Mayor Wilder talks with MayorTV about regional economic development, community relations, and how urban areas have been misrepresented in the past.

Mayor Dean expresses his frustration with Nashville's lack of action on mass transit, criticizes an English-only ballot initiative, and encourages the federal government to combat growing economic inequality.

Mayor Hannemann has heard about Senator Obama's agenda for cities, but is waiting for Senator McCain's plan.

Mayor McLin enumerates the dangers of the subprime crisis, wonders how her citizens who make minimum wage get to work, and assures us that suburbs and core cities are facing similar challenges.

Nation magazine contributing writer Kai Wright discusses his July 14 article about the mortgage crisis and its affect on the Black middle class. For his story, Wright traveled to Atlanta, Georgia where he met George Mitchell and many others like him who had fallen victim to lending scams and looming foreclosures, a problem that has plagued millions around the country.

Mitchell, age 77, was approached by IndyMac lenders, among others, and was convinced to take out loans he didn't need or understand. He doesn't even remember signing the papers and now faces losing the home he and his wife bought forty years ago.

Wright explains that home equity is one of the main sources of wealth for many middle-class African-Americans who used home ownership as a means of attaining the American dream. Today, that wealth is being stolen from them through predative loans and a national rhetoric of "borrower responsibility."

Watch Wright explain the depth of the problem and what it means for the future of the black middle class.

Produced by Brett Story

In three days of wrenching public testimony in Washington, DC, Iraq War veterans shared the horrors of war.

Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan sees her city of Gainesville, Florida, as one that needs to build up, not out. And with Florida's skyrocketing population growth -- the state's population is projected to grow from the current 18 million to 36 million by 2060 -- Florida will soon have to listen to Mayor Hanrahan and grow in more sustainable ways.

"The only hope for doing it [growing sustainably] in any sort of way that doesn't decimate the natural environment is to use our cities more effectively and to build more like a Boston or a Washington or a New York than an Orlando, quite frankly."

She points out that over 730 mayors have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, showing that cities are on the frontline of climate change in spite of the federal government's refusal to act.

But sustainable cities aren't just good for the environment, says Hanrahan, they're good for the the people that live there. Quality public schools, comprehensive public transportation, and affordable housing options are vital to urban growth. However, as we build sustainable cities, we need to make them attractive not just environmentally but attractive culturally as well.

"I think the role of the city is to make the city such a wonderful place to live with access to wonderful restaurants and parks and sensible transportation alternatives and sublime arts experiences and so on that people really want to be in the city."

If you build it, they will come.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are paying lip service to "bread and butter" issues in the crucial state of Ohio. Whose message is resonating? Nation reporter JoAnn Wypijewski spent a week in Ohio talking to the state's blue-collar voters. Will the race turn on Iraq, NAFTA and healthcare, or on race and gender? See: www.thenation.com

Chris Hedges on Secular Fundamentalism.