts of even the most prosperous ones. Central cities host only a relatively small share of the jobs being produced by metropolitan economies. Too many inner-city schools are failing in their educational mission, creating a workforce that is ill-prepared to compete for the economic opportunities created by today's economy.

Cities find themselves on the losing side of fundamental structural and demographic trends that are changing the face of metropolitan America, dispersing jobs and people while they concentrate poverty and social problems. A spatial and skills mismatch -- between the knowledge-intensive, predominately suburban jobs our economy is creating and the disproportionately poor and relatively low-skilled urban workers who urgently need them -- complicates a basic mission of any viable community: equipping residents of all backgrounds with the tools to learn, grow, and succeed throughout a lifetime. It also complicates the challenge for cities of moving thousands of their residents from welfare to work.

The overarching challenge confronting cities is to grow in sustainable ways, while closing the opportunity gaps formed by these and other deficits in areas such as economic development, education, public safety, housing, transportation, health, finance, and human services. The previous pages have outlined a few of the many ways the Federal Government can help -- by making strategic investments in people and communities, by creating incentives for others to do the same, by finding and highlighting best practices, and by helping to ensure that the playing field is level for everyone. But Washington is not the lead player in this drama -- it is, instead, a supporting actor, a catalyst.

The fate of cities -- and of the metropolitan regions to which they are inextricably linked -- will be shaped by the people who live there. Each person, acting individually and through the institutions that serve and represent them, can contribute to the health and vitality of urban America.

Individuals contribute by taking responsibility for their lives and their families, and by working together with their neighbors to respond to shared concerns.

Businesses contribute by investing in urban communities and in their people, as well as by being advocates for solutions that recognize markets instead of political boundaries.

Nonprofits, including faith and community-based organizations contribute by serving, increasingly, as the agents of urban revitalization, turning resources from the community and beyond into the tools of social and economic rebirth.

Colleges and universities are especially important community building partners in many places -- and should be in more.

States contribute by truly being the "laboratories of democracy," delivering public resources and establishing rules for using them in ways that encourage innovation and collaboration instead of stifling them.

And local and county governments contribute by involving people at the level of grassroots problem-solving managing the basic functions -- safe streets, sound infrastructure, responsive social services -- that enable desirable places to live and do business.

With all of these actors working together, America's cities can build a bright future that is worthy of their past and of their people.